K
kiwi215
Hello, I'm new here. I want to briefly share a story of mine and get some thoughts on it... I guess I'm really just looking for validation of my experience. So here's the run down of a previous longstanding relationship with I had with a therapist who "wasn't the right fit" (her words):
I went to my university's psychology clinic that they use as a training facility for the graduate students in the school's Clinical Psychology Ph.D program. They provide therapy to the clinic using those graduate students under the supervision of licensed psychologists. They use "evidence-based treatments" and manualized treatment there. So basically the client comes in, they assess you for diagnoses, slap the diagnoses on you, and then apply the treatment that is regarded as the best treatment for whatever diagnosis you are working on.
I was told I needed 20 weeks of E-CBT (for a lapse of anorexia I was having... it had previously been much more severe and I was in inpatient treatment for it prior to coming to this clinic). We didn't make it more than a couple of months into this mapped out treatment because I was fighting it.. I felt trapped. Like if I strayed the slightest bit "off topic," I was pulled right back into this "schedule" of therapy. I felt like I was doing something wrong if I tried to just vent for a moment about something not completely related to anorexia.
So a couple months into the CBT (which I have had before with other therapists, but not using manualized treatment) my therapist said we were switching to DBT. Ok great. Also I was diagnosed with BPD, which is something I pretty much new I had before I was officially assessed for it. I had actually mentioned it to my therapist twice before (over text, not in person, and not as an outright question, but as part of conversations that weren't solely focused on my belief that I had BPD and would like to address it).
My therapist did not acknowledge that concern (that I brought up twice) whatsoever until a couple of months later when it just couldn't be ignored any longer. I later told her that I felt extremely hurt by her not acknowledging my bringing it up previously and asked her why... she said she brought it up to her supervisor and they didn't want to assess for it yet. I was still so hurt. This was a therapeutic concern and I felt completely ignored and not listened to. Like my voice or thoughts meant nothing. ANYWAY. We moved on (although it still hurts and is making me teary-eyed as I type this).
We had been doing DBT for a while and the way it was implemented still felt invalidating. Not quite as much as the CBT, but my god this therapist was just so inexperienced and could not validate on any more than a very superficial level. And for someone who was raised in a very invalidating environment by my parents (emotional neglect/abuse... no sexual or physical... but I had my feelings laughed at and belittled, etc, and learned to shut down and keep things to myself for fear of my feelings being invalidated in some way), this was like a reminder of my past.
My psychiatrist suggested that there was some transference going on... seeing my therapist as my mother, who was also invalidating to me. This did resonate with me, and looking back it definitely makes sense. This therapist was just so quick to jump to problem solving... like all she ever saw were the things that I was doing wrong (maladaptive behavior, for example, or distorted thoughts)... and when I would bring this up to her, she would respond with something like, "my telling you that your thoughts around the situation are irrational is not the same as me saying that your thoughts/feelings are invalid or wrong." Which, once again, I interpreted as me doing something wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. I'm wrong for thinking I'm wrong. But I still feeling wrong. But no, that's wrong too. I shouldn't feel that way. It's this horrid pattern of thinking that I'm left with now that I'm always wrong. Nothing I do or say is valid.
One day I was so f*cking done with it all that I told her I was leaving. So I did. It lasted for about 3 days because I became so incredibly distressed after that. depressed and angry... I didn't know why I was so dysphoric during that time between when I left and then later called her and told her I want to come back to therapy with her, but now I believe it's because I never got her to understand, and my leaving meant that I would never be understood (until I went back of course... then at least I had a hope of letting my communication get through to her and for her to see my pain and not just my maladaptive behavior). So I went back and it was the same shit of course. But I became more and more closed off and unwilling to share things and be vulnerable (because it was such an invalidating environment... I was protecting myself!).
So a couple months later she says to me one day, "you haven't really been vulnerable with me." Un-f*cking-believable!, I'm thinking. I had, earlier on, shared with her some very, very personal things that to me felt very vulnerable to share. But she couldn't see that. She couldn't see that it was so hard for me to share those things. Once again, it was incredibly invalidating. I even told her that... that I felt invalidated by her telling me that I hadn't really been vulnerable with her. She still didn't get it. She just wanted more. But I was not going to open up to her like that again if she was just going to keep invalidating me. I was so so hurt. And I still am. It's like I had shared these things with her that were precious and personal to me, and she treated them as if they were nothing. And not enough. Another common theme for me... not being enough.
