episode 216
“Why do I always feel unimportant?”
On Ask Kati Anything, your mental health podcast episode 216, Kati discusses therapist missing appointments, changing self-harm behaviors, effects of validation in trauma therapy, link between religious trauma and OCD/perfectionism, origins of perfectionism, and coping as a highly sensitive person with sensory sensitivities.
This is a transcript of Ask Kati Anything podcast episode your mental health podcast #216 Please note that the transcript is computer generated, and may have errors.
Ask Kati Anything episode #216
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Ask Kati Anything. I'm your host. Licensed marriage and family therapist, Kati Morton. I'm so glad that you're here today. I'm going to talk about what to do when a therapist forgets our appointment or has to reschedule last minute, and why that experience can be so upsetting. Then I'm also going to explain why self-harm behaviors can change over time, whether or not validation and trauma therapy is good or bad, and the connection between religious trauma and OCD or perfectionism, then I'm going to talk about perfectionism, where it comes from and why it can permeate our entire life. And finally, I'll get into being a highly sensitive person and managing our sensory sensitivities. Without further ado, let's jump into question number one. Oh, actually, if you're new here, welcome. I want to let you know that if you don't get a question answered, you can continue to ask it week after week. I get through as many as I can. Also, I offer live streams on my YouTube memberships in the psych top 30 in the psyched up 60 levels so you can ask questions there. I also have live streams through my Patreon account. You just go to Patreon.com forward slash Kati Morton, and at the $20 tier and above, you submit your questions and I answer them in a monthly live stream. There's also an extra one in there. and just for a dollar you can watch and participate in the live streams too, so you could check those things out.
Okay, let's get into question number one. This question says Kati, my therapist, who I've been seeing for two plus years, double scheduled me and another family that was in crisis on the same day recently, and I had to go home. She was going to meet me the next day on Saturday morning, but I felt the need to push away and I delayed it to the next week. I know I'm really attached to her in this push pull way and I felt really hurt, even though I know intellectually she just made a scheduling error. I also felt upset because it triggered my beliefs from childhood that I'm not as important, and that I'm always second because the other family had it worse, or the other family had worse things going on. Also, what does family in crisis mean? I've had several times where she has forgotten my appointment. I can't tell whether it's my disorganized attachment or truly an unstable therapy relationship. I know a stable therapy relationship can be corrective for some, but for some of my attachment problems. But sometimes I just feel like my beliefs and abandonment fears are being reinforced. Do you have any recommendations for how I can tell the difference in how to know when to advocate for myself? Additionally, how can I work to heal my attachment? P.S. your videos made me feel seen when I was in a really dark place and encouraged me to seek help during college, and for that I can't thank you enough. I'm so glad I could be there when you needed me most. That makes me feel good. So I'm glad that you're still here now. This is a great question. First, let's address this. This particular issue. She double booked you. Now I, I feel proud to say that I've never done this, but this is incredibly common, especially when we have people in crisis. So what it means when we're in crisis, I mean, there's a zillion different potential experiences that that family's going through or situations that they're dealing with that would deem them in crisis. But just to give you some examples of families that I've seen that are in crisis is maybe we have addiction in the family and we're doing an intervention or we need someone to go into treatment or someone's coming out of treatment, or we just had a big blow up fight. Maybe the parents are getting divorced or something. It's happening. There's a lot of like issues happening within the family system, and so we might schedule extra or booked them again, which I'm assuming is what your therapist did because they needed the extra support. Or we need to have a game plan because things are getting out of hand or overwhelming, etc., etc.. So just in the same way we would say like if you were in crisis, if you were maybe in a dark place or having a really hard time and felt like you were coming unraveled and needed more support, we would have more sessions together to alleviate that. Okay, when we tend to book people quickly when they're in crisis, I always check my schedule, but sometimes therapists might just do it in their head like, oh, I don't think I have anything that day. No, okay, we'll do it that day and not realize that they already had scheduled someone. And so you are correct that I don't think there's anything attached to this. It definitely brings up stuff for you, which is what you should bring up in your next session that, hey, I know this happens, but this is what came up for me and I need to figure out why it's so distressing or regulating for me. Right? We kind of know it brings us up from childhood that we're not as important, and that I'm always second when you talk through it. That's why therapy so beneficial because we can have situations come up because it's life, and then it gives us an opportunity to dive into the things that are bothering us. And honestly, the way that our attachment wounds show up for us in our life in real world situations. So bring it up and know that you're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. This would upset most people. Your therapist is aware, which is why they're like, I'll see you tomorrow morning. I'm so sorry. Probably, but you didn't want that, and I understand that's part of that, you know, push pull, disorganized attachment, feeling. But we need to talk about that. And maybe we need to write a letter to your younger self, offering them some more support. Or maybe your therapist needs to assist you in finding ways to soothe this feeling, right? Like, can you tell yourself that you're important? Or does checking the facts help? Are there ways we can regulate