6 Things I Don’t Do Anymore After Trauma-Informed Mental Health Care
Benefits of combining therapy modalities
The last time I sat through a traditional talk therapy session was early 2017. At the time, my military life had moved me to the only duty stationed I never wanted to move to…
The middle of the snow belt.
Seasonal depression, chronic depression, and a lifetime of trauma took over my life.
Desperate and alone, I sought out yet another office in a long line of traditional talk therapists. I can pinpoint the second session there as the time I permanently shut down to this type of therapy.
It went like this.
I spilled my guts on that couch. I ugly cried. I was brutally honest about my suicidal ideations.
The therapist’s response?
I didn’t like it here at first either, but now I’ve got a long-term boyfriend and I’ve learned the key is to get out on the weekends. You’ll adjust if you try hard enough.
Every therapy session ever seemed to go like this for me, with the underlying theme that I simply needed to try harder.
That day, I decided I was too broken for therapy even, and I didn’t go back until 2020.
I didn’t know it back then, but this is really common for folks with a lot of (mostly developmental) trauma and mental health issues.
This includes things like chronic depression, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, PTSD, CPTSD, and more.
Talk therapy falls under the cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) modality. For trauma survivors or anything listed above, talk therapy can be retraumatizing.
A CBT approach can be retraumatizing, but it can also breed feelings of unworthiness or like nothing you do seems to work.
When we feel this way, we internalize it. Rather than forming a belief that this mode of therapy is wrong, we can believe that there is something wrong with us instead.
This is not always the case. Sometimes, you can land a series of unskilled therapists (like…
