• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Not Sure What Therapist Is Thinking?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Hi everyone, my names Ashley and I've posted once before and already think this site to be wonderful and supportive and thank you to anyone who takes the time to respond to me. I won't get into the details of any trauma I've had, I will save that for the intro section at another time. The current therapist I'm seeing I specifically sought out because she's a trauma specialist. Strangely, it's been hard to find someone living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Anyways, I've seen quite a few different therapists and have been diagnosed with everything from BPD to PTSD and DDNOS. Some of my therapists just weren't a good fit so that's why I decided to see a specialist who is quite expensive each week as my insurance won't cover her yet because she's not yet licensed. I have chronic depersonalization-I mean, every waking moment of every day since I can remember. I have a lot of other symptoms but this one seems to bother me the most. I've shared quite a bit with my therapist but certainly not everything (I've seen her a total of maybe 6 times) and it seems to me that she's thinking my depersonalization is caused from general anxiety. I don't know why but when she says this I feel like jumping out of my skin or punching her in the face. I just have these overwhelming, overactive feelings of not being heard!!! I know what anxiety feels like and it bothers me that it seems she's trying to make it sound so simple when I've been dealing with this crap since childhood (I'm 29 now) I try to tell her I don't FEEL anxious. I don't feel anything!!! I'm out of my body, my mind is empty, I hardly recognize my loved ones and my memories feel like Swiss cheese. That's just the surface of it. She canceled our last session due to being sick and asked me if I'd like a video session instead. I told her I'd rather an in person session and that I'd wait. I was planning on asking her exactly what she thought was my diagnosis or if she thought I just had an anxiety disorder and that it will bother me another week. I figured if she was well enough for a video session that maybe she could send me a quick response to my question to hold me over til next week. That was Tuesday.
Now we meet Wednesday and she hasn't even sent a "I understand your concerns of your diagnosis/treatment and I'd be happy to discuss in detail in our next session" she just ignored it or forgot so
On top of it I feel unimportant. There was also one time that I was having a mini crisis and after her telling me before it was ok to reach out between sessions, I did reach out, which is unlike me because I don't like burdening people. She did respond that time by email and said shed follow it with a call but never called. I mean I began feeling better but if you tell someone in crisis you'll follow with a call-you call!! Am I right? I'm just starting to question my therapeutic relationship with her. I do like her but she's a new mom, unlicensed (maybe inexperienced?) seems kind of flaky and distracted with responsibilities and I don't need that right now but I'm SICK of trying to find the right person to help me! I question whether I'm running away from them or if I'm truly not finding qualified help. How do I know the difference? Thanks for reading, hope everyone is well :)
 
Unlicensed can mean she is at the beginning of her career and is not that experienced. It can also mean that she has lost her license. Is she planning on becoming licensed soon? It may be worth it to find someone who is licensed, as the licensing board governs therapist behavior.
 
From what you’ve said, she sounds irresponsible. Six sessions is not far in, so you might be best to find someone else. Maybe set up a few appointments to interview different therapists. It’s possible that it’s just not a match, but it’s heartbreaking that she would say she is a ptsd specialist, or a therapist at all, and be so unprofessional.

I’m sure there are some threads here that talk about finding a good ptsd therapist, and also what to avoid. I'm afraid that, from what I can tell, it can be very difficult to find someone. But feeling comfortable and establishing trust is really important. I'm not sure that would be possible with this person after these things.

Good luck!
 
Thanks for the responses, I really appreciate it. She finally emailed me back a couple hours ago and apologized that it was so late and said that whether my depersonalization is caused from anxiety or trauma that it doesn't really matter and that the focus right now is on loving myself and being kind to myself and feeling safe inside. She's telling me what great work I'm doing so far (wtf?) I don't even feel like I'm doing anything. Does anyone else's therapists give them homework or exercises to work on between sessions? Most of the time when I leave her office I'm questioning what the hell I just spent my money on. She doesn't address my dissociation or really try and explain anything to me just keeps saying "your anxiety" and to trust her and the process. Idk. Maybe I am being too picky. I just don't understand what the process is I guess. I feel like jumping out of my skin today. Part of me wants to cancel our session for Wednesday and look elsewhere but another part thinks I should address these things with her next session? I feel sooooo angry when she keeps saying anxiety and I don't know why.
 
I had homework continually during therapy. (I've just started EMDR so that's a little different) With my last therapist, he had a list of questions we answered after every session and one of them was: "Will I do my homework." He also asked: was the session helpful, did you feel your therapist understood your feelings, did you work on issues important to you etc etc... He wanted to know what was going on with me for each session.

It sounds like she has a naive way of looking at your therapy, no real substance?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top