So next session she walks in with termination papers and says I'm being transferred out. We had one more session 3 weeks later to close things out. I was almost as distressed and dysphoric after she told me we were done as I was when I had left a couple months back. Why? It doesn't seem to make sense that I would be so upset about leaving an invalidating environment. But I was. Again, it's complicated and related to transference and unresolved child shit and whatnot. So at our very last session, I told her I went home and cried for 2 days after she told me she was transferring me out. She chuckled and said "aw." As if my intense distress was nothing. Nothing. She never could see the pain that I, as someone with BPD, felt. She just saw something that was wrong and jumped straight into what could be done to change the thoughts/behaviors. Not realizing or acknowledging or validating the fact that behind those behaviors were overwhelming emotions of pain and hurt and anger and frustration that debilitated me. And the message she sent to me over and over and over again was "here's what you're doing wrong." As if all of this was my fault. I felt (and still do feel) that I was just a piece of shit who wasn't willing to change until I felt validated. I could go on and on. There were things she said to me that she didn't realize hurt. I would try to tell her but it just wouldn't go through. She just came right back at me with a DBT skill that I could use, or how I should've given her my feedback in the form of a DBT interpersonal effectiveness script.
So basically it was a year-long relationship of lots of "little" (although they hurt me immensely) things that were said to me (or not said to me). And it was like reliving my childhood with my parents. But worse. It's one thing for it to happen with your parents. But it's not supposed to happen in therapy! I still am so conflicted as to wanting to blame her for this but then hearing her voice in my head saying that this was all my fault. And it was therapy... how could I have a bad experience in therapy? Therapy is healing... but this wasn't. But I don't feel validating or justified in saying that because it's not supposed to be that way. And now I hear her words with me day in and day out. Things she said. Her laughing at certain things and making light of them. Every day I feel worse about myself than I did before going to therapy with her. I feel just completely wrong as a person. Just bad. Not enough. Just a bitch for not being willing to share more towards the end. And the frustration of now never having the chance to make her understand how she affected me. There is more to this story where things got involved with her supervisor when I expressed my concerns about my time in therapy at this clinic... I was crying on the phone with the supervisor and she told me to "stop playing games with her" and that I "should have left." I felt like she was blaming the victim! I feel so powerless and pathetic. I've cried so much over all of this and relapsed with self-harm after having gone over 2 years without doing it. I feel so much worse off now. I am doing EMDR therapy to try to heal from this experience.
So my question is... is this something that could be even something like C-PTSD? It haunts me every day. I thinking about those painful times in class. While walking across campus. At work. In the shower. First thing when I wake up. While eating meals. Etc. And it brings back the pain every time. I think the EMDR has been helping some, thankfully. But it still hurts. I can't get certain things out of my head. I don't know. I just hate so much that I had this experience and am torn between blaming myself for being such a dumbass to have stayed so long and blaming that therapist and her supervisors for being so invalidating and not understanding and not listening.
Sorry this was long. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you.
I went to my university's psychology clinic that they use as a training facility for the graduate students in the school's Clinical Psychology Ph.D program. They provide therapy to the clinic using those graduate students under the supervision of licensed psychologists. They use "evidence-based treatments" and manualized treatment there. So basically the client comes in, they assess you for diagnoses, slap the diagnoses on you, and then apply the treatment that is regarded as the best treatment for whatever diagnosis you are working on.
I was told I needed 20 weeks of E-CBT (for a lapse of anorexia I was having... it had previously been much more severe and I was in inpatient treatment for it prior to coming to this clinic). We didn't make it more than a couple of months into this mapped out treatment because I was fighting it.. I felt trapped. Like if I strayed the slightest bit "off topic," I was pulled right back into this "schedule" of therapy. I felt like I was doing something wrong if I tried to just vent for a moment about something not completely related to anorexia.
So a couple months into the CBT (which I have had before with other therapists, but not using manualized treatment) my therapist said we were switching to DBT. Ok great. Also I was diagnosed with BPD, which is something I pretty much new I had before I was officially assessed for it. I had actually mentioned it to my therapist twice before (over text, not in person, and not as an outright question, but as part of conversations that weren't solely focused on my belief that I had BPD and would like to address it).
My therapist did not acknowledge that concern (that I brought up twice) whatsoever until a couple of months later when it just couldn't be ignored any longer. I later told her that I felt extremely hurt by her not acknowledging my bringing it up previously and asked her why... she said she brought it up to her supervisor and they didn't want to assess for it yet. I was still so hurt. This was a therapeutic concern and I felt completely ignored and not listened to. Like my voice or thoughts meant nothing. ANYWAY. We moved on (although it still hurts and is making me teary-eyed as I type this).
We had been doing DBT for a while and the way it was implemented still felt invalidating. Not quite as much as the CBT, but my god this therapist was just so inexperienced and could not validate on any more than a very superficial level. And for someone who was raised in a very invalidating environment by my parents (emotional neglect/abuse... no sexual or physical... but I had my feelings laughed at and belittled, etc, and learned to shut down and keep things to myself for fear of my feelings being invalidated in some way), this was like a reminder of my past.
