2 therapy sessions a week

[Crazy Cat Lady]

Hi,

I hope you're all okay as you can be.

I'm just wondering if anyone has experience of having two weekly sessions with a Psychologist? I'm starting the two sessions per week next week and must admit, I am very nervous. My Psychologist is very understanding and said if I find it too much, that's okay and we can go back to one. She recommended two sessions as I find it hard to manage in between sessions, especially as we are slowly starting to address the past.

I really do want to get better, but have to accept it's not going to be a quick fix. I often feel I don't deserve to get better, that I don't deserve her support and understanding. She'll often call me in between sessions to make sure I'm okay and she genuinely cares. She always reminds me that I can email her anytime. She said I'm very unkind to myself and deserve her help and support and the chance to make some changes and to come to terms with the past.

I'm also very worried about an appointment I have on Monday. I have a history of chronic pain and they think my pain could be related to events of the past. I am prescribed pain killers pretty often as I have a gynaecological condition which can contribute to pain. I'm worried if they realise the pain is from the past, that they will stop prescribing my pain relief. The opiates help for a while. I don't want them to be stopped. They really do help me.

My Psychologist is also teaching me grounding techniques as she thinks I had a flashback during a session a few weeks ago. I didn't know where I was and felt a lot of pain during that time. I was very disorientated after. It was quite scary as I couldn't stop it and realised I was shaking uncontrollably when I came around. Has anyone had experience of this?

Thank you for listening,

x

[Laura2.0]

Hi there,
I have had two sessions a week a few times and while it was a lot of work and I felt tired after most sessions it really did help.
When I'm having a rough time my therapist somehow manages to let me have sessions in between (cause I have only every other week now, because I also have group), when I get to have an 'emergency session' we usually work on skills or do relaxing techniques.
When we are working on trauma things it is usually 40% serious work and 60% other, more positive things we are talking about (or even go for a walk) so I can go home feeling safe. Maybe you could ask your therapist if they could split the sessions so you are simultaneously on things of the past and also looking for strategies how to stay stable between the sessions. It is very helpful to have two sessions every week, even though it takes up a lot of your freetime. Once you are more stable you can go back to one session a week or even just every other week.
As for having the feeling that you don't deserve to get better, maybe you could make that a topic in one of your sessions.

I have experienced the disoriented feeling and the shaking you have experienced. When someone is getting attacked there are usually 2 possibilities: fight or flight. But when you were experiencing trauma is was probably so overwhelming that you couldn't do anything but freeze and mentally go away, so you didn't have to deal with what was happening. When you are having a flashback something similar is happening and according to my therapist the shaking is because of the energy in your body. The energy is there, because your body wants to fight or to run away and escape, but if you can't do either and you freeze then the energy has to go somewhere else.
When I have flashbacks I start to shake uncontrollably, sometimes for an hour or so. My therapist always says that I have to let my body shake, because fighting the shaking doesn't help.

Hope this is helping a bit.

[Solstice]

In the past I had two sessions a week quite often. For me something which helped was to have one session of "working" and one session of "processing" It may help you prevent from getting completely overwhelmed and it sounds like your therapist (psychologist) may be okay doing a set up similar to this since the point seems to be to lessen the issues you have throughout the week between sessions. I have once a week sessions now but my therapist also continually reminds me I can call her anytime I need, calls to check on me if the session has been particularly hard or eventful and I also have a case manager who I am able to call, email or text anytime I need

Has anyone ever talked to you about body memories? I struggle with body memories on a pretty consistent basis and from what you're describing, it sounds like you may be as well. One of the only medications I know to treat body memories is actually Cymbalta (I'm allergic, of course) Body memories are memories trapped in your myofascial tissue cells. Essentially, even if you aren't remembering the memory in your mind, your body still is and it's causing you to feel pain because it thinks what happened is still happening. Body memories can be very frustrating because there isn't a whole lot to help them. For me, relaxation techniques do about as much as anything else I've tried. Oh, and a heating pad (I used to use ice but it was kind of awkward and didn't help much)

With what you described as a flashback I will say this is somewhat what my flashback looks like as well. I think your therapist (psychologist) is probably right, especially since she is far more trained than I am :P Grounding skills can be wonderful, even if you aren't having a flashback! Most therapists I've had have eventually figured out what I look like before I have a flashback and will either stop the conversation (if they feel it's too much at the time) or prepare themselves (and sometimes me) to treat the flashback without it going into a full blown dissociative state

I suggest you ask your therapist (psychologist) about complex post traumatic stress disorder as it seems you exhibit the symptoms of it pretty precisely
Take care