My Therapist Totally Just Traumatized Me

[Leah123]

She replied, and she said there was nothing more she could say than originally, that if I calmed down, I'd see her points.

She wouldn't reply to what I said, to all the second points I made, she just left.
I wanna kill myself- I have to go out, tonight, with my husband, but I don't want to. I just want to be dead. I don't know what to do.

 

[safenow]

Leah,

I want you to take some deep, cleansing breathes. Keep doing it for a few minutes. Open your front door and stick your head outside. Breathe in and allow yourself to calm down. You will be all right.

Hug your hubby, and know that you are loved.
safenow

 

[Abstract]

Leah,
I don't think your therapist is going to be able to hear what this means to you right now and I actually think it can be unhelpful to try to get that when we are still very triggered.

Maybe rather write out your feelings and do lots of self care like Safenow said. Let things settle a bit.

I think the most likely way she will get this is if you do a very short and unemotional explanation about triggers and how she has affected your means of coping with this stuff.

If you are feeling very unheard then maybe read this thread again. You are not alone and people understand here. You can work this out.

I am stomping on the picture, shredded it :ninja:and have now set it alight and obliterated it. Its deleted. The picture that is there is the one you made with your husband. A loving space for the two of you which is far away from anything else.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Yet another example of a therapist who thinks they're RIGHT and can't admit that perhaps she said/did the wrong thing....oh, if you were calm you'd be able to understand?!? What crap! I hate these therapists with such feelings of superiority! Not to mention this is so condescending....oh, if you were calm you could understand?!? Not exactly.

I don't care who you are. Incest is taboo across cultures. I think anyone's stomach would turn at the thought of their father/mother/brother/sister being in bed with them, even if they don't have an incest history.

I don't think this therapist is a good fit for you. A good trauma therapist won't tell you that your abuser is in bed with you every time you sleep with someone else. Heck, I'd go so far as to report her.

 

[Leah123]

I am stomping on the picture, shredded it :ninja:and have now set it alight and obliterated it. Its deleted. The picture that is there is the one you made with your husband. A loving space for the two of you which is far away from anything else.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

 

[Powder]

Leah,
This T. is not worth one of you. I'd rather keep you around. :) Don't let her ruin your weekend; she's not worth it.
You have the right to feel anything you want based on her actions, and maybe, just maybe, she will learn from her mistakes later on. That is good that you told her she was wrong.

Muse

 

[Leah123]

This is what I told her- it's the best I could do, because my original email I sent was sooooo long and upset.

"I have so much to say, that I know you'll never be able to deal with it. You will miss points and notice redundancies, etc. in my original post.

So let me say that, basically, I hear you making a lot of excuses, that somehow, you're trying to justify putting my father and my husband in bed together with talk about fixing my anger that I misdirect at XXXXXXXX, improving my sex life with my husband, and getting rid of my coping mechanisms of compartmentalization and others.

I could write 1,000 words, perhaps I already have, and not maybe get you to understand, what it's like to be me, what it's like to be triggered, what it's like to have that worst-possible-case scenario/nightmare in my head. You have defiled my personal, sacred space, that I have painstakingly created around my husband and our life together. You have blatantly ignored and trampled through my valuable defenses, which I took down to show you something that I really wanted help with.

I am deeply deeply hurt. There is no point you could have made to justify the ugly image. It's very cruel to me, I feel, for you to hurt me so, and tell me it was in my own best interest, to defend it as trying to help my daughter.

I am begging you to reconsider your explanation. What you did could not possibly have helped me with XXXXXXX or XXXXXX. I do not believe those sentences were anywhere near the best you are capable of, and I am praying I am right, and that you will make this right."

 

[Powder]

Many of us have similar experiences. You are not alone. We've almost all had some very unproductive setbacks with some really terrible therapy. My very first lost his Medical license for seducing his under-age clients. Really creepy guy. Sometimes, I think it's up to us with trauma to clean house. It takes a survivor to call out those not worthy to call themselves therapists.

