• We are a multilingual website again. Read the notice about this.
  • Understand AI use at MyPTSD: all AI use is explained in our AI help page. AI use is by choice here. It exists if you want it, but does nothing unless you choose to use it.

therapist gone for 5 weeks

Status
Not open for further replies.
This makes total sense.

This is totally unnecessary, though. It’s enough that their schedule doesn’t work for your needs. It really doesn’t matter if it works for anyone else’s needs.

As an example, my fav trauma therapist of all time is gone, on average, 3 or 4 times a year for 2-6 weeks. Sometimes as long as 12 weeks. Why? He does the kind of work I used to, in a different capacity, in disaster response. He does acute trauma counseling to people in natural disasters, wars, genocide, etc. Both the victims and the relief workers. Then he also takes quite a few personal vacations to keep his own head right. Home stateside, he’s booked solid with first responders, prior service military, and the like. He’s a phenom trauma therapist for many reasons, not the least of which that he actually practices what he preaches. He takes care of himself. And we could see that. First hand. We could watch him transitioning back (first couple weeks back “home” he’d be in transition mode). We could watch him gearing up to go, at the same time as he was setting us up for his absence. He was really f*cking amazing. And? Quite frankly, his times away were super useful for me. Because it created space to allow things to settle. Dig in deep, process through, settle. The clients he had? Like me? Were ones who dug his schedule.

That’s part of finding a good trauma therapist... someone whose schedule you get on with.

It doesn’t matter if everyone else loves/hates their schedule, or no one else. The only person it matters about, is you.

this is very helpful perspective. you are right that it's really about individual needs. i know that my distress at the moment is not a reflection on him, and realistically i would never scold him like this for his professional decisions. i am not super attached to him but i do have some parental abandonment issues that may be exacerbating the issue, due to my father attempting suicide several times and the adults in my life kind of dropping the ball in the aftermath of the first time it happened, leaving me to fend for myself in a way, and i think this distress (both the panic and feeling left alone with it) may be evoking that distress. distress memory. if that makes sense.
 
Nope, you're not. I had a therapist who started my trauma therapy, but instead of teaching me to depend on myself, he went out of his way to get me to depend on him. I am so glad he left. I hope you do find a therapist who is able to work within your needs.

oh no. can you elaborate on how he did this? this is my first time in therapy and i really don’t know what makes a ‘good’ therapist. i’m just trying to trust him though i really do wish he didn’t go away for so long since without care i can’t really do anything with these memories but try to ignore them :(
 
I was given the choice of a substitute T for long breaks but I take so long to open up and am mistrusting it wouldn’t have been helpful. What I did find helpful was making a plan w my therapist as to what I was going to do while she was gone (email check ins, even if she didn’t respond, having a routine, etc). I also had her write something down for me that I could hang on to. I know I’m weird. I found that keeping busy and trusting myself even though I was terrified helped me, I used all my coping skills, even the weird ones like watching horror movies and playing a game online. I didn’t force myself to go out w people but I definitely did open up more to other people on my support team and just did my best. This probably isn’t very helpful but I can understand the anxiety you feel. Take good care of yourself.
 
I was given the choice of a substitute T for long breaks but I take so long to open up and am mistrusting it wouldn’t have been helpful. What I did find helpful was making a plan w my therapist as to what I was going to do while she was gone (email check ins, even if she didn’t respond, having a routine, etc). I also had her write something down for me that I could hang on to. I know I’m weird. I found that keeping busy and trusting myself even though I was terrified helped me, I used all my coping skills, even the weird ones like watching horror movies and playing a game online. I didn’t force myself to go out w people but I definitely did open up more to other people on my support team and just did my best. This probably isn’t very helpful but I can understand the anxiety you feel. Take good care of yourself.

it still feels like so much time is left. weeks left. i also have a hard time opening up so i’m basically just talking with her about my current anxiety problems but it feels like i’m in a holding pattern and i have so many obstacles at work to cross in these weeks. i do love horror movies tho! always nice to meet someone who likes them since so many people don’t understand them or why i like them.
 
it still feels like so much time is left. weeks left. i also have a hard time opening up so i’m basically just talking with her about my current anxiety problems but it feels like i’m in a holding pattern and i have so many obstacles at work to cross in these weeks. i do love horror movies tho! always nice to meet someone who likes them since so many people don’t understand them or why i like them.

sub therapist pushed me a little today to talk about the past in a vague way because i think she’s trying to figure me out and now i feel worse. i don’t know why i just can’t say no or assert myself and just say, i would rather just get some advice because digging into my past even on the surface level is too much right now, and with you. it’s like, we barely even talked about anything specific and i’m not angry with her but even just being reminded of things and having to vocalize “i don’t want to talk about that” agitated me. or talking about bad stuff in general, like my dysfunctional family, agitated me. i hate my life.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Donation drives

2026 Donation Goal

Goal
$1,800.00
Earned
$910.00
This donation drive ends in
0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds
  50.6%

Trending content

Featured content

Back
Top Bottom