Venting Man, it sucks how therapy for me only works out in the short term, but not in the long term. It's like there's absolutely no hope for me.

[ConfusedHurting2632]

TL;DR At the bottom.

As we speak I've been through 11 therapists total and currently on my 12th. And don't get me wrong, therapy actually helps me out in the short term. It feels cathartic to talk about all my deepest thoughts and feelings to a professional who will listen and ask productive questions. Especially since I literally have no one (be it real life or online) to talk about this stuff with. Even my parents who I live with don't give a shit. They just call me "annoying as fuck" when I try to talk about this stuff to them.

But in the long term...I haven't really gotten any better from my 1st therapist to currently my 12th therapist. I haven't made ANY long term progress at all. When my therapists would give out goals/homework/activities for me to do, often I didn't even do them because I literally couldn't push myself to do them no matter how much I wanted to; but even when I did do them I was more just doing it to impress the therapist (like a little kid trying to impress their teacher or parent) and would go right back to my old habits when discharged.

If it matters what "type" of therapy it is, while I've never been explicitly told what it was, it was more or less the "default" type of therapy. So probably CBT. The type of therapy where you talk and try to change thoughts from negative to positive, and are given goals to work for. Maybe CBT is just simply not for me, I'm not sure.

All in all, almost all my therapists (including my current one) have been decent except for exactly 3. One of those 3 was straight up rude and insensitive all the time, the other one would not even pay attention and forgot every detail about my stories, and the other one (probably the worst one of all) sent me to the mental hospital with no need at all. I had mentioned wanting (having thoughts) to kill myself, but I hadn't mentioned a specific plan or anything, and I didn't say I was gonna do it. They're not supposed to send you to the mental hospital unless you have a specific plan and say you're gonna do it. And the mental hospital was definitely very traumatic for me. But besides those 3 they were actually pretty good.

If it matters, besides therapy, at this point in time I've taken 11 medications total, currently on 5. The first 6 medications were really, really bad for me. The current 5 medications are doing their purpose fine enough. They're helping me sleep well. They're also helping prevent any Bipolar Psychotic Manic episodes. They're also helping to reduce anxiety and hyperactivity. They're also helping with anger issues. They're also helping my mood feel better overall. But if I personally still believe that human beings are horrible and do horrible things, and wanna die because of that, that's more of a personal world view and not the medication's fault. It's also not the medication's fault if I'm just lazy and refuse to do things. So basically I've been doing both therapy and medication. And neither have helped that much overall.

Overall, all the more reason for me to kill myself. Nothing fucking works.

TL;DR I've been through 11 therapists total (currently on my 12th) and made exactly zero progress from my 1st therapist all the way to today. In the short term it feels cathartic to talk about my deepest thoughts and feelings to a professional, but in the long term I've been exactly zero progress.

 

[My_Own_Worst_Enemy]

In my opinion, a large benefit of therapy IS having someone to talk to, someone who listens, someones who sees you and takes you seriously. Especially if, as you mentioned in your post, you have no-one else to talk to.

If CBT doesn't work for you long term, don't worry, you're not alone. In fact, I've recognized the same patterns in myself when I do the required tasks not because I genuinely want to improve, but because I want to impress /not let down my psychologist. The feeling that I've somehow dissapointed him/her if I don't get better.

If CBT methods don't work for us, and we really just need someone to talk to, I wonder if there are support groups for depressed people like us out there, similar to AA-meetings. Would be nice not to have to fulfill a psychologist's expectations all the time, plus way cheaper.

 

[ConfusedHurting2632]

In my opinion, a large benefit of therapy IS having someone to talk to, someone who listens, someones who sees you and takes you seriously. Especially if, as you mentioned in your post, you have no-one else to talk to.

If CBT doesn't work for you long term, don't worry, you're not alone. In fact, I've recognized the same patterns in myself when I do the required tasks not because I genuinely want to improve, but because I want to impress /not let down my psychologist. The feeling that I've somehow dissapointed him/her if I don't get better.

If CBT methods don't work for us, and we really just need someone to talk to, I wonder if there are support groups for depressed people like us out there, similar to AA-meetings. Would be nice not to have to fulfill a psychologist's expectations all the time, plus way cheaper.

Glad to have you reassure me that me and my feelings in this case are normal! Thank you so much! The only issue is like, when I brought this up to one of my therapists in the past, and this was one of my best therapists as well, she seemed pretty upset and went like:

"Well if you're using therapy just to vent then I don't know how we're gonna make any progress going forward. But the biggest problem of all though is I have a supervisor who oversees everything that happens between me and my patients, and if a patient is not making any progress then we have no choice but to discharge them. So if you're gonna continue therapy here with us please consider making at least some small progress, or else you're unfortunately out. Not even my choice, but the supervisor makes those decisions."

Though to be fair I've sort of been seeing therapists from many different companies, and maybe it was just that particular company that was like that.

But yes, those support groups for people with depression similar to AA-meetings do sound like they would be a great idea!