((Trace)), no one "knows" what therapy is supposed to be about though. And I have to say that when I look back on my own experiences with it once I experienced "good therapy", that is when I realized that the therapists I worked with did not even understand what "therapy" was supposed to be either.

You experienced a major trauma with your father. You need to talk that through as much as you need to talk it through too. You also need to learn how to live your life again "one day at a time" even though you experienced a trauma and a major loss like that.

When a person suffers a major trauma like that they work on not only grieving it, but also trying to move forward. During that time in moving forward there are moments where the mind will throw out a question, "can't believe that happened", because our minds really don't know how to process something like that.

The other thing one tends to do is "retrace" up to that traumatic event too. In that process a person can see warning signs they may not have noticed before the trauma took place. When these warning signs come into better view, a person can begin to feel a lot of guilt because that individual may see a point where they "could have" prevented whatever the trauma ended up being. That really challenged me because I missed the signs that my neighbor's dog was doing damage and that my neighbor was choosing to be negligent. I really blamed myself a lot, why did I not see it sooner? What helped me the most is when my therapist asked me if I had ever seen that happen before, and I had not, so then I realized that the danger signal did not come up sooner because I honestly never saw a dog do what this dog had been doing. I realized that my brain did not send me a warning because it just was not in my subconscious files.

I have no problem believing that you are struggling with this on a deep level as well. This will inevitably bring back anything else in your own history that traumatized you in any way that you did not see coming. This is where the "increased hyper arousal" comes from, hyper aware, hyper sensitive. You have been a strong person, yes, you have seen a lot in your life and you just managed to keep pushing forward too. But this, this has stopped you in your tracks and in a big way too. That is what happened to me too. I did not think about my history at all at first either. When I talked about how the tower of blocks came down because how one that held it all up was taken from the bottom, the blocks did not fall down in a way I noticed right away. You talk about how this was 20 months ago, and how come you are struggling even more now? Well, that is because "now" you are slowly experiencing how "so many" of the blocks have tumbled down. How, it is all interconnected, which it is because it was a trauma that hit ALL OF YOU that is unique "to you".

You are right, a long time ago you reached out for help and that therapist did not help you then either. I have experienced that myself, and what I finally came to see is that at that time the kind of help I had needed was "not there" and when I reached out, yes, I did deserve help, my challenge was genuine, only the therapists at that time did not have the knowledge I had needed that would have helped me.

This therapist that suggested you take a break DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO HELP YOU. That is what is being said to you. You are at a disadvantage because you are the "patient" and you don't know what you need, not your fault.

I have had to have therapy for having BAD THERAPY. Just because a person has letters after their name and charges you $150 for a session doesn't mean that individual actually knows what they are doing. That may sound crazy right? Well, it's true unfortunately. Sadly this is also something that a good therapist is well aware of that is happening too, they hear this from patients all the time. Just because an individual happens to get a degree in psychology doesn't mean they are going to actually be a good psychological therapist. That is what that response you got is saying to you. That is what the lack of response to your nice letter is also telling you too.

This has nothing to do with your worthiness of having a therapist actually "help" you Trace. I had to learn about this myself and when I look back on my records and see what I had said and then see the response, IT IS REALLY SAD because I was really expressing all the red flags and they were totally missed. Well, that only triggered me even more tbh. Again, just another thing to add to my list that I did not see coming that hurt me. Well, that is the last thing someone struggling needs to have happen, but sadly it does happen. Here I am about 8 years later and have now sat with two different , QUALIFIED therapists that are validating that "yes" I had bad therapy.

You are a very challenged puzzle right now, you do deserve the right help so you can slowly work on "your personal puzzle" and find your way to mourn whatever you have lost, and slowly learn how to move forward in spite of it. That takes time, but you really "can" make gains on "healing" and moving forward.