I read here all the time, but hardly ever post - I feel bad about that, but increasingly, I worry about online privacy. I need to get pretty desperate to do this.

When I do post, the title is always a variation on the same theme. Am I done with this T?

I have PTSD, **** childhood and adult trauma. Big struggles staying in relationships, trying hard to change that. I’ve been with this T for a number of years, the last couple just seem to have been one rupture after another, nearly always to do with him doing something that scares me frozen. Usually it’s because he is too close or familiar in some way in his demeanour. Then, I start to have images in my head of him abusing me, start to see him as my abuser.

So many times we have had the same conversation. So many times, he has apologised and agreed to not do the very simple things that trigger me. There are only a handful. He says he now understands that I can’t do the work there if I am feeling unsafe. Yet, the same pattern keeps emerging: I build some trust in him, open up some more and he does or says something that just blows it all away again.

I had to quit another PTSD group thing b/c it was too triggering for me. Usually I just push through everything, don’t ever listen to how I feel or take it seriously. I didn’t want to run away or be avoidant, but I also just couldn’t take being overwhelmed the awful feelings any longer. That’s new for me - in the same way me asking T to not do certain things is new. It was hard to quit, but the leader asked me what the kindest, most compassionate thing was for me to do, for me, and I knew I needed to leave.

It’s getting to that point with this T, where it’s just starting to feel counter-therapeutic. The fallout from sessions is impacting my life and ability to work some days. He doesn’t have a whole lot of specialist trauma training, and does nothing to help me stay within my ‘window of tolerance’. He also works only a few days a week, so I’m on my own with trying to put the pieces of me back together or with T2, who is trauma trained and focused on that.

No matter how many new skills and support I get from T2, it just doesn’t seem to be enough to get me through T1 without the awful fall out. I feel like I just don’t want to put myself through it any longer, but still, for whatever reason, I remain attached to T1, and can’t make a definitive decision to end it.

Even as I write the words, it’s becoming so much clearer: he’s not ‘abusing’ me, but it is such a familiar pattern of hurt/promises of change/building trust again/same thing happening again. Maybe, that’s what’s making the leaving so hard?

I’m clear that I want to leave. I’m clear that I’m not running away or just being avoidant: I’m taking care of myself by getting out of a situation that is beyond my present resources. I just don’t seem to be able to make the final move.