Session 1 | Katie | In Therapy with Alex Howard

I feel a great deal of the same fears and inadequacy. Loved being a mum. Loved being a grandma but never happy with myself. I felt for much of my life like an alien. I shall watch this with huge interest.

Yes it was fab and so true. Thank 💯👀

I know it's edited so it's hard but Katie started crying when she said she'd lost her purpose and Alex just kept talking and it wasn't acknowledged which made me feel sad. That was a pivotal moment possibly missed 😢

I can really relate to this. Another gen-X born around the same time. Baby boomer parents were pretty narcissistic & dismissive about emotions. We were ignored as children but then told we could do anything. We were steered into careers with no mention of how a family and children might fit in. As though we could do everything all at once with a sink or swim approach. So we tried, but many of us sank probably!

I consulted with a potential therapist today, it was incredibly disappointing. Seems there is a big self-dealing contingent in the “helping field” that one must spend hours of their life sifting through to simply find something human. Oh, well!

Is this the same Alex Howard who ran an Optimal Health clinic in London ?

She sounds like me.

Extended family living is something lost in the UK. When I hear of empty nester and middle age, it tends to change and improve when grandkids come along and the adult kids are living close by. The lack of purpose in the comments section is probably due to a lack of faith and thinking life on this earth is it.

Comparing western culture to south asian cultures. You see the differences and sometimes realise there's pros and cons in both when it comes to family living, parents and elders.

I literally have the same syndrome and a very similar story around it. I manage my pain with a low dose iud it helped a lot. Also my doctor removed the pocket I had. In addition I use a painkiller called Diclofenac. It really helps with the pain.

After 30 years of caring for my beloved Son who has various Disabilities . Now he has gone into residential house i am now 57 and i relate to Katies feelings of not fitting into this world and no purpose . She is amazingly intelligent . Best wishes to you Katie ❤

Here in America therapy is so costly 😢

Katie your kids are meant to leave that means you did a good job.
It happened all at once may have been best rather than one by one.
If husband was bad news then good riddance.
You will have time for your hobbies your pursuits and remembering the things you liked to do before you became wife and mother.
Good luck.

20 years diagnosed with cfs tried every therapy cbd, mickel therapy, dnrs etc etc found out i had ehlers danlos not cfs. Cfs is just part of eds. cfs is people with anxiety. If you are very ill with "cfs" you likely have something else going on

Great content, thank you both of you for putting yourselves out here. so appreciated

Sometimes I just want to know what I am exactly. I know I am being a human right now...but what am I before and after?

I don’t think you can ever underestimate the role of hormones on physical and mental well-being.

Katie❤❤❤

God bless you Katie xx

Most of the things this woman has said here are common for most men and women. Hate to point this out but she is financially very well set up ….Go out see the world,do stuff , don’t just sit there. A lot of people feel unsafe but to me this is boredom. Come on where is the common sense here? She comes from a middle class background with privileges…wish I had and if I had I wouldn’t be a cleaner today who really does feel like I have a life without a purpose!

I've only watched the first chapter, but it seems like Katie is avoiding/masking the rage with depression.

Hang in there Katie. ❤❤❤

Big no to this. This woman has spent her life feeling unsafe, afraid, anxious. These are physical body experiences and no amount of talking therapy and cognitive contortions or CBT will change that. Thinking your way out of a problem is why it keeps resurfacing because it's just teaching a further disconnect from the body's felt sense. The first thing you should've done is referred this woman for Somatic Experiencing or Sensorimotor work. Why allude to the fact that anxiety is a physical symptom of trauma but then go back to cognitive contortions? We need to move away from the archaic belief that thinking or talking about things like inner critics is of any help when we are this physically dysregulated. If you're experiencing physical symptoms of essentially trauma, your thinking brain is not even online most of the time - your system is just cycling through survival states. It's as if because it took us so long as a society to 'open up' about our problems, now we make counselling/psychotherapy the the solution to anything when it really isn't. It can actually make the problem worse and be retraumatising. It really is the responsibility of talking therapists to make clients aware of much more effective healing modalities for trauma. This is very irresponsible.

Snap im similar no kids though.

Katie, just Thank you❤ and much love

i can see how lonely you are .. we all need to feel connected and have some purpose .. at any age . I wish i could hold your hand and help you ..