My psychiatrist suggested that there was some transference going on... seeing my therapist as my mother, who was also invalidating to me. This did resonate with me, and looking back it definitely makes sense. This therapist was just so quick to jump to problem solving... like all she ever saw were the things that I was doing wrong (maladaptive behavior, for example, or distorted thoughts)... and when I would bring this up to her, she would respond with something like, "my telling you that your thoughts around the situation are irrational is not the same as me saying that your thoughts/feelings are invalid or wrong." Which, once again, I interpreted as me doing something wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. I'm wrong for thinking I'm wrong. But I still feeling wrong. But no, that's wrong too. I shouldn't feel that way. It's this horrid pattern of thinking that I'm left with now that I'm always wrong. Nothing I do or say is valid.
One day I was so f*cking done with it all that I told her I was leaving. So I did. It lasted for about 3 days because I became so incredibly distressed after that. depressed and angry... I didn't know why I was so dysphoric during that time between when I left and then later called her and told her I want to come back to therapy with her, but now I believe it's because I never got her to understand, and my leaving meant that I would never be understood (until I went back of course... then at least I had a hope of letting my communication get through to her and for her to see my pain and not just my maladaptive behavior). So I went back and it was the same shit of course. But I became more and more closed off and unwilling to share things and be vulnerable (because it was such an invalidating environment... I was protecting myself!).
So a couple months later she says to me one day, "you haven't really been vulnerable with me." Un-f*cking-believable!, I'm thinking. I had, earlier on, shared with her some very, very personal things that to me felt very vulnerable to share. But she couldn't see that. She couldn't see that it was so hard for me to share those things. Once again, it was incredibly invalidating. I even told her that... that I felt invalidated by her telling me that I hadn't really been vulnerable with her. She still didn't get it. She just wanted more. But I was not going to open up to her like that again if she was just going to keep invalidating me. I was so so hurt. And I still am. It's like I had shared these things with her that were precious and personal to me, and she treated them as if they were nothing. And not enough. Another common theme for me... not being enough.
So next session she walks in with termination papers and says I'm being transferred out. We had one more session 3 weeks later to close things out. I was almost as distressed and dysphoric after she told me we were done as I was when I had left a couple months back. Why? It doesn't seem to make sense that I would be so upset about leaving an invalidating environment. But I was. Again, it's complicated and related to transference and unresolved child shit and whatnot. So at our very last session, I told her I went home and cried for 2 days after she told me she was transferring me out. She chuckled and said "aw." As if my intense distress was nothing. Nothing. She never could see the pain that I, as someone with BPD, felt. She just saw something that was wrong and jumped straight into what could be done to change the thoughts/behaviors. Not realizing or acknowledging or validating the fact that behind those behaviors were overwhelming emotions of pain and hurt and anger and frustration that debilitated me. And the message she sent to me over and over and over again was "here's what you're doing wrong." As if all of this was my fault. I felt (and still do feel) that I was just a piece of shit who wasn't willing to change until I felt validated. I could go on and on. There were things she said to me that she didn't realize hurt. I would try to tell her but it just wouldn't go through. She just came right back at me with a DBT skill that I could use, or how I should've given her my feedback in the form of a DBT interpersonal effectiveness script.
So basically it was a year-long relationship of lots of "little" (although they hurt me immensely) things that were said to me (or not said to me). And it was like reliving my childhood with my parents. But worse. It's one thing for it to happen with your parents. But it's not supposed to happen in therapy! I still am so conflicted as to wanting to blame her for this but then hearing her voice in my head saying that this was all my fault. And it was therapy... how could I have a bad experience in therapy? Therapy is healing... but this wasn't. But I don't feel validating or justified in saying that because it's not supposed to be that way. And now I hear her words with me day in and day out. Things she said. Her laughing at certain things and making light of them. Every day I feel worse about myself than I did before going to therapy with her. I feel just completely wrong as a person. Just bad. Not enough. Just a bitch for not being willing to share more towards the end. And the frustration of now never having the chance to make her understand how she affected me. There is more to this story where things got involved with her supervisor when I expressed my concerns about my time in therapy at this clinic... I was crying on the phone with the supervisor and she told me to "stop playing games with her" and that I "should have left." I felt like she was blaming the victim! I feel so powerless and pathetic. I've cried so much over all of this and relapsed with self-harm after having gone over 2 years without doing it. I feel so much worse off now. I am doing EMDR therapy to try to heal from this experience.
So my question is... is this something that could be even something like C-PTSD? It haunts me every day. I thinking about those painful times in class. While walking across campus. At work. In the shower. First thing when I wake up. While eating meals. Etc. And it brings back the pain every time. I think the EMDR has been helping some, thankfully. But it still hurts. I can't get certain things out of my head. I don't know. I just hate so much that I had this experience and am torn between blaming myself for being such a dumbass to have stayed so long and blaming that therapist and her supervisors for being so invalidating and not understanding and not listening.
Sorry this was long. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you.
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