Seek help

I’ve submit few posts in stonestobridge.. Alhamdulillah it’s like a huge burden has been lifted off my shoulder.

I know that I have many issues to address properly (childhood abuse, traumatic experiences, homosexuality, depression, anxiety ) and most of your recommendations are to seek professional help.

First of all, I don’t usually speak about my deep personal issues to close friends/family, let alone to someone I don’t know. In fact I never spoke about it since I was a kid, for more than 15 years. I started to open up just few years back to a few really really close friends.

I know the professionals are trained to deal with people with traumatic experiences. Here is my problems,

1. I don’t feel safe to see people’s reaction and facial expression when I speak about it.

2.  I tend to not telling the whole story and not being honest when I speak about it to someone face-to-face. I feel insecure.

3. Even if I have the courage to seek help from therapist, I can’t afford to pay for it.  it is too expensive.

Before this I don’t really believe in seeing psychotherapist/psychologist. I have my insecurity and trust issues. But after being exposed with how the professional works (from readings) and people who are satisfied with the therapy, I start to consider. Still, it is a huge step for me..

I’d say I rather write it down than talk about it to someone directly.

Fatima, is there any other other option than seeing the professional for help?

Thank you so much for helping….

 

Assalamu ‘alaykum, 

 I am very glad that posting and receiving responses has been helpful for you. Alhamdulillah.

 You bring up a lot of great points in your post that a lot of people wonder about.

 Trust is a hard thing – especially when you have had difficult things happen to you.

Someone who is a professional counselor is someone who has received training and has agreed to preserve confidentiality. Which means that they keep private the things that are shared with them. So it is unlikely that they would break that trust. Since the abuse that happened to you was in person, and has changed the way that you deal with people, doing therapy in person is one of the best ways to identify how your experiences have impacted your relationships and work on them in the moment.

 Still, you have to be comfortable. So it’s okay to take a session or two to ask the counselor questions about his or her training, how much he or she has worked with adult survivors of childhood abuse, and how this counselor works with clients. You can even ask how much they have worked with Muslim clients and what to expect during therapy. While you have those conversations, you will get a feeling about whether this person is someone you feel comfortable with. At the same time, because of your past experiences, it will probably take time to feel like you can really open up, and that’s okay. One book that is good about describing what common things people face as a result of abuse is “Outgrowing the pain: A book for and about adults abused as children” by Eliana Gil. It’s an older book but it’s a good place to get a general idea.

 Yes, therapy can be expensive, especially if your insurance plan doesn’t cover it. Here are some ideas:

1. If you are in college, sometimes a certain number of sessions per semester are available at the counseling center for free. These are not always enough to get through a lot of things you want to work on, but sometimes you can purchase additional sessions or they might have referrals. 
2. Some places offer programs at reduced or no cost, and if you truly cannot afford it sometimes you can apply for government assistance. The rules and process for that are different for each state. Usually there is an “office for women” or “sexual assault services” in the state government that will have a hotline you can call. You can explain to them that you are a survivor of childhood abuse (you don’t need to give details) and you want to know how to get therapy but that you are limited in funds. They should have a lot of resources they can point you towards.
3. Sometimes there are group therapy options that work out to be cheaper per session. There are lots of positives and some negatives to being in a group therapy session. The biggest positive is that there are people there who have been in treatment for some time so they can help you see how the therapy helps over time, and they really get where you are coming from because they have experienced similar things in their lives.
4. Some of the newer therapies like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) sometimes take less sessions than traditional talk therapy. You would have to do some research to see if less sessions means less money, and to make sure the therapist has received training in those methods.

 While you are figuring all this out, you might want to check out national organizations like this one: https://www.rainn.org/get-help/national-sexual-assault-hotline to see if they have more information that helps you figure things out. 

 wa ‘alaykum salam,

Your sister in Islam,

“Fatima Z”