My counsellor told me I was ‘too difficult’ to counsel

I’ve spent years in and out of counselling without really feeling like I’m getting anywhere. I feel partly because I was deemed “too difficult” at one of my first experiences of counselling. It completely knocked me back and I spent a long time thinking that I was failing at counselling and I always will. But now I know that there is no such thing as failing at counselling.

I spend a lot of my life blaming myself for pretty much everything. So hearing this statement, of course I took it on and completely believed it. I have always struggled opening up to people, and sitting in a room facing a person I barely know, I just couldn’t bring myself to talk about what’s going on. My classic go to was to skirt around all of the big issues and focus on things that didn’t even really affect me, just to fill the silence. And those who know me, know that I cannot cope with silence.

I spent years thinking I was the problem and didn’t take into consideration that it may have not been the right time for me to access counselling. I would convince myself it was, but when it came down to it, I couldn’t physically get the words in my head out. Also I didn’t consider that actually the counsellor may have not been the right one for me. I’ve met some really good counsellors (except the one who said I was too difficult), and although they tried to help me, perhaps their way of counselling wasn’t suited to me.

Those things I didn’t consider at all until recently. I’ve spent years blaming myself and thinking I wasn’t good at counselling, when actually there are so many factors for counselling to be effective. I’d almost given up on counselling and could only look back at my awful track record. But I had a conversation with a professional recently who helped to change my way of thinking, making me see that it’s not all on me that it didn’t work out.

Although I can see that I’m not fully to blame, I do have to take responsibility in some areas. I lacked confidence in myself to be able to turn around and tell the counsellors that I didn’t feel things we’re working for me. I spent months and months trying to convince myself to stick at it in the hope that something might click. I also wasn’t honest with other professionals when they asked how the sessions were going. I wanted to show that I was improving and didn’t want to admit things weren’t going the way I thought they would. I believed that they would also blame me.

Now that I’ll be starting counselling again in the near future, I know how important it is for me to be open and honest with how I feel the sessions are going. Because I’m not only wasting my time if it’s not, but I’m taking up time that others could use. I feel more confident in myself to be able to do this. And if I feel unable to physically say that to their face, I aim to find a way of communicating how I feel. I now feel that I have a lot of insight into what does and doesn’t work for me in sessions, so I plan to discuss this very early on and find the best way that works for me.

I’ve allowed myself to believe this one statement, and to be fair it was a very difficult thing to hear. I then built this negativity towards my own abilities whilst in counselling which I really believed has impacted me for a long time. I can now rationalise and see that actually I wasn’t ready at that point.

There are a lot of things I could have done differently in each set of counselling, but that time has helped me to grow and I feel I can use these experiences to shape my future sessions.

I just want to stress to anyone reading this, counselling is very complex. And although you may not feel like you’re getting anywhere, in the bigger picture you most likely are. It’s so hard to see it in ourselves. If you have any doubts about any aspects of your counselling sessions then please speak out, even if this is by text, email or writing it down. Sometimes it can be really hard to be honest to people’s faces because we don’t want to offend them.

At the end of the day, please remember that counselling is for you and you only. There is no right or wrong. You can’t put a time limit on it, and if it’s not working out for you then remember there are so many factors can could be contributing to this like a counsellor who isn’t suited to you, the timing or type of counselling.

The “You’re too difficult to counsel” statement has affected me for a very long time and I didn’t even realise it, but now I can move on and use what I’ve learnt to get the most out of counselling.

Go easy on yourselves, counselling is a process and there’s no such things as failing.