our nervous system? Or you know what could be helpful? We have to talk it through. And I think a lot of it's going to be inner child work. You know, stuff. But I do have an attachment workshop and an inner child workshop on my website at Katimorton.com, if you're interested. But bring this up. Okay. That's the first piece. The second piece is that you said that I've had several times where she's forgotten my appointments. Oof! Now, if this is a repeat thing, this is something that obviously you want to bring up with your therapist in a bigger way, not only for your reaction and acknowledging your shit. Right. I have disorganized attachment. I know this is super triggering for x, y, z, but this happens frequently and I find that really hard because as a therapist, we don't want to trigger you on purpose. That's terrible. That's not therapeutic. And so if this is happening a lot, then that might mean that this therapeutic relationship isn't best for you. I mean, I don't think it's asking a lot of a therapist to say, hey, can you be consistent? And remember when you schedule me? I mean, we're supposed to we keep schedules just like anybody else. Do you show up to your work on time when you're booked and scheduled in your hours or whatever, whatever kind of job that you do? Yes, you do. And if you didn't show up, you probably get fired. And that's essentially what's happening here, is your therapist is not showing up for the appointments that she has scheduled, which is her job. And it's okay if you don't feel safe there because that especially if she knows about your attachment issues. I just find that very unethical. I'm not saying it's on purpose, but she needs to get her shit together because it is distressing and I understand it. If my therapist forgot my therapy appointment and I drove to therapy only to find out that I didn't get to see her or she wasn't there. I don't know if anybody else feels this way, but I like as I drive to therapy, I'm like, kind of not amping myself up. That sounds like more intense than it is, but I'm like preparing myself for therapy. I start thinking about like, what I need to bring up in, like, what was the homework and how did that go? Like, I'm just trying to like, get myself ready for it. And if I had to go back home, you're like, what do I do with all of that? That I just kind of opened up, right? So let her know. the way to tell the difference and when to advocate for yourself is if the difference between it being like an oops, is this crisis situation okay? Something that's like, oh my God, you know this. I'm so sorry. She was apologetic. You know, there wasn't any intent behind it. That's like that's just then the dysregulation that you feel while is very warranted is coming from that attachment place. Okay. However, if this and also it's coming from an attachment place when we like pushed back and we didn't want to see her the next morning like we did that push pull, you know, the signs and symptoms of your attachment. So hone in on those and know that when we're doing that behavior, that tells us that's where it's coming from. However, the upset of not having an appointment or having her forget and having this be kind of a regular thing and it's like disappointing. And like I was just saying, you know, I get myself all ready for therapy and then I'm like, oh, I'm kind of bummed out and like, what do I do with all this? That is not attachment. That's you preparing for therapy and showing up and her, not her not holding up her end of the bargain. Right. And so that's actually her side of the road to clean. So talk to her. Be honest. It's okay. It's therapy. We're supposed to be able to talk about these things and figure it out. It's okay to tell a therapist, hey, you did that. And that hurt my feelings. And I know it comes from this place, and I want to figure that out. Can we talk about it more? It's okay to say that that's actually what therapy's all about. Okay, hang in there. I'm proud of you for still seeing her the next week, but this is something that we need to figure out because it's too. It's dysregulated, as it should be. Okay, now, somebody had a comment and said I was in a really similar situation. I also got double schedule and I felt so rejected and lost, but I nearly had a panic attack. I wrote her an email that my inner child hated her for doing this two weeks later she referred me out without any further conversation about this. I thought that I could speak up or speak my mind in therapy, but now I fear that it was simply too much for her. No no no, I never said anything like that in my life. So it is not like it happens every other day. How can I let go of her as if I as I feel really attached? It feels like a really unhealthy and toxic quote unquote relationship. This is so unethical. Okay, just so you guys know, we as therapists could potentially lose our license or be held accountable for what is called patient A abandonment. When we act like this and the reason I say that it's patient abandonment is that there was no conversation, there were no referrals given. With time for you to move on to someone else. That is what's required now. I guess if you'd seen this therapist only once or maybe twice, they might give us some leeway there and they could act in this way. I still think it's really inappropriate. We have to give you at least three referrals, all of which are in a similar location, and taking new patients. Okay, obviously all that's depending on like where we are, but we have to make our best effort to figure that out for you. We have to offer those to you, and we have to talk to you about it, and we have to give you time to transition. For example, I saw a patient for about a year and a half or two years, and I gave her, I think, 2 or 3, I think, three months to transition over. And she like the first person, I gave her a list of three. She like the first person. So that end up working out. And she's right across the hall from my office. I may be better, I had another patient, we had been trying to work on things, and he just wasn't it wasn't helping. And so I referred him to a different type of therapist. and I gave him, I want to say, two months, and I'd been seeing him for maybe about a year. That just gives you an idea. He did not stay for the whole two months. The other patient did stay for those three months as she transitioned over. But that's just up to you. And you should be given that time. And that is so that there's a smooth transition. Also, a lot of times, I ask my