I think I'm about to be terminated

[radical]

All four.

[sanmagic7]

thanks so much, mourningdove.  i can really relate to all 4, one in childhood (emot. neglect) and the other 3 in adulthood (therapist, husbands, and the medical community).  so glad you put this out here.  again, making sense of the senseless.

i especially relate to how the one traumatic arena can set you up for trauma in the other areas.  that's exactly what i feel like happened to me.  good to be validated on that. 

[Dee]

Radical,

Where are you with this these days?

[radical]

Hi Dee,

I'm thinking about what I need from therapy.  I'm feeling sad because I don't see a way beyond this place, it feels like an impasse, and with everything my therapist has given to me, and means to me, I feel like I am soon going to lose one of the most important people of my whole life.  I feel I can handle that, but fear it becoming a mess that doesn't do justice to our relationship, and I really need a "positive" experience and to be able to grieve.  It's something I've seldom, if ever, experienced. 

I'm trying to hold onto my own feelings, because I fear that she will feel blamed and judged, when it's not about that.  I feel sad that it seems my dissociative fawning and the fallout that always goes with it has harmed another important relationship, when I tried so hard not to be that way.  I wonder if I'll ever get past this problem.  But my need to be authentic and to integrate dissociated parts of myself, so I can have access to more of the whole, and through that to broader range of responses and to different experiences, nothing is more important to me.  I wish I felt I could work on this within this relationship, but the more I've tried the more I've felt pushed back onto a path that doesn't feel like my path.

This old Cat Stevens song 'father and son' captures some of the feelings, though the lyrics are far from a perfect fit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yERildSsWxM

[Contessa]

i especially relate to how the one traumatic arena can set you up for trauma in the other areas.

Could not agree more. My first serious trauma I worked through, and was well on the way to recovery. The next came swiftly during/after.  Both bad luck, but the second retraumatised the first, and I found myself very lost and without the support I thought I had. That left me open to abuse, completely preventable had I not been traumatised already.

Radical I have been following this thread and do hope dearly that there is a resolution soon. I'm not sure what to say. My doc confronted me recently, which I know for other people that would mean never seeing them again. I saw her again, told her that she in fact upset me, and have decided to give more space between appointments.

I think that will work for me. Could that possibly be an option for you too?

[sanmagic7]

radical, thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings on this.  i hope you don't carry the entire burden for what's happened - even therapeutic relationships are two-way streets.  it may be that the two of you simply are not a 'fit' anymore.  i've seen that happen with many relationships, including some of my own.  it's not any one person's fault that the relationship ends.  one may grow in a different direction than where the relationship was built originally.  (that's what happened with my best friend of 20 yrs.  i grew to a different place,)  that may be what happened here.   i don't know, but it's a possibility.

and, that doesn't take anything away from the importance of either the person or the relationship in your life.  i think there is an ebb and flow with these things as a natural dynamic.  sometimes we ebb and flow together, sometimes the tide turns and that's no longer true.   i hope you can be kind to yourself, and caring, especially through the grieving process.  i see a positive in your growth that is allowing you to even question what's going on.  big hug to you, radical, and much support as you take on such a heavy decision.

[radical]

I will see her in about two weeks.

I feel embarrassed writing about this, but it is helping me see myself.  I'm over-focused on her feelings, and I haven't been able to assert my own needs, goals and and feelings for fear of losing the relationship, which means it is already lost.  It's gone too far without resolution.   Under the circumstances, the last session was abysmal because, from my perspective, she spent 90 percent of the time defending herself as a therapist, after failing to respond to my concerns in the previous sessions, and the last five minutes putting on a show of being supportive of the the fact that I was facing a crisis.  My biggest concerns weren't addressed at all and it was so nit-picky that I could respond by going along  to an extent and making the best I could of it, or risk a full-scale argument and potentially saying things I would have bitterly regretted, and then walking into the Christmas crisis. 

