She looked puzzled and uncertain and said, in relation to some things I had said while proposing the idea, that "it would take a long time". And I agreed. And then she said something like "there's nothing about me" or something to the effect that there was nothing about our relationship in what I was proposing. She looked very definite that she would not consider it further for that reason. That was my assumption, I now realize. I said "b****". I didn't have the "sense of self" to challenge her further about it at the time. I would now but that was then. She looked haughty and disapproving. My sense of self (or ego) started collapsing. I went back into the compliant state to finish the session since it didn't seem we would make much more progress in that one.

The next session she came in and said "I was triggered". Nothing more than that.

I tried to continue therapy with my "angry part" not in the room anymore. To see if we could make progress on some way that the part of me that said "b***" could be in the same room with her. Eventually, that led to the "I don't have the emotional resources to continue" situation and she terminated.

Maybe that part is a core, authentic ego that had been smashed out of existence early in my life and was trying to find a way to revive, and relate? I don't know, but it feels kind of like that. I have something better, now, but it has not been through going to more therapy.

This T likely had similar problems. We had both been raised in the Southern USA where being a "Southern lady" was considered essential, by many (appearance-conscious) families, at least.

This T had special training in trauma and dissociation, she had diagnosed me with DDNOS, surely she "knew" that dissociated parts can take over sometimes and say things the rest of the person normally wouldn't? Apparently not, or else she couldn't tolerate the assault on her own ego even if the person, the client, had dissociation issues. Or something, we never resolved things and she never said, so I don't know for sure. I am quite certain in my own self that I did the best I could, I had contained things the best I could at the time.

I agree, but it's the interpersonal part that I had trouble with, and had for years.

I agree. What eventually happened for me is that the T's rejection of me -- combined with the earlier shaming attitude toward me -- touched a painful part, or emotions, in me that had been dissociated, defended over, compliant, people-pleasing "self" or personality built on top of all that. And going to therapy, compliant and people-pleasing, just kept that pattern going.

I cannot describe to you, however, how disabling it felt, and WAS, when that feeling from the therapist's rejection connected up with the same feeling from my childhood with relation to how I felt with how my female relatives viewed me. Nothing specific, just some generalities. Maybe some accumulation over time.

The last T had said early on that she thought I was "narcissistically wounded and fragmented". She was trained in, and we dealt somewhat effectively with, the fragmentation.

Not the wounding, though, as far as I can see. The trouble is, I think, that in order to go forward that unbearable, numbed out pain needs to be felt. The pain is preventing the healthy self or ego -- in this case maybe it's the twin function? -- from being activated. But the pain itself is disabling - and if one can count on no one else in the world to help you, it is terrifying. Which is disabling in it's way, too.

That's been my experience, though, and my interpretation of it.

Right now, I'm not sure I have words that mean much to anybody else. And my experience may seem isolated, mine only.

But I think there are some similarities in the experiences of clients in failed or harmful therapies that could be useful. IF therapists were willing to look at them.