Therapist Terminated Due To Trust Issues

[lostforgottensoul]

It is nice to know that we don't leave our therapist's minds as soon as we leave the building, that just as we think of them

It is, though if my therapist thought of me as often as I thought of him that would be creepy lol. Though I am very suprised at how many details my therapist retains. There have been a few occasions that ive had to remind him of something, a few times. But he has also had some books there waiting for our sessions and writings he has found. So that tells me he doesn't just forget when I walk out. Though, that sort of makes me sad as I am positive i have caused a few sleepless nights for him.

now I feel guilty again :-( Not only have I upset my therapist, I have also possibly damaged her ability to work with others.

Don't as I am positive you haven't caused her to not be able to work with other clients. If that's the case then she is getting way too close to patients.

 

[joeylittle]

is it really wrong to admit that I DO feel ashamed, regret my actions, wish I could turn back the clock, sad that I hurt someone who cares for me BUT I don't feel the need to punish myself for it?

No - that's not wrong at all. That's a solid step in the right direction. I'm sad that DBT isn't as commonly offered over there as it is here, because it would really help you mitigate all those negative self-judgements as well. But you do not need to continue the cycle of self-harm in order to prove that you know you have done something 'bad'.

It hurts to know that even with careful consideration, she'd still decided she couldn't forgive me or learn to trust me in time... the feeling of dislike must have been intense. I just hope I haven't caused any counter-transference issues for her. :-( - now I feel guilty again :-( Not only have I upset my therapist, I have also possibly damaged her ability to work with others. :-(

I hope this is helpful, and not hurtful - but you are making it about you, and honestly, it's more likely about her. It's not a question of her deciding whether or not she could forgive you - it's a question of whether or not she could handle you case going forward, having experienced whatever she did as a reaction to what you did. 'Trust' is a catchall word for some big things, but for a therapist, it's not an emotional concept, and it's not like they stay whole and healthy while we are always the sick ones. For whatever reason, she believes she cannot work with you anymore. That doesn't mean you are unforgivable. It means, something happened that she doesn't know how to navigate, as a therapist. She actually did the right thing by letting you go. Had she stayed on with you, she'd likely have been giving you compromised care.

I know it doesn't feel that way, but maybe looking at it a little differently helps. Think of it like the difference between types of surgeons. All surgeons can perform surgery, but spinal surgeons specialize in spines. If I was being seeing by a gastro-surgeon for a stomach issue, and they discovered that I had a spinal problem that would be impacted by their work, even if I was super-comfortable with them, they would be right to tell me they weren't the best person for the job. Ok, it's a sloppy analogy, but this isn't much different.

Anyway, this has become really long winded and a total mind dump, so I will leave it there. Sorry for the boredom folks!

Mind dumps are good. Reading what you've written, I think you're doing some very good reflecting on what has happened. Sometimes it's the big mistakes we make that end up teaching us the most. I know for the times I've wanted to 'undo' my actions, ultimately I end up realizing that I'd not go back and have it not happen. I made the choice I made, and it caused a thing. I learned a lot about myself in dealing with the consequence, and that's never altogether a bad thing.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I agree with @lostforgottensoul and @Justmehere

You keep blaming yourself for what happened, you should stop doing that, remember that you are an human being like her and you have needs.

From what you described your therapist was unprofessional in how she approached this. It's clear she made a decision and dumped it on you without any preparation, a good therapist would have shifted the sessions towards addressing the issue that caused her to decide this, and preparing you for transitioning to someone who is more suited or skilled in your needs which she clearly was not skilled in dealing with, and most therapists would have referred you to someone who meets your needs.

So again I say stop blaming yourself, you were let down by a therapist who did not look after your interests.

So where does that leave you, well you need to move on and find a therapist who is very qualified, both in PTSD, and in cognitive behavioral therapy (able to deal with BPD). I have had such a therapist and she opened the door for me 20 years ago, enough that with a recent hospitalization I am at a point where I can even talk about abuse, plus she was able to change some of my BPD thinking so I improved from where I was.

 

[GMW]

