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22 replies

hugs and rejection in therapy

J joecMember
I am new here but came across an old thread searching google.

i have been in therapy & 12 step meetings on and off since 1997 for childhood sexual abuse and abandonment experiences due to my father's death as well as decisions made to have my step brother and sister leave the family never to be seen again at 6 years of age. self punishment/injury then started at age 7 associated with my first experience of sexual abusedue to the specific form the si is performed. I am now an adult man 47 yo with two grown daughters.

Please no sympathy, I have heard enough of that and it makes no difference nothing changes and it is hollow even when also being sincerely given.

After two and a half years with this second T i found the courage to ask for a hug thou telegraphed it in writings i had given her over that time. I written when things for me when i crash emotionally. The responce I received when i asked was that will never happen. Things were fragile with our theraputic relationship when a couple months earlier she told me she she had unconditional personal regard for me. I took that as she lied to me and i told her as much but i did not come out and say she was lying but got the point across.

So when she said that will never happen it triggered a crisis for me. the session lasted an extra half hour during which time the unspoken message it was time to leave and my repeated statements that it is past my allotted time were ignored. I just wanted to escape and felt shame the entire time from the moment she said what she said. I was not in love with her. I never had any sexual feelins for her. I most of the time looked forward to seeing her because it made me feel accepted. I was in a place that i believed a hug would allow me to feel acceptable to her after the series of discord i was experiencing with her.

During the crisis i called and specificly asking for help. I was in the process of preparing to self harm in an extreme manner and needed help. my needyness had damaged our relationship. i woud contact her once a week between sessions because i could not maintain object consistancy. Sorry i do not know how to express this at the moment without using the term. when she made no attempt to return my call now for the third week ina row i lost it. This time thou the si did not work to release whatever it releases. I wrote an angry letter telling her what i did. through in her face an emotional injury she shared with me. asked how can i save face since the punishment did not work. I asked what am i to do to save face. it was a very angry letter, accusational but i did not make any threats whatsoever.

She called the followind day telling me that i was being removed from her schedule for our tuesday appointment the next day, that she was making things worse for me. that she was going to consult with someone. this was left ina voicemail. It was more then i could handle and left her a message that i quit and hope she has a good life.

I later called asking for a termination session which she agreed to but later called to cancel for family reasons. i responded that i got her message and asked her to contact me with when we could schedule. i made a comment that it was good to here her not angry at me like before this happened. That probably was a mistake because she never called back and after two weeks i called again angry asking to see her and get this overwith. She did not call me after this message either.

After almost three yearsi finally learned she felt i was bipolar ii with borderline behaviours but not borderline since i do not have enough of the behaviors. I am still struggling with this. it happened in july. She is the only person i have told in detail everything.

I do not know why am writing this again. I am seeing a temporary T that i used for emdr but she is retiring in a few months and she has told me that she does not have a lot of experience with patients with my multiple complex traumas. I can talk to her to a point but i do not know.

All she needed to do is give me a hug. talk to me about her professional opinion about hugs. All i can come up with is that she behind her unconditional personal regard she was actually disgusted by me. I made her skin crawl. i am an unrecoverable perv.

sometimes i just want to die but i am not allowed to because of my daughters.
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I incognitoMember
I'm sorry that your T was so cruel in how she handled your request for a hug and then terminating you and not seeing you for a termination session. You do not deserve that. Nobody does. I know you don't want sympathy and I'm afraid that nothing I can say will make a difference but I'll try. Your T wasn't able to deal with the her feelings around you and your request for a hug produced for her. That isn't your fault it is her failure as a therapist. It was too much for her but it wouldn't be too much for all therapists.

I'm sorry that sometimes you want to die and can't because of your children. I know how that feels and I hope that you don't always feel that way. You clearly love and take care of your daughters. I hope that sharing your story on this board helps in some way.
J joecMember
Thank You. Echo you really gave me something to think about. Funny you mentioned quitting. In the two and a half years i saw her i quite many times. I most alwayed blamed myself when i quite. I am too damaged etc... etc... or Y really are disgusted by me. i am making your skn crawl. Stuff like that. She always responded coldly with statements like i respect your decision making me feel likecrap crawling back to her. I asked her to get past the words i used but she never changed how she handled them.

I did not start seeing her for trauma. I saw her because my daughter was moving to the westcoast. As I dumped on her my life story. she saw my flat affect about sexual abuse and the abandonment experiences of loss and decisions by others.

after that first session driving home i started shaking uncontrollably to the point of needing to pull over. I text her then the first time asking what is going on. It is then over time the borderline behaviors started manifesting. they were probably always there but i was so turned in on myself only bits came out here and there under stress and fear. She saw over time me unmasked and experienced me unmasked. She claims i am bipolar II with borderline features. I do not disagree mostly.
S sadlyMember
I am really sorry your T damaged you so badly and misunderstood you so badly too. some are very out of their depth.

