I insulted my therapist. Actually, a few of them.

[Anonymous]

Long story short, I am a trailing spouse and hate where I live. It's caused depression, so like a mostly sane person, I tried therapy. I word vomited for the first fifteen minutes about how I hate where I live and why. She listened, then when I stopped talking, said, "Well, I love it here. I don't understand why you don't."

Obviously, the rest of the session didn't go well. I tried once more with her, then moved on to someone else. Same response. I just had a first session with a fourth therapist, and you guessed it...same response. I'm frustrated. I feel lonely and isolated and insulting these people makes me feel worse, but where I live literally IS the problem. I want to learn how to love it like they do, because all my issues stems from it. Am I supposed to couch my words? Something else? Help.

(FWIW, I am not in the DMV. Grew up there, live elsewhere now.)

[Anonymous]

How many times do you need to repeat the exact reasons that you dislike a place? It's been 4 times already. Maybe you should start with "I think my depression is bc I can't make peace with where I live. I would like strategies to help me cope with x/y/z issues that i feel make me so miserable "

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many times do you need to repeat the exact reasons that you dislike a place? It's been 4 times already. Maybe you should start with "I think my depression is bc I can't make peace with where I live. I would like strategies to help me cope with x/y/z issues that i feel make me so miserable "

I do start out like that. They can't wrap their minds around it, so I give details, then they're offended. And now, I'm not being racist or anything. More things like the nearest airport being hours away, the lack of availability of my hobbies, the insularity of the locals, etc.

[Anonymous]

Your therapist can’t fix where you live.

[Anonymous]

That particular therapist should not have phrased it like that. It was unprofessional. However, if this has happened with multiple therapists, then you must be contributing to the problem, OP. You might be overly aggressive in your choice of words or tone, and have displaced anger about your trailing spouse life that you put squarely on your current location.

Have you tried medication for your depression? Sometimes it takes medication to make your brain more amenable to therapy and improvement. I've seen this in my son's ADHD. He couldn't learn unless he was medicated. I have a lot of anxiety, and so far medication has not worked for me, but I suspect my therapy sessions would work far better if I could find the right meds!

I also suggest finding an online therapist, not based where you are. You won't know where they're from unless they tell you. My psychiatrist lives in California, and is licensed there and in the state I live in. I see her on Zoom. I see my therapist on Zoom as well. No idea where he lives.

[Anonymous]

I think you should try online therapy with someone who is t so personally tied to the area.
My suspicion is that you followed a professor-husband and are in a “college town” that feels remote and isolated and provincial compared to where you lived before. (Ask me why I think this)
And obviously the answer is to embrace where you are for now and find things that bring you joy. Join a gym, a church, a mom’s group, anything! And start joining in their traditions and community rituals to see if you can find a community of your own. Also maybe shift your mindset to see if you can step into their world and learn what it is that makes them appreciate a slower pace, a different way of approaching life. Maybe this season you are experiencing is meant to show you how to live in gratitude and humility rather than bitterness and irritation. Pretend you are the heroine in one of those Hallmark Christmas movies who moves from the big city to a smaller town and instead of listing all the things you hate about but (which is essentially Act One), step into Act Two of the story and embrace the town and its people and traditions. Just as an experiment. Wake up every day ready to find the good and embrace where you are. (After all—what choice do you have at the moment? Apart from making your husband miserable and feeding your own depression??)
And in 6 months, if you are still in this dark place, start plotting a move and help him figure out his next career move that can get you back to DMV or wherever you think you’d rather be. But OP, don’t blow up your marriage in the meantime. Try to see from your DH’s point of view that you are making this adjustment 10x harder for him as well with your misery.
You are choosing to wallow in it and you could deliberately and consciously flip that switch tomorrow. Clinical depression is a diagnosis where your sadness and misery and despair has no obvious cause, but your depression is circumstance-related with an obvious cause. But you can’t fix that cause at the moment so resolve to fix the outlook—at least temporarily. Why not try? It might make a huge difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That particular therapist should not have phrased it like that. It was unprofessional. However, if this has happened with multiple therapists, then you must be contributing to the problem, OP. You might be overly aggressive in your choice of words or tone, and have displaced anger about your trailing spouse life that you put squarely on your current location.

Have you tried medication for your depression? Sometimes it takes medication to make your brain more amenable to therapy and improvement. I've seen this in my son's ADHD. He couldn't learn unless he was medicated. I have a lot of anxiety, and so far medication has not worked for me, but I suspect my therapy sessions would work far better if I could find the right meds!

I also suggest finding an online therapist, not based where you are. You won't know where they're from unless they tell you. My psychiatrist lives in California, and is licensed there and in the state I live in. I see her on Zoom. I see my therapist on Zoom as well. No idea where he lives.

Well, yes to the bolded. I am angry. Each year that passes, I become more filled with hate, because I see my life drifting away. Even small things I used to take for granted, like stopping by a coffee shop after grocery shopping, aren't options anymore.

