Sorry the death of someones baby ruined your birth experience

[Fadeaway]

I posted this in another thread but the more I think about it, the more upset I am.

I am writing a letter to her telling her why I am terminating therapy. Would it be over the top to include "I am so terribly sorry that a woman crying because she lost her baby while you were in c-section post ruined your birth experience. Sarcasm intended. Learn some empathy."? I am 75/25 on this. Or is it out of line.

I think my last therapist was so blantently abusive that it was hard to miss the signs with this one. Little things that added up over time.

 

[Gs172003]

I posted this in another thread but the more I think about it, the more upset I am.

I am writing a letter to her telling her why I am terminating therapy. Would it be over the top to include "I am so terribly sorry that a woman crying because she lost her baby while you were in c-section post ruined your birth experience. Sarcasm intended. Learn some empathy."? I am 75/25 on this. Or is it out of line.

I think my last therapist was so blantently abusive that it was hard to miss the signs with this one. Little things that added up over time.

Why on Earth is that woman a therapist?

 

[Fadeaway]

@Zoogal this is only her partime gig, she teaches psych at the university and runs the grief and loss support group. She claims to only take on a few hand selected clients.

 

[Ronin]

I almost had a reply, until you said this:

and runs the grief and loss support group.

.... No words.

(Is that kind of conduct something that would interest either her supervisors, or her licensing body?)

 

[Gs172003]

@Zoogal this is only her partime gig, she teaches psych at the university and runs the grief and loss support group. She claims to only take on a few hand selected clients.

Good Lord that's scary

 

[Fadeaway]

@Ronin I am not sure, And I already filed one complaint against a therapist in the practice, but she was much, much worse than this one.

I have had several therapists over the years, one of my earliest therapists could be considered bad, but for the most part I have had good experiences. ?

 

[grit]

First and foremost, without the full story what you wrote here sounds absolutely terrifying that it is about your therapist. I believe you had a negative experience with this therapist. I want to add that your experience is your experience and the fact you are still angry about her in some situation that you were not present says those words or that story touched a nerve for you! I honestly hope you focus why this story touched you so deeply, so injustice, so raw for you rather than how bad the therapist reacted or felt about that person. Switching the frame that way and making it about your feelings and your take on this story is more important but also much harder than focusing on her and raging on her and punishing her by shaming her, and by showing her you know she is not a good person or therapist.

Did you ever feel those feelings in the past?

You will write a letter while you are raging and angry and out of body experience and solely focused on her and then eventually, you will calm down, feel grounded, get back into your body and may feel completely different. You may feel so much empathy and sadness for the other person. You may wonder if your therapist was saying those words while she was dysregulated (let us not assume all therapists are gods with no issues of their own), or that maybe you were feeling down and touched by this story much harder than it may have otherwise…million different ways.

In short, by writing and being sarcasm and trying to shame her says more about your state of mind than hers. If you would have said something right there and then when the conversation was going, would have been more satisfying. Now it just seems petty and revengeful and you are trying to hurt her.

Because she was/is your therapist, I would say, personally, I would not be surprised if you are in transference and displacing some real hurt and anger from the past. That does not mean she is gold. It means she had similar way of approaching you and you are ready to defend yourself, but you are not there anymore. You can see her and calmly explain that story was not called for and you felt offended and hurt and you felt empathizing with the other person than her. Talking like this to her would probably hurt her (in a twisted way) than you write a letter and it all comes down to ya! Fadeway is dysregulated again. No. Fadeaway did not agree with this stupid story and she can tell you verbally and calmly without losing her ground. But if you are losing your ground, then that is an indication, this story touched you deeply and that is OK too.

 

[Justmehere]

What Is the goal of your letter? Is it to vent? Get your feelings out? Persuade? Encourage her to think differently? Shut the door to ever going back? End treatment but still have a cha get to see someone new down the road at the clinic?

If it’s to vent, go ahead. If you want to take her snark and dish it back, by all means.

If you want to persuade, you will get further with what you are upset she won’t do: Empathize. Validate. State something positive. Then state what was not ok with you. Use “I” statements. Ex: “When you... I feel... therefore I’m setting this boundary (ending therapy) to take care of me.” Humans take feedback a lot better when there is some tiny empathy and when someone uses I statements to explain a boundary (like terminating treatment.)

“I can understand you probably wanted the birth of your baby to be a happy occasion. I understand being close to unexpected grief in a hospital was upsetting to you. Maybe next time you could re-frame it as an opportunity to be all the more grateful for the life you walked away holding and not vent about the incident to clients. When you remarked about it to me, I felt less confident in your ability to empathize with loss.”

Really, I can see someone being legit upset in their private life about being so close to such deep grief at what is otherwise a happy event, especially if it is a part of one’s job. Grief work part time or full time is hella heavy. It’s not right she brought it into the space she did... but that’s a whole other thing.

Ultimately, you have to decide if it’s worth the time. Since she sees you as borderline and manipulative when you do something like go over on time, even when she said she would manage that, and there are no clicks for you to watch in office... what could happen is that she will take the very act of a detailed letter venting about her as another way to bend boundaries and have communication outside of session and interpret it as more push/pulling, not legit concerns (and you do have legit concerns.) I’m not saying you shouldn’t send the letter, but to think through your goals first and her history of not taking feedback from you well.

You also have to decide if you want to have a written record of being snarky with her on file at her clinic. You never know, she could be gone in a year, and you may want to go back to see someone new there. It will be a lot easier to do that if the letter from you on file was very simple and clear that you are not returning to therapy at this time. You don’t really need to explain why. It might feel good in the short run to do so, but it could be problematic over the long run.

You may get the same satisfaction in writing “do not send letters” where you can be really honest about all you feel, and then burning them. Not making a long lasting medical record of them.

If you are seeking for others to be able to see there was a clear problem, then I’d especially encourage you leave the sarcasm out and keep the letter super professional and objective in listing problems.