Job coaches are worse than certain mentors; mentors will understand your needs and limitations, if they are good; whereas job coaches are just that - coaches - which push you to your limits and try to toughen you up. Job coaches are tantamount to "attack therapy," and it might help some, but it certainly doesn't help all.

Indeed, your T should have been more validating for you.

I'm sorry you struggle with that.

I am severely disabled now, and was more functioning before my self-esteem was shot down by certain people trying to act as "job coaches" for me and my mentor, who wasn't a good fit for me at all. Three years wasted on that that endeavor coupled with my many setbacks as now a more crippled person still dreaming about rehabilitation but facing the reality that I might have just made it to early retirement (via disability).

Have an open conversation with your T about your feeling invalidated from her, and about her not understanding that most coaches don't understand the needs of people with mental disabilities. She should have not pathologized you as someone who misinterprets others, but instead listened to you and what you were saying altogether - how the job coach made you feel. She should have asked you more questions to get at the details of why you felt that way with your job coach before just assuming that it was your misinterpretation. If your T was right, she would have pointed out what you said that sounded like you had a misunderstanding; but she didn't seem to do that.

And for us with mental disorders, esp. PTSD (if that's what you have??), when we feel pressured into agreeing with someone in power (like a T), it retraumatizes us even further. That kind of invalidation makes us feel gaslit and triggered from the past. All of that would bring us down further, instead of building us up. A good mentor would know how to build you up, but a coach operates differently.

I, myself, would never get a coach. I would only seek out mentoring relationships - and the kind that was very transformative and not so much testy or coachy.

(((safe thoughts and safe hugs)))

I hope you feel better.