Take a deep breath, AH. You are in a really difficult transition in your life right now, and self-loathing won't help the situation. Of course you're going to be easily set off by interactions with T's currently because you're still processing a difficult and confusing experience with your ex-T. Of course you are falling in the shame pit a lot but you won't be there forever.

BLT is so wise. Give yourself time and space. Try to get involved in something else in your life, a hobby or volunteer, for awhile and let some of the upheaval of the past few months to settle some.

Jillann

No wisdom here, but just a lot of . I'm sorry. On the positive side, even though it didn't go well, you're considering yourself and your needs valuable enough to make sure you're getting them met and not just settling when you feel uncomfortable. That's huge and brave when it's something you didn't used to know how to do! Like any sort of relationship, there will be bad Ts or Ts that just aren't a good fit (I'm not sure which was the case here), and none of that means anything about you personally, so I hope you can turn the loathing away from yourself and stick with discerning what is going to help you heal and meet your other goals (especially processing things with ex-T), and hopefully see that as a worthwhile endeavor, because YOU are valuable and deserve to heal from those experiences.

(((AH)))

Just sending hugs. Do you want to tell us what happened? Maybe it's not as bad as you think?

AH... I am sorry your session with a consult T left you feeling such self loathing. Please understand that those are old voices and an inner critic making this noise and it's not true what they say about you. WE know how wonderful, smart, strong and caring you really are.

As for the T you saw... I'm not sure what happened to make you feel so horrible after the session but I went through the same thing. I saw 4 other T's after oldT abandoned me and it was the 5th one that I stayed with (my current wonderful, amazing T). I saw 2 T's once each and they scared the crap out of me and I ran from them. One had this tiny, cramped office with no place to sit that was comfortable and it was in an attic of an old building. It gave me the creeps. He told me that I needed strict boundaries and when I asked him if I could call him or email between sessions he told me that he does not have email and only uses the phone when he is forced to!!

The next guy I saw knew oldT. They used to practice in the same building. I remembered seeing him and he seemed nice. He had since moved to a new office. He also refused any outside contact unless I was suicidal Gee thanks. Then he told me that he could not imagine oldT acting that way (when I told him some of my story) and said oldT must have had some family issues or pressure to make him treat me that way. (Maybe he was just an idiot and incompetent). I thanked him and left quickly never to return.

The next T I saw was a woman. I do not like women T's but I saw her because she had a connection to oldT and I thought she could work with me to get him to take me back if he saw I had dealt with the worst of my past trauma. OldT had complained that I was so bad that I needed a "special" trauma T. This new woman T did EMDR which he felt was a miracle cure for trauma. Uh... not really dude. Anyway, I saw her for TEN sessions and went into debt to pay her because I was so desperate. She finally got me a "termination" session with oldT and I discussed a plan with her that we would approach him to do "counseling" work with me while I did "trauma" work with her and eventually I would ease out of working with oldT and transition to new lady T. She thought it was a good compromise and that I was healthy enough to handle the transition.

Well... the day we all met she threw me under the bus!! I was abandoned again by a T when she sided with HIM and told me that my idea was not a good one and she didn't think I should work with him. I was speechless and aghast. I never expected that. She left me hanging out in the wind and oldT was just so thrilled that she sided with HIM. I was hurt and furious and felt I could never trust her again. I met with her once more to pick her brains about that last session with oldT. I did not get much from her and when she told me that she felt that patients should learn to attach to themselves.... I knew she was not the T for me.

The next T I saw was experienced with trauma patients. He was nice and kind. He was a Christian T but I asked him to leave out the religious stuff. He was knowledgeable and understood the trauma and recognized that oldT was unethical with me and explained more about that while not making me feel responsible for any of it. I had been blaming myself for what happened. While I was seeing him (I saw him 3 times)... I also made an appointment with my current T. The Christian T could only see me once a week and had no outside contact. He also told me I should not be searching for attachment but should learn from what happened with oldT and move on to process the trauma itself.

