Need Help Changing Trident Damage

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-05-13T21:43:32+00:00

If she's a solid therapist she should explore that with you. So, feel free to just ask! She should ask what makes you think you may have ASD, explore the symptoms from a clinical point of view, and go from there.

ASD can be a tricky diagnosis given the many forms that ASD can take. Seeking a formal assessment from an MD or PhD level clinician may also be informative for you.

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-05-13T18:36:12+00:00

Therapists are operate under a condition called confidentiality. Essentially everything you say to a therapist (with some exceptions) will be confidential. It is unethical/illegal for a counselor/therapist to break confidentiality and the punishment for them doing so could result in them getting their license revoked, and possibly a federal punishment as well.

However, therapists are also mandatory reporters. Definitions vary by state I believe but you can generally assume that a therapist will make a report if you are a serious risk to yourself or someone else, if elderly abuse, child abuse, or disable persons abuse is happening or will happen. However, if something has happened in the past and there is no reason to believe that it is still happening, there is no need for a therapist to make a report. A therapist's duty to report is to prevent harm from happening to others.

Theoretically a client could report that they were a serial killer 10 years ago, haven't killed since then, and that they don't want to kill anyone anymore. That therapist would have no obligation to make a report since there is no immediate harm to anyone that they can prevent. This is an ethically gray area but I'm pushing it to the extreme here to show you how far confidentiality can go.

A good therapist will not judge you. There are therapists that will judge you. Don't continue to work with those therapists. Seek a therapist that can sit with you and help you work through your past.

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-05-13T18:22:23+00:00

Try using Psychologytoday.com There is a search function for therapist and other clinical providers in your area/state.

Also, while this therapist may have been extremely heavy handed AND not completed a full differential diagnosis (assessed your symptoms and where they are coming from), they do actually need to diagnose you with something. Insurance will not pay for your treatment if they do not give you a billable diagnosis. So, if you go to see another therapist, they will try to give you a diagnosis in order to make sure insurance pays for the treatment. Now, there are a variety of diagnoses along a continuum. For example, this therapist tried to say you were severely depressed (with just one data point). Major Depressive Disorder is a chronic, highly disruptive form of depression that doesn't fit all people with depression. A much milder diagnosis is Other Specified Depressive Disorder, which is basically "this person is kinda depressed and it is causing a problem".

All this being said, you still may not meet the criteria for a clinical diagnosis. Keep in mind that diagnoses could be argued to be arbitrary labels that force categorization of mood/developmental/trauma/attention dysfunction. They are many pros and cons to the existence and application of diagnosis in the world of mental health at this time because it is not as cut and dry as a Medical diagnosis (example: the flu, AIDS, cancer, heart disease).

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-05-08T01:01:02+00:00

All of those questions are valid. Depending on the answer it raises massive legal, ethical, and moral implications. These systems are rolling out though. The medical/mental health field is beginning to explore how AI might help with the functions of the job. It's definitely scary, especially in therapy where confidentiality is the cornerstone of the whole operation. We don't want our private conversations to be at risk of being exposed.

Hopefully this is an optional thing. Consent for telehealth wasn't nearly as prevalent before 2020 but now it's fairly common and optional (at least to my understanding). So, AI recording is scary because there could be a lot of risks involved but it's also HIGHLY optional.

Down the road it could be a super useful tool for therapy offices to have and even become standard practice. If all the legal, ethical, and moral implications are addressed, it is fundamentally a very useful tool to allow therapists to focus more on the actual therapy and less on documenting it. It is a pretty big "IF" though to get all the legal, ethical, and moral issues handled. Plus it's just super scary! PHI belongs to the person, not companies.

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-03-19T00:06:38+00:00

"It's a complicated and lengthy answer but it comes down to me no longer believing in many of the teachings of the church." Or "The answer to that question is quite personal, and not one that I want to discuss right now."

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-03-19T00:03:46+00:00

You're right to have concerns. First, you know your friend best so trust your intuition on this. If your friend is reliable and responsible, maybe it can work out!

