Thoughts?
I had a situation happened the other day. My fiance and I are in couples therapy. Anxiety has really never come up in our sessions. But the other day it did. Big Time. I want to know what people think of the situation and get their opinions good or bad. Somehow in the way the curriculum was presented to me by the therapist it triggered my test anxiety. I felt like I was in the spotlight and back in high school taking a test. I did my best to push through it and things just got worse. I ended up towards the end having to leave the room or suffer a full-blown anxiety attack in front of both of them. She told my fiance that I was wrong to leave. And because of the way I was acting he didn't have to continue to work on the things that he was working on.
Now I know I need to focus and work on my anxiety but given my choices do you feel that it was right of me to leave the room and take a breather or should I have stayed there and ended up having a full-blown anxiety attack as I was past the point of being able to calm down?
@Silverwings87 Nope. I'm not sure why the therapist thought that was even remotely appropriate to say. Sometimes presentations can be weird. Maybe they don't always create a reaction like yours but some people don't know how to *present* (as in, in speeches, in public speaking, in intimate conversations) and that can throw you off.
Your reaction is your own. Quite frankly if the therapist said you were wrong for just stepping out of the room I'd be a little concerned about the quality of care/therapy that she gives.
@Silverwings87 I would say you were right to go when you felt it was right for you. There is nothing worse than sitting in a room, deciding whether to go or not, and then as a result being completely unaware of what is going on around you as a result of the anxiety/panic attack.
In society we tend to do things to suit others, and not enough to suit ourselves, especially in terms of health.
You were 100% right. You NEEDED to leave. It wasnt you walking out because youd had enough or couldnt be bothered to carry on with the conversation. As said in the other response, the therapist had no right to say that. They dont know your personal situation well enough to make such a comment-they would have to know you better than you do to make such a comment in my opinion!
As said in the other reply, maybe the therapist didnt know how to respond and just blurted something out, rightly or wrongly.
Regardless, I truly hope you are okay.
Xox
Hi @Silverwings87. Thanks for posting and reflecting back on your experience. Anxiety can pop up at anytime, sometimes in the most unexpected of places!
Just a couple of quick thoughts. In that moment you did what you needed to do, you left the room. Fact.
The therapist, without having a conversation with you judged the behaviour as wrong. I don't know about you , but I am wanting any therapist I work with to be the opposite, non-judgemental. I'm not sure whether you later returned to the room, after your had calmed down, and if you did there was an obvious opprtunity for the therapist to discuss what had happened and why.
I am also not sure whether your boyfriend could have chosen to carry on working on what he was working on, was it his decision or the therapists not to?
I also get that I am judging a situation that I wasn't in, and I see the irony, but therapy should be non-judgemental in my world!
hope I have made sense.
take care
paul
You did the right thing.
I have had issues with my boyfriends therapist giving advice rather than leading him to work through his problems. We stopped using that therapist as she caused more issues in the relationship than there were already. I suggest a new therapist.
@Silverwings87 so the therapist blamed you for the anxiety attack?