patients to sign a release so I can talk to the other therapist so that I can help them pick up where we left off. So don't feel like it's a start all over. And then I can give them the reasoning, you know, like, in the one case, I was like, I think he needs something different. We keep running into this roadblock and I it that's not my specialty. And with the other patient, it was like, you know, I think we need to I guess different style of therapy is more attachment based stuff. And I was like, I've done what I can do, and I feel like we're plateaued so that, you know. And then I talked to the other therapist and let them know these are the goals we've had. These are the ways that they have, you know, succeeded. These are things that are hard, saves you time when you see them. That's how it's supposed to happen. You could file a complaint against your therapist license because that's inappropriate. And I'm so sorry. You are supposed to speak up. You are supposed to say things like that. It's okay to write an email and say, hey, like the person that asked the initial question like this was really just regulating. It was upsetting to me as therapist, we are trained. It's a huge part of our job to sit with discomfort that even as a therapist, I'm a human to right. I don't like conflict, but I'm trained as when I'm in therapist mode. I have to be honest, it is a different type of me that you get when I'm a therapist, when I'm in therapist mode, and I put on my therapist hat, you can say some crazy shit to me. You can be mad at me, you can yell at me. Am I like, am I uncomfortable 100%? Do I show it? Absolutely. The fuck not. That's not my job. My job is to be calm, to allow you to express yourself, to not react, to talk about it with you so that you can learn how to handle discomfort and confuse it in the same way that, like me, in my own therapy, I should be working on that right? Therapist a space to be, to feel held, to feel heard, and to feel understood. And if your therapist isn't doing that for you, or if you don't feel like they're challenging you to do that, they might be, you know, time for you to find somebody else. Now, there was a last add on to this said. I'm also really sensitive to rejection, and I struggle with the idea of being worthless or worth less than anyone else. I started crying easily when, for example, last time my doctor told me that they wouldn't see me because they'd made a scheduling error. This all goes back to attachment would be my guess. We've hit a little, what? I, you know, like a button, like we poked a button or poked in on a wound from our past. Because your reaction to this is greater than what the actual situation warrants. I've talked about this before, but overreactions get such a bad rap. However, overreactions really tell us a lot about what's happening internally that we might not have conscious access to. Right? So if I have this huge reaction to what is and this isn't a judgment, just saying what is like a small problem. If I feel very dysregulated, that tells me there's something more going on. Either my resilience is low because I'm not taking care of myself or maybe this has poked a button from something that happened to me as a kid, a lot like the person who said earlier, like I was always made to feel. Second, like other people in the family were more important. Like, that's important to note and to bring up in therapy that, hey, I feel myself being reactive in this way and I don't understand why. I know it's an overreaction. I want to understand where it's coming from. And once we understand where it's coming from, whether it's like past trauma, whether it's, lower resilience, whether it's, relationship that we had in the past, it has ended that it reminds us of whatever it might be. Once we kind of can identify that, then we can work on it, right? If it's trauma, we need to do some trauma, reprocess. Same whether that's talk therapy, eMDR, schema, somatic, whatever. If it's resilience that we need to work on taking care of ourselves, you know, using the acronym hungry angry lonely tired. Are we taking care of those things? You don't be taking our medicine lightly, eating regularly, all that stuff. Right. you know, and if it's a reminder of a past relationship, is there something in that that we need to still talk through so that we can let go of that emotional charge of it? Right. So anyways, that's that's where I would go with that.
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Okay. Let's move on to question number two. Says hi Kati. Can you talk about why self-harm behaviors change? I've changed places and how I do it a lot since starting, and I'm curious as to why that is. I still have my go to spot for when there's nothing more I need than to do it after a flashback, but it's changed so much and I'm not sure why. I do have complex PTSD from past physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Thanks for everything you do. Okay, yes, we have to add ons, after this, but let's just dive right in. Self-harm behaviors. We have to remember, right? Our coping skills. You said you do it after flashbacks. And it's like, probably the way that you maybe come to help yourself feel something. take care of yourself. You know, there's a lot of reasons we can do it. This one is rituals. And that could be kind of soothing in its own way. Keeping that all in mind, that we do it as a way to cope. Of course, it would change depending on what we need and what I mean by that is, for example, I had a patient who used to harm themselves in one way because part of it was wanting them. They want to feel the pain physically that they were experience emotionally. Okay. So they want to do their self-injury in this certain painful way. Okay. Then as we work through that piece of their trauma, then they started to find themselves. We were doing some more inner child work type of stuff. They found themselves wanting to self injure, not for any of the pain, but for the ritual of taking care of it, for the cleaning of the wound and the bandaging of the wound. And that became the motive. Now, not only did the the way that they were self injuring change, but also the the location. And so depending on the person, I believe it has to do with what purpose it serves for us at the time. I also want to throw in the caveat that I do have patients who will talk to me about the fact that, like, I mean, it's summer is kind of already here, but let's say in like March or April when things start to not be as cold outside, they'll