Looking to hear other people's thoughts and experiences. 

I've been to a few sessions now and basically feel like I'm throwing money down a toilet. 

I have some trauma, but it doesn't affect my day to day life, and is only triggered in very specific circumstances I can avoid. Bringing them up in regular conversation does not trigger an emotional response for me, so there's nothing to work through in a session. 

I've asked for tools to deal with stress in the moment, and the solutions I've been given are simply to avoid stress or walk away from it and come back to it when I've "reset". Neither of which are reliably possible. Ultimately unhelpful. Stress is my greatest trigger for episodes, so it is my greatest concern.

Meditation, yoga, and biofeedback tracks are very similar to auditory hallucinations I had during seizures as a child, so they have the opposite of the intended effect. I also have a personal bias against lots of wellness mantra because of my personal experience with unqualified individuals. I don't think all of it is bullshit, but I think a lot of it is, or it just doesn't fulfill a need for me. Call me cynical. 

I've told this to my therapist and expressed a desire for practical solutions and essentially a no bullshit approach to heading off unhealthy patterns and improving overall problem solving. I'm not looking for someone to talk to about my week and validate my feelings. We're in several sessions now and there's a lot of uncomfortable silence where neither of us seems to know what to say. I have a few token tools in the box, but ultimately, I don't feel like any better off than I was before I started.

Am I just misunderstanding what the purpose and goals of therapy are? Others swear by therapy and say it's essential for bipolar management, but my experience so far doesn't have me sold on it.