I hope you get a much much better T next time around who understands your issues and trigger points so much better.

Personally I am relieved that my own therapist would NEVER label me. (Lots of people do, even on this forum!) I personally don't find labels helpful and the only one I can tolerate is that I have indications of symptoms of PTSD which is fair enough as I have had multiple traumas.

I too feel in terrible anguish when I need holding and it is refused. I find that intensity of pain hard to handle, and it is intense, - linking back to early abuse and abandoment. My T recognizes both that my pain is intense in that situation and also that I am NOT manipulating. I don't think you Self Harming was manipulation. You were doing something that you have previously learnt to be helpful,even though it is not a very 'good' coping strategy. I have one that is bizarre, when I feel little and hurting, i curl up against a wall and bang my head backwards on it. I think I did this from as long as I remember. I don't do that to manipulate. I do it because that is a learnt response for me, from a long time ago.

Also, when my T refused to hold me, I agonised about leaving him, for 8 whole months. Then one day he said he pulled someone's hand off his arm. I went home and fell apart with the pain of thinking that this might one day happen to me. when he next spoke to me on the phone, I did not anticipate what I was about to say so shocked myself with saying "I will not return to work with someone who can tear someone's hand off their arm when that person was obviously in distress and reaching out for comfort." And to my own astonishment, I MEANT it. oh God.

Some people here tried to say I manipulated him. Well, personally I felt I had just found a boundary, and that was my boundary. I KNEW I could not work with a man who did that to people. I was utterly fed up with his no touch rule and I knew I had reached my own personal limit on being accepting and tolerant of him and his limitations.

The only way it actually turned around was my husband and my close friend TOOK me to the scheduled session and helped me to talk about it and urged him to talk about WHY he has this rule and why even they could not understand why he could not use my language of touch to feel safe and soothed when it is obvious to all who know me that I use touch a lot to communicate. Well after a long long time of talking we reached a compromise. But it was difficult. He had to really look at what was going on for him.

So - these T's are human, they have their rules and their ideas and ideologies and they sometimes don't even know why they have them and sometimes we as clients challenge them and they knee jerk react and sometimes they just churn out the usual answer and it turns out to be just the wrong answer for that client so either the client walks or the therapist does some intense self investigation.

I am really sorry you were treated so badly by a therapist who is so clearly not the right one for you.



hugs are great
hugs have transformed my therapy.
hugs make all the difference in my work and interactions with people.
I keep away from T's who are allergic to hugs.
Smiler
They are ALLOWED to be allergic to hugs, but I personally keep away from them.
J joecMember
So when i interview my next therapist, I need to not be afraid to ask the questions about their boundaries. Not worry about their reaction to what I feel I need in a therapist. I need to not take their response as a judgment of me, a rejection of me. That is going to be difficult but I will try. I did learn when calling around looking for a therapist before that some do not want to deal with clients who have my issues. I am glad I found this site. There are so many inactive ones. I experienced in the past strong thou unreasonable feelings of rejection when my post just sit there for days and weeks rotting. So than all of you
number9number9Member
Joec,

You are indeed not alone. I am thinking that the feelings of rejection you spoke of are not so strange or unusual, well, at least I have felt something similar before. Wanting or needing acceptance, or a hug... isn't that normal for a human being? Especially when we don't receive them. Something as simple as a hug can make a huge difference.
Attachment GirlAttachment GirlAdmin
Hi Joec,

Welcome to the forums. It doesn't sound like your T handled that whole thing very well. While I have no problem with her telling you "no" about the hug, she should have been accepting of your desire for one and open to discussing the issue non-defensively. But it is difficult to tell from your description how responsibly or irresponsibly she acted. I do not like the sense I got of her "punishing" you by not returning your emails or calls after doing so on a regular basis. And it sounds like she may not have been the right T for you.

On the other hand, healing in therapy, especially for people with significant trauma is often a painful, confusing process. One of the most difficult things we need to learn are healthy boundaries. We do not have the right to DEMAND anything out of anyone. We have every right to make our needs known and ask for what we think we need, but the other person, including our therapists, is allowed to say yes or no, for reasons that are about us (they may or may not think the thing we are asking for is helpful). Other people's boundaries are just that, theirs, and say more about them then they do us. However, when we have experienced serious deprivation running into boundaries can evoke terrible pain.