say things like, summer's coming. And so they'll shift where they self injure because they don't want it to show. And they're like, oh, I need to give them time to heal. We do things like that to hide it, right? Because we don't necessarily want everybody to know our business or ask about our cuts or our burns or whatever it is. So we'll change locations. So those are some of the reasons to there. One's more of an emotional reason. The other one is more of kind of, just a logistical reason. But there's no judgment either way. It's more about the fact that it's a coping skill, and we're going to find a way to to do it in a way that is relieving of something. Right. That helps us cope with whatever. so that's really why and since you said you have complex PTSD, I'd assume that it probably depends on what you're talking about, what you're working on, or even what is the most dysregulated or disrupting to your life in this moment. yeah, I hope that helps. In other add ons. Like I said, there are two. The first one says my places and how I and how have changed because when I tell my therapist I have self-harmed, I have to give up my tool that I did it with without come, we'll talk with us. So the next time I have an urge, I have to find something else to use, or what I use in the past just isn't giving me the same response, that's all. So we'll talk about that too. I change places for the same reason. Kati, how many times would you let a client self-harm before you insist on a hospitalization? My providers say that they have no choice but to insist on hospitalization, but I keep refusing them. Can they suction me for refusing? Thanks for your input. Of course. a lot to talk about here. Okay. Now, I have had patients give me their tools. Like give up their tools to me. Then I offer them back to them every session because it's not my duty to stop you from self-harming. Like by taking away. I don't know, I just feel like that's not actually helpful. I offer to keep them for my patients if they want to. I will ask it and we will talk about it like, hey, I know you've been trying to stop and we've gone almost a full week. Do you want to leave your stuff with me? And then we'll see if you can make it to our next session. I can give it back to you then. Or we could talk about it. You know, I actually I don't think I've ever had a patient take them back, but I don't take them from them or have them give them up like we're not an inpatient. I'm not in a treatment facility that they wouldn't allow you in with anything you could Self-insure just doesn't. Why? But I have had patients offer them up as part of their recovery, as a part of an attempt to not. And then we talk about what it was like to give it to me, because I have had patients give it to me in the session at the end say, can I take that back? I'm not ready. I'm like, that's fine. It's it's not up to me. I'm not going to stop you from self-injury. And by holding on to a tool like you said, you find something else that's why it's not even a therapeutic. It has no therapeutic benefit other than feeling like a parent. Like you're playing the video game too much and you take the cord that plugs it in or something. It feels kind of like that, like a punishment. I don't like that. So I don't agree with that at all. and how many times I let a client self-harm, I'd have to talk that we'd have to have a safety plan in place, because I don't always believe. I know it sounds like you might have a treatment team that doesn't understand self-injury. Maybe tell them to watch some of my videos. because I don't necessarily correlate self-injury with suicidal behavior, suicidal behavior, or homicidal behaviors. What would push me to hospitalize someone or section them? Or 5150 them, whatever you want to call it. When you put somebody in the hospital, it would be because they're a danger to themselves or someone else. Now, a lot of people mistake self-harm for active suicidal thoughts, plans, etc. but I would have a conversation with you so there's no number of times it'd be more about me talking with you about whether or not you were wanting to take your own life, what your plans are. you know, do you have the means? I want to know more about it. I want to know what role your self-harm plays. I'd have more questions than just like self-injury equals hospitalization. Because I don't believe in that at all. I don't think it's helpful. And I think we'd all agree that a hospitalization isn't necessarily a very therapeutic place. So that's a last resort for me. But if I was concerned that maybe you did have some suicidal thoughts, I'd have a safety plan in place and we'd, you know, you'd have to sign it for me every week and we'd have, an agreement as well as a plan, like call people, text me, wait 30 minutes, blah, blah, blah. Here's your coping skills. We put that together, I'd make a copy, I'd give it to you, and we would go about that and see how we did week by week and check in, check in on that safety plan, check in on it, on the self-injury in the suicidal thoughts. So that's really how I operate, in the fact that your providers think you have to be hospitalized makes me feel like they don't get it. So they can technically section you for refusing. I don't know that for refusing, but they could for self-injury, saying that it's suicidal attempt or suicidal actions. Talk to them about it. Maybe, like I said, maybe it's though I don't know if they will, but maybe watch my videos or just explain it to them. If it isn't a suicidal thing, talk to them about it so that they can understand. So we can keep you at the hospital. Okay? It isn't your job to educate them, by the way. They should be educated in this. Unfortunately they're not. I'm just saying this to keep you out of the hospital. Now, the final add on here says also, is there anything or reason that a person might change or quote unquote, add on another method of self-harm? And does the method make the difference? Make a difference? For example, I've always used cutting, but recently started to burn as well. Does method change mean anything? I again think it has to do with the purpose it serves. So be curious, not judgmental about when this shift happened. What was happening in your life or what were you working on in therapy? What was coming up for you? And what does one type of self-injury do for you versus another? Only you know the purpose. But I believe that since it is a coping skills, because our need has shifted, we need to cope with something different.
