((((CHEZZA)))))

First of all let me say how sorry I am. I don't know much about moving forward but I think it involves talking about it with your new therapist over and over until you get some clarity and hopefully closure. My heart goes out to you.

Thank you Liese, I appreciate your support. My grievance is the unethical way she ended the counseling relationship, she could simply have said she no longer can help me followed by an ending process; there’s a difference between healthy and unhealthy endings. The woman has no shame.

Chezza... I am very sorry this happened to you. I had a very unhealthy, abusive, abrupt ending with my oldT. It was a traumatic abandonment by him and it caused me to have PTSD. I saw 5 T's before finding my current T. It took six weeks and lots of pain and anguish. The road back has been hellish and full of twists and potholes. What happened with my oldT still (3.5 years later) contaminates my therapy and my relationship with my T.

If you want to read about my experiences you can look back on this forum (Stories and Personal Accounts) to August of 2010 when I was abandoned and there are a lot of threads about my struggle back from the PTSD.

This happens more than T's would like to acknowledge or admit and 99% of them handle it very badly and cause a lot of harm to their patients. The loss of an attachment figure so abruptly causes terrible pain and anguish.

I am glad you found someone who seems helpful and ethical. I found that I needed to talk about the experience over and over and over again until it lost some of it's power over me.

Good luck and keep posting. That also helped me a lot.

TN

Thanks TN, I am truly sorry the way your ex-T treated you such behaviour has to be illegal, abusive? Did you report him? I am still too shocked to process what happened to me. I am between making excuses for ex-C like something may have happened that day; she was triggered etc. etc. then on the other hand I remember she’s been practicing for 16-years so had something happened for her she’d have dealt with it professionally. I cannot get my head around the shear spitefulness in how she dealt with it, it’s not like our sessions were argumentative, in fact they were going really well up until then! She said we had an impasse and added we can no longer work together due to miscommunication based on the fact I wasn’t prepared to be fobbed off about something she clearly said and denied and expected me to move on from it but I dared to disagree with her. Enough will tell more soon

TN did you try to make excuses for you ex-T to justify his appalling behavior towards you? My Ex-C lives 2 minutes by car from where I live so at some stage our paths will cross and I know I’ll be able to look her in the eyes. The horrible thing is I’ve recommended her to several organisations and I hope with all my heart they haven’t referred clients to her.
I have read many of your posts and felt your jubilations and heartaches; I will go back and read your experiences of traumatic abandonment with oldT. I am so please you found someone you could work through your abrupt ending with but saddened you’re still affected by this in your present day therapy.

I personally don’t want ex-C’s incident to block my path going forward but I recognise I need to make sense of what happened and in what way I may have been involved, if anything at all. I am open and not beyond learning about my flaws.

I have noticed these last two weeks how back to my old self I’ve become including my sense of humour, feeling relaxed and making arrangements to see family and friends again which I started closing down on over a year ago. My family and friends have mentioned it to. I was rarely contained between counseling sessions and felt totally inadequate and miserable. A part of me wants to abandon therapy all together! I have my next session tomorrow and am open to seeing her.

Thank you TN
Chezza

Today’s 1st session with new T was relaxed and thought-provoking (it wasn’t without its tears though!) and I was surprised when on occasions she used my name, that’s a first! New T is interactive which suits me much better. I was even told when it was the last 5 minutes of the session which is helpful. This T works with Mindfulness which I’m sure will help me between sessions. I have the same time slot I had before so no upheaval there. I follow the same route as ex-C and was so very grateful I drove past her turning today. I’m feeling confident and open to work with New T.

Chezza

Glad it went well for you - sounds really promising