I’m not sure that this post fits in this category, but it seems the best I can find.

I’m feeling kind of at dead ends and desperate at the moment.

I’ve been around PsychCentral for awhile, dealing originally with issues in my life and in my past, but in the last several years I have posted a lot about the failure of therapy in general, and my last therapist in particular, to help. I’ve posted a lot in the Psychotherapy forum and some in the Personaltity Place forum several years ago. CPTSD wasn’t around as diagnosis when I was in therapy much, although it was starting to be discussed 10 years ago and the last therapist mentioned it as a possibility. And I think it probably fits.

When the last therapist terminated me, after 6 years, saying that she didn’t “have the emotional resources” to continue, that was devastating. I had been depending, not so much on the therapist herself, but on therapy generally to help. She was well-qualified, had diagnosed some conditions other therapists hadn’t. I thought those diagnoses made sense, and if they had gone undiagnosed that was a reason that previous therapists hadn’t worked out or helped much.

So, my dependence on that therapist/therapy-in-general and her rejection of me because I was too much for her emotional resources was -- horrendous. Likely a reenactment of situations from childhood which then triggered feelings which, despite the years of therapy, had remained buried/dissociated and unfelt.

Initially I wasn’t feeling the feelings from the past, though, just the ones associated with the therapist’s rejection and the failure of my ideal of therapy as my “savior”. Not that I knew that very well at the time. And I still think that for therapists to take on clients like me, with potential time bombs that clients are not rationally aware of, and then dump us, re-enacting rejection from childhood, is horrendous. But that’s another story, one that I have told some about in the Psychotherapy forum.

The fact is the (memory of) feelings from childhood HAVE emerged, and I have dealt with them on my own – with the help of PsychCentral and an in-person support group. Though often I have felt that I could not deal with them, plus I am so old (73) so what’s the point of doing all this now? But life is what it is and I am still living, so it keeps pushing forward.

After my late husband died, and I was depressed and not getting better, I thought rationally – and still do – that I was of no use to myself and my adult children and so it would be better if I just took myself out. But also I understood that “they say” it hurts those who remain and so, even if it were for the best, my children were unlikely to understand that and, hence, would feel hurt and, so, that was a factor that needed to be considered, too. Also, I could not rationally be 100% sure that my rational conclusion was accurate – although, as of now, I am no “better” and the conclusion still seems to be valid.

Several years ago my son encouraged me to move across the country, to be near him and his family including two young children. That seemed like a good possibility, so almost two years ago I did. But it appears now that the limitations of my depression and personality are now draining on him. Also, it may be that the idea – dream or fantasy – of me moving here was mainly his wife’s. She didn’t know me that well and my son had lived apart from me for awhile. So they didn’t really know. Neither of course did I. I have tried my best within my limitations, but still. . .

I could possibly move back to where I came from, which still seems like home even though I sold the house which was too big anyway. But the landscape and countryside here just feels foreign, and I still have some fairly good friends from a support group where I came from.

Nevertheless – the only real reason that I have to keep on keeping on at this point is that I feel my “mental health” journey has been so misunderstood and even made worse by the professionals trying to “help” that I would like to get my story out there – IF anybody was interested, which at this point I don’t see where that might be. Plus – the limitations which are still there again -- I don’t know if the way I would try to present things or tell the story would appeal to anybody. ☹ Except maybe, sometimes, people who have had similar experiences.

I have thought that if I could get “well” then I could relate the story to others, perhaps even some in the profession, who might start to see how to make things better for people with conditions like I had when I first entered therapy over 50 years ago.

But time is getting short on that possibility. And I’m starting to get some health conditions that take my time and energy – and have no one to help with that – because of being so draining on people, again. Including, I fear, doctors.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or feedback?