I was reading some posts since I'm not sleeping. People were talking about experiences with different docs. and T's. It brought something up that I need to talk about. I hope I don't upset anyone...but...
I had a Psychologist who emotionally abused me and committed malpractice. She set me behind and actually made it terribly hard for me to accept my real DX.
My Mom had cancer that went undiagnosed. When she finally found a lump in her breast she was dead 7 1/2 weeks later. It was an awful time because I knew she was dying and my dad denied it and everything was truly heinous, plus I had two small daughters who needed me and a husband who was workaholic and emotionally UNavailable in the max. My mom was highly abusive in many ways since I was a baby and even as an adult she could mess with my head and just make me ill.
When she died I spiraled into severe depression/anxiety. I couldn't handle her death when there was so much of her life still twisting me into a pretzel of misery.
I checked into a psych hospital, suicidal and stayed 2 1/2 weeks and then miraculously recovered when my insurance ran out. They told me I slept between 1 and 2 hours a night. I was so well I could go out without an attendent, at least on the progress board - only they never let me out without someone there to watch me so I didn't use the chain-link fence to cut myself. My biggest progress in that hospital was that I realized they did not have my answers and I've never needed to be hospitalized in a pward again.
That is all background to what I really need to say. 8 months after this "theraputic" experience I had to check myself into a day-patient program because the depression had me non-functional and I couldn't find an anti-dep that would work for me - it took 13 years before I finally did find one that ACTUALLY worked (whoo hoo!).
The psychologist in charge of this program was what I call a wounded healer. She came out of a 37 year abusive marriage and became a psychologist and had all the answers...
Pretty early in my 20 or so days there I cut myself. She yanked me out of groups session and isolated me alone while she decided what to do with me. 90 minutes later she ushered me into a room with my pdoc and presented me with an 18 point "contract" that specified what I would and would not do if I wanted to remain in this wonderful program. The points I remember were like this...I will not cry in group, I will not ask for any special attention....I will raise my hand for permission to speak....I may not leave the group to go to bathroom except on breaks (I had IBS then). Those are all the rules I can remember.
Not too many days later we did an exercise on our "inner child". I raised my hand and asked Dr H. "Why does my inner child have 3 names?" Her answer was, "Oh don't even think YOU are multiple" (I had never in my life thought of such a thing, I just wondered why my inner child was 3 different ages and names, I was clueless)
Long story short, this Dr. H, triggered my cult programming and I suddenly became a model "client" in this program and Dr. H. was happy about that and when someone new came into the program she would tell them the ground rules and point to me and say, "Leslie, who is in charge here", and I would obediently say "You, are, Dr. H and when you say jump, I say how high, on my way up into the air" All my emotions went into a complete lockdown and I became the "Stepford Client".
I went to a new T that fall and spent a year with him and got nowhere until he transferred me to the T I have been working with for 14 years now. It took her about 2 years to help me accept the D.I.D. DX because of my own denial and this former bad T.
It makes me really, REALLY angry that this woman did me so much damage and damaged my trust as badly as any of the perpetrators from my childhood. This woman contacted me 2 weeks after I left the program (against all ethics) to see if I wanted to work with her in a multi-level marketing program!!!!!! I must have had some bit of recovery because I thanked her politely and never spoke to her again.
This woman shamed and humiliated me(in private and in group) and hindered my progress and as such violated her Hippocratic Oath (if PH D's take those kind of things). I literally performed for her just like I did the cult in my childhood. I did whatever she wanted me to do and it hurt me, it scared me and I went back day after day and let her keep dishing out the pain to me. She even brought TV's in on April 15th so we could watch the standoff in Waco over David Koresh's group end up in flames. I feel emotionally abused by this woman. I feel angry with myself that I LET HER MISTREAT ME, IN FRONT OF WITNESSES. She even trained me in how to do grounding techniques so she could use me to help a girl named Betsy calm down from her flashbacks if Dr. H was out of the room.
I wish I had had the guts and strength to sue her for malpractice - I've never sued anyone or really wanted to do so, but this woman is a walking menace and I just let her abuse me and keep right on going. Of the 8 people in this program at that time, I was the ONLY one with an 18 point contract and who was treated the way I was treated.
Sorry this took so long to say. I am just now beginning to feel and deal with anger from inside. My littles are talking to me and I hear this sad little voice saying, "She hurt me....She hurt me" She hurt us all and we did not deserve it. All I did was cut myself one time a little bit. Plus this woman made it hard for me to accept that I had DID. GRRRRRR!!!! (I know this post should have been in psychotherapy, but there is someone in there who is very upset over her past T's and I didn't want to perhaps upset her with my deal over one rotten T)
Leslie, Leah, Leli and KiKi------> ALL MY ALTERS ARE IMPORTANT TO ME!!
----> MEGA-RANT...SORRY FOLKS!