I feel doomed

I’m going to a therapist for the first time next week, worried I won’t allow myself to get better even with all of the help I can get bc I literally can’t remember the last time I’ve lived my life without this troubling anxiety that gets in the way of me experiencing life. Has anyone else had this feeling of not getting better but proved their self wrong? I do want to do the work and get better so bad I will do anything but I’m just horrified it won’t work! I am my worst enemy.

I'm a big proponent of therapy, but the fit between you and your therapist has to be right.  I also think that there needs to be a willingness to acknowledge that there needs to be a fundamental shift in the way that you perceive and hold onto things in order for there to be progress.  I think that the job of the therapist is to try to get you to see how you currently look at things and how you might instead look at things.  Then it's up to you to apply thought processes that actually work for you (instead of against you).

 

It took me a while to see much progress with my therapist.  I spent months venting about all of the ills in the world and how they were wrong and I was right.  That doesn't work.  In time, I began to see the little (self-righteous?) corner that I had backed myself into.  I saw that there were a lot more options about how I dealt with the world and that gave me freedom/choices and reduced my negativity, anger and anxiety.

 

Try to go into this with an open mind. 

I've been in therapy for a long time, but I am not too thrilled. But it's not the therapy itself that's the problem. It's finding the right therapist. Mine is a bit too much on the cold & clinical side, and I need someone who's more supportive and empathetic. Like a good trauma therapist. And they are actually hard to find, unfortunately. But they are there. Dealing with some obstacles in my life right now, but soon-after, I may look for a therapist who is a better fit.

I'm the first to say " Yeah, right, whatever" when people send me youtube links,

but I have to say the Douglas Bloch youtube videos on anxiety and depression, which

i just recently discovered (from BB),

have helped me. The guy actually suffers from anxiety and depression,

so he's not going to lay on that " C'mon kids, just go for a hike in the forest and let the trees heal you ! " bullshit.

-J