When I first met with my current T I was terrified. I didn't know much at all about him.... he had NO internet presence at all. I did know that a colleague had been seeing him and he helped her a lot and she seemed to think highly of him. She did not have attachment issues though. Well, when I spoke to him he told me that attachment is healthy and a good thing. He encourages attachment. He told me that other T's did not understand this and how they get scared. He understood that oldT was unethical, etc. This was during my phone call to set up an appointment. He gave me a free 12 minutes. I like his attitude and his voice. When I met him he was so kind and at the end of the session he gave me his card and told me to email him anytime and to call if I needed to. He shook my hand coming and going and was full of praise for my knowledge and understanding of therapy and my own issues and challenges. He told me I could ace a PhD program with the natural insight I had and that he would enjoy working with me.

I could not decide between him and Christian T but current T was more accessible and (although I did not recognize it then) more empathic with what happened to me. He obviously detested what oldT did to me even though I would defend oldT. He never wavered in his belief that oldT was incompetent and truly harmed me and it was NOT my fault. I even told him that I would crawl through broken glass and burning coals to get back to oldT. He still never wavered in his support. I have pushed him away so hard and so often and he never moved. He is my rock. I told Christian T I found a better fit and thanked him for his help. I have never looked back.

I told current T he got the job because he was the last man standing LOL (it's not easy to find male Ts these days). He told me that I was strong enough and courageous enough to persevere and to stick to my idea of what I needed in a T. I still think it's amazing that we found each other and we are a perfect match, despite all my kicking and screaming. It was SO worth it to see all those other T's. I learned a lot and learned what I would not accept in a T. And it led me to my T.

Like the old story goes... you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your Prince.

Don't give up AH and don't settle for less. You deserve the best and I hope you find him or her very soon.

Hugs
TN

Hi AH,

Just wanted to send a virtual hug! It's really devastating when you reach out for help and end up getting hurt even worse. I know it hurts now, but you're still amazing, valuable, and worth fighting for. I don't know what will happen with your T situation, but I know you're strong and you'll be okay in the end. Stay safe!

Saka

Hi AH... Just wondering how you are doing today?

Hope you are okay. I know things will be up and down for awhile and grief tends to hit when you least expect. All of this is normal and it will pass with time.

Sending hugs
TN

AH, been thinking about you, hope you are okay

(((((((BLT, Jillann, Yaku, Liese, TN, Saka, SP, Draggers, Ninn))))))



I wanted to say thank you to each one of you for the VERY appreciated encouragement, I really needed it. I'm glad I posted because I was in such a bad place I was afraid of even writing here, I'd decided that everyone must hate me and be sick of me as much as I was hating myself

My DH forced me to get out of the house for awhile this evening, and took me out for food, I am so grateful for him. The weather here has been horrible and lends to barely leaving the house, which doesn't do much for keeping your mind off things. And we haven't eaten out in so long, it was such a treat. I realized to my horror that I was trying to not cry during dinner, it was one of the first *real* meals I've eaten in weeks, which is a whole other issue. I've lost an insane amount of weight from stress and I'm really starting to feel afraid of old coping strategies coming back. Then we stopped by a shop and I bought a little candle, something about that small thing cheered me up.

Basically the gist of what set me off so badly was one of my other triggers, feeling burdensome (which came up with ex T the day he told me he 'barely had enough time for himself') I've successfully identified that questioning my reality and feeling like a burden will go straight to my core. So that's at least steady progress in learning? yay for trigger identification, what a joyous adventure...

Truthfully consult T wasn't horrible, just a horrible match for me. We were not even a little bit on the same page, and our styles of communication seemed to originate from different planets altogether. I told her my story and she said that exT's behavior was inappropriate, one reason being that he was fostering the idea in me to look for outside sources for approval, rather than cultivating my own self-acceptance. (which it was helpful to have that about me pointed out) But then it morphed into this bizarre discussion of human attraction and sexuality that I'm still not sure I completely understood.

And then it went downhill from there. She asked me some questions about myself that did not pertain to the exT situation, and I answered them. I was nervous and answered them as thoroughly as I could, I guess that's where I went wrong. I was trying to be cooperative and helpful, and give her a full picture of where I was coming from, since she asked. At that point she seemed frustrated and said, "well I need to clarify why you're here exactly. I thought you just wanted an outside perspective about your previous therapist. If you're hoping to work on all this other stuff, you need to decide if you're going to do that with me or the new therapist you're seeing now. So we can work exclusively on the issue you came here for. Do you have any questions about that?"

