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Losing my psychiatrist

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Fadeaway

MyPTSD Pro
I haven't been on for a long time, at least a year if not more. I was doing really well, and tell her I learned my psychiatrist won't be able to see After Next month due to insurance issues. FYI I have no idea why half of everything I type is underlined. I can't seem to fix it.

Anyways, I didn't think it would be so hard oh, but she's the one person in the world that I think ever truly understood me and was there for me. And I think that's what helped make me stronger. She was kind and felt safe. I know she's going to do her best to set me up with somebody that she thinks is a good fit, but it feels like such a huge loss. I know that can't be healthy right? She's a professional and I'm client. I don't feel like I'm being abandoned because I understand she has to do what's in her best interest for her career. At the same time I'm losing the only person who knows the real me.

It's brought back some issues that I thought I had already worked through. Stuff I didn't even think would be related to this. How do you grieve something like this?
 
So sorry and for what it’s worth I would would feel the same way. Grief is hard but you are not alone and so happy you came here.

I just came back here after taking a break as well. I’m so happy we have each other.
 
Thanks for coming back and sharing this challenge here. I’m in a very similar situation myself, my psychiatrist may take me back eventually, but I have to prepare that he won’t. Like you, I understand that it’s nothing personal.....but yeah, it’s a huge loss. Especially when they’re the only person who you’ve been truly open with. That’s tremendously difficult to do once, and even though I’m told it gets easier with subsequent people, it just doesn’t seem possible right now.

The questions I ask myself:
- do I need to find a new person
- can I go this without support
- what do I need support with most
- are those issues relevant to my existence

The trouble I’m having is that I can exist quite well. But I’m not ‘living’. Right now, the concept of ‘living’ is not strong enough to push me to find a new person, it’s far easier to just merely exist.

This is likely not very helpful, but it’s how it is for me currently. Maybe you feel less alone knowing someone else is going thru the same. Maybe we can track how things shift as we both go thru this.

Anyways, I get it and you’re not alone.
 
I am also losing my therapist after this week until/unless I start paying him as a coach at a later date. It was a short relationship but he was my favorite out of 15 years worth of therapists - and I was far from loyal, having more than a dozen to compare him to.

I don't like it and I don't have any good advice. Sorry. I think it will be a grief process that will get better in time. It is hard right now, though.

Best of luck with the new psychiatrist you are set up with.
 
She was kind and felt safe. I know she's going to do her best to set me up with somebody that she thinks is a good fit, but it feels like such a huge loss. I know that can't be healthy right? She's a professional and I'm client.
FWIW, I think this is an entirely normal response. In some ways, the therapist-client relationship is like any professional partnership - you build a rapport with this person, you know you can depend on them to understand you, and the project that the two of you have been working on is, well, you.

I think it's healthy to feel sad, and afraid, and even angry. Those feelings are your experience, and they aren't inappropriate to the situation.
I don't feel like I'm being abandoned because I understand she has to do what's in her best interest for her career. At the same time I'm losing the only person who knows the real me.
This is what tells me your reaction isn't out-of-scale. If you did feel that she was abandoning you, or deliberately leaving you to fend for yourself - if you weren't capable of also seeing how this is her choice to make, and it makes sense for her - then, you'd have reason to worry.

I'm glad to see you again, though I'm really sorry it's under these circumstances. I hope that you do end up building a new relationship with your next Psych. that is just as helpful and supportive as this one has been.

(When my first real psychiatrist eventually moved on, I was so scared and did not know how I was going to get through it. She and I had been through everything together. And then the next two I had both ended up leaving the practice about three months after I started with them...and then I ended up with someone I thought I would never get along with, but it turns out he's an excellent doctor for where I am, now. If I'm honest about it, he's been better for the current 'me' than my old psychiatrist would have been. Just goes to show, you never can tell how things will work out. I'm sending lots of support.)
 
I was going to begin a new thread but this seems to be an okay fit.

Tomorrow I commence with a new psychiatrist and I'm feeling all kinds of weird feelings about it. I've not had a psychiatrist for about five months now. My long term shrink retired from the job or perhaps me... I have lingering doubts lol... Anyway this guy comes highly recommended by people but they don't actually need to see him in his role as a psych., so they don't really know him in that capacity.

It just feels like I'll have to dredge up years and years of stuff that I've bolted down for better or worse. I'm not sure I will be able to tell him my history without destabilising myself all over again.

Does that mean that all of the years I've done therapy, worked hard on managing ptsd etc hasn't worked? Should I be able to chat in a objective and dispassionate way about what caused my ptsd? Does that mean I really do need to open up Pandora's box and let it all out again?

My former psych knew me so well. I could just sit in silence in front of him and he understood. He facilitated many visits to hospital and saw me through so many rough patches of my life. I've been grieving his absence for nearly half a year now and now suddenly I'm back in front of somebody new and by virtue of me not knowing anything much about him at all, no matter how hard I try, I'll be distrustful and even slightly hostile. I'll have to keep that part of myself tight because I don't want to upset him.

