The old T ****trigger warning incompetence******

So I just received a letter from the old T dated 17th August and it's a discharge letter from the the NHS service. I haven't seen her since at least April because I started looking for the current in May and I hadn't seen her for a while then. And that has just pissed me off because it has taken 4 months to do her ######6 job.

She has described what I told her my goals were and I feel like she didn't even really try to help me achieve them she just told me I dissociate to much and didn't really help me fix that. And solving the problem of dissociating to much would have solved most of what I wanted to achieve.

She has put on it that even though I don't remember when trauma began from the things I've told her she thinks I was under 2 years old. How the ###$ is it OK to put that in my discharge letter when she has never told me that herself!!! I'm gonna quote that part. "Although, you are unable to identify how old you were when it started, from things you have said, it would appear you were under the age of 2."

Also another quote "In clinic, when you managed to speak about some of your past, you often started to speak with a much younger language and voice tone and you and I recognised that you were dissociating to a younger age level. It was possible to bring you back into the 'hear and now' ( in the room) by talking about your work with dogs." I absolutely did not realise I was "dissociating to a younger age level." I knew she kept telling me I was dissociating and kept distracting me with the dogs when the grounding techniques she kept trying didn't work. And how the ###$ am I supposed to deal with" dissociating to a younger age level." and the emotional pain and fear that comes with if all she does is trying to make it go away.

"dissociating to a younger age level." was in addition to her saying in session that I interlectualise to dissociate but she didn't include that bit in the letter. So she has identified Nixie and Z as dissociating and told me I do that to much and she can't help me until improve my "distress tolerance"

Sounds like she didn't notice the multiplicity?

Sorry you dealt with a T who could not help you. I think often times it really takes a specialist... I've heard quite a number of stories about the NHS not being helpful for complex trauma cases and especially DID. It's a start that she noticed you dissociating at all... but yeah, how can she expect you to magically be better at staying present without offering tools/guidance?

Take care,
Fox

I've got a new T now privately who is specialised so hopefully things will go better this time. But reading through the discharge letter she sent me (and there were 5 pages of it) was really upsetting. I mean I was already upset about most of it but this added new things to be upset about.

And no she didn't but telling me every week I dissociate to much lead me to look up dissociation on my own and that has helped way more then she ever did.

Oh, that sounds good that you have a new T now privately!
5 pages... that sounds like a lot. Take your time with processing what happened/grieving what happened. T stuff is super difficult.

- Fox

So this is going to side track slightly.

I just left the new T and I took the letter for her to read and we discussed it and printed my first post on this thread. And I feel lots better.

The things in the letter that I was expecting like I dissociate to much and am to distressed for trauma work and CBT/EMDR and I have to wait 12 months before I can be reassessed to see if treatment would help. I can't remember her exact words but she said about dissociation is sometimes unhelpful in some situations but we dissociate to the amount we need to cope. And that trauma work can only happen alongside helping to manage my stability and ability to cope so just trying to do trauma work alone is not going to work.

When I told her I didn't know some of the things in the letter she said it would be very shocking to see it written in such a clinical manner.

We discussed that talking about the dogs isn't grounding and causes me to switch to a different mindset and is just avoiding. And seeing that she had deliberately done that when I was most vulnerable had reinforced the idea she felt I was to broken to be helped.

And then we talked about our opinions on the service the NHS provides and how we feel its inadequate. Apparently she has published opinions on there inadequacy she she felt it was OK to share that. She emphasised it is an inadequacy on the NHS's part and that it's not my fault that they were unable to support me. Which I really needed to hear because getting the letter brought up all the feelings that I had before of being to crazy to be fixed.

Also we talked about some other bits and pieces that our conversation evolved into and I think she might suspect I have something like DID or is just using similar terminology because I refer to parts a lot, even if a bit evasively. So she has been using parts and system.

And I think that covers all the main points of what happened in today's session.

I'm so glad you have a good new T!!

I'm not sure I trust her yet but I do think she is better than both the previous T's and she gives me hope that maybe it might help and not make me worse this time.

i'd say i can't believe a therapist would ever write anything like that but the nhs really is that bad. she clearly had no idea what she was dealing with, which as far as i'm concerned is willful ignorance at that point. i'm glad services like PODS exist to help people find therapists who (in theory) know how to deal with dissociative patients, but it shouldn't be like that in the first place. i'm sorry you had to deal with all of that, it's way out of line.

i hope your new therapist is better for you. trust definitely comes slowly, especially after dealing with such a bad therapeutic experience before, so it's okay if it takes time.

I've talked to the new T about the not trusting and it's deeper then the bad T's that just reinforced the not trusting. And she seems to understand and promised not to take it personally like the first T. So hopefully I will be able to at some point but its probably going to take a long time especially because I can only see her fortnightly.