The T Said I Am Frightening And I Am Affected Really Badly

[Abstract]

Just wanted to say quickly that I do totally know that everyone here is posting from a perspective of caring and and wanting the best for Riptide. Hopefully she does too.

Brat. I also do agree that in general people hop on the anti -T bandwagon before finding out more first and that that often just intensifies peoples fears or stops them engaging with the T and working out conflicts for their own sake. Sometimes when it is very obvious the T hasn't done anything wrong at all and it is likely to be the persons fears and projections taking over. Fears that they need help getting past to feel safe again.

I obviously was in a slightly different situation here as I had already followed a thread about this before this and to me there were obvious problems regardless that were wrong.

It is so important to be able to get past the distortions that we get stuck in and I imagine being told one is frightening when not behaving in a frightening way would be a very powerful push into this one for many of us. Especially those of us who are timid by nature. Doing that is not always easy and certainly wouldn't be for me but you are both right that that is what is needed to be done to move on.

Normally I am middle ground but I have to say with this one I still don't think there was anything said to indicate that something truly warranting the "frightening" label happened and everything indicating the opposite and it is that assumption which I personally would find difficult. To me it didn't feel so much about avoiding splitting and rather felt like other things were seeping in again and again but that is just me.

I don't see this T as all bad and all "black" and it is rather the way she handled the situation that I don't agree with. I would have nothing bad to say if she found herself out of depth and referred her on. The in-session behaviour isn't unforgivable at all. Deciding not to treat is not in any way a bad thing in my opinion and is often a very professional and caring thing to do. Keeping a client that someone isn't able to treat well is not. I don't see the rest of her behaviour as either caring or professional though and do see it as wrong.

No referral or follow through to ensure safety and no attempt to help the client feel OK with continuing therapy in my book. Labelling a client where there was no benefit in doing so and a lot of potential harm. Client threatens T in any way - benefit in T telling client they are frightening. Client does no threatening and was in a dissociated flashback - no benefit to client in saying they are frightening and lots of potential harm.

The next step for me in healing would be being able to have the truth acknowledged and then finding ways to get past what I am left with. Change would come with that. Not having my truth acknowledged would stop me getting to the next step but I have a bad history engaging in therapy after less than good experiences so am certainly not an example of what to do. I am treatment phobic.

I am unable to get to therapy at present and for far less than a sexually inappropriate T like you came across Muse. What has kept me most stuck is being caught in self judgements with the things that we not my fault. Being able to trust treatment after is not only about being able to trust a T and not being able to trust ourselves as an even bigger impediment to getting help. For Me.

Anyway, blabbering on way too much on this thread so I will move on.

I hope Riptide starts a new one on how to take steps to get past this and continue with treatment.

 

[Powder]

I'm sorry, Abstract, that you are dealing with this treatment phobia, too, currently. I have spent so long in that state that I feel so sad that this happens to us. I guess you understand that, too, and that's why this bad T's actions upset us so much. We all know the problem that it is so darn hard for us to go in at all. When we have retraumatizing experiencing that damage our trust in some way, it makes it that much harder to go at all and to open up next time.

I also hear you on not feeling like you "trust yourself" in some way. While I now believe that is a nuanced part of healing from trauma, involving so many layers that trust has to heal 10,000 little times in 10,000 contexts, so that I wonder if it will ever be "healed" in the past tense, even in my next incarnation, I think any healing of our self-reliance and self-trust is extraordinary and beautiful!

Trusting and Listening are two "actions" of healing that I thought would be learned in one context, but instead, I'm now seeing, are going to be life lessons I learn for a long time. They are not just external but also very internal.

My parts, even though I have only Secondary Structural Dissociation, will need to learn to trust each other and listen to one another in LOVE, even when they have vehement emotions and conflict.

It is exhausting. So I do feel that you have every right to feel this damage to trust as large and inexcusable in relation to the trust broken. I think I see that now from your perspective. Is that right?

 

[Promicarus]

o.k. This is for riptide. For what it's worth. And I realize the common opinion is likely that I haven't nearly enough actual basis, through background further details releated to the exchange, etc., in order to be able to realistically assert it with any confidence.

But that having been said, I was raised by a CIA operative, and prepared to follow in his footsteps. Head games are part and parcel, obviously. This is, in fact, the main reason that very few therapists want anything whatsoever to do with me.
Their business is head games, after all--presumably on our behalf, and expressly consistent with only our best interests, of course--but head games nonetheless. When it becomes apparent that you're a step ahead, or spotting the fakes, so to speak...well you're right out on your ear, for obvious reasons.