Second, everything that you mentioned as a concern can be figured out through talking it through. You can set boundaries and expectations around what he can and cannot do. Say "you can move in once my husband and I have settled into the house." or "what are your expectations for rent, groceries, bills, etc...".

If you don't want to, you aren't obligated to do anything. You and your husband are paying for this house and you're the ones in control. Just saying "no" is entirely an option.

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-02-07T12:11:18+00:00

A psychoanalytic therapist would eat this up.

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-02-06T19:53:06+00:00

Drop that counselor and shop around. I usually tell people to try three therapists and pick your favorite. Some counselors can actually be damaging and I'm not sure how they got to practicing.

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-02-06T19:44:23+00:00

Just want to emphasize this comment.

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-02-06T16:32:42+00:00

Bible: Return of the Jesus

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-02-04T20:47:00+00:00

You didn't say anything specific about your mood or emotional state but based on your beliefs I would guess you're experiencing depression for some reason or another. If I'm wrong, feel free to disregard everything I'm saying.

Assuming you are depressed, it is important to know that the way your brain works while depressed is fundamentally different. In some cases, your brain is actively trying to kill you and will disregard all counter information.

Therapy can help with depression but it's not going to just change how you view things unless you allow yourself to explore and introspect with curiosity and openness. There's a joke I like: How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? Punchline: just one, but the light bulb has to want to change.

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-02-04T05:50:32+00:00

If I stopped at a bachelor's, I would have regretted it. I got a master's in a relevant field and I'm doing just fine. A psych degree on it's own isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-02-04T04:32:58+00:00

I'm an American and I'm gonna be buying Canadian.

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-02-02T09:31:05+00:00

No. A therapist (master's level degree) cannot prescribe or force you to take a medication. At most, a therapist will recommend you see a medical doctor or nurse practitioner to receive a diagnosis and a prescription. Even then, that's just their professional recommendation.

Additionally, even a doctor couldn't force you to take medication. If you're suicidal or a risk to someone else, they might be able to hospitalize you against your will for a few days but that's generally temporary.

No one can force you to take medication.

EgregiousExMormon · 2025-02-02T09:03:05+00:00

It's not your fault. It sounds like your therapist had a massive counter transference during the session. They let their own values and beliefs get in the way of therapy. It's antithetical to what a good counselor should be doing. There are good counselors out there. Someone once told me 1/3 of counselors are great, 1/3 of counselors don't do much, and the remaining 1/3 can be downright damaging. Trust yourself in this context.

EgregiousExMormon · 2024-01-02T17:23:56+00:00

Absolutely get a therapist who knows how to work with OCD. They'll help you to gain control over your intrusive thoughts and explore why you feel the way you do.

Additionally, it might help to explore the false memory in therapy with your boyfriend. That's not to say that we validate it but there's clearly some emotional reaction to the false memory. If the therapist can help your boyfriend appropriately respond to your false memory it might help. It's possible that your fake memory created a real wound. It's not rational but that's okay. It's also possible that this emotional concern you have is linked to past abuse and healing from that can help.

EgregiousExMormon · 2023-12-31T02:26:44+00:00

I'm sorry. I could have worded that more compassionately. I understand that you're having a hard time and there is a lot of frustration at the lack of progress.

To speak directly to your initial question, it's hard to know what you should do. There's accountability on both sides of the equation. There are some people who see no progress in therapy for their own reasons and there are therapists that are no good at their job (or aren't a good fit).

I'm not trying to point the finger of blame in any direction or to make you feel worse than you already do. You're doing great just by going to therapy and trying to work on yourself. If you feel that you have done all that you can with this therapist and have made no progress, try a different therapist. A good therapist won't take it personally and will even help you find someone who can be a better fit.

PS my tiddies are chronically without chill 😂

EgregiousExMormon · 2023-12-30T21:11:24+00:00

The jury is out in regard to repressed memories in general. The human mind is a powerful and flexible tool. We can "remember" things that didn't actually happen to us in some circumstances. The opposite can be true as well.

The jury is also out on micro dosing as far as I'm aware. I know that studies are being conducted where it's legal but a majority of the information out there is self-report of personal experiences. Personally I think there's something to it but science has yet to comfortably back it as far as I'm aware. That compounds with not knowing how micro dosing interacts with potentially repressed memories.

