I'm aware the premise makes no sense.
Over the years I've been in and out of therapy. In my teens I had a serious enough depression to necessitate medication to somehow level me, a few years after that I went back because I felt I wanted to unpack a few things from my early years, after that I went back to pick up on the work I left behind, after that I went back to try to find a way to cope with the eminent loss of someone very dear to me and very recently I went back because I felt the need to give it another try to unpack a lot of wrongs in my head.
Unfortunately, every single time, as I try to go back and pick on the process - and I feel the need to stress that I've been received by multiple professionals over the years - I'm always directed, more or less openly, not towards what I want to resolve but towards something completely unrelated. And no, I am not a professional in mental health but I think I am minimally qualified to know what I think/understand is bothering me and want to explore and try to find a solution/rationalisation for so I can drop that issue or at least drop it in value in my mind so I can move forward.
Instead, my concerns have constantly been ignored or overlooked and all type of approaches been tried to deviate me, as such:
- hypnosis (went horribly wrong)
- cognitive and behavioural shift (as in "You are acting/feeling/thinking wrong.")
- completely ignoring my concerns
- openly antagonising me
- a very veiled attempt to create in me a notion of "faith in a higher power" (I'm laic)
The last approach is to try to teach me how to meditate.
I have always been received by licensed professionals, two of them through my NHS; no spiritual counsellors nor anything in the like.
I've been able to make more breakthroughs by reading philosophy books than by sitting in a chair and talking back and forth with a therapist. But I always get the feeling that I really need some degree of counselling I am not getting.
Am I being paranoid, unlucky or just expecting something that isn't at all aligned with reality?
We need more information. What specifically is bothering you and what kind of solution do you hypothesize would help?
Modern therapy is relational, not psychoanalytical. We'll sit and do the psychoanalysis routine with you because that's still what a lot of people think therapy is. But it's not important to do that; nor is it wrong if it helps you build trust in the therapeutic relationship. Ultimately, healing comes not from understanding your brain or the past fully but from forming a working relationship with a therapist and giving it time for new neural pathways to form and get reinforced.
I work on logic and reasoning. I like to understand things and how they connect to each other and how they influence one another and, by extension, me. I have feelings and reactions that spur from it and vice versa but I can't dissociate one from another; I can't just feel and not understand why I feel as I do and I can't understand what triggers a reaction from me, which I do not want to have, and not try to somehow act on it, particularly if negative.
Does this make any sense to you?
Going into therapy wanting to learn how to better understand myself and how I interact with the world without losing my mind is a clear objective; having several experiences of being told I'm overvaluing this, is not what I expect or need. I already have difficulty handling strong emotions; being told to ignore it is not positive.
Have you sought out a therapist that specializes in anything you live with? For example there are therapists who specialize in working with neurodivergence and it makes a huge difference for the clients who need that specialization.
I do not live with anything. I'm an average person, with a very troubled past, in need to unpack a lot of things that I am aware hurt me along the way. I am not struggling with PTSD, autism, ADHD or any other condition to my life and perception, which I have multiple times been very concrete about and been ignored about.
Two very grim examples I can provide:
I'm a very fast thinker and talker; I had to develop this capability in order to provide justifications or backgrounds to save myself from violence. This generated a subroutine in my mind to try at any cost to appease in every single interaction, to the point I knowingly accept being trampled over just to avoid conflict. This fosters anger and difficulty to manage it and navigate healthy interactions where the other person try to be a bit pushy and I am not willing to be rolled over. This is not healthy. It has actively hindered me in my life. I stated this openly, in deep detail, to at least three professionals. Only one addressed it has being something that should be addressed. But later.
I'm highly adverse and suspicious of authority. Not in the sense that I want a lawless society or to abolish police and courts but in the sense that in order for me to accept someone's authority, the other person needs to show the authority they have is based off respect and cooperation. I spent years thinking I could not work in a team setting. I work better when alone, as I can take all the risks and consequences of my decisions, with no risk of endangering or harming others. I loathe having to take responsibility over others, I hate the hierarchy narrative that is force fed to every single human being since the cradle, as if people are incapable of using higher cognitive functions and instead need to be shepherded around by "superior" individuals, because they can not go beyond their reptilian brain. One day, in a fit of rage, against myself, over the idiotic behaviour of a coworker, I got a very shy agreement that my attitude is what makes good leaders but, again, not something I should be concerning myself with.
I have to be a bit distraught over the process, at this point.