I think you're right in some ways, recoveringfromptsd. If it were purely a case that my case was one she could no longer handle then what you suggested would be an appropriate course of action. However, suffice it to say I made therapy with her impossible from the start. It was me. I set it up so she was ALWAYS going to do this. I did a lot of reflecting last night... I've done nothing but for the last 8 days but last night there was like fireworks going off in my brain "EUREKA!" moments all over the place. I know what I did and why now, clearly.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy in essence. I am terrified both of success and failure. What you have to understand about me is due to my strict Christian upbringing (raised by a mother who was Brethren (women wore skirts to church, stayed silent and covered their hair... THAT kind of strict)) and the abuse, I am hard-wired to people please, to be a timid, humble, selfless, giving girl who never says no and has zero boundaries and who puts everyone else first. When I succeed, SOMEONE always gets upset. Even when I got pregnant, both my sister and sister-in-law were upset, they could NOT be happy for me, such was their jealousy and I felt awful for that. I almost wanted to give them the baby just to stop them hating me. I HATE upsetting people because rejection/abandonment quickly follows. I do not like being elevated above others. I will hide my success if I do better than someone else and just cheer them on, constantly. When I fail, I feel awful too. So what do I do? Nothing, that's what. Or I quit before I have gotten anywhere. In the case of therapy, I went into it for someone else, so I was not motivated to do it right. So, like I said, I set myself up for failure. Sabotaged it from the start. My T had no chance. I knew what would happen, I have done it at least 2 other times in therapy. Only rather than just walk away when I realised what I'd done, I did something that would cause HER to end it (confessed all) because then it was on her. "She chose to end it, not me" mentality (even though I caused her to end it).

I ensured from the word go that my relationship with her would never work and I did so in a way that whenever she got too close to the truth, I COULD end it catastrophically and ensure I never had a chance at reconciliation. And I did it very very soon after she suggested Inner Child work. My mind went "NOOOOOOOO, not going there!!! Can't do that!! TOO CLOSE, TOO MUCH, NO I CAN'T" Less than 2 weeks after this... that's when I destroyed it all, pulled the pin on the hand grenade I'd carried into therapy every session with me and threw it at her. She was too close and the safety mechanism I'd carried around to enable me to end it whenever I like was deployed to full effect.

Why did I run so spectacularly from IC work? Because it was explained to me that IC work is all about healing the shame and guilt that is not mine to bear. But it's all I've ever known. I FEAR admitting/acknowledging I am not to blame, I am TERRIFIED of admitting I deserved better because I am so completely afraid of the rejection that will come with admitting I'm OK. Rejection, more abuse... bullying. It was "ha ha look at the fat/ugly/stupid/pathetic waste of space trying to convince herself she's ok.. you're not, get used to it!" it was constant. Believing I was not to blame, not deserving of abuse feels like vanity. Vanity is not a trait I am supposed to have. Vanity is elevating myself above others. Vanity = rejection.

And there's something else... if I didn't deserve it, what would that mean? It could lead to anger, it could make me bitter and twisted. I'd become trapped in a world of hate. If I hate myself, that's OK. I am in control of how I punish myself for that (never giving myself a chance at properly healing in therapy for a start, self-harm, lack of self-care, making myself very ill by not taking my pills etc). If I hate others... if I blame others, not only do I open up the nuclear bomb that can be my angry, hateful, nasty side that I keep locked down or turn inwards, but I potentially lose control. What if instead of punishing myself, I start punishing others? Even those who don't deserve it? If I deserved better but never got it, not only am I now opening up anger, I'm opening up intense... grief? Loss? It is something intensely sad. Something I am very very cut up about. Something that aches.

I am terrified of my emotions. That's clear. I'm terrified of them all, so I shut them down (think this is BPD stuff?) I am either overwhelmed and obsessing about my emotions or I am empty and numb. I pushed my therapist as hard and as roughly away as possible because she was the first one I could see therapy being a success with. She gave me hope. I can't bear that. It's dangerous. I'm sick of having hope then having the rug pulled out from under me.

Of course, all of this was unconsciously done. I only know what I've done and why AFTER the event. I even think the etter I sent to her this week was actually a massive "I'm so sorry, I totally understand where you're coming from and why you did it... PLEASE don't hate me!" because even though she's abandoned and rejected me (again my fault, but that IS what's happened) it would be easier to bear if I felt she didn't dislike me. I was thinking the other day about what it would be like if she suddenly changed her mind and I realise that even though I still like her, I can't trust her anymore. Did I ever trust her? I don't know. I felt like I did. But now it would be almost impossible to get over. I can like her but know she is not the right therapist for me anymore. I can appreciate all she has done without wishing to return to therapy with her. I can remember her kindness without trusting her. I understand it all, I have compassion and empathy for the position I put her in so I can like her but not want to engage with her anymore. I hope she feels the same about me. I hope she understands that I didn't do it as a personal attack on her, I hope she realises that I'm ill, that my behaviour was born of that and so I hope she doesn't hate me. I appreciate she can't trust me anymore but I hope she can find it in her heart to understand and have an ounce of compassion for me. I wish I had the chance to ask her. I hope she understands from that letter that's what I was really asking for... reassurance that despite it all, she doesn't hate me. If she gives me the name of someone she trusts to help me, then I will take that to mean she doesn't hate me. I don't know what I'll do if she either doesn't respond or declines my request, both indicators (in my mind) that she really doesn't like me.