You are now a hero..a warrior to all who see this...to actually be filmed, to put yourself in front of all of us and tell us your vulnerability and " flaws " that we all pretend aren't there !!...big thank youuuuuuu..

If you take a minute to think deeply about the huge, daily, Herculean effort of raising four children, all of the housework and planning and love and help and meals and laundry and shopping and school support, that in itself constitutes an enormous life accomplishment. Bravo Katie! You are already a hero! 🙏🏻💕

I relate so much to her lifetime struggle with anxiety & depression so much. But I'm now wondering about the therapist i saw. I did feel accepted. But he talked very, very little. I think i'd have benefitted from more input, like I'm seeing here.

do not worry like most people who ever you think you are, you are most definely not.....you are so much more.

stop having kids. Know your truth before expecting children to figure it out.

This is the outcome of bad parenting. And bad parenting is the norm…..

His approach was very functional, not that empathic in my opinion! She clearly was not loved as a child , he didn’t go into this?

Get out of your head. Change the station. Mother yourself like you would your children. It’s your turn. You got this!

Such a touching episode. I also felt empty and a bit depressed when our kids grew up. I think it's time to really care about yourself now. ❤

I can relate to this as I have health anxiety and turning 50 in Feb. How brave Katie❤

This is interesting. However, the therapist does a lot of interpreting and basically, neatly summarize her experience. This seems more for the audience vs a therapy session? Or, he’s pushing her along to give her some CBT strategies. I think that is conducive to a our current business model of therapy vs facilitating someone to uncover their story. Seems more like an interview. This is why therapy can drag on for years without having a feeling change, which is the big struggle most of us have. I think the best therapy elicits real feelings vs staying in that thinking level. She seems like she has some childhood issues that were denied but still there. He seemed uncomfortable in walking with her feeling of self-hate. Instead he interviewed her for facts and examples. I think it would have been more therapeutic to sit with her and let her cry, saying nothing. Lots of therapists are scared of feelings themselves. She’s not ready for mastering self love after saying that she’s not ready for another 30 years? Weird and controlling therapist.

Am interested to hear what Katie is doing now. Hope she is doing well. Blessings.

I wish everyone reading this peace, prosperity, healing and courage. ❤🌸🌺✨⭐️

Late diagnosed autistic mother here - I see myself in Katie’s experiences: not feeling like I fit in anywhere, using humour to try to belong and get some recognition, an innate passion against injustice… not even half way through the video yet but thought I’d share that in case it helps someone else on their journey

I have recently found your channel and i can relate to Katie. Episode 13 Katie's story disappeared. Disgusting playing on peoples emotions. Unless you can give even a brief insight to what happened to Katie. Maybe Katie was an actress. Click bate

Wow, listening to Katie was like she was talking about me, apart from her children, which I don’t have unfortunately, but the rest was so familiar. Gonna keep watching, thank you for putting these online

So brave, thank you for sharing ❤

Thankyou for your help, I will start journaling today. And hopefully I will learn to be compationate with myself.❤

This story really made Made me cry so hard, because I saw myself in that story. You can be so proud of your self because you gave so much have been through so much agony and lonleyness and are still here. You are amazing and beautiful too. I really feel with you. ❤

I have cried so hard during this. I think it has hit a nerve in me that I didn’t quite know that was there. I’m pulling for you Katie and in doing so I am pulling for myself.

Hello Katie, it pains me to see how lost and unworthy you feel. Raising 4 children is such a massive achievement! You need to change your inner dialogue to loving and praising yourself. Easier said than done. I can relate about lack of self-care and lavishing love an unlimited attention on others around you. That nourishing inner dialogue is the one self-care I do and it makes me happy from within inspite of being solo and an empty-nester. ❤

Hi
I enjoy your Dad and family. I have a suggestion you could try. Try writing out simple 1-2 sentence explanations for his frequent questions. Example: Your checkbook is at Mark's. Keep in a handy flip notebook to show him. Text is much more stable, concrete. Spoken words are fleeting, hard to hold in short term, working memory. I have a 31 yr old son with a TBI and memory issues. This helps him. I can even say to him, when he asks the same question over and over, look at your notebook. Thi gives him a great sense of control over his life. Hope this is helpful.

Brave woman. Smart, curious, ambitious. We are so much harder on ourselves than we would be on a friend, or a family member.

❤

Alex please take note of what Katie said about it all maybe connected to hormones.