I hate tried SSRIs. Gained 100 lbs. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

These therapists all sound very insular.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you should try online therapy with someone who is t so personally tied to the area.
My suspicion is that you followed a professor-husband and are in a “college town” that feels remote and isolated and provincial compared to where you lived before. (Ask me why I think this)
And obviously the answer is to embrace where you are for now and find things that bring you joy. Join a gym, a church, a mom’s group, anything! And start joining in their traditions and community rituals to see if you can find a community of your own. Also maybe shift your mindset to see if you can step into their world and learn what it is that makes them appreciate a slower pace, a different way of approaching life. Maybe this season you are experiencing is meant to show you how to live in gratitude and humility rather than bitterness and irritation. Pretend you are the heroine in one of those Hallmark Christmas movies who moves from the big city to a smaller town and instead of listing all the things you hate about but (which is essentially Act One), step into Act Two of the story and embrace the town and its people and traditions. Just as an experiment. Wake up every day ready to find the good and embrace where you are. (After all—what choice do you have at the moment? Apart from making your husband miserable and feeding your own depression??)
And in 6 months, if you are still in this dark place, start plotting a move and help him figure out his next career move that can get you back to DMV or wherever you think you’d rather be. But OP, don’t blow up your marriage in the meantime. Try to see from your DH’s point of view that you are making this adjustment 10x harder for him as well with your misery.
You are choosing to wallow in it and you could deliberately and consciously flip that switch tomorrow. Clinical depression is a diagnosis where your sadness and misery and despair has no obvious cause, but your depression is circumstance-related with an obvious cause. But you can’t fix that cause at the moment so resolve to fix the outlook—at least temporarily. Why not try? It might make a huge difference.

The nearest church of our denomination is 45 minutes away. No time for gyms. I can't even work out on my lunch break (WFH) because the locals let their pit bulls run free. There was a drive-by shooting six months ago that killed a child. I am not interested in finding the good here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These therapists all sound very insular.

The entire town is. Sometimes a high potential student will leave for college, but they come right back. I do not understand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That particular therapist should not have phrased it like that. It was unprofessional. However, if this has happened with multiple therapists, then you must be contributing to the problem, OP. You might be overly aggressive in your choice of words or tone, and have displaced anger about your trailing spouse life that you put squarely on your current location.

Have you tried medication for your depression? Sometimes it takes medication to make your brain more amenable to therapy and improvement. I've seen this in my son's ADHD. He couldn't learn unless he was medicated. I have a lot of anxiety, and so far medication has not worked for me, but I suspect my therapy sessions would work far better if I could find the right meds!

I also suggest finding an online therapist, not based where you are. You won't know where they're from unless they tell you. My psychiatrist lives in California, and is licensed there and in the state I live in. I see her on Zoom. I see my therapist on Zoom as well. No idea where he lives.

Well, yes to the bolded. I am angry. Each year that passes, I become more filled with hate, because I see my life drifting away. Even small things I used to take for granted, like stopping by a coffee shop after grocery shopping, aren't options anymore.

I hate tried SSRIs. Gained 100 lbs. No thanks.

I'm sorry this is happening to you, OP. But in the end, YOU are the only person who can fix yourself. No one else can. So why drive away the therapists, if you cannot tolerate medication and they're your last chance? Pick someone online who lives far away and tell that person up front you have an anger management problem stemming from your depression. That way they can calibrate their response. And when they say things you find triggering, keep going with them, don't leave for the next person. Try not to take it out on them. Persevere. Otherwise you're going to end up doing the drive by shooting.

[Anonymous]

Try a therapist with remote options, who is maybe somewhere else in the state. Or a national service like Betterhelp (I've never used them, so don't know what they are like.)

My DC metro located therapist does zoom and phone sessions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Long story short, I am a trailing spouse and hate where I live. It's caused depression, so like a mostly sane person, I tried therapy. I word vomited for the first fifteen minutes about how I hate where I live and why. She listened, then when I stopped talking, said, "Well, I love it here. I don't understand why you don't."

Obviously, the rest of the session didn't go well. I tried once more with her, then moved on to someone else. Same response. I just had a first session with a fourth therapist, and you guessed it...same response. I'm frustrated. I feel lonely and isolated and insulting these people makes me feel worse, but where I live literally IS the problem. I want to learn how to love it like they do, because all my issues stems from it. Am I supposed to couch my words? Something else? Help.

(FWIW, I am not in the DMV. Grew up there, live elsewhere now.)

Wow, that's such a BS response. I've been in a lot of therapy, and I'd be pissed it anyone had said anything like that. I'm really shocked that you found that over again. No, you don't couch your words with a therapist. Try again. Maybe someone online, who doesn't live there. You should also say why you are looking for a new therapist and be clear that they placed their thoughts over yours. I've told therapists if they've said something I didn't like or agree with. That is why you use them!

I'm honestly shocked that anyone would say that, let alone be defensive. That therapist needed her own therapy to reveal why she was so defensive. Your words don't insult a therapist. They are supposed to be professionals who understand that their thoughts about your words is why they are "insulted."

I was a trailing spouse, who liked where I lived until I didn't. It brings up a special set of issues, like your life is on hold. It's challenging.

GL!

[Anonymous]

Why do you care about insulting them? Their feelings are irrelevant. Either you get what you need out of them or try somebody else online. Stop being so accomodating and nice. It is obviously not working for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do you care about insulting them? Their feelings are irrelevant. Either you get what you need out of them or try somebody else online. Stop being so accomodating and nice. It is obviously not working for you.

A defensive therapist is of no use to anyone.