No. I think my therapist is a great person, and has been better than my previous ones, but... she kind of freaks out easily over stuff, which makes me feel very much like I need to be "OK" and guarded when I'm there, because I can't deal with my own stress plus hers.

For example, a couple weeks ago, I had to miss a session because I was sick with a cold. On top of that, my family came to visit (planned from before I was sick). And work was stressing me out. It was a lot of stress, and I have trouble holding on to any kind of relationship (such that it is) with the therapist when I miss a week anyway...

So, when I got back, I was kind of not very "there". Pretty withdrawn, but I think that's not surprising considered being sick, missing therapy, dealing with my crazy family, and dealing with work... it was a lot, and I was kind of shut down. Part of that was feeling unsure about the therapist/relationship after two weeks without talking, even though that sounds weird...

So I go in, and she picks up on me being different/down. But kind of freaks out... tells me that I need to be on medication, she's never seen me this low, and in her perfect world, she'd put me in a hospital (I later confronted her on that, and she clarified, "well it would be a nice one!") - OMG. All this made me feel even less safe.

It seems obvious to me, but apparently it's not to therapists - all that felt really threatening to me, and the message was clear, "if you seem worse, I'm going to have you medicated and/or locked up." So, I'm pretty clear that I can't really express when I'm feeling bad.

The stupid thing is, this is just a normal state for me - it's not that awful, it's just withdrawn and cautious. I've gone in to my piano lessons like this, and my teacher is great at reconnecting with me. The first thing he does is to just be his normal self, so there's a sense of consistency, a sense of "even if I'm gone for a couple weeks, this person is still acting the same way as before" which, for me, in incredibly "safety generating" (if that's a thing). He basically just re-establishes the norm, rather than reacting to me and pulling us both into a downward spiral of doom.

This seems like it should be basic therapy 101, but apparently nope.

Sorry to go on, thanks for letting me talk about it though. It's been rolling around in my head a bit since then, obviously.