I have two posts on my blog you may find helpful to read:

Why your therapist seems cruel, but really isn't
Therapy isn't enough

As for touch in therapy, it's not a cut and dried issue. There are therapist who use touch in therapy and there are therapists who do not. Their are clients that find touch helpful (many post here), and there are clients that have found the withholding of touch to be instrumental in healing (many post here). The truth is that the use of touch is for each therapeutic dyad to decide upon. If a client deems that touch is absolutely necessary, then they are very reasonable to look for a therapist who is willing to do that. But I think it is misleading to insist that touch is absolutely necessary to healing and that any therapist who does not use it is failing their clients and is a bad therapist.

I have had two therapists: one did hug and the my present one does not (he shakes hands to open and close sessions but has an across the board rule about no hug). Even though the answer was no about being held or hugged, he was more than willing to discuss this boundary, why it was his boundary and all of my feelings about wanting to be held. He validated and normalized my feelings in this area without being at all defensive while holding firm on his boundary. He recognized the deep loss that I experienced in not having a safe embrace from my father as a child. His withholding touch is what allowed me to recognize and process that loss. I don't think that would be true for everyone, but as painful as it could be, it was true for me. So I would try to keep an open mind as to whether you NEED touch or you WANT it. You know yourself and if you decide that you NEED it to heal, then find someone willing to provide it. But therapy isn't just about finding comfort, it's also about mourning our losses and growing past them.

I really liked what you said about asking questions when you're looking for a new therapist. Therapy should be a place where it's acceptable and safe to talk about anything and there's a lot good and nothing wrong about asking questions about a Ts boundaries and methonds of practice up front. I hope you are able to find a therapist who is a good match for you so that you can heal.

AG
J joecMember
unconditional positive regard.

Has anyone ever been told by their T that I have unconditional positive regard for you. Things were not going well. I was being difficult emotional not returning to normal for weeks. she than told me that. somethng snapped in me. I basicly told her she was a unique human being. Basicallyi called her a liar. From that point I began therapy interfering behaviour to get her to express the truth. That she cannot be trusted. The therapeutic relationship broke that day for me. The only point to continue was to prove it. I guess i knew what was going to happen then but still hoped She would show me I was wrong but it would take touch to convenience me i was wrong. so i finally asked for the hug. She proved to me harshly what she really hid inside what she really thought. I wonder if she really knew. She told me before I need to ask for what I want. Goes to show what happens when you leave your comfort zone. You get shit on. Kicked in the face. First rejected and then abandoned. She had the nerve to have said to me I have to let my T help me. So it is my fault things ended the way they did. All I now want to tell her to go f herself
J joecMember
Not been here for quite awhile. Been searching google about shame rejection rage ans self injury. I am still upset about this but I also see progress as a result of seeing her. It has been a year since I quit therapy with her. I si'd a few days ago again just like i have since I was 7 years old. Not because of her. I do not need a reason. I start having problems in june / july. The only year i did not i was seeing her and wanted to with her help not do it again. I became suicidel and had a plan instead. Fortunatly my two close friends became aware and interfered with the plan. I wish she understood how hurt and ashamed i felt. she obviously understood something keeping me there that extra half hour but not enough to check on me. I did not want to misrepresent what happend and did try but who knows what goes on in her head and how she procieved what happend. I can only speak from my perspective. why was i not allowed a termination session after I calmed and asked for one. Why did she not make an effort to discuss my quitting therapy. Why did she feel in her professional opinion that a voicemail was appropriate for the message she convayed to me. My quitting gave her the out to say she did not abandon me. She made sure to remind me when i asked for my records officially. I did not get my records for months. obviously this still is out there in my feelings. Funny, I would see her again if that was remotely an option which it isn't. Sometimes i want to contact her but would get instead of a conversation a restraining order for my effort.
J joecMember
On and off i make an attempt to find a new therapist. When i hit a dead end. Call but am told they don't work on my type issues. I stop trying. I went to an initial meeting and learn a close relative works in my office. I stop trying for a bit. Again another first session and again I am told after sharing about myself that we are not a good fit due to lack of experience in my area of problems. I have to wait until next week to try to get an appointment with another therapist.

I mostly wrote a letter to the therapist I spoke of here but every time i read it I can see the words she wrote describing me as manipulative or I see the anger between the words when i went off into a tangent unrelated to what it is i am trying to say. I have had no contact with her outside of getting my records. All I can see if I was to mail it is a restraining order even thou the letter is an apology.

I am starting to recognize I have a pattern of self harm every year some time in july. I had a journal covering the last four years where I see it as a repeating pattern. I have only memories of the many many times before starting at 7 years old. I just wish I could ask her to take me back but it would be humiliating to me when she said no or worse.

