Art therapy.

I'm scared and confused. I don't know what's right and what's wrong. I know I get paranoid and I'm constantly alert to danger. Mostly I'm scared. Do we talk, do we not talk, what's right and what's wrong.

The art therapy was last week. First one. Nice lady, but that doesn't mean she can't harm us. Like the others, the social worker and the CBT lady. Lovely and a help to us, both of them, but also admitted they didn't know what to do with us. It showed. There was damage as well as help, by mistake.

The art therapy lady listens, pays attention, understands, which is good. But also makes assumptions, jumps to conclusions, wrong ones, doesn't give me a chance to explain. Tells me something, not a question or an opinion, a statement of fact. A wrong fact. Damage. People don't listen, won't let me be me, think I should do things that I know (and the others, we all know) will cause us harm. Makes me want to die, if we can't be who we are, have to do things we can't.

Kerry says let it go, art therapy lady doesn't know us, is ignorant of our situation, doesn't mean any harm. It's all the help we can access at the moment so take the good and ignore the bad. Angry though, kerry was, that she upset us, but always looks for the good in people, in situations. Ok fair enough. But I see bad, even if it's not meant. Damage is damage, accidental or on purpose. I can forgive the accidental but is that enough?

How do we know whether the good outweighs the bad? Sometimes I feel like I don't want to talk to anyone ever again, because I'm scared of the potential for damage.

Chloe. X

If people are damaging you Chloe then you have a right to tell them not to do that. Even if they are a professional. Help isn't a one size fits all glove. Some things help one individual but not another. You have every right to tell this woman that it is hurting you by doing/saying that. Just means she will need to use another tactic. Not the end of the world. You are in control of your help, however much it feels like it isn't so.

Bourbon

That's not cool when therapy is two steps forward and three steps back.
I can see how damaging it is to not be allowed to be yourself in AT, isn't that the point? IDK. But Bourbon gave some solid advise.

Thanks. We'll go back for the next session then. Maybe tell the lady the effect her comment had. Chloe didn't explain properly above. It wasn't that we're not allowed to be ourselves in the art therapy, it was a coment the lady made about our life. If we can't be ourselves we don't want to live. Can't live. Can't spend our life being what other people want us to be. Just can't, not any more. So when someone says "you should/need to do this thing for these reasons" and we know they're wrong, both the reasons and therefore the advice, because the person has misjudged us and made wrong assumptions, then it's a major trigger. But we don't feel the effect until later, when our head goes "quieter". I don't mean our voices, but the racing thoughts we get when it's a happy day. Our head is "quieter" when we're having a depressed day, then we work out whatever upset us earlier and it hits like a ton of bricks, because of the base-mood as well as the upset. Cue, suicidalness. Chloe missed out the middle of the equation, brought it back to basics, said the art therapy made us suicidal so should we be doing it. But nothing is ever that simple. X