So my take on the above interaction between riptide and her therapist:

Riptide presented with behavior that was revelatory of an extreme degree of trauma. Heavy lifting, in other words, and work that anyone less than fully dedicated and a hard worker, is likely to try to "turf out", if possible (a medical term used amongst professionals for forcing troublesome cases off of your own roles, and onto another's, as in "they're in your turf, not mine").

But a professional therapist can't be seen to simply cite this, honestly, as their reason for dropping a patient. Not only is it technically unethical, but it's poor business practice. What are they going to tell the client in question...'I'm sorry, I'm just not used to having to actually work that hard. You're going to have to find someone else"

No. They need an excuse, a pretense. And just as with many business professionals, the most apparent solution is turn about. Blame the client, and break it off for manufactured reasons.

Therapists, of course, know that this is a strategy particularly likely to be effective with patients....as they already tend towards self-condemnation and lack of the emotional fortitude necessary to challenge authority.

So the therapist puts the ball neatly into riptide's court: "you're frightening".

Now, just as expected, riptide turns inward,in a "what's wrong with me!!!" reaction.

No matter, the important thing is that she's on the defensive, focusing on herself, rather than the tdoc, at that point.
Exactly as intended.

So when the tdoc later breaks it off--over the phone, no less, and without further recommendations for care, much less an appropriate referral (exactly the kind of behavior you'd expect from the kind of tdoc who would be both too lazy to undertake challenging cases, and to play on client's weaknesses for misdirection in order to justify it)...

...the tdoc has a ready made excuse. "You're too frightening to me" Awww....poor tdoc....she's the real victim here, huh?....and riptide of course takes the bait, again as a victim of trauma already predisposed to feelings of guilt and taking responsibility herself for her rejection, as unworthy.

The tdoc has neatly exploited an assumed weakness, guaranteeing her scot free escape, by having made the victim, herself, responsible for it. And as victims are already accustomed to assuming this, to begin with, the tdoc doesn't have to worry about riptide ever questioning the sequalae of events.

It's unfortunately all too common for docs to find a way to blame the patient for any decision to discontinue treatment.
Bad business to assume responsibility oneself, after all. Common sense.

So cheer up, riptide...at least relatively. You're not frightening (curled up on a sofa?)...you just ran into a rotten apple.

And if you hang up on it any longer, you'll be letting such types win by stealing more of your time and peace of mind.

Glad you posted, hope this can be taken as intended. I'm not a 'off the cuff' tdoc/pdoc hater by any means. But I reserve my pedestals for saints.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

@Muse,

There are many flaws in your logic. If a therapist genuinely feels threatened or has been injured, and does NOT take action, this can be seen as unethical. Therapists can't just let things slide. They are licensed and paid to do a job, not be a friend. If someone is a danger to themselves or others, it is unethical to just say "oh, I care about them and didn't want to get them into trouble so I did nothing." That's how you end up with public massacres and innocent people getting hurt.

And I speak of THERAPISTS, you know, those who are licensed by the state? Not just a friend or family member. Please don't extrapolate what I say to apply to situations beyond the scope of my original words as the reasoning falls apart.

Your earlier post gives the impression that PTSD people are violent. We are not. I feel like you're on the other side. Do you work for Fox? It's like media hoopla is being spread by an insider and I don't get it. You're perpetuating the myth that people with PTSD physically hurt others when you make such statements as therapists are often attacked.

I don't even feel like continuing the conversation as you are adamant about your stance and I wholeheartedly disagree. Most people with PTSD are not violent and do no attack or threaten their therapists.

 

[The Albatross]

"Do you work for Fox"... was that really necessary?

The fact is that PTSD is a wide spectrum of characteristics and that violence against others or ourselves is part of that spectrum. It doesn't apply to all, but it does apply to some. There is ample evidence to support this propensity for increased incidences of violence It is not a myth though it is not applicable to all of us.

 

[Powder]

Thank you to those here who understand about:

• Validating one's own and others' emotions
• Using reason and critical thinking skills to get unstuck out of pits of pure emotion
• Using imagination to think that people, (Yes, even people I don't like) must have feelings, too
• Scruples as treating people with a certain level of respect and civility no matter what
• Projection (and catching yourself doing it when it's too late to take it back)
• Caring about someone and trying to help but apparently only making things worse
• Forgiveness of self and others; grace and mercy

 

[Powder]

Riptide, I am sorry that so much tension appeared on this thread due to my posts.

 

[The Albatross]

All viewpoints are for Riptides benefit and come from a wide span of personal experience. Some more succinctly than others but hey, this is a mental health forum, eh?

 

[Promicarus]

I've been called a lot of things--but never succinct :).Lucky I found a mental health forum, I guess.