I’d like some help with some emotions that got brought up doing therapy

And wondered if you guys could help

Hopefully some of you may find it interesting

When I was 17 I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (cfs)

When I was 20/21 I went to see a therapist who claimed they could cure people with the condition by dealing with their emotions and finding the root emotional cause etc

I was a bit sceptical but also excited as well so I went along with an open mind not really sure what to expect

Anyway, they was asking me questions about any stress around the time I got diagnosed, it came up in the conversation that my parents divorced two years before I got the illness

We did some more talking and he was asking about my mum and dad etc and I said something like since they divorced my dad is moaning all the time and I can’t cope

He wrote down on a piece of paper ‘my symptoms are here to tell me to stop listening to my dads moaning’ and I went away and was told to read it a few times a day and come back for my next appointment in a few weeks

I felt a bit confused but I got it, I understand what they were trying to imply and I did kind of agree with it

The theory behind the therapy was that cfs was caused by an overactive hypothalamus caused by stress or unprocessed emotions, and in the second therapy I said to him yeah i do notice I’m in a state of fight or flight, my mind is in overdrive etc and I got another message with something relating to stress

I felt 100% cured and for a few hours I honestly felt like the happiest man in the world, I thought I had some lifelong illness and now I was cured, I could not have felt happier

Anyway, it was a few hours from where I lived and I couldn’t drive so I was In the car with my mum

And on the way back, as I’m now emotionally connected again I started to feel a lot of anger and very negative emotions towards her

This built up over weeks, months, years etc and I couldn’t cope, I started to self harm, I became a drug addict, alcoholic etc all because of this one emotion around my mother, I’m now in my 30s and even now I still get the same emotion when she calls me, even though it’s only once every few weeks

I tried to ask the therapist for help and they just shut down and became really cold on me, I’ve tried other therapy since. And it’s always made me worse

I guess what I’m asking for is some feedback or even help in handling this emotion, it’s ruined my life, I think I’m right to say it’s anger but other than that I really don’t understand how to deal with it

I got the impression the therapist thought I was a bit slow and not intelligent enough to deal with it or i wasn’t ready or willing to take responsibility for my emotions but I would disagree, although I do admit it feel too complicated for me to deal with

Any feedback would be very interesting for me

Thanks

Hi, Liamill, and welcome to Psych Central! I've never heard of those ideas associated with cfs. I was diagnosed with that at some point, too,

I'm glad you are in touch with your anger. I had a therapist that told me to write down everything I remember my mom doing that made me angry--then ultimately tearing up the list and burning or burying the pages.

But I think you need a way first to let your anger out in a healthy manner. Have you thought about things such as beating a pillow with a bat, yelling, or some such? You might even find some books about coping with anger in a healthy way.

I don;t think you're slow for not getting that therapist's approach, I think it's strange myself.

I assume you don't feel comfortable telling your mom how angry you are with her.

I think the right therapist could be helpful to you. You might need to shop around--and stop turning your anger in on yourself.. You don't deserve that.

For now it’s not good to be in touch with my anger, I do try my best to numb it, reason is when it comes up I’ve genuinely no idea how to deal with it, I’ve tried things like using a punchbag etc but it not leaving me, I feel like I’m stuck with it, I get that they say feel your emotions etc but I can’t function if I do, finding a therapist who’s okay with my emotions I guess is my mean challenge

Regarding your cfs they said to me spits caused by an overactive hypothalamus gland in the Brain 🧠

The way they worded it to me was the hypothalamus is the size of a pea when we encounter stress the hypothalamus goes into overdrive and returns back to normal when the stress is dealt with

The anology they used was imagine you sit down and sit on a drawing pin, the hypothalamus wold send a pain signal to the body, you’d feel the pain, stand up and remove the pin and the pain will go

In cfs the stress is emotional rather than physical so their theory is once you remove the emotional stress or the hypothalamus goes down to a normal level and the symptoms of cfs and fibromyalgia will go

As for my own emotions I’ve genuonely zero idea how to deal with the,, I assumed they’d help me but they didn’t, they just seemed to sit back and observe me which was frustrating and made my emotions worse, other than hit her I’m not sure how to get the anger out of me

Have you tried journaling? All that anger has a cause and subconsciously, your primitive part of your brain may see your mother as a threat for your blissful survival. Growing up, of all the years we have lived, we only remember a few hundred incidents. We may forget many incidents, but we don't forget how it made us feel, we don't forget the explanation we gave ourselves. To give you an example, mom and dad are angry with each other and are mad at the dinner table. Kid wants to show an art he made, but both mom and dad just are not interested. The kid may give himself the wrong explanation that mom and dad are not interested in looking at his art because he's unlovable, unaware of the fight. Growing up, the kid may not even remember this day, but the feeling he gave himself, may stay there, forever, growing stronger.

So probably, there may be several such incidents, which you may never remember. So try writing how you feel about your mom/dad. It will give you a good vent and the logical part of your brain may be able to look at logically, rather than emotionally and help you heal. Also, meditation can help you control emotions better. If you can train your brain to not think anything (which activates self-awareness subconsciously), you can train your brain not to get overwhelmed with emotions.

Of course you can always reach out to the very helpful people here in this community.

Good luck.

It sounds like you were able to break free from how your father affected you but you never got that when it comes to how your mother affected you.

It's not enough to just feel anger and punch at a punching bag, what you need is the words to define what your mother did or did not do that made you angry in the first place.

You need to "name" it in order to tame it.

Thanks

I do agree with you but I’m not sure I’m gonna achieve it though but I will try

The words to say it... some of us were silenced so much throughout childhood that we have to learn this as adults.