Freaking out therapists http://wp.me/p5nnb-9Gm

[GiaK]

I shared the below little blurb with friends. This post is my further musings on the topic.

Nothing like freaking out an otherwise really nice therapist/spiritual teacher with my story. Oh my…it’s a rather sobering fact that even relatively enlightened folk want to RUN RUN RUN from the likes of me quite often…it’s like they imagine I’m far worse off than I am…a vortex of horror…their fear is HUGE and some sort of judgment comes up…it’s mostly sobering because I don’t need them anymore these days but I know far too many folks without the sorts of emotional and intellectual resources I have been able to develop who need people to help them and what is available most often are people who are terrified of some of the terrain we’ve encountered. And while I don’t need them at this juncture, I could have benefited deeply from guidance as a young woman. It still hurts to see how my life story…my experience freaks people out.

 

read the rest:  http://wp.me/p5nnb-9Gm

[UnfoldingSky]

I so needed to hear that someone else out there has these experiences.  Thank you Gia. 

[GiaK]

I have them less and less frequently as my radar has gotten pretty good...that's why this experience was news worthy...it totally surprised me. but, yeah...I think it's the norm rather than the exception...until one learns to navigate and that takes some time (many years for me)

[UnfoldingSky]

I've met a few professionals who do believe me and can sit and listen without being reactive. Sometimes like you though I do get caught by surprise.

 

I also find that laypeople tend to do this a lot.  For the most part I keep my mouth shut about what happened, but again, like you did with a professional I got taken by surprise the other day by people I thought would have been less reactive.  With many people I can sense when it is not a good idea to tell them, but this group I thought would be more receptive.  It's been quite upsetting to realize that there are very few people who can truly sit and listen without reacting with fear or with judgement.    

[GiaK]

I republished the above post today and added this preamble...

 

Below is an old post from about a year ago that I’m sharing again because I ran into another person of this sort in my professional circles recently. I don’t actually seek personal help from anyone resembling this anymore. I don’t need it anymore and my radar to not subject myself to such energy has become highly developed.
 

I am an interdependent human being so I do have friends and professionals in my life both as colleagues and helpers who I gain benefit from in multiple ways, but wow, I still get occasion to experience this stuff when I’m doing my work with others in the helping professions. When I’m doing my networking and helping raise awareness.
 

I dialogue with them in the hope that I can plant seeds. I’m also grateful to find more and more professional healers of all stripes who actually understand what I do…they exist everywhere…it’s possible to find them…we have a lot of work to do with folks who do not get it though and who continue to spread fear based messages and deny the experiences of people like me and 1000s of others who have come through the realms that get labeled severely mentally ill and healed the phenomena that got labeled that way in profound and transformative ways.
 

I find this reasonable dialogue with relatively open-minded but uber cautious people really excruciating…it’s also critically important…but, ugh…the level of sophisticated but subtle self-righteousness one must face makes it a challenge like no other. Small doses are all I can take.
 

I trust that changes are made. I see them happening. Anyway, what happened in my social media circles with another professional healer type made me remember this post from about a year ago, so I thought I’d share it again. Since I wrote it I’ve seen more healing and like I said above, I don’t seek help of this sort anymore and I’ve come to have a highly developed radar so that I find that I am often surrounded by people who understand intuitively, if not experientially, what I’m talking about when I spread the most delightful news about the sorts of profound healing that is possible for people with psych labels as well as those who’ve been gravely injured from long-term use of psychiatric drugs.
 

An important thing to remember is that we’re always dealing with fear when we are confronted with these folks. They are afraid of what we have accomplished and they are afraid of what we know. They are afraid that our message will harm people. Harm only comes if people are coerced. People need to do what they need to do wherever they are on their own self-directed path. That includes taking meds if that is what they are resonant with at any given time. That is the key thing to understand. Those of us who were harmed have largely been denied our experience and often forced to get treatment we knew we should not be getting. Folks who find psychiatry helpful have a hard time understanding that we’ve had a radically different experience.  Many of us too have a hard time believing some folks have benefitted from what has so gravely harmed us. We must embrace our differences. (See:  Psych drugs kill vs Psych drugs save lives. What if both are true?  — Mad in America is down right now…you can read that article on Beyond Meds here.)

 

see the new post in it's entirety here: http://beyondmeds.com/2014/06/28/freaking-out-therapist/

[Rhiannon]

Add in having been sadistically abused by a pedophile ring and ritually abused as well, as a child...and then losing 20 more years of my life to their beloved drugs...it's practically impossible for me to find a therapist who can even sit in the room while I tell my story.

[GiaK]

yeah...I hear you...people don't want to believe all kinds of stuff. it sucks. 

 

anyway...I did make some headway with this guy...not perfect he's still insistent that psychiatric illness exists...I mean he seems to believe that the pathology is some sort of distinct thing...which is plain and simply pseudo-science...

 

I updated the post with this little blurb...because I do find that I made people think. I don't get overly upset anymore and dialogue happens.

 

**little update: when I wrote this I was still in the midst of an internet based dialogue with the person who prompted me to start thinking about these issues. I just want to say, that this particular conversation has developed beautifully with a large amount of resolution. We’ve both, I believe, came to understand one another more deeply and I see that he is listening and paying attention. This is lovely and it’s very possible and it’s why I keep doing this work.