Keep being dumped by therapists

[Divine]

Hey guys, I'm back with no progress sadly, I experienced huge amounts of malpractice and negligence at The Tavistock and Portman and they kicked me out for making a complaint and I lost my therapy because of that. I am exhausted and I am burnt out, currently speaking to a therapist over zoom from Edinburgh who healed my friend's PTSD. I've now been signed of sick with my C-ptsd by my Dr and I'm not even on an NHS waiting list for therapy. I had a crisis plan I had therapy options and they got me no where. I'm exhausted and my grandmother had just died and my mother still hasn't resolved abandoning me when I needed her help to find a therapist and now I need to go to her mother's funeral- my grandmother's whilst this is unresolved and we're not really talking. I'm livid and I'm exhausted I've been trying so so hard with therapy but feel like I'm still walking quick sand. Today I need to sign up for PIP and Sick pay (I'm self employed) I don't want to be stuck at home sick, I want a therapist who can acutally make progress with me and is able to work with confidence and competence.

I’d rather be dead than live with my c ptsd forever. After years of nhs therapy which hasn’t stopped it, having to fight for basic therapy and having therapists who refuse to take on my case because of its complexity.
What doesn’t kill you makes your life unliveable. As a single, queer woman, I'm sick of the fact that no one in the health service treats me like a survivor any more. Instead I'm expected, despite feeling suicidal most days to wait for years on waiting lists.
I'm sick of being failed by every organisation.

 

[arfie]

As a single, queer woman, I'm sick of the fact that no one in the health service treats me like a survivor any more.

politics and psychotherapy make a dangerous cocktail. i can't quite tell if you are a political activist or a survivor, either. it is possible to be both, but early into my own psychotherapy, i continually brought politics into my therapy sessions and more than one therapist/peer supporter dumped me for it. all these decades later, i have come to subscribe to the theory that i was using my political rabble rousing as a deflection tool. it was much easier to rant about social injustice than to look inward at my strictly personal psychic injuries.

i don't know if that has anything to do with your case, but. . .
i hope healing happens here, divi. i mostly wanted to offer gentle support while you sort.

 

[Movingforward10]

I remember that the approach/modality of therapy at the Tavistock didn't work for you. So is a way of re-framing it seeing it as you knew it wasn't right for you and would cause you more harm than good to continue. Rather than seeing it as them dumping you?
You weren't happy there.

Are you in a position to pay for your own therapy?
If you are, that way you get total choice in who the person is and the way in which they practice their work. You would then pick someone who works in the way you need and someone you feel will be able to help you.

Ultimately, the things we go through is trauma. We've all experienced various stuff,complex in many different ways.
But, however complex, we can heal (whatever healing means for each individual person).

(Edit to say: I'm gay and I only wanted a gay woman to by my therapist. Because of my sense of various things about what happened to me and who I am, and how I would be understood. I can't even entertain the idea of a heterosexual therapist getting it, so if being a queer single woman receiving a service from the NHS feels like barriers to overcome: is there a way for you to overcome those barriers yourself, re frame it or take positive action about it in some way?)

 

[Divine]

politics and psychotherapy make a dangerous cocktail. i can't quite tell if you are a political activist or a survivor, either. it is possible to be both, but early into my own psychotherapy, i continually brought politics into my therapy sessions and more than one therapist/peer supporter dumped me for it. all these decades later, i have come to subscribe to the theory that i was using my political rabble rousing as a deflection tool. it was much easier to rant about social injustice than to look inward at my strictly personal psychic injuries.

i don't know if that has anything to do with your case, but. . .
i hope healing happens here, divi. i mostly wanted to offer gentle support while you sort.

excuse me? I mention my sexuality and you assume that I'm obsessed with politics and not engaging with healing. This is meant to be a supporters forum not a place of discrimination. Check yourself.

I remember that the approach/modality of therapy at the Tavistock didn't work for you. So is a way of re-framing it seeing it as you knew it wasn't right for you and would cause you more harm than good to continue. Rather than seeing it as them dumping you?
You weren't happy there.

Are you in a position to pay for your own therapy?
If you are, that way you get total choice in who the person is and the way in which they practice their work. You would then pick someone who works in the way you need and someone you feel will be able to help you.

Ultimately, the things we go through is trauma. We've all experienced various stuff,complex in many different ways.
But, however complex, we can heal (whatever healing means for each individual person).

(Edit to say: I'm gay and I only wanted a gay woman to by my therapist. Because of my sense of various things about what happened to me and who I am, and how I would be understood. I can't even entertain the idea of a heterosexual therapist getting it, so if being a queer single woman receiving a service from the NHS feels like barriers to overcome: is there a way for you to overcome those barriers yourself, re frame it or take positive action about it in some way?)

Due to NHS negligence and waiting lists I was forced into private therapy in 2020 after being kicked out of NHS therapy despite the fact I was suicidal everyday. I can not afford private, its getting paid for by my dead father's pension. I just posted saying how many private therapists dumped me because they felt my case was too complicated for them to take on, so no going privated doesn't fix anything it leaves me more at risk as freelance Ts have their own concerns, and there is no overarching space to ensure I am getting to see a suitable person or getting the right support.

All of this has just ended up in me, alone, with no familial support running out of viable options.

 

[arfie]

i was speaking for my own strictly personal experience, ma'am. i was reluctant to share it here for this very reason. sorry i shared.

obviously my personal experience has nothing to do with you. increasing social distance now.

 

[Sideways]

Mod Note:
@Divine - Take what's helpful, leave the rest. For more, please spend a moment reviewing our Community Constitution.

