T
Therapist issues
I've had issues with therapy and therapists in the past and really speaking I can see why a lot of people avoid help. I know all of you will understand just how hard opening up can be. I think it raises red flags when you know what's wrong with you long before your therapist and psychiatrist do. I was put on the affected disorders spectrum a few months ago with depression, anxiety and more specifically, borderline personality, obsessive compulsive, and PTSD. I'm 21 and have been having flashbacks for most of my life, I find it quite weird that I only officially got diagnosed with PTSD this year and was only put under the diagnosis process after my overdose last year.
My overdose took place November 30th 2013, I was comatose for a few days and woke up just before my birthday. When I woke up I was scarred all over with burns from the bleach on my breasts and arms and had burnt my mouth and throat which made speaking painful. They made me speak to an emergency psychiatrist who put me down as low risk. The first thing she said to me when I walked in was, "So it says here you drank bleach. Why?" I replied saying I wanted to die. She replied with, "You know that won't actually kill you, right?" No, I drank it for fun, obviously (sarcasm). "So you drank bleach because your boyfriend broke up with you?" I said, "Not just that." She tutted and rolled her eyes. I was reassessed when I got back home as my doctor disagreed with her observations and put me down as medium-high and referred me back to crisis team who put me on the waiting list for CBT. Bearing in mind they knew I was suicidal, this assessment took place in December and I didn't actually start CBT until late October (21st I think). I had to wait 10 months and just white knuckle it.
The therapist I have now has raised a few concerns for the following reasons:
1. He didn't actually seem to know why I was there to begin with and kept saying to pick something I wanted to work on. When you have a lot of problems, it's hard to narrow it down. He recognised I had OCD and liked structure, but would ask me this every session, we didn't have any system or consistency whatsoever. Yet if I bring something up that's bothering me, he won't talk about it because "we need to concentrate on one thing"...
2. Despite me telling him about my flashbacks, he didn't recognise I had any trauma until 6 weeks into therapy.
3. He talks to me like I'm an idiot. And spends a hell of a lot of time talking about himself - like about how he's struggling to quit smoking.
4. I don't feel I can talk about most of my traumas to him. This is because last time I brought up my sexual abuse, he said he was obliged to tell his supervisor and call the authorities. But not to worry about it because if the police speak to me 'I can just deny it'. How am I meant to process things that I can't talk about? I'm 21 anyway, why can't I talk about them?
5. He won't talk about my diagnosis. I had to really fight just to find out what my diagnosis was. Even though I explained I feel really uncomfortable not knowing.
6. I feel like I'm constantly being underestimated. In January they stopped my antidepressants cold turkey because they were having a zombie effect on me and didn't replace them with anything else despite the fact I had no other help in those ten months I had to wait. When my therapist finally thought to send me to a psychiatrist (7 weeks into therapy), they put me on quetiapine (an anti-psychotic, even though I don't have psychosis) and a really, really small dosage at that, and buspirone - again, low dosage. They're having NO effect... at all. And no one's listening. My anxiety is getting ridiculous and they've admitted they're just playing around with the meds until they find something.
7. My OCD holds in a lot of my traumas. It took them about 6 weeks to realise I had trauma (despite me repeatedly telling them...) and yet they decided to try and work on my OCD first without targetting the trauma. They only stopped this when I snapped, big time and they realised.
8. My therapist then decided targetting the trauma would be a good idea. What we were meant to be doing is give an outline of events of one trauma, the next week would talk about the trauma step by step, eyes open, in past tense, then the next week the same thing but in present tense and we'd go through ways of how to cope with the flashbacks. He didn't leave the subject of my little brother though, and picked at it. This made a suppressed memory resurface and I went into a flashback (midway through he tried getting me to stand up).
9. The week after the point above happened, he said that he doesn't feel he has the capacity to see me through the trauma as it is more deep rooted than he expected (again, despite me telling him) and is referring me to trauma therapy a couple of cities away. This referral will take a few months. In the meantime we were going to concentrate sessions on 'being kind to myself'. I broke down a little because all that week I'd been a wreck with the new memory and didn't know how to cope because he hadn't taught me how. He told me to meditate. One of the side effects of this memory resurfacing is that my short term memory and attention span have been greatly affected. I can't meditate. So again, I'm left to white knuckle it.
10. He admits he hasn't read my file, "because he likes to go in fresh without any assumptions." This has caused so many problems. I watched my brother jump under a train when I was two and as a result, I'm terrified of trains. I don't drive, the only way to get to the city he's referred me to is to get the train. This is well documented in my file. I told him this and he's referred me anyway and said the journey there and back itself will be therapeutic. So, I'll be getting on a train which will make me stressed, going into therapy which will be inducing flashba cks, anxiety will be really high, and getting a train back. Not to mention I have NEVER been to this city and that's terrifying in itself.
11. The lead up to me being diagnosed with PTSD, he kept telling me that I had to let go of the past and that I was just ruminating. I told him so many times I couldn't help it, the flashbacks were triggered, I wasn't actively trying to go over it again and again. And yeah... Because he wrote me off as ruminating, he told me to stop writing. I am a writer. I study Creative Writing at university. I don't talk about what's wrong, writing is the only thing I can do to get these stupid thoughts and memories out of my head. Just... What?
