I saw a new t yesterday, one of several I have seen since my old t terminated me and I have been shopping, and I am reeling from the experience. After spending a half hour telling her what I am looking for and how I came to be here, in the circumstances that I am in, she suggested to me that I am not taking responsibility for how things have gone "sideways" for me. The t I saw on Monday said that I didn't "present" well and I might be scaring t's off. I am nearly speechless from how these two responses are making my head spin.

Let me respond to the last one first. OK, in thinking back about how I communicated the events that have brought me here, to this very bad place, I perhaps did make it sound as though I were blameless and that all these things just "happened" to me. Or maybe I even made it sound as though other people were to blame. Now I blame myself for communicating poorly. At least verbally, I am a poor communicator. I abbreviate all the thoughts that are swimming around in my head when it comes out of my mouth and then I am surprised to find that people don't understand me, or haven't "kept up." But I am also wondering why she would think I would bother with trying to get treatment if I thought everyone else was to blame? Wouldn't I then just go about life thinking everyone else needed treatment but me? Also, why was she trying to "therapeutize" (my made-up word) me in the first, just getting acquainted session, before she got to know me? I think she was out of order. I know there is something terribly wrong with me and I know that's the reason these bad things continue to happen to screw up my life. And I blame myself for her response because I presented poorly.

As for being told that I present poorly, that rang true. I have not consistently presented myself in the same way with any of the t's I have "interviewed." It never occurred to me that I needed to be calm and rational, and not cry because it might scare them off. Do these t's think that because they don't work in mental institutions that they don't have to deal with the truly crazy? Yes, that's a little harsh, but it occurs to me that those in private practice do have it "cushy" compared to the warriors in institutional environments who don't get to choose who they work with. The problem is, I need help, and I'm not able to keep my emotions completely in check when I'm talking to these people and trying to answer their questions. Perhaps I should somehow collect myself so that I can be completely calm in the interview and then surprise them with the BPD behavior later.

Finally, I'm now convinced that I live in a community where BPD specialists don't exist. The ones I've seen just don't express themselves in a way that suggests they would treat me differently than they treat their average client. Aren't we a different breed that requires a bit of specialization, or at least a willingness on the part of the therapist to do a bit of research on how best to treat BPD?

I just don't know where that leaves me. I've gone through the list of names I got from my xT, from names I got from my Employee Assistance Plan at work, and names I got from those lists of names. It's very hard to keep going at it, just to be rejected or disappointed. But the alternative is living in this misery or going through with one of my suicidal ideations. At least that's the way I see it.

(I apologize if you think you've seen this before. I originally posted it on the BPD forum, but I thought I might get some good feedback here as well. Thanks.)