I sort of froze at that point, I felt like I'd just been scolded like a little kid. Not so much the comment but the delivery, it felt harsh and abrupt and pressuring. And actually it made me angry and I shut down. I told her "well... that is why I came here. But you asked me the other questions, and I was just answering them. I'm really feeling confused, I feel like I did something wrong?"

At which point she completely ignored that I just said that, and proceeds to go ahead and dive into the material of all the outside questions anyway??? And I was extremely confused by that?? I just kind of checked out and went through the motions until it was over. I felt ridiculous for having put myself out there and even more ridiculous for having such hurt feelings over what another person would have probably thought was no big deal. But I have to keep fighting that too, comparing my 'big deal' to anyone else's, because I have to remember 'anyone else' may not have come from the same childhood trauma.

Anyway, I'll never see her again and it was a learning lesson. Just kind of knocks the wind out of your sails a bit. I feel like I'm in a dark, deep forest full of horrifying creatures, and I'm putting all my energy into running out, but I just don't know what direction to run!! So I'm probably running in circles, but as soon as I stop running I really notice what I terrible place I'm in and freak out. I *really* have to figure out how to get back into some distraction techniques and get out of my head though...

Each one of you said things that really touched me and helped me, thank you again. TN I wanted to say that hearing your story really gave me perspective about everything, and helped me see that if it takes a few tries, that's ok. I've put so much pressure on myself to just 'get it right!' That I haven't stopped to think that not every T is the right fit for every client, and that's not something to feel bad about. Thank you so much for sharing that with me, and helping me see that the journey was worth it to find the right one!

I am grateful for all of the hugs, support, advice and new perspectives. I am better today... still confused and worn down and sad, but better. Friday I see my T again so we'll see how it goes...

((ARM-HT)) I'm am so sorry that you are hurting this way. It is a scarey thing to have to deal with any T that's not compatible, its a tough place to be in. Please don't be hard or angry at yourself, this is not anything to put blame on yourself about. Its hard sometimes finding a good match with T's. It isn't unusual to have to go through a lot of hard work, to find that one special T that will be a good match. I'm just in the beginning stages of thinking about having to do the same thing, and its scaring the heck out of me. There is no blame on you for anything. You are putting yourself out there trying to weed through this maze of T's and just trying to find someone good and worthy of you, so you can get the best care that you deserve, and you are strong for doing that. Just think how easy it would be to walk away, but you're not doing that, you are caring enough about yourself to find the best T, and the best care, so keep going AH, and don't stop until you get what you want. All the best to you on Friday, can't wait to hear how your new T, and new session went. HUGS TO YOU

(((eme)))

wanted to thank you too for the kind words and hugs, it means a lot

(((AH)))

Our circumstances are different but I am in the same boat. I am STILL looking for a proper therapist. The one I have now insists that I am very dissociative and I think she is wrong. I really like her and I want to see her but it just isn't working. I feel almost sick at the prospect of finding ANOTHER new therapist. It's so painful

((((AH)))) For what it's worth you deserve a good T. You deserve to heal from your past. After all you have been through this must be extraordinarily difficult for you.

Good luck tomorrow AH!

I'm really sorry you're still struggling AH. I think consult t really sounded kinda icky (for lack of a better word!)

I thought about you today - actually during my t session of all places. She made a comment that really stung and the session deteriorated from there.
So now I'm stuck deciding if I will go back, look for a new T, or maybe even take a break.

I totally get the place you are in right now.

Pls update and let us now how your appt goes tomorrow.

(((AH)))

I'm sorry you struggled so much after your consultation but she really sounds like she gave you some mixed messages. I'm glad you recognized that and have decided to discard her advice, etc. Good luck tomorrow.

((((turtles, quell, lucy, liese)))

Thank you guys each for the support and best wishes, so much

It really is so hard to know when do I stay, when do I go? What is something for us to work through, when is it a deal breaker? All of you guys facing the same situation, I hope you'll find as much comfort in the advice and support I've been given on this thread. It applies to you, too! You deserve the best.

I'm starting a new thread about how today went... my brain is complete mush...