I don't believe it has always been this way, and I'm aware that my own issues have had a big impact on how things have turned out, but I have been unable to discuss these because I haven't found a way of talking about the issues.  I feel that something might be wrong.  This isn't black and white because this person has given me more support, kindness, and generosity than almost any other in my life.  Her insights and wisdom have been invaluable to me.  I didn't trust anyone, and didn't think I was capable of trust after abuse in a previous therapy relationship, yet she was trustworthy.  I believe she is a person of integrity.  I would still recommend her as a therapist for someone who has experienced multiple traumas and abuse within therapy.

I can't quite believe I'm in this situation.  It feels like regaining confidence and feeling that I'm not inferior, but a worthwhile human being, that I'm not to blame and that I didn't deserve abuse, and learning to trust myself has led her to dislike who I actually am, and to try and push me in a direction that I don't want to go in, and into being someone I'm not.  Which is gutting.  I have to respect and attend to what she is saying and not reject it out of hand, because her guidance has helped me more than I can say.  Yet I have to be authentic, and it seems that she likes me better when I'm less authentic, and maybe that's partly my fault because I wasn't previously aware of dissociating into fawning with her, and it's not apparent - it wasn't to me.

Also, after a year of walking away from almost all my main relationships and wider social support, it is hard to believe that I would be starting this year walking away from this relationship.  She has said that I have pushed people away, and I'm sure she feels I'm doing the same with her.  Most of the walking away was due to an abuser in the middle of the two most important groups in my life.  At the same time, the whole situation, and the culmination of our therapy together made me finally wake up to the toll that soul-sapping long-term relationships had taken on my life me, and to my unhealthy way of relating which meant I lacked boundaries and self esteem and was a door-mat.

I'm either crazy or I have to choose the path of being true to myself, but the price seems so high and there is no guarantee that my own path isn't leading me towards worse outcomes.  Yet I still choose it, it doesn't even feel like a choice, because nothing else would be honest.

in a way, I regret posting the Cat Stevens song because part of the point is I'm not an adolescent on the brink of adulthood.  For all my problems and faults, I'm a grown woman with a whole lot of life experience.

[Dee]

Radical,

You know, hard to eternalize, but you know you are not responsible for your therapist feelings.  I really believe that you have come to a point that you can practice self care by saying the relationship is no longer working for you.  This is a testament that you have improved with her help.

People also hit bumps in their personal lives and cannot be there in a way they once were.

I recently lost my dietitian that I have had for over a year.  She was the person that was my main support in the difficult process of recovery.  She was the start of being more healthy.  It is a loss, and I am sad about that.  Still, I am working on getting a new one and I look forward to fresh thinking and perhaps learning something that I didn't know.  I've been struggling with relapse so perhaps it is timely.  Perhaps I came to a point that the old approach wasn't as effective and I need a new one?

[radical]

Thanks Dee.

I'm feeling so sad.  I've had a good day today, now I'm tired and. 

Last week I had the experience of crying with every part of myself.  It was indescribable and so healing.  There was almost no thought,  a few images of loss, the word 'alone' a couple of times, but mostly just hearing the sound of seagulls keening outside the window. I could even feel my toes letting go of pain.  It wasn't about any one thing, just all the sorrow I've held inside from years.  It wouldn't be such a big deal, I guess most people are able to cry and do so when they feel the need, but I can't ever remember crying like that.  It's been blocked.  I often get tears in my eyes, a couple of times a year a couple of sobs, but usually I just go blank within two minutes.

If I had 10 treatments with that result, I feel like I'd have released a huge block of sorrow.

I know this is relationship is ending.  it just hurts and I feel afraid.

Thanks for your support everyone, from the bottom of my heart.

[Contessa]

With you all the way Radical. Its a very tough spot to be in, and we'll be here with you just as you are for us.

As someone who recently ended a friendship with a good person, i'm mentally and emotionally doing much better because of it. Having you as a support contributed to that strength.

I do think you are a strong person Radical because after conversations with you I feel safe. If I have been anxious you have said the right thing to instill calm. I cannot even explain.

This is a tangent, but that is what I think when reading your posts.