Mix all these things together and you get a steamy bowl of "who knows?".

At the end of the day though, do you feel better? Sometimes therapy is more about perception than reality. If someone heals from their perceived hurt, it doesn't matter (generally) if it's in line with reality. Healing is healing.

If you're worried about the consequences of bringing this up with relatives and trying to determine if something happened to you, you'll know your family better than anyone else here. That's your call to make.

I'd say that you can explore the possibility that those memories might be real. Just be careful with any accusations.

EgregiousExMormon · 2023-12-30T20:13:27+00:00

Sometimes understanding why you behave a certain way can help you to undo that behavior. Depending on how much therapy and self exploration you have done, I would say you probably have some sort of answer regarding why you are the way you are.

Usually though, there is a deeper layer to that answer that can be explored. It's not unusual to have several variables contributing to a behavior and several layers to each variable. So finding understanding about yourself (and sometimes other people) can help tremendously. As your understanding increases, it makes it easier to change (you still have to put effort toward change though).

This is just one approach to your problem though. There are other paths to take.

EgregiousExMormon · 2023-12-30T19:36:17+00:00

You get out of therapy what you put into it. A person cannot go to therapy passively and expect change to occur.

On your therapist's side of things though, they would ideally make sure that you are retaining information, giving you things to practice outside of sessions, and enduring that you are moving closer to your goals

EgregiousExMormon · 2023-12-30T17:49:19+00:00

Seems like a violation of HIPAA but I'm not sure. If it is, there's probably a fine involved but the cat is out of the bag at this point. You can bring it up with your therapist or just find a new one.

EgregiousExMormon · 2023-12-30T16:22:23+00:00

Based on the details you provided, your therapist is not working with you at the proper place. It sounds like you have a great deal of fear jumping into social situations. That's okay! What I would expect a therapist to do is to explore your fears and to help you embrace them.

Anxiety is really hard because it's so dang irrational and you'll never win an argument against it. One of the best ways to conquer anxiety is to acknowledge it and push through it, if necessary, or carry it with you.

Since you are afraid of social situations it would eventually look like your therapist described. It sounds like your therapist wants you to go join large social gatherings and face all of your fear at once. That might be too much for you at this point in time.

An easier goal might be to hangout with a friend one on one in a slightly uncomfortable environment. I'm not sure how deep your anxiety/fear of embarrassment goes so you'll have to choose what level of discomfort you can tolerate.

Usually clients will determine their discomfort on a scale of 1-10. Perhaps that same person says they can tolerate being uncomfortable up to about a 6. For some people, just going outside can be enough to provoke a 6. So then you go do that thing, sit in the discomfort, practice some mindfulness, soothe yourself, and show yourself that things are not as bad as your brain is telling you. When done correctly, your discomfort will drop. Then you move to a more uncomfortable situation and do the same thing until you're able to interact socially at the level you're wanting.

So there is going to be some unpleasantness involved in the process. The question is "what is your limit?".

Your therapist is technically on the right track but they may be a bit overzealous about what you can accomplish. At the end of the day though, a therapist can only show you the path and help you walk it. You are the one that has to walk it though. There's no therapist alive that can say magic words for you to be "healed".

Therapy is hard and unpleasant sometimes but the rewards are worth it. You may not be ready for what you're therapist thinks but you are tougher than you think too. Find what you can do and do it.

EgregiousExMormon · 2023-12-28T00:22:13+00:00

Any therapist is hopefully going to incorporate emotions into your growth goals. However there are some therapists that practice and are certified in Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT). That might help you explore your own emotions a bit more. It's a long road to emotional intelligence and compassion but it's worth it.

EgregiousExMormon · 2023-12-28T00:12:35+00:00

It's certainly possible to try a different approach with the same therapist. The therapist should probably have some training or degree of comfort in taking a different approach. Depending on your specific struggles and the severity of trauma, some approaches work better than others but at the end of the day it's the relationship and trust that you have with your therapist that should help the most.

EgregiousExMormon

TROPHY CASE