Following a stay in a clinic and being treated for depression, I was offered a follow-up group therapy which is weekly with people who have also been to similar clinics.
In addition, I have 1-1 sessions with a therapist, but the number of sessions are limited and therefore currently spread to 1 session every 2 or 3 weeks. The 1-1 sessions are hugely helpful to me and remind me that I am healing and looking after myself, however the group ones are tricky.
For the last 3 weeks, I have cancelled each of the group sessions and I notice myself not wanting to go but equally being in conflict with myself that I should be going.
I believe if I were to cancel again, I will be dropped from the group, as the gap has been too long.
Group sessions are not comfortable for me, they were hard for me in the clinic and they are again outside the clinic. While it improves slightly during the clinic stay and I realised I prefer to quietly listen and observe, I took a similar approach in this new group therapy.
Even though, I also, in my first session, brought up one of my challenges and opened up to the group and cried. However, now 5-6 sessions later, this initial trust seems to have gone.
The people in the group have changed, as well as the group size, as well as the therapist.
The last 2 times I went, my body releases really high levels of stress, and my whole body tenses up and I sit in the session and basically endure it until it is over. This strong physical response makes me not want to go back. Sometimes this tension might even turn into feeling claustrophobic and the sensation that I cannot breathe.
In addition, I don’t enjoy the going around the circle of room and talking about what’s going on, and I don’t enjoy some of the new members who I find quite dominant as well as negative. Furthermore, the others are considerably older than me and I do not feel I connect with them.
In addition, when others pick a problem to talk about, I dont feel like sharing my experience and help and support. This might be because I felt I did that for so many people before my burnout and I have become a lot more protective over how and when I support others.
There is some reluctance to do this for people I dont know now.
There has been moments and topics where I can pick out similarities in the stories of the others and relate them to my situation. There have also been moments where I feel that it is nice to have other who have gone to similar hardship than me. I believe the last couple sessions just felt different.
My therapist recommended that for me to gain from the sessions I would need to ‘actively’ participate. That thought caused me even more stress. I feel, that if I go and know I should be doing things differently, the stress of going even rises. If I go, and tell myself Im allowed to just be there and listen and take my time to ease in, to see, then maybe Im able to go…
To still “challenge” myself in the meantime, I have gone forward and had my first live coaching with Maisie. The physical reaction of my body with the stress, as well as during the coaching felt really overwhelming but I feel proud that I did it anyway.
With the group I am unsure, if I am “shoulding” myself into it, to work against my social anxiety and tendency to mask or keep up appearances. I am told groups are helpful to dismantle this, however my body clearly things differently and part of me feels this is a really big leap for me.
At the moment I feel like I am in conflict about it and at the end of the day I would rather not go back, knowing there are elements that personally would be helpful for me to work on moving forward. As well as feeling bad about “avoiding” something that I feel uncomfortable about.
I could maybe see myself going, with the old strategy of sitting there and observing and listening and no pressure to having to do anything.
Now that I have gone around in circles, I am not much clearer on it.
Answer:
We hear what you are saying and love that you’ve brought this here. Because we are not licensed clinical professionals, we cannot offer opinion or direction on the course of treatment that or that your therapist gives you.
We stand by the belief that you know yourself best, and that the answers are within you, and we advocate for our clients to get the support they need most through other channels such as group or 1:1 counseling, psychiatry, and help from any other medical professionals. Coaching is but one spoke in the mental health wheel!
Onto coaching…you said that you feel like you should go to these sessions early in your submission, and later that you are concerned that you’re shoulding yourself into being there. Why do you think you “should” be attending these group sessions? What is your brain telling you? When you take time to examine these reasons, notice what your reactions to them are, and where that guides you in terms of your next step towards making a decision. Come back to us when you’d like more coaching on this.
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