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I have started seeing a therapist who claims to use Trauma-Informed Art Based Therapy. I've had a handful of sessions with her and I'm not so sure that this is the right sort of treatment for me.
I do have obsessive compulsive disorder, it's just something I've always lived with. I schedule things to the minute and organize them to the smallest detail. My therapist can't seem to keep it together. She doesn't know how to use the scheduling on her tablet so she schedules with me, then texts me two to three times to reschedule my appointment.
I know therapists like to put labels on things, but labeled me on the first appointment with post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative identity disorder and depersonalization disorder within 15 minutes of speaking to me and most of that time was her talking over me.
I've been through a lot. My mother passed away and my family abandoned me. I was homeless for a time, bounced from place to place. I suffered through physical assault, rape and an ectopic pregnancy due to it. She will briefly mention my past issues that I listed on paper, which are the entire reason I am seeking help- 'But we're not going to talk about or go into detail about all that'.
She asked me to bring my 2 year old daughter in to 'see how I interact with her', I explained ahead of time that the appointment was during her nap time, she had just had her vaccinations done three days prior and she was still a little off kilter because of it- clingy, cranky, restless ect. which she usually isn't. She instantly told me her clinging and crankiness was because of me and that my 'issues' were being sponged up by my daughter. She took to telling me I had to do the exercises 'for my daughter', which made me feel like if I failed the exercise, I'd fail my daughter and she'd end up just as messed up as I am. Needless to say, I didn't appreciate it and I left the office more anxious than I entered it.
Another exercise she wanted me to do was a 'safe' exercise. I was to imagine one of my listed safe places and draw the feeling of safety. I did so and took it to her feeling confident with the image, which she said was amazing and more than she expected, but it was completely wrong. She wants abstract. She showed me a bunch of pictures of colorful vomit blobs of paint or crayon by young children and told me to do the same. I do not see things in abstract. I only see definite, solid shapes and images. I was tempted to just let my 2 year old scribble something up and hand it to her.
I agreed to 16 sessions with her, but in my last text to confirm my appointment, I eluded to the fact that I would 'continue bi-weekly sessions until the end of my 16 agreed upon sessions'. I think she took the hint because now she wants me to do an assessment of our sessions as well.
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