Due to the nature of his engagement whether I like it or not, I must see him. Aaargh! I so want to dump all of this therapy etc and live out the remainder of my life without trawling over the same old stuff. I think I've been relatively stable without treatment etc and I'm not on any psych meds anymore. I guess if I get wobbly it's handy to have one person in the whole world who knows my history. But honestly I don't want to do it.
 
Hey @Fadeaway! Missed you!

So sorry to here about loosing your PDoc. I was in that same predicament a few yrs ago. My therapist is over 65 (tho he looks to be in his 40s) and he was talking about retiring and maybe opening his own practice doing EMDR only and maybe bringing his oldest patients (been with him now over 11 yrs, seeing him weekly) to still do psychotherapy. All maybes. He has decided not to retire yet but man. He could retire at anytime. I've been with him for over a decade. No idea what I'd do. Took years just to build trust with him. An entire year of seeing him weekly just to tell him why I was really there.

That all said, while preparing myself, we did go over many tools that has been taught to me over these years. He was trying to prep me the best he can to either be without therapy (doubtful) or to learn to trust another person. Maybe your PDoc can do the same? I know it's not a lot of time but maybe they can revisit some of these tools that you guys built over the time you've been with them? You have tools. You know that.

It brought up so much abandonment issues I have too. We had to work through that too. I started to shut down and wall myself off like always when I've been abandoned as a protection mechanism but he worked through that with me. My therapist is so tuned into me and how I work. He knew I was doing that well before I did.

Either way, it's a sucky situation! It sucks, it hurts, and it's hard! I'm sorry! 🤗 (that's a hug. These new smiles look weird lol)

ETA: Ahhh! Didn't realize this was from Sept. Dummy me!
 
Met my new psych via zoom. Of course he wants to put me on some drugs... nope not doing that. He's an expert in EMDR and he wants to try that out too... been there and done that and not going back to that either. He asked me what I was like before I got ptsd - now that's a question I've never been asked by a shrink before. I had to think long and hard about that. On reflection I think I can sort of see why I was a prime candidate to suffer from ptsd in a way so that was informative for both of us.

He wants to see me monthly. Lol... sure well we'll kill the monster that way for sure. He asked me what I wanted. I could only mumble one word... support.

I think he'll be okay if he can respect my wishes. I know I'm a difficult person and a really difficult patient but still this is my life.
 
I guess my second appointment will be more telling. He'll have had to time to make notes and think. It's very hard to get to know and trust someone with monthly visits.
 
Second visit with new psych yesterday. He wanted me to talk about what happened. I told him he was a stranger and though I know he needs to get a history from me that it may have to wait till I know him better because I don't trust strangers, I don't trust people much at all and it takes me a lot of time to get to that point. I really don't know how this is going to work out. I miss my old shrink so much. I've started wondering how he's doing, what he's up to and if he's okay. I'd like to send him an email but not going down that rabbit hole.

So after several minutes of awkward silence he asked me what I do to help with my ptsd. I told him I have my dog, I swim, I care for myself and soon I may have a job. I told him how incredibly well I feel right now and how telling him about my history will unwind me really fast. I don't want to talk about that stuff anymore because nothing helped. Not drugs, not counselling, hospital, groups - nothing. So I've put it away. Then the half hour finished and I felt a rush of relief. Another appointment in six weeks or so....
 
So today was the day that I opened up and told him what happened. I felt like I was far away, a news reader pushing out the information into the space between us. I couldn't look at him and I couldn't wait for him to react. He wanted to know so I pushed through and through and through for thirty-five minutes. I didn't breathe I shut my eyes and recounted the actual facts, not the feelings, not the moments that haunt me, not the intricate details of every passing moment that changed my life completely and forever. Just what, when and how and then warned him that I didn't have the time to tell him all of it anyway.

And then I was finished and my chest/sternum felt like it would explode. I covered my face and waited for the pain to ease off. He sat there in silence with tears in his eyes, his lips pressed together in a flat line. Then he quietly acknowledged how broken I felt, how hard that was to hear. His voice was comforting but halting. He added up the years from the beginning to the end and shook his head.

He thanked me for telling him and so now he understood more and better why I am holding him away and have abandoned drugs, hospitals and treatments and keep a boundary with me on one side and the world on the other. Because it's safer that way - for everyone. Most of all he understood and acknowledged why I don't want to discuss it any more. For sure he understood why I am the way I am. How I want to improve myself but doing it the long way round. And he also understood now why I need him on my side, on my terms, in my way and that it's a slow, slow burn journey with no guarantees at all.

I had a headache after. I felt spacey in my brain. Took some pain relief for my chest and implemented a steady flow of self-care activities to come back to me. I'm still upset, still edgy, still in pain but maybe in a few days, weeks it will settle again and I will be okay.

Now he wants to see me every 2 weeks. I was flat and exhausted and agreed.
 
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