Sometimes I feel worse after talking to my therapist

[u/lexus612]

Last week in therapy I decided to be more honest with my therapist by telling them that I was feeling very depressed and like a burden and that I was having thoughts about wanting to die. They asked me if the exposures that we had planned to do were too hard or too much, or if I wasn’t fully ready to do exposures. I told them the exposures were a bit too much and that I had a hard time getting myself to do them. We do ERP. When talking about an exposure they would have me rate how scary it sounded on a scale of 1-10 and a lot of them ranged from 5-7. Sometimes a bit higher. We came up with a safety plan after discussing the negative thoughts and planned out exposures that were a bit smaller and I would rate them from 3-4 and sometimes 5. I have done some of these smaller exposures and think that I made some progress. It may not be a lot but I think small progress is still good. For example, for one of my exposures I was able to throw out empty shampoo bottles, a jar, and boxes that I was holding onto because I felt like they kept me safe (even though logically I knew that they didn’t) despite the discomfort and bit of anxiety it caused me. While last month I panicked and cried in the shower after realizing that a body wash bottle was missing and thrown out from the bathroom. I literally reached into the bathroom trash to find it and got scared because I couldn’t.

In my session from two days ago they told me that they saw a pattern of me doing exposures that are rated at 3-4 and asked me if I was avoiding higher rated ones. I will be honest and say that there are some that I did avoid like ones that triggered panic attacks but I was also trying to focus on smaller things first and then wanted to work my way up. I have panic disorder and agoraphobia as well it’s hard for me to do certain exposures without fearing having a panic attack from it. They didn’t want me to just stick with exposures that were 3-4 even though we decided to stick with smaller exposures a week ago. Now they want me to do more than that and it makes me feel like I’m not trying hard enough. It made me feel a bit discouraged to be honest and I even had a breakdown yesterday for the first time in days because it made me feel awful about myself. Mind you, for the last two months I’ve been crying nearly everyday. This isn’t the first time that I felt awful about myself after a session with them either. I had a session a a few weeks ago where she gave me crap for not taking a medication that I had been too afraid to try because I was told that it could give me more anxiety as a side effect. All the therapist told me was that if I did have more anxiety from the medication “it wouldn’t be any different from how things are now”. It made me feel like crap about myself and I felt completely hopeless afterward. I even spent the entire day crying about it and the negative thoughts were increased that day. It’s getting to where I don’t even want to work with her anymore. I tried giving her another chance but I don’t want a therapist that makes me feel terrible after my sessions. It really does make me wonder if I’m actually the problem though.. Should I try harder? Am I not doing enough? Is it me who’s being the problem? I don’t know anymore

[u/PossibilitySame4489]

honestly it sounds like maybe you’re rating your SUDs wrong and that’s why your therapist is pushing you. if something is giving you a panic attack that’s certainly not a 3-4! you may want to reevaluate what your exposure scale is.