So while you are right in some ways... under different circumstances she could and should have handled it differently but under the circumstances I threw at her, I ensured she had no chance to do that. It was my fault entirely, not hers. She had experience in dealing with BPD clients... perhaps none like me before, she once told me that the manipulative, stigmatised side of BPD was one she did not see in me and hadn't seen it in other BPD clients... so either she was being kind because telling me the truth would hurt me and wreck her chances of working with me OR she genuinely had never encountered a BPD client with such neurotic tendencies as me who could so easily wreck relationships (even professional ones) beyond repair. I hope it was the first, otherwise I may have ruined her experience of lovely Borderlines all behaving nicely and never putting a foot wrong in therapy.

I'm also seeing a great divide amongst how therapists work in the US to how they work in the UK. Some of you seem to have relationships with your Ts that seem to almost straddle the professional/personal divide. I find myself reading some posts and going "that's a bit of a dodgy thing for a therapist to do... boundaries crossed there, surely?!" sometimes. I've been to 14 different therapists and NEVER experienced that. They have ALWAYS been professional, yes they are kind, gentle, compassionate, containing but maybe in the UK professional therapists have tighter boundaries? I'm about to make a national level sweeping statement and I'm very aware of that, but this is my experience... us British do tend to be more reserved with emotion than what the US are (stiff upper lip and all that). So maybe while a US therapist would treat this situation one way, a UK therapist might treat it very differently? Just a thought as to why others here seem to believe she did the wrong thing and I don't think she did. At all.

I'm not getting my back up by the way, it's so nice that people want to join my side, but I remain loyal to her because she was the best therapist I ever had and therefore, I don't really want to hear a bad word said about her. She helped me an awful lot, in just 4 months. For that she will always have my loyalty and respect. Therefore, there are no sides... I'm on hers. I know what I did was wrong. She is in the right. I'm not against her in the slightest.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

@GMW I can related to be terrified of emotions and shutting down. The later is AVOIDANCE. In ptsd its a common way of dealing with pain, when I was in SP they locked me out of my room (at my request) so I could not shut down, it forced me to learn to cope other ways like grounding, visualizing my safe place, containment, etc.

On the issue of not being cooperative from the start, I can related to that too, I have 50 plus hospitalizations that all reflect me not engaging in therapy or with peers or staff because of my trust issues. And the records from those hospitalizations often have nothing good to say about me, because i was depending instead of trying.

I talked about this just 2 days ago with my T, her words "you were not read then now you are", what she was responding to was my expressing how vulnerable I felt with not keeping my walls up and protecting my comfort zone. I can related to where you are, I have been there, and now I am more scared about it all , more so than I was all those years and hospitalizations.

 

[Friday]

When someone says they're at fault for something, I generally do them the respect of believing them, until proven wrong; and I can think of a few dozen things you might have done which would justly rate both a "Mea culpa, my fault... I made a mistake, I completely own it, and I'm learning from it." as well as an instant termination of the professional relationship. From physical assault to stalking to credible threats, to really several dozen possibilities. It's not a short list. So if you say it's your fault? I believe you.

That said, it's also fairly common in trauma-land to take blame for things that are not ours. For a lot of different reasons. For myself it's 1) largely a control issue. If it's my fault? I can fix it. Failing that, I can learn from it. (Not true/factual. On either count. Not everything can be fixed, nor learned from. But it's a core belief thing that I have to carefully evaluate when I'm taking the blame for anything.). 2) Nestled right alongside that core belief it's also part coping mechanism for combatting helplessness (also a cognitive distortion); as if it isn't mine to fix? It's someone else f*cking up? I have no power over that. I can make shit my fault that happened 5,000 miles away a year ago. Logically, that's probably not my fault (although it may be). It's one of the constant checks I have to place on myself, and failing my own judgement, get reality checks from others. Which runs face first into trust issues. :wtf: Joy. And that's even before we jump into 3) accepting blame in order to be protecting others. Either actually themselves, or my view of them, because I'm too black & white to accept grey right now, and their memory needs protecting (and I can throw myself under the bus quite cheerfully in order to do that). Point is, fault can get complicated.

So if you say what you did was wrong, and how she handled everything was absolutely correct / no sides as you're on hers? I flat out 100% believe you. Being able to accept responsibility, without writhing in blame? Is huge. It's just also something to be careful of, in not taking responsibility for things that are not our own.

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

I suspect your therapist did you a favor.

What she did, in effect, was tell you you'd crossed a line, and that when people in her life cross that line, she cuts them loose. This was important feedback for you; I suspect it was meant to imply that "you should know, most people won't stand for such behavior". This is remarkably important feedback for any client, but most especially for a borderline client. She wants this to be a learning experience.

Kudos for receiving her message in a positive mature fashion, and then moving on to look at 'your part' of what happened. I'm generally impressed with how you have presented the situation here.