T is terminating relationship. My heart is breaking.

dividedtruth89 wrote:Wow how long has it been since your T terminated, if you don't mind my asking?

It's fuzzy because we actually ended up hospitalized that day, for the first time in a decade. Long story short, we were on the brink of a breakdown and she sealed the deal with her "news". heh But I think it's been about three months? It's been very hard. Our psychiatrist is actually in the same office and I was able to speak with him about it a couple of weeks ago. He said it was hard for her, too, to let us go. So that helped. I think, and I can only assume here so I could be wrong, but I think your T made a snap-decision based on maybe her own triggers? A lot of people, especially those of us with a tendency to not remember sessions, record sessions. We never have, but if we could afford a recorder we totally would. It would make the money spent on sessions a lot more worthwhile than coming back week after week still not knowing what the heck we've been discussing. I really hate it for you that your T reacted so strongly and quickly.

If it's any consolation, our new T is awesome. She's VERY different in how she works and we're her first multiple patient(s), but she's very open and eager to learn.

-Mikaela

TwilightInsight wrote:It's fuzzy because we actually ended up hospitalized that day, for the first time in a decade. Long story short, we were on the brink of a breakdown and she sealed the deal with her "news".

I can totally relate. I feel kind of silly for admitting this, but when she emailed me saying, in so many words, that she would not give me a second chance, I was pretty much absent of emotion. I got dizzy, went to my room, and (embarrassing) had another seizure episode. Able to better control it this time, because I knew it was my mind's way of expressing the emotion I couldn't feel at the moment. Or an alter, or whatever.

Thanks, your story DOES console! I am able to shut out the feelings and memories fairly easily, but sometimes when I allow them in, I get the "pain" for a second. Then I shut it out. I really want to process this pain, but honestly I don't know how. I don't want to feel guilty, and the pain is associated with guilt. So it's shut out right now. It's pain I kind of want to process with my new T, but I'm afraid she won't understand. I mean, should I just say, "so I have a lot of pain inside about the old T but I don't know where it is. Can you trigger it for me please so we can work through it?" Lol I'm afraid she'd laugh at me.

I agree what you did was a breach of trust and any normal person would be justified in reacting how she did. But she is not a normal person, she is a therapist, a professional. It is her job to work through these things with you. Its like you have 3 things going on at once here. There's the grief of a lost relationship. Also your therapists invalidating response, you did something wrong, confessed to it and instead of giving you any credit for that or working through it with you, she's run away! Then there's the thing that the whole situation seems to have triggered something to do with number 4. That's a lot to deal with all at once. By ending your therapy with her like that she has done a bad thing, but I don't think you should take it personally. I think she did it because she has issues too. We are all of us just human and none of us is perfect, or beyond making mistakes. This is one of hers. X

dividedtruth89 wrote:[It's pain I kind of want to process with my new T, but I'm afraid she won't understand. I mean, should I just say, "so I have a lot of pain inside about the old T but I don't know where it is. Can you trigger it for me please so we can work through it?" Lol I'm afraid she'd laugh at me.

I bet she will understand, so I encourage you to say this to her! Even thought it was me who chose to terminate work with my old therapist, I had to process it for several sessions with my new therapist.

Una+ wrote:I bet she will understand, so I encourage you to say this to her! Even thought it was me who chose to terminate work with my old therapist, I had to process it for several sessions with my new therapist.

mmmmmmmmm still debating. I need to KNOW for a FACT that she will UNDERSTAND that my feelings just GET buried and that I don't do it on purpose. I mean, I won't be able to go to work today if I try to unbury those feelings right now. And I can't even be sure I'll be successful in unburying them completely. No...I don't want to screw things up. I can't afford to screw up another T relationship, and I can't afford to make my system think that she doesn't care, when she probably does care...but if even the tiniest inkling of the the thought comes in that says "she doesn't really care", I won't feel free to open up anymore. Must tread carefully for now, cuz I want this one to work.

Last T said "there is nothing you could ever say that would make me not like you. and I don't get mad, even in my personal life I almost never get mad." Well, she shouldn't have said that. She spoke too soon. Not saying she wasn't justified in her decision, cuz she was, but she made a mistake in saying there was nothing I could say that would make her mad.

Thus, I wait. With time will come trust, and then, maybe then, I can let the feelings out.

dividedtruth89 wrote:I kind of want to process with my new T, but I'm afraid she won't understand. I mean, should I just say, "so I have a lot of pain inside about the old T but I don't know where it is. Can you trigger it for me please so we can work through it?" Lol I'm afraid she'd laugh at me.

I talked to my old T about this a few weeks ago. She said therapists know how hard a transition like this is and that they're trained to help us through all of this, so to just be honest about what you're feeling and let the new T know. S/he'll know how to help.

-Mikaela

TwilightInsight wrote: talked to my old T about this a few weeks ago. She said therapists know how hard a transition like this is and that they're trained to help us through all of this, so to just be honest about what you're feeling and let the new T know. S/he'll know how to help.

Thanks Twilight I started to get super depressed today and was trying to figure out why...till I realized it was because I had started to get really lost in thought, and started to think that my new T didn't like me or something. I sent her a really short, general email with a question(wondering if I could get a copy of some papers I signed), and I never received a reply, so I'm getting all paranoid thinking she must have already gotten the progress reports from my old Ts(which is what the papers were for) and has decided that she can't work with me. Ugh. I just want to start feeling like there is hope in sight for me...because right now I don't know if there is something wrong or if I'm just overeacting to a bunch of #######4/making stuff up. Is there any T in this whole ######6 world who is willing to work with me?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!

-- Sun Aug 28, 2011 3:54 pm --

Don't feel like you have to answer that, wow I'm not that needy. I don't want to complain. There are worse things.

Dividedtruth89, try this:

Byron Katie: Judge-Your-Neighbor

Download and print a copy of the worksheet, and use it to work through your thoughts about your therapist not sending an e-mail reply, and your feelings about those thoughts. I think this may help you a lot.

For what it's worth, I would expect no reply by e-mail. I would expect to be given a copy of the papers at the start of the next session.

Wow Una what a helpful worksheet. I especially liked the part at the very end where you turn the thought around. I came up with things like "I am too busy for me, I don't think I can work with me, I don't believe in dissociation like my other Ts have."

Haha all my wording and handwriting seemed very child-like. "Passive influence" might be at work here?

Anyway, thank you very much. This helped so much, it's freaky!

dividedtruth89 wrote:This helped so much, it's freaky!

Yes! I have been using this worksheet on some of my "stuff" and wow, the results are incredible. Sometimes instant liberation from thoughts that have been a burden to me for a long time. Also interesting are the thoughts that survive the worksheet; those thoughts may have real merit.