Okay, Let's move on to question number three. And it says lately I've seen several references from other therapists talking about trauma therapy. And that validation can sometimes be harmful in trauma therapy. I had a therapist who had a post-doc training, specifically in trauma, who asked who. I asked for validation or correction if I was not correct because I was perceiving him as incongruent. Hmhm. Turns out he was being incongruent, which came out about at the end of a ten month rupture he would acknowledge existed, but refuse to talk about directly and openly. Sounds like he wasn't very good. If anybody's wondering about these words, a rupture just essentially is a fancy way of saying that the therapeutic relationship had an issue, had conflict. It wasn't working. When we talk about incongruence, it means that the patient perceive because she says, I perceived him as incongruent, perceive them as not like, not in line with where you are, not on the same page with you that there's, it's not there doesn't feel quite right, like they're with you and they agree with you and their support in you. It feels incongruent. It feels off. Okay. So so I spent months in limbo operating from the perspective that it was my perception that was the issue which really impacted my perception of reality and trust in myself and the world. I know it's almost like you were gaslighted, and reading that validation isn't always recommended in trauma therapy. It makes me question whether he was doing trauma therapy correctly, and I was just an anomaly, or whether I had a shitty therapist. And I really like this therapist. It hurts my head to think that he was shitty. To restate the question succinctly, how does validation work in trauma therapy, or when thought disorder distortions may be present? Okay, let's talk about this. The fact that he wouldn't acknowledge the rupture and refuse to talk about it directly and openly means he had what is called counter transference, meaning that you have the trauma, you're in there to work on it. Something came up for you, rightfully so. And instead of acting in a therapeutic manner where he could hold that space for you, meet you where you're at, talk about this discomfort, this dysregulation, this conflict, he reacted out of it and kind of shut it down. He acknowledged it was there but wouldn't talk about it. So it's almost like his discomfort got in the way of your therapy. And so I'm not saying that he's shitty, but he did not do this right. The right thing in this scenario. As a therapist. I was watching this video on Instagram recently. I'm trying to think of the guy's name. it'll come to me in just a second, because it was just on the tip of my tongue just then. But anyway, Gabor, Mate and I'll probably say his first name. Wrong. Gabor. Gabor. Mate. Mate. He's amazing. Anyway, he was doing some supervision with other therapists and his therapist, asked a question, and she was talking about she had a patient who didn't have an open mind. It was kind of resistant. And she was like, I don't really know what to do with this. And it was so beautiful, you guys, he says to her. He's like, well, what came up for you when, when she didn't have an open mind or when this patient was resistant. So like, I was kind of frustrated and, and then I'm like, man, I'm, I'm not even good at my job. And he's like, you have to pay attention to what comes up for you, because what's happening right now is counter transference, because you're frustrated with your patient, because they don't have an open mind. There shouldn't be any frustration there. It's not about you, it's about them. And then he asked the therapist. He was like, when has someone shut you down or not? Had an open mind in your life that was really upsetting and you should have seen her face. She was like, she goes, shit. So she said, and she's like, you're right. And he goes, talk about that in your own therapy, because that's what's coming up. And boom, you guys and I don't talk enough about the what it's like to be a therapist. And the reason that I think it's so vitally important that we as therapists get into therapy ourselves, because if we don't, we bring our own shit into your session. And that's not appropriate. I have to be able to hold space. Like you guys know, I'm a people pleaser. I'm conflict averse. I have to be able to hang with my patients and not let that fuck their session up. Is that easy? No. Can I do it? You betcha. That's what I went to school for. That's why I'm in my own therapy for. That's why I show up for them. I wouldn't be seeing people if I couldn't do that. And unfortunately, our as a therapist, our job can be really challenging that way. Can push all the buttons. You can have someone in your office that is like just like that, I don't know, abusive ex. You had her stepfather who was such an asshole. You can have people in your office that remind you so much of someone that is just regulating to you, but you have to hold it together for your patient. You have to show up for them. You have to hold the space. You have to let them say what they need to say. And you sit with it. There's no reaction. There's no judgment because it's not about the therapist. It's about you as the patient. And so, okay, I went on a tangent, but I think that is really important. It's a vital piece of therapy in the therapeutic relationship. And I feel like you weren't getting it here. And so it's not that this can't, you know, that he was shitty and billable, but it clearly was not working because he wasn't doing his job in the way he's supposed to. Therapists are not perfect. I'm not perfect. I'm sure I've messed up. But, you know, we need to strive to do better. Okay. With that being said, the other piece here where you said that, how does validation work in trauma therapy or when thought distortions may be present? So I think validation in trauma work is critical, meaning it should be offered at all portions of the therapy. However, when I say that, I mean about the trauma you sustained because the one thing that I run into time and time again, even with you guys in my community, we talk about all the time that it's hard enough for us to admit that we were traumatized. Right? That word can feel very heavy, very, exaggerated. Almost like we're being dramatic or making it into something that it wasn't right to admit. That is a huge step. And then to have a therapist validate and acknowledge the pain is healing and important. But if we're operating, so that's one piece. However, in our life going forward, if we're operating out of these distortions, this belief that everybody's unsafe, let's say we are having trouble connecting with our spouse or our friend, and our therapist notices that this is the way that we are reacting out of past trauma. It's like an old story that we're bringing to the present. Then we try to acknowledge that. For example, let's say that you found it really hard to go out to dinner with your friend anymore because being in a loud place like that and having your back to the door is just too dysregulated. And let's say you had a trauma growing up where you someone's trying to break into the house. I would call attention to this, and I'd say, I understand your discomfort. It sounds like this could be connected to that home break in in your childhood. Do you want to be exploring that? Let's talk about that a little bit right now. Might we do through with some questions about like how this is connected. We might do some exposures to to disconnect that, to turn that dysregulation or that sensitivity to that down so that we're not so hyper vigilant. Right. That's when we challenge. We challenge when we're taking an old story and making it present. We do not challenge the trauma itself. Validation is important because if we're not validated when we're trying to work through our trauma, we're just compounding the shame. I remember shame is that feeling that you're broken, that something's wrong with you, and it comes along with trauma. They're like buddy, buddy, it's terrible. And so if a therapist isn't validating your trauma experience, then I don't think you should see them anymore because they're it's only going to make it more difficult for you. We already feeling of shame, blame, guilt and embarrassment about the trauma. We don't need a professional like, you know, doubling down on that right? Okay, I hope that helps.