So yeah... I really just wanted an opinion. My two best friends are psychologists, and have watched me go downhill since I began therapy. There's other things he's done and said but these are the only ones I can call to mind in my sleep deprived state. My friends really want me to submit a complaint. And I'm actually quite scared that in two weeks time it'll be months until I receive any help again and I'm really struggling with the memory he unearthed.
My overdose took place November 30th 2013, I was comatose for a few days and woke up just before my birthday. When I woke up I was scarred all over with burns from the bleach on my breasts and arms and had burnt my mouth and throat which made speaking painful. They made me speak to an emergency psychiatrist who put me down as low risk. The first thing she said to me when I walked in was, "So it says here you drank bleach. Why?" I replied saying I wanted to die. She replied with, "You know that won't actually kill you, right?" No, I drank it for fun, obviously (sarcasm). "So you drank bleach because your boyfriend broke up with you?" I said, "Not just that." She tutted and rolled her eyes. I was reassessed when I got back home as my doctor disagreed with her observations and put me down as medium-high and referred me back to crisis team who put me on the waiting list for CBT. Bearing in mind they knew I was suicidal, this assessment took place in December and I didn't actually start CBT until late October (21st I think). I had to wait 10 months and just white knuckle it.
The therapist I have now has raised a few concerns for the following reasons:
1. He didn't actually seem to know why I was there to begin with and kept saying to pick something I wanted to work on. When you have a lot of problems, it's hard to narrow it down. He recognised I had OCD and liked structure, but would ask me this every session, we didn't have any system or consistency whatsoever. Yet if I bring something up that's bothering me, he won't talk about it because "we need to concentrate on one thing"...
2. Despite me telling him about my flashbacks, he didn't recognise I had any trauma until 6 weeks into therapy.
3. He talks to me like I'm an idiot. And spends a hell of a lot of time talking about himself - like about how he's struggling to quit smoking.
4. I don't feel I can talk about most of my traumas to him. This is because last time I brought up my sexual abuse, he said he was obliged to tell his supervisor and call the authorities. But not to worry about it because if the police speak to me 'I can just deny it'. How am I meant to process things that I can't talk about? I'm 21 anyway, why can't I talk about them?
5. He won't talk about my diagnosis. I had to really fight just to find out what my diagnosis was. Even though I explained I feel really uncomfortable not knowing.
6. I feel like I'm constantly being underestimated. In January they stopped my antidepressants cold turkey because they were having a zombie effect on me and didn't replace them with anything else despite the fact I had no other help in those ten months I had to wait. When my therapist finally thought to send me to a psychiatrist (7 weeks into therapy), they put me on quetiapine (an anti-psychotic, even though I don't have psychosis) and a really, really small dosage at that, and buspirone - again, low dosage. They're having NO effect... at all. And no one's listening. My anxiety is getting ridiculous and they've admitted they're just playing around with the meds until they find something.
7. My OCD holds in a lot of my traumas. It took them about 6 weeks to realise I had trauma (despite me repeatedly telling them...) and yet they decided to try and work on my OCD first without targetting the trauma. They only stopped this when I snapped, big time and they realised.
8. My therapist then decided targetting the trauma would be a good idea. What we were meant to be doing is give an outline of events of one trauma, the next week would talk about the trauma step by step, eyes open, in past tense, then the next week the same thing but in present tense and we'd go through ways of how to cope with the flashbacks. He didn't leave the subject of my little brother though, and picked at it. This made a suppressed memory resurface and I went into a flashback (midway through he tried getting me to stand up).
9. The week after the point above happened, he said that he doesn't feel he has the capacity to see me through the trauma as it is more deep rooted than he expected (again, despite me telling him) and is referring me to trauma therapy a couple of cities away. This referral will take a few months. In the meantime we were going to concentrate sessions on 'being kind to myself'. I broke down a little because all that week I'd been a wreck with the new memory and didn't know how to cope because he hadn't taught me how. He told me to meditate. One of the side effects of this memory resurfacing is that my short term memory and attention span have been greatly affected. I can't meditate. So again, I'm left to white knuckle it.
10. He admits he hasn't read my file, "because he likes to go in fresh without any assumptions." This has caused so many problems. I watched my brother jump under a train when I was two and as a result, I'm terrified of trains. I don't drive, the only way to get to the city he's referred me to is to get the train. This is well documented in my file. I told him this and he's referred me anyway and said the journey there and back itself will be therapeutic. So, I'll be getting on a train which will make me stressed, going into therapy which will be inducing flashba cks, anxiety will be really high, and getting a train back. Not to mention I have NEVER been to this city and that's terrifying in itself.
11. The lead up to me being diagnosed with PTSD, he kept telling me that I had to let go of the past and that I was just ruminating. I told him so many times I couldn't help it, the flashbacks were triggered, I wasn't actively trying to go over it again and again. And yeah... Because he wrote me off as ruminating, he told me to stop writing. I am a writer. I study Creative Writing at university. I don't talk about what's wrong, writing is the only thing I can do to get these stupid thoughts and memories out of my head. Just... What?
So yeah... I really just wanted an opinion. My two best friends are psychologists, and have watched me go downhill since I began therapy. There's other things he's done and said but these are the only ones I can call to mind in my sleep deprived state. My friends really want me to submit a complaint. And I'm actually quite scared that in two weeks time it'll be months until I receive any help again and I'm really struggling with the memory he unearthed.
