[226/366] more therapy

[cosmolinguist]

I got a phone call today from someone who's name I didn't catch who said she's from the LGBT Foundation and could offer me a course of psychotherapy. I'd heard good things about their therapy services (which doesn't need to be about your sexuality or gender, it's just there for queer people) and signed up for it even before lockdown (I was having a shitty time even before, over the winter, remember).

She was apologetic about not being able to start for a few weeks, but actually it works out really well because I'll be done with uni for a week or so before I have to start in on this. She was also apologetic about it being on Zoom and, honestly, rightly so; I hate video chat. Maybe my internet will break again and I can do it over the phone, heh. The one good thing about our month of no internet was I didn't have to look at my face and my CBT person's face on a computer screen any more.

Comments

[meepettemu]

How would it feel to have the screen on but zoom minimised so they can see you but you don’t have to look at you or them? I have plenty of clients who hide themselves - I don’t know if any of them hide me too

[cosmolinguist]

Even though I find it distracting and stressful to look at my face I also don't like to hide my face. It's the nature of one of my eye conditions that I don't look like I'm looking at what I'm looking at. If you see what I mean. :) When I think I'm looking right at something, my head is actually off to the side a bit.

I knew this happened because I'm looking to the side in like every picture taken of me as a child, I just look very distractable or uninterested. And I've always hated it. But it's much worse in real-time video than a single picture.

So I probably do spend too much time trying to make myself look acceptable (to myself, no one's ever said anything about this, it's just my own hangup, so however much someone tried to reassure me that it didn't matter if I looked like I was making eye contact or whatever, I'd still be agitated about this) and it does sometimes distract me from whatever I'm supposed to be talking about.

But knowing I was getting it "wrong" and not being able to "fix" it would be worse, so hiding myself or minimizing the window don't sound like good solutions for me either.

I think I just have to get over myself. Thinking about it, the problem isn't that I feel pressured to make eye contact or anything like that, but I don't like it when I am making eye contact but I am not understood to be doing so. If I just wasn't, it'd be fine. But if I think I am, I don't like it if the other person doesn't think I am, I guess. I don't know, it's weird,

[finding_helena]

Personally one of the things I really like about Zoom is that there's no way for anyone to tell if you're making eye contact or not so it's just not a thing at all. Like people just are looking in whichever direction they're looking at, and the camera is capturing them from whatever angle it's capturing them from, and unless they're staring straight into the camera the whole time (and who does that?) they'll always look like they're staring off-frame and that's NORMAL, and even those "you must always make eye contact" people have to understand that.

[otter]

The explanation you just gave us here sounds like an excellent thing to tell the new therapist right at the beginning.

Any GOOD therapist will listen and acknowledge and maybe ask if it's a thing you want to talk about again, or just wanted them to be aware of.

[wildeabandon]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but can't you just turn your camera off, and treat Zoom like an audio call?

[cosmolinguist]

Maybe! It's not a stupid question. We'll see!

[rugessnome]

I mean I certainly have for most of my time on Zoom. (albeit in browser)

The office that's providing my therapy isn't doing Zoom, but even though they are soon to have a video chat option, my therapist definitely gave the impression that continuing doing it via phone without picture was fine. That said, it's an established theraputic relationship and I'm in the US.

[silveradept]

Here is hoping that this round is actually effective, and that it can be used in a way that makes you comfortable.

[mrs_leroy_brown]

Paws crossed for this - you deserve a therapist better suited to your needs and I'm glad that you found this queer friendly / focused place :) As others said below, maybe you can contact them before (or on the day) and explain why you'd prefer an audio call and they really should be able to accommodate this. That is to say, I think they should and they SHOULD but hopefully they will. But sounds very promising!

[sfred]

I hope this goes well for you. I had one or two Zoom sessions with my therapist and then we agreed that we'd both actually prefer phone.

[momentsmusicaux]

Can you ask for it to be voice only?

My therapist did voice only this week, because she's getting eye strain from all the zoom calls.

Barring that, in zoom you can remove the floating window that has your face in it -- it has a 'minimize' type icon at the top of it. I do that in therapy because I find it really distracting to see myself.