If you would like particular types of responses to your thread, it's totally okay to set that out.

 

[Friday]

I’d rather be dead than live with my c ptsd forever.

I'm sick of being failed by every organisation

What can you do on your own?

It took me roughly 5 years to get my head unf*cked my first go-round with PTSD (no therapy, also didn’t know “this” was PTSD, I just knew I didn’t like myself, my life, etc. and set about changing things to suit myself).

Th second time around, one badass awesome amazing decade later, it’s taken me nearly twice that (with intermittant bouts of therapy, although I’d been hoping for the opposite, to cut the time in half. C’est la vie.)… but even when I’m in therapy? 90% or more of the work to be done, & what needs doing, happens outside of therapy. Whether that’s stabilization, eliminating triggers & stressors, building a life to manage my stress, recovering faster / my life being less impacted by my more annoying symptoms, etc.

Therapy can be a great short cut, at the very least saving one from having to reinvent the wheel. But bad therapy is worse than no therapy, and it’s not like PTSD just magically appeared once there was a profession that specialized in it. Trauma & the effects of trauma have existed since the dawn of time. Sure, some people just get lucky and exactly what they need, when they need it, drops in their lap; or holds their hand to walk them through it. But for the rest of us? We have to make a conscious decision to change our lives, & set about making that happen.

So…. If the organisations in your area don’t have what you need or want? Or do but are not resources you can call on for whatever reasons? What DO you need/want, & how can you start working towards those things?

 

[Divine]

Mod Note:
@Divine - Take what's helpful, leave the rest. For more, please spend a moment reviewing our Community Constitution.

If you would like particular types of responses to your thread, it's totally okay to set that out.

I really shouldn't have to say no queerphobia/ discrimination in my OP. If your CC doesn't support queer people then this isn't a safe space for us. Simple.

 

[Divine]

What can you do on your own?

It took me roughly 5 years to get my head unf*cked my first go-round with PTSD (no therapy, also didn’t know “this” was PTSD, I just knew I didn’t like myself, my life, etc. and set about changing things to suit myself).

Th second time around, one badass awesome amazing decade later, it’s taken me nearly twice that (with intermittant bouts of therapy, although I’d been hoping for the opposite, to cut the time in half. C’est la vie.)… but even when I’m in therapy? 90% or more of the work to be done, & what needs doing, happens outside of therapy. Whether that’s stabilization, eliminating triggers & stressors, building a life to manage my stress, recovering faster / my life being less impacted by my more annoying symptoms, etc.

Therapy can be a great short cut, at the very least saving one from having to reinvent the wheel. But bad therapy is worse than no therapy, and it’s not like PTSD just magically appeared once there was a profession that specialized in it. Trauma & the effects of trauma have existed since the dawn of time. Sure, some people just get lucky and exactly what they need, when they need it, drops in their lap; or holds their hand to walk them through it. But for the rest of us? We have to make a conscious decision to change our lives, & set about making that happen.

So…. If the organisations in your area don’t have what you need or want? Or do but are not resources you can call on for whatever reasons? What DO you need/want, & how can you start working towards those things?

I am literally too depressed to get out of bed + work right now. I can't do on my own. I think you're missing the point of how sick I am.
I have been trying on my own and with support for 15 years and I have wanted to die and feel exhausted most of the time throughout that.
What I want Is an actual recovery as I've already stated. I am already been working towards these things for 15 years, in and out of therapy and relationships.

 

[Survivor3]

excuse me? I mention my sexuality and you assume that I'm obsessed with politics and not engaging with healing. This is meant to be a supporters forum not a place of discrimination. Check yourself.


Due to NHS negligence and waiting lists I was forced into private therapy in 2020 after being kicked out of NHS therapy despite the fact I was suicidal everyday. I can not afford private, its getting paid for by my dead father's pension. I just posted saying how many private therapists dumped me because they felt my case was too complicated for them to take on, so no going privated doesn't fix anything it leaves me more at risk as freelance Ts have their own concerns, and there is no overarching space to ensure I am getting to see a suitable person or getting the right support.

All of this has just ended up in me, alone, with no familial support running out of viable options.

In my experience, the NHS won't take on "suicidal" patients. If your suicidal then usually they would want you to see a psychiatrist possibly for meds to stabilise you and be referred to the community mental health team.

I have a history of complex trauma, recurrant depression and anxiety and I've applied to IAPT psychological services 4 times. They have always refused help and just said I should carry on with private therapy.

 

[Friday]

I think you're missing the point of how sick I am.

Not on my radar at all, actually.

It’s not like being homeless, jobless, unable to do even the most basic things (feeding/dressing/caring ones self, interacting with others, etc.), losing weeks/months/years at a time creates fewer problems needing sorting. Nor does being highly functional mean that a person isn’t eyeballs deep in problems, often even the exact same problems, just from a different starting point or with better coping mechanisms on board.

Regardless of how well or how badly someone is doing? Problems rate sorting.

What I want Is an actual recovery as I've already stated.

What I meant was breaking that down into component pieces / what that looks like for you, so that the pieces themselves -big & little- can be worked on.

I am already been working towards these things for 15 years, in and out of therapy and relationships.

<grin> Right on! So you’ve probably got a really good series of lists going of both what’s most challenging for you (symptoms & patterns), as well as what you desire most, and difficulties in implementing those desires.

 

[joeylittle]

I am exhausted and I am burnt out, currently speaking to a therapist over zoom from Edinburgh who healed my friend's PTSD.

I know it's not great to be working over Zoom - but I'm wondering, how are things going with this resource?