Thanks for processing her for the rest of us. You took one for the team. That's how I view these people now.

(((HUGS Leah, Hero of the weekend!))) Muse

 

[Abstract]

Abstract, can you explain what you mean about CBT not being helpful and actually making things worse?

I am no expert Muse and know little about cognitive psychology but from what I know it is about internal mental functions (covers a broad spectrum of things) whereas behaviourism is focused on behaviour that can be seen and noted. So I am assuming the name CBT came about as it deals with a combination of two.

Back to what I know more about (which is my own personal experiences and take on CBT) and I would describe CBT as essentially looking at distortions or problematic, thoughts/cognitions, emotions and behaviours and how they affect our well-being but mostly how to change them. Its a bit like, "your thinking is wrong - change your thinking".

CBT is often done by talking about concepts and then doing homework etc. But it can also be used in the general way a therapist does talk therapy. There would be less listening and open questions and more challenges and suggestions. It's usually very practical.

What I have found is that CBT therapists are often quite forceful and "I know what is best" ish or "you are wrong" ish and because I found it near impossible to connect to what I felt or thought and felt threatened very easily that didn't help me. All my years of CBT made me more disconnected from myself and I never got better. And because I was so extremely disconnected from myself I did not even realise that I found it problematic. There was barely any connection between feelings and events for me. The approach also seemed to set off my self hatred issues more intensely. I guess I have found CBT concepts helpful in a sense at times but have not found CBT therapists helpful. And I have always been quite good at looking at logic and other perspectives so it was not that necessary anyway.

That whole thing of barrelling through the sensitive parts that Leah describes in this thread is what sounded a little CBT ish to me. The use of the shovel! Unfortunately she did it at the same time as making an error in judgement. If it is an approach that isn't helpful for someone then I think that the barrelling is problematic enough when the insights are accurate and useful but when they are wrong and unhelpful then....

To balance this I will say that many, many people are helped by CBT. If you look around on here there are a lot of people who love it. The majority. So I guess I am always careful not to vilify it. I strongly believe that different things work for different people and don't want to dismiss something just because it doesn't work for me. Some people also really need it. They have great trouble having any view outside their distortions of even considering that there may be one and that can greatly harm them.

I don't know if I have answered what you wanted to know or not. Sorry about the clumsy language. A little disjointed at present.

 

[Pencil]

I couldn't agree with you more Muse.

My therapist made 2 mistakes, but she apologized, and I still think she is way beyond wonderful. There is a huge difference between normal rupture and repair, and putting a dirty foot in it. And I think these useless therapists can do a lot of harm, but I think, if handled soberly with justified anger, it will help us out the victim mode that is so much part of PTSD.

Give her hell, Leah, and please don't let this incident push you deeper into victim mode (and please don't read the last statement wrong - as criticism, or as patronizing).

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

I've been reading through this thread and it sums up very accurately how difficult this is for you and how understood it is for those who have PTSD, whether they have been abused or not. The fact that others on this thread understand, means it is not just you and we all see that what your therapist has done is the very at least a terrible, terrible mistake - with a horribly wrong approach. Whether meant or not to be harming (and I believe that it was not meant to harm), the harm has been done and as a your therapist their job is to put you at ease no matter who caused your pain. Have you though about giving you T a link to this thread so they can see really from an external view how this has, is and will continue to affect you and maybe, just maybe see that they've made a mistake?

 

[Pencil]

as a your therapist their job is to put you at ease no matter who caused your pain

I agree. My therapist even apologized to me for MY stupidity. And when happened, it made it very easy for me to start claiming my own behavior, as I was anxious to make her understand that she hadn't done anything wrong.

To add:

I once left a session in a very angry, upset and confused state. She sent me an e-mail saying it was clear that I was upset, and that she was sorry for anything she had done to cause that. She didn't even know what was going on, and yet she apologized.

Your therapist's defensiveness really bothers me.