I am just still down from my recent episode of attacking myself a few weeks ago. All she had to do was hug me and tell me things are getting better and that I could not see it at the moment. Everytime I share my story I get these deer in a headlight look. I am so tired of hearing the bs about how much of a survivor I am when I become so driven to harm myself by repeating what was done to me 40 plus years ago. sorry just whiney tonight. I just want to give up somtimes but that is the cymbalta withdrawal. I will return to my stoic self once the brain zapping and dizziness passes.
professorsnapeprofessorsnapeMember
Joec, Welcome back to the forum. We are very similar, I am bipolar II, have borderline personality, I am a 12 stepper, suffered abuse, was a cutter in my youth, and I have ADD, and the list goes on and on and so forth. Plus, my first two Ts were lousy. What worked for me was a I found a GREAT psychiatrist. He diagnosed me, put me on the correct meds for my bipolar, and he recommended a T for me. My T and my pyhc. work together on my treatment. I have been with my psych. for ten years. He is a blessing in my life. Therapists are not as qualified as a psychiatrist, who is a medical doctor, to diagnose mental illness. My example is my first T thought I only had major depression, WRONG. Forget looking for a new T and work with a psychiatrist, be sure and look for one that doesn't just prescribe pills. If that is all they want to do find another psych. My T doesn't do hugs or regular phone calls. She will now not return my texts. There are a few reasons for the no text rule and I am cool with that now. Do not self destruct over the T that hurt you. Not all Ts are good Ts. I didn't do therapy for years despite my psych. asking me to because of the first two Ts. My second T actually called me a bitch. Can you believe that! I love my current T.
Here is a hug from me.

quote:
Originally posted by joec:
On and off i make an attempt to find a new therapist. .
J joecMember
I have been thinking / obsessing lately. I wrote an apology letter explaining what the ruptures were and why i engaged in tib actions I know I said things earlier in this thread true in my perspective at the time. I was incapable of experiencing unconditional positive regard. I said from anyone other than my daughters and my dog. I could not hold on. I belived at the time that the only escape from my fears and stop tib was feeling physically positive acceptance. I was wrong and I just wish I knew ahead of time. I could not contain my feelings of self loathng and attacked myself. I am sorry if i scared her. Hopefully she will take the letter on face value. She tried and I tried. She did help in Important areas. I am a bit afraid sending the letter but hope she accepts why. I did not ask for any response but hope there is not a negative one.
J joecMember
I dropped it off in her office mail slot sunday when I know it was closed. Yes I probably shoud not of done that but It is done. I do not know why i felt the need. Became like a train. It has now left me searching google like i did when i was in therapy. It was an apology letter also sharing what positive outcome because of her help in specifics. Probably just pissed her off. I hope that is the extent of it. no current t. every time I try like I said previously I just fail. Maybe had to do with this ongoing failure to find a T willing to see me more then once. Maybe there will be internet privileges.
True NorthTrue NorthCo-moderator
joec... I do understand the need for contact with a T when you are abruptly terminated. I was too and it took a long while for those feelings and the need to see him to calm down. I am concerned though that she will take some further action against you because she misunderstands your intentions and then you will be hurt again. I am very sorry for your pain. I have been there and I know how hard this is.

My story was two years ago now. I am doing much better. I have a wonderful T who is experienced and knowledgeable in my issues. I will tell you that I saw 4 other T's (some for as long as ten sessions) to find my current T. You have to do some checking into their qualifications before making appointments so save yourself time, money and anguish. Did you know that most T's will offer a ten minute phone interview before you make an appointment with them? I began to do this because I was running low on money and it was very helpful in ruling out some unqualified Ts for my issues. My current T spoke to me for 15 minutes and then we both decided it was worth an in person session and it worked out well since then. I knew he was the ONE from the questions I asked him on the phone.

I suggest you read the first post on this thread as a guide of what to ask when looking for a new T. Please keep posting as I do think it's helpful to keep talking about this.

TN
J joecMember
I do not think she will do anything. It has been over a year. I did not wricconte anything negative / threatening. She being a person first and a therapists second can read into things that are not there. I did not ask to comeback or even hint at it. That say being a therapist she is going to like anyone read into it and draw her own conclusions and assumptions. . Her feelings not mine. I am seeing another therapies on thursday. next thursday. I am thinking about calling the therapist I saw temporarly to help me handle the break. I believe she did not agree with the way things theway they happend.

I will make that call to day.
J joecMember
I see her Thursday. Keep thinking do I really want to do this to myself again. At some point they get frustrated once I open up. Bad enough I scare them away when the real hurt is expressed. Get told terms i never heard of but sound like trust m. Anger them. Told I am a minefield. Told they can fix me"paraphrasing" because they are superior therapist. Told I am at fault for therapy failing because i would not let her help me.. That 6 weeks is what is alloted to med management. I am asking for too much. I have a year to submit billing. I warned her. Wanted to trust her. tested her statement and let the litte ask permission that may be on the otherside of a boundary only to be harshly responded to for asking. I was told If i want need i should speak up and ask in life. I just do not know right now.

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