Fighting Negative Thoughts About My Therapist

[scout86]

Being dependent on someone puts me at risk. They get to know me too well and wind up finding out what my weaknesses are and exploiting them.

I've said and thought the same thing, all of my life, as far as I know. My T tells me that we are born with an instinct to trust our "caregivers", that there's survival value in that and, normally, it works. When those caregivers aren't trustworthy, we learn exactly what you stated. That trusting is bad, and dangerous, and will get you hurt. And it CAN get you hurt, no doubt about it. I made the comment to him that I appear to be learning this backwards. Most people start out thinking they can trust everyone and learn differently. I started out thinking I can't trust anybody and now I have to learn that there ARE people you can trust (at least to a point). He laughed, but I'm not sure he thought it was funny.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that I think what you're looking at here, your reaction, is a "symptom". I say that because I've seen the same "symptom" in myself and it sounds like @Jane.l has too. Your difficulty with trust is a "symptom" and working through it is part of the process to getting "better".

 

[scout86]

Having said that, I also think it's not a good idea to mess with people who have "trust issues". Thinking about it now, I'm wondering if this is so different a way of seeing the world that it's hard for a T, who's "normal" to really get what a big deal "trust" actually is.

 

[Jane.l]

Scout I could not agree more with your last post - they don't 'get it' and often they have no idea how much their actions can mess with your head - which is why Iike to point it out to my T :)

 

[desiderata310]

Wrote this but can't seem to get to a place where I can press send:


ok.
I've done myself a huge disservice by making myself trust you and being in any way dependent.
Part of me is trying to very calmly explain away that you are probably sick and this explains the repeated cancellations and lack of communication. Another much louder part of my head is screaming: RUN! This mother f*cker is going to mess you up!

I'm umm... going to just go into hiding for a while.

Hope you are feeling better soon.

 

[Jane.l]

Trust and dependency is going to come with crappy scary feelings and it will hurt sometimes but the difference is that your T won't be intentionally hurting you - it's your reaction but not his intention .

Carry on with the email - even if you don't send it

 

[scout86]

That sounds good to me, I'd send it. Totally serious! Hit send then treat yourself to whatever you want for the rest of the day, you did good!

I've been led to believe that one of the many things we need to learn is how to ask to have our needs met. That there are plenty of times when we have the right to expect it and sometimes we have to ask and that's ok. Hit send & we'll beat him up for you if he's mean! :mad:

 

[Jane.l]

@desiderata310 we crossed posts so as I was telling you to carry on with the email didn't realise you'd done it !

Well done - press send - the sooner you get it out there the sooner it can get sorted .

And I am right there if scout and I have to sort him - which we won't because actually this is how I have learnt to trust my T - by standing up for myself , giving him a bit of a hard time if I feel he has messed up - seeing that he is fine with that and sorting the issue - like scout I am learning backwards .

Press send and let it go a bit

 

[desiderata310]

Gaah! I did finally hit send.
I'm going to go crawl under a rock.

 

[Jane.l]

Yay go girl ! It will be ok no rock crawling required :hug:

 

[scout86]

Good for you! I'm 90% sure you'll be glad you did. (That extra 10% is because I have "trust issues".:bag:)

 

[KwanYingirl]

As I've been reading this thread, I kept hoping you would vocalize your feelings to your therapist. And you did!! Trust is one of the most difficult problem for someone that has PTSD. To get PTSD you have to have been betrayed, abandoned, ignored, violated. I mean the list goes on and on. And because of that, it's almost impossible to connect and trust a therapist. It's the catch 22 of PTSD. The thing that will help us learn to process and move forward require us to take that risk of dependence and trust.Yuk.

Lyme can be super debilitating. I wonder if he's having to consider a medical leave of absence? But there's no excuse for him to not communicate with you. I'm glad you sent the e-mail. It was genuine, and you have every right to express yourself.

 

[mytai]

Since everyone before me has covered the emotional side, and the dependancy side I'm going to say something that may frustrate you. I agree with most of what others have said so far, good for you for communicating your feelings with your T, it's hard but it's beneficial.

Now for the unpopular opinion... Your T has a requirement to communicate cancelled/rescheduled appointments, they aren't required to give a detailed explanation. As much as it might help you to have a detailed explanation as to why he cancelled/rescheduled each time, he isn't required to tell you the details behind it. T's have private lives too, I'm not saying that I haven't wanted a better explanation for why my T or social worker might have had to reschedule or cancel an appointment - but they don't owe me a detailed explanation, they are only required to inform me that it was cancelled or rescheduled (or make sure a secretary does it).

It sucks, and it brings up doubts and negative feelings, but try to remind yourself that your T is trying to be a support for you but they are only human, and humans make mistakes. T's aren't infallible just because they are T's, they mess up and say/do the wrong thing too sometimes. The only difference being that we hold our T's to a higher standard then everyone else.