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Conflict avoidance / leaving therapy

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@Friday thank you for your long and thoughtful reply. I am thinking about the cost/risk analysis you did and this is how it feels to me:
Telling her and leaving: risk of being invalidated and gaslit, risk of internalizing that, risk of carrying it forward until I can heal it .Possible gain of having it validated but very unlikely given my past experience with therapists and others in general.
Telling her and staying: risk of of being invalidated and gaslit, risk of abusive inner voice kicking me into submissive state so I can stay in therapy regardless of the invalidation, risk of that leading to depressed mood and low self esteem as is a pattern. Brain is not computing potential gain in this situation.
Not telling her and leaving: gain of getting it across that xyz behaviour is not okay with me, no risk of invalidation (safety yay!!) , risk of losing otherwise helpful resource.
This is pretty much my approach to life and relationships at the moment sadly.
 
@Friday
Thank you for the second part of your msg as well. That is definitely something I do. I think part of my response in this situation as well, but maybe not the biggest part. I think will only be able to analyse this when I am calmer.
 
((Unless you’re doing the passive-aggressive manipulation game of threatening to leave so they can beg you to stay, so you can air your grievances, so -if and only if- they fall over themselves begging you to stay to the “right” depth/humbling/groveling/have been punished enough, will you do what you want and stay. <<< This is a super common thing for a lot of people coming out of certain kinds of abuse. Because it’s how they’ve been taught to get what they want. Can’t just ask directly. Instead there’s this complicated/convoluted dance that has to be performed, first, so what you want -to air your grievances AND feel valued- is hidden / tucked away safe and sound under mountains of bullshit & control, where you’re doing someone else a favor by doing what you want to do, with them on their back foot.

This is so helpful, @Friday. Thank you for posting.
 
I have her WhatsApp. It's a potential route, but it's very distressing for me to wait for replies, and I'm not feeling good enough to put myself through that.

Sometimes when I get like this I try and find somebody who can do “the thing” for me. Also to return the favor, when I see something that is easy for me to do, but somebody can’t, I’ll offer to do it. It helps me be able to keep asking for help.

Do you need somebody who can copy and paste something for you into WhatsApp, and then wait for the reply? They don’t have to be immediately with you so you don’t feel the wait. They don’t even have to tell you when they will do it, and that’s something you can ask of them when you ask for the help.

Waiting for things scares me, too. There’s no shame in working around the things that make us feel worse. But if this therapist has helped you, I feel like you owe it to you both to try and hold up your end of the relationship and communicate with them. Any way you can. And to help them in the future, maybe you should let them know you wished they asked for a reason. It was another chance for them to throw you a life raft that you feel like they missed.

I know that when I want somebody to see how badly I feel at times, and they don’t, I feel let down. I think “what do I need to do to show them, because they don’t see and that’s not okay.” But if I left my T, it would hurt me more than it helped.
You did a good job asking for help. Do not stop.
 
You can still work through the abandonment issues without talking about it with your therapist, because therapy "brings" up the emotions you felt and experienced during the trauma. You can talk to yourself about this, because the therapist most likely did not "Do" anything to cause you feelings of abandonment, but you are having those feelings. Your therapist can't read your mind or know your hidden emotions. If you don't want to risk this therapist having their feelings hurt (trust me on this one--therapist get their feelings hurt) you can write to yourself in a journal and do a deep dive and ask yourself when did you feel this way in the past, and who do you think the therapist is representing to you right now. Then feel all the feels and think all the thoughts, take care of yourself, and keep going to next "trigger" brings up more crap.

If your therapist is someone who understand and works with transference, then you have it golden, and you can "have at it" with your therapist and discuss who the T represents etc.

I think in the therapy we can make the mistake thinking that the "therapist" is supposed to do the work for us, when we have to do our own work. Getting upset and feeling abandoned is part of the work of therapy, and the goal is to accept it, integrate, and "grow up" and I don't mean "grow up" in a negative, shameful way. It's the work of therapy to work it out, heal and grow.

Feeling abandoned sucks.
 
@Muttly I don't know, I pick up the message that someone is upset if they withdraw. Most people don't but I really don't understand how, unless they purposely ignore it. So it makes sense to my mind.

@Rab87 thank you for your very thoughtful reply. I agree, I am feeling at a loss of how to communicate and really struggle to create openings. I have a person in mind who I can ask to msg on my behalf. My therapist also checked in so that gave me a bit of opening and some hope for the dynamic. Will either reply or ask my friend to reply to T.

@hithere makes sense. I am thinking of at least going for at least one more session. I will bring it up with her if I decide to continue. Thank you for the reply ❤
 
@PandaPower Let's look at the real risk here...
1. You tell her she hurt you by saying x,y,z and she invalidates you and you leave feeling like shit.
2. You leave without telling her how you feel, what you are thinking and that perpetuates the shame and you leave feeling like shit.
3. You tell her, she invalidates you, you empower yourself through your voice and leave with a clear understanding she wasn't a good fit for you and you leave feeling good you stuck up for yourself.
4. You tell her, she listens, you have a great conversation and she explains how abandonment works, tells you she cares and you leave empowered and feeling good about your good choices and clear voice.

So those are basically the only things that can happen. I would pick from the last 2 because both scenarios leave you feeling good about your voice and your choices. Good luck... Hope you are able to work it out.
 
It is so easy to intellectualize your situation sitting on my bench here but I also have had experiences where I had to leave therapies due to similar pain and deep shame only (except one) to realize, hmmm so that is what it was. I think you, and only you, know what is happening here. all of us are looking from the outside. There is so much messages, nuance, and factors missing that your body and mind have access and experience of.

I think what I learned in my own journey, and I get that everything is subjective is, the reason I left precisely is the theme/feeling/affect/ that I needed to work on and cause it was so painful as if a person literally asked me to put my hand on hot stove and said hold it, it will eventually cool off. I left cause it was that painful so I can somewhat relate to your pain though all yet different.

The only thing that worked for me was by verbalizing and acknowledging my pain and its shame of recognition, I moved on to the next therapist and worked on that and so on.

I think no matter what you do, you will do the right thing for your own, specific, unique journey. No matter what you do.

All I can say, I am glad you recognize something and you acknowledge your feeling and you have the audacity to say no! and do what is best for you at any given moment. Even leaving a therapy is therapy itself. We all experience loss and gains. So like I said, whatever you do, you do it for you.
 
It seems like you really want her to know, loud and clear, through your actions, instead of words, that what she did crossed a line for you.

Your current plan of quitting and not communicating comes with an assumption she has an ability to read unspoken thoughts in your mind.

I don't know, I pick up the message that someone is upset if they withdraw. Most people don't but I really don't understand how, unless they purposely ignore it. So it makes sense to my mind.
I withdraw for many reasons other than being upset with someone. It really bothers me personally when someone assumes that my withdrawing is because I'm upset with them. It's rarely the case for me.

There are so many possible reasons why a client could quit therapy suddenly, many of them having nothing to do with being upset with the therapist. She could wonder if you ran out of funds to pay for the work, if you were triggered, if you were afraid to go further, if you had a schedule change, if you had an emergency in your life, if symptoms improved, etc.

Maybe it's time to try something new?
 
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