My new T isn’t working out

Nobody will talk with me about this. They don’t understand. I feel alone. That therapist really confused and hurt me.

I've been there.


I had a great therapist in undergrad. I had a severe depression my senior year and he was actually seeing me for 90 minute sessions 4 days/week trying to keep me safe and out of the hospital. (He's the kindest man on earth). So I clearly needed to transition to someone else when I got to grad school.

I told the woman the first day that I was a Christian and had certain beliefs that were very important to me. It was like she was out to undo everything I believed in. I honestly think she was offended by my faith even though I certainly wasn't pushing it on her. I think I saw her 5 times and each of them went worse. So I got the courage to call and cancel. I went to an off-campus place for a few months and took some time off. Then my professor felt I needed to work on my self-confidence and referred me to another person in the school's center.

School #2 person believed everything was because of abuse. I'm shy. I can't say I never would have been shy without abuse but those who know me best think it is a fundamental personality trait. She insisted it was abuse and that I needed to relive everything I'd previously gone through in those intense months of therapy in college (plus other years of counseling in college). She pushed and pushed and I did gain some confidence I guess pushing back. I think she lasted 3 sessions.


I'm glad you have your case manager to help you set up someone else. After 2 bad experiences I had a hard time going back and took about 2 years off. I did pretty well in those years but when I needed counseling it was obvious and I found the place I still go now (22 years later) although with a different therapist b/c the first moved away.

Now I do great with the 2nd therapist I've ever really clicked with.

Thanks, beyond the rainbow. I don’t feel so alone. It was like this therapist opened me up just to hurt me. She made things up that never happened- traumatizing things! She told me I was traumatized- yeah, by HER!

I have several ts equation everything to trauma. Which lead to improper diagnosis. After years I'm ready to say I have PTSD on top of Sza but Sza is my issue. I've had several ts accuse loved ones of SA because I was so young when symptoms started. I didn't experience SA until much older. I was very straight with this one saying I had Sza symptoms since 7. I'm very wary of therapists because my symptoms are scary to others and I don't want to get hospitalized over a miss understanding.

I am reporting her. My therapist friend is helping me. I just wrote out my complaints about