Moving on to question number four, it's questions says, hey Kati, can you talk more about religious trauma? Gladly. What effects does the fear of hell have on a child? I develop some OCD tendencies and extreme perfectionism. Is this common? Yes. Okay, so when it comes to religious trauma, honestly, we can get it from so many parts. Now, this is not to say that religion is bad. That's not what the message is here. Some tenants of some religions, and the way that it's practiced in specific churches can be very damaging, meaning that if we try to rule our church like run the church with fear like that, if you don't act perfectly, you're going to go to hell. And as children, that intense and crazy punishment I'm going to burn for eternity because I called my mom a bitch. Right? How do we how do we deal with that? Right? For a lot of us, that can be super scary. I'm going to burn for all of eternity. That fear like that for the safety of myself. Or I remember, I remember when I was growing up. So you guys don't know, I was raised in church, super active. But my dad worked away from home a lot, and he smoked, and he drank and he cast. He was a construction guy. He was a boilermaker. It he wasn't involved in church. It was more something that my mom and grandma and I all. And my brother, you know, it was like kids and mothers went. That's probably its own piece of like, you know, my own stuff. But that was a dynamic in my family. And I remember when I was like, old enough to understand going to Sunday school and learning about sinning and hell, I was so scared my dad was going to go to hell. And I remember I came he came home from like, working away cause you work for like months away. He came home and I like, cried. I was like, dad, you have to stop cussing and you can never drink a beer, okay? And you have to, like, I just thought he was going to go to hell and burn for eternity. So you can't tell me that that's not traumatizing. Or at least, at least scary for a child. And so I believe it can cause a PTSD like response. Now, I myself did not develop PTSD as a result, thank God. However, I do believe that the kind of purity culture that I was raised in did kind of like fuck me up for relationships moving forward. And if you guys don't know, purity cultures like the belief that like women, it was specifically for girls in the church that I was raised him. you know, you don't kiss a guy, you don't, you don't lead them on. And if you you can't have sex before marriage or you're, like, not holy enough, then you're not, like, worthy of getting married. All sorts of crazy stuff. Welcome to the 90s. but that really messed me up. And, like, you know, sex is dirty. Things are. But it took me, like, a lot of, like, deprogramming in my own therapy as, like a 20 something to feel. Not that way. So there are effects now when it comes to OCD tendencies and extreme perfectionism, because religion can be so black and white, so cut and dried, so thin or not seen, like, right, pure, unpure, clean, dirty. And there's a lot of these terms that they'll use that are very one or the other. There's no gray. We can definitely struggle with perfectionism, thinking that we need to be perfect for God, to be perfect for our family and perfect for our partner, whatever. And it can lead to that feeling that like we're never enough, we're not worthy of God's love. And I'm not. Again, this is not me trashing religion. I'm saying some do perpetuate these types of messages and if so, perfectionism in and of itself can cause anxiety, right? If I don't feel like I'm good enough for I'm worthy enough, or I'm doing things just in the right kind of way, it can make me feel really overwhelmed and like I need to try harder. I can start to spin out right? OCD if we, I don't know if I talked about it recently, but is what I put under the umbrella of like, anxiety disorders. Because an obsession is when we think about something, let's say in this case, it's like I need to be the perfect Son of God or daughter of God, child of God, blah blah, perfect. Whatever role at church, or I need to. We can feel so anxious about all of that, and it feels so out of our control that we start to control our environment. So we start maybe checking things a certain number of times. And so that obsession with being perfect has led into this anxiety, where we're trying to control it or manage the anxiety with something else. This is I hope you're following. I hope this makes sense. So then we check things. Let's say I check the app to check that the stove is turned off 11 times. some people like odd numbers. Some like even depends. so to check that a certain number of times before I can leave the house. And so that's the obsession is the oh, I have to check. I have to check on my God, maybe I left the stove on. Maybe the whole house is going to burn down the anxiety building. Building. I do the compulsion. I check x number of times the anxiety goes down and then we go around the room. It can build again. We might have to do something else. so I believe that's all connected because of the fact that there's this push to be perfect, to do everything just right, and to feel like if we don't, it's hell, right? That black and white, that all or nothing. There's even though the biggest thing that, in church that I remember is that God forgives like he has a God by love. Right? Love for everybody. And you can ask for forgiveness. I'll forgive you. But some churches don't put enough emphasis on that forgiveness piece and that there is this, this space where you say, oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I messed up and all knowing, all loving God is like, I forgive you. And then we move on. Right. there can be a lot of shame and kind of guilt in there, in that apology or in that admission of of doing something that we didn't want to do. Right? The admission of guilt and the forgiveness. There's not enough of time spent on the forgiveness piece. And I think that can lead to a lot of these things. We're happy to keep talking about more. If you want, let me know in the comments. But that's those are really my thoughts.
