Hi everybody,
I'm new here. So thank you for your generosity in reading this.
I've had a brutal couple of weeks. I've been very sick (physically ill and in a lot of physical pain) with a new, debilitating illness. The children's home where I've been volunteering for over a decade shut its doors. One of my best friends lost her father, unexpectedly, and I've been literally dragging myself to be with her. For the past few weeks, I've been unable to drive to my therapy appointment, an 80-minute drive each way, because I am sick. For me, getting bad health news is a bad trigger (I'm a survivor of several bad medical mistakes that have left me disabled). It doesn't matter what the bad health news is, it makes me feel suicidal. Because I was having suicidal thoughts and generally struggling, my counselor offered to call me to check in once or twice a week until I was well enough to travel again.
He made the first call, and then missed the next two. This brought up flashbacks for me of very bad situations from childhood in which I was forgotten and neglected. It added a lot of pain to what was already a painful situation. I confronted him after the second call, sent an email that said, "did you forget?" And he replied that he did forget, and he apologized.
I was ready to talk this through and try to deal with it with him, but he got defensive and said he was doing the best he could and that I essentially lacked appreciation for his good intentions. My point: if the actions don't match up with the intentions, they not only don't honor the intentions, but they hurt people. I was hurt. He didn't get why it was such a big deal that he forgot to call when I was very ill and in crisis. There was one other time during the time that I saw him that I had a little bit of anger about something he did, and he threatened to abandon (terminate) me, and I had to apologize profusely to keep the relationship going. I'm ashamed to admit that but at the time I was really vulnerable and scared to be without a counselor. This time around, I felt that he should have been reaching out to me and trying to help me work through what came up. He wasn't interested in that, so I fired him. I'm really upset about it because I've been going to this guy for eight months, trying to work on things that are deep and unspoken. He does great work except when he screws up, at which point he gets defensive and I just couldn't take his defensiveness on top of my emotional pain. I feel sad a about losing the good aspects of our relationship. But he obviously couldn't deal well with me getting triggered, and I can't help getting triggered. I just wanted for him to fully hear my pain and despair. But I could tell he was angry with me for being upset with him.
Was I wrong to have such a strong reaction to being forgotten while I was in crisis? What would you all have done? Would you fire a therapist who forgets to call you when you're in crisis? I've been crying and second-guessing myself all day.
Thanks for listening.
I'm new here. So thank you for your generosity in reading this.
I've had a brutal couple of weeks. I've been very sick (physically ill and in a lot of physical pain) with a new, debilitating illness. The children's home where I've been volunteering for over a decade shut its doors. One of my best friends lost her father, unexpectedly, and I've been literally dragging myself to be with her. For the past few weeks, I've been unable to drive to my therapy appointment, an 80-minute drive each way, because I am sick. For me, getting bad health news is a bad trigger (I'm a survivor of several bad medical mistakes that have left me disabled). It doesn't matter what the bad health news is, it makes me feel suicidal. Because I was having suicidal thoughts and generally struggling, my counselor offered to call me to check in once or twice a week until I was well enough to travel again.
He made the first call, and then missed the next two. This brought up flashbacks for me of very bad situations from childhood in which I was forgotten and neglected. It added a lot of pain to what was already a painful situation. I confronted him after the second call, sent an email that said, "did you forget?" And he replied that he did forget, and he apologized.
I was ready to talk this through and try to deal with it with him, but he got defensive and said he was doing the best he could and that I essentially lacked appreciation for his good intentions. My point: if the actions don't match up with the intentions, they not only don't honor the intentions, but they hurt people. I was hurt. He didn't get why it was such a big deal that he forgot to call when I was very ill and in crisis. There was one other time during the time that I saw him that I had a little bit of anger about something he did, and he threatened to abandon (terminate) me, and I had to apologize profusely to keep the relationship going. I'm ashamed to admit that but at the time I was really vulnerable and scared to be without a counselor. This time around, I felt that he should have been reaching out to me and trying to help me work through what came up. He wasn't interested in that, so I fired him. I'm really upset about it because I've been going to this guy for eight months, trying to work on things that are deep and unspoken. He does great work except when he screws up, at which point he gets defensive and I just couldn't take his defensiveness on top of my emotional pain. I feel sad a about losing the good aspects of our relationship. But he obviously couldn't deal well with me getting triggered, and I can't help getting triggered. I just wanted for him to fully hear my pain and despair. But I could tell he was angry with me for being upset with him.
Was I wrong to have such a strong reaction to being forgotten while I was in crisis? What would you all have done? Would you fire a therapist who forgets to call you when you're in crisis? I've been crying and second-guessing myself all day.
Thanks for listening.
