Therapist makes me feel worse

Hello everyone,

I haven‘t been here in a while so I‘ll write a little bit about how I‘ve been doing. If you don‘t care you can skip to the next paragraph. I have been doing very bad. Since I‘ve found out about being multiple my anorexia has come back and I am severely underweight. I have met a three year old part that was dormant a few days ago and I am so shaken up. I don‘t want there to be more parts, not in the sense of „if they are there they should hide“ but more „I dont want to have been traumatized so badly more parts were necessary“. I remember more Trauma than ever, my long time boyfriend and I have broken up because I am too sick. I don‘t have a Job anymore, barely make it through the months on savings alone. It‘s been a little bit better since the new year because I have gotten an amazing social worker, that understands me and my situation (not the DID part but she accepts it and believes me when I say I can not control my body sometimes), she helped me get government financial aid and is helping me become completely independent from my parent. I started a youtube channel which is something I wanted since I was 15, to help other people going through what I‘m going through less alone and (eventhough I don‘t have subscribers or anything like that) I feel more capable of getting better. Until Therapy today.

I have been going to a DID specialist since August 19, in the beginning our relationship was good and I felt safe and able to express my emotions. In november a little went to therapy (usually it has been me-julia going to therapy, she got triggered out but I and my friend (whom I was hanging out with) encouraged her to go to therapy. Since then it has been very different. She used to be very attentive, knew what‘s recently happened and helped me with stabilizing my life.

In november we (me-julia and my therapist) filled out a form for the government so I can receive help with finding a job. Today we filled the form out again (she apparently never sent it in & just lost it? That is my assumption) because I asked her about it since I received a letter saying the form was never turned in. She forgot that I am unemployed and asked my how my work has been going lately (she didn‘t mean applying for jobs, she referred to me being a waitress). She forgot what my diagnosis are and what Trauma I‘ve gone through. Now I understand that she is probably seeing many patients and that the holidays were probably especially stressful but these are things she could have easily checked in my file before the session. This makes me feel very worthless, like not even my therapist cares enough to be prepared and she is payed to care, why would anybody that isn‘t paid to care?

I know I should bring these things up with her in my next therapy session, but I am very anxious. I am not good with confrontation and do not complain. I have terrible anxiety regarding authority figures and I see her as one. Do you have any tips how to talk to her about it? I‘ve never written her an E-mail so I think it‘d be weird if I did that (but I think there I could tell her about my disappointment in todays session)

I hope you‘ve all been well. I will catch up with the forum for a little while,

Julia

Hi Julia,

Sorry you've been struggling so much lately.

Many of us have trouble questioning or calling-out our T when she says or does things that upset us. We think its because she's perceived as an authority figure, and of course we have past trauma from dealing with authority figures.

I'm writing out a note today in fact, of complaints and corrections, things we want our T to do differently or to simply stop doing. And some questions we have for her, about the way she does things.

We'll print my note out, and bring it to our session tomorrow. My plan is to use the note as something for me to read off while talking to her, but if that proves to be too difficult due to everyone feeling triggered or anxious, then I can simply hand it to her for her to read.

Others in our system have done this before, not specifically for questioning / challenging our T, but with any subject matter that feels too big or too difficult to be able to say, or even remember all the details. We write it up before-hand, print it out, and bring it along. Then either use it ourselves as a reminder, or just hand it over.

From what you've said, I definitely agree with you that this T should be doing better.

I hope things work out for you. Good luck.

Em

I had the same issue with my present "T" (not really a therapist since psychanalysis is not a therapy but it's the only kind of person in my area who can prescribe meds sooooo...).

And then I realized... I'm the one paying her. I'm her boss! She's working for me! If I'm not pleased with her work, I'm the one who needs to tell her off.

Psychanalysis is not a good therapy because it requires you to tell the awful things over and over again until something clicks and you are magically better. Which is totally not what helps. If I want to ruminate things I can sit at home for free and write in my journal for free. So, I told her, chatty chat is no longer what I need from her, I need more time in between cessions, meds are good, and asked her if she new of autism specialists in the area (she does not know we're multiple and being multiple is not the thing we need help with from a T; we get plenty of help here through the forum and through chatting with friends!). Anyway, she knows no other T in the area appart from other psychanalysts. So, I'll see if my general physician can give me the meds refills, and I'll tell her, thank you very much but your services are no longer needed.

If your T does not do a good job for you, you are in the right to tell them so. You pay them to work for you. If they don't do the job properly, you tell them. It's their job. You're their boss.

You go, girl! You can do it!

--Zami-- (and ~Theia~ in the background)

So sorry. Everything sounds so upsetting, a handful to deal with.

I don't email my T. But when we feel we should say something but can't we write it down. Hand the note to him when we arrive. T has taught me how to *bring up* an issue & what healthy *working it out* looks like. Not that we do it with others. Other people seem not to know how to work things out any better than we do. But maybe someday, something important.

You are absolutely right. She has an obligation to be prepared so she can do the job she is being paid to do.