Moving on. Question number five question says Dear Kati, I seem to be a perfectionist. We have a little thing going on right now, not only when it comes to work, but also in regards to every human human interaction that I have. Whenever I meet with friends or family, I try my absolute best to make them feel validated and comfortable in my presence. I strive to be the perfect listener and friend. Although I know that that's an unattainable goal and I'm not very good at it either. I get so anxious about making mistakes and upsetting someone, or even making them feel slightly less good than they could feel. Then, when I would have done something differently while we were together, I put a lot of effort, a lot of effort into navigating the interaction. I try to think ahead while I listen to find the perfect questions or a validating comment. So much so that I feel like I'm not even really there. I'm just floating around somewhere in my mind when we part. I can't stop myself from overanalyzing every bit of what I said and hating myself for being the quote unquote weird one. I have lots and lots of self-deprecating thoughts. I was going to ask often. I can't even pinpoint what went wrong, but I feel like I screwed up horribly. Don't you love anxiety? We'll talk about this. I know about the thought stopping the redirecting attention, yet I seem to be doing something wrong because I keep cycling back to the conversation for days or weeks, to the point of not being able to concentrate on my university stuff. Does what I'm describing make any sense? It 100% does. Is this a common struggle? Yes. Do you have any ideas on how we could address the issue? At the moment I just force myself to get through it in the hopes that with time the anxiety will become less. Thank you so much in advance, and I really hope that what I wrote down and how I wrote it makes sense. It 100% makes sense. Okay, know what you're experiencing. Yes, we could say it's perfectionism, but perfectionism is really just one way that anxiety shows itself and rears its ugly head. You're feeling anxious because you're expecting to be perfect all the time, and this anxiety is so overwhelming that after every interaction, we can't shut our brain off. We keep replaying it. I too have similar symptoms like this. And I'll give you some ideas of of how to deal with it. Okay, I tried a lot of things. I find stop, stop stop or thought stopping does not fucking work for me. I find breathing techniques and breathing exercise or meditation just makes it worse because my brain still runs free on its own to think about these things. What helps me, number one is distractions. Now, I don't mean unhealthy distractions. I don't mean numbing out. I mean, this is not helpful. This isn't going to get us anywhere. Thinking of over and over and over about an old thing is only going to drive us more crazy. So do something else. Go for a walk, pet your dog, clean your kitchen. fold your clothes. listen to a podcast, do anything. Call a friend. Color journal, I don't care. Do something, something else. Okay. That helps. That really helps me. The second is dunking my face in cold water or doing a full body shake. I know I've talked about those before, and it seems kind of bizarre that, like, what we think of as a thought process problem is really a nervous system problem. But they're connected, right? And something about it's almost like a factory reset. It's almost like somebody's reach behind, like poked up. But, you know, we turn, we often turn it back on. We feel like a brand new woman. Those are the things that help me. I also will talk myself out of it. And I don't know if this really works for you, but this is a random, weird way that I deal with it where I think in my head and this isn't always out loud. Sometimes it is, but also this isn't going to get you anywhere. Why are we thinking about this? This is stupid. This person doesn't even care. And all I have I've written down examples of times when I thought someone was mad at me, or I thought I did something wrong and they weren't, and I've checked in with them and they weren't. I don't check in anymore with people because I know that that's part of my anxiety. That's part of proving it, that I have to check right? So I have those examples and I run myself because I know them so well. I run them through my head and I remind myself that those people weren't. You did everything fine. They were fine. It was fine, I was fine, you know? So I do that too. If you feel like your anxiety is getting out of control and like you said, you said days or weeks, sometimes we might want to consider medication. Now, I personally don't take medication for this, but there's no shame in this. There's no judgment. We take medication for all sorts of things. If you feel like your anxiety is running the roost and you can't get it out like any of the things I've offered, you're like, none of that helps. It still drives me crazy. We might want to have some medication on board, at least, especially through university when you have to focus on, like your homework and what you're doing there. We might want to, you know, talk to a psychiatrist and see what they could prescribe to help essentially take the edge off until we get through. Okay. You're not alone. It's incredibly common.
Okay. Final question. Question number six is Kati of a follow up to your HSP video or highly sensitive person video. Thank you so much. Thank you for being such a community support. Of course. How do I sort out my sensory issues? I know I have some sensory sensitivities being an introvert and I have social anxiety, but I also have migraines. And I don't know if sensory issues are because of the migraines or a cause of the migraines. Or I could be an HSP. I could even be on the spectrum I've tested as an eye and on Myers-Briggs, and absorbing other people's stuff definitely resonates. If you guys don't know, Enfj stands for introverted Intuitive feeling and judging, and this is one of the it's like the rarest of the personality disorders. This combination in Myers-Briggs. I looked it up. Hold on. It says it's about 1.5% of the population. So they call them like advocates, idealists and counselors. So that's kind of what that is. Just so you know what we're talking about. so that's what this person. So hence the absorbing other people's stuff, because I know that everyone can get to a point of sensory overload. I'm just kind of lost as to know how to understand it, which I think is helpful for managing and dealing with it. Thank you for any guidance you can provide if you choose my question, of course. Okay, now when it comes to our sensory sensitivities, we're going to have to start paying attention. We can do we can look, almost do like a history taking thing where we look back. When's the last time you were super disregulated or or last time you got a migraine, right. We can do some of this research. That's personal research to notice. Okay. I got a migraine like, for instance, I've only had maybe two migraines in my life, and they were all light. That's what caused them a sun like. It was like more too much light exposure. Essentially. One time I was volunteering at this car wash and I got one. And another time I was playing softball as a kid, and we had a tournament, and it was a particularly sunny day and I didn't have my sunglasses. So anyway, also found out my eyes are extremely sensitive to light, like just the way that they're made. They don't have as much back cover for people like other people do. Okay, so do your own research and figure out if we can kind of tie any of these together. Now, migraines can have a lot of different causes you can talk to your doctor about, I don't know if you're seeing a neurologist or even just your regular doctor, whoever you're seeing for your migraines, but we're going to have to figure out if your sensory issues are because of. I do know that when I had my migraines, I was increase doubly sensitive to sound and light. I wanted to sit in a dark, quiet room all by myself. I also would like to throw up sometimes, like it's just you if you're like, totally discombobulated. So I do know that migraines can cause sensory issues, but at least from my understanding, not a neurologist, by the way, that that's when the migraine is happening. You shouldn't have an extension of these sensory sensitivities outside of having the migraine. Okay. But causes of migraines can be there's many. So do your own research and figure it out. What has led to what and when it comes to your sensory issues, if you don't remember or if you're like, I don't know, I can't, I don't know if that was that or not, we can start doing research now. So if like if you go to a coffee shop that has a strong smell, right? Starbucks smells like coffee. So strong. Also, there's lots going on, lots of people. So lots of noise. Can you, can you pay attention to what is the most upsetting like for instance, if when I walk into Starbucks, I want to plug my nose, the smell so strong, that tells me that that that's the one that's so upsetting. If I feel like I want to close my eyes for I want to plug my ears. Notice how your body reacts to the stimuli that you put around yourself. You don't even have to leave your house. You can turn on music really loud and see if that starts making you feel overwhelmed. You can also go outside and kind of look up towards the sun in that direction, see if that really two starts to make you want to crawl out of your skin. Just start noticing. Because once we have a better idea about which senses are the most sensitive, we can do things to alleviate it. For example, let's say we're, you know, super sensitive to light, and we can get like darker sunglasses, more intense if we can get the ones with the things on the sides, even, so that we can not feel as overwhelmed that way if we find that sounds in loud. Places are super overwhelming. Get the loop. Earplugs. I got those for Sean. I, for Christmas, you can get the ones where you can go into quiet mode, which shuts everything out. Or you can go into I think focus mode is like one tick back up where you hear some stuff, but not all of it. Let's get ourselves some loop earplugs. They're amazing. Not sponsored, which they would. So there's those. also, if you find, you know, that it's smell sensitive, then we just want to be aware of where we're going and what that's going to mean. And maybe we bring some essential oils with us now, obviously these are just some ideas of different things, but just to give you an some place to start, we have to do our own recon so that we know what's the most upsetting and then we can have some tools at the ready to better mitigate it. And then if we want to be with a friend and we're like, oh, but I think it's the sound. Sound gets me. I don't really want to have earplugs in. Maybe we have them go to another place that we know that's quieter, or maybe we have them come over, we'll cook for them. You know, there are ways that we can make this work, but let's figure that out. And we don't know unless we do our own research. Okay? Okay. Thank you all so much for listening and watching. Thank you for sending in your questions. Thank you for sharing this podcast. It really does help you. Have a wonderful week. Take care of yourselves, do your homework and I'll see you next time. Bye.
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Here are the loose “chapters” in this episode.
0:00: 💬 Addressing feelings of insignificance in therapy due to scheduling errors and childhood beliefs.
4:46: 💬 Exploring feelings of unimportance in therapy, addressing attachment wounds, and therapist reliability.
9:27: 💔 Struggling with rejection and feeling worthless after therapist's abrupt referral without discussion.
13:53: 💡 Understanding overreactions can reveal underlying issues, leading to targeted therapy for trauma, resilience, or past relationships. Self-harm behaviors evolve based on coping needs, emotional rituals, healing, and concealment.
18:38: ⚖️ Navigating self-harm and hospitalization discussions in therapy sessions.
22:51: 💡 Understanding the importance of validation in trauma therapy and the impact of therapist countertransference on the therapeutic relationship.
27:39: 💬 Discussion on the impact of religious trauma, fear of Hell, and validation in trauma therapy.
32:52: 💔 Impact of childhood religious upbringing on mental health, including fear of hell, perfectionism, and OCD tendencies.
36:56: 💡 Strategies to cope with perfectionism-induced anxiety and self-deprecation.
41:22: 🧠 Understanding and managing sensory sensitivities related to migraines, social anxiety, and being highly sensitive.
46:02: 👂 Tips for managing overwhelming places and sensory sensitivities
Recap for https://youtu.be/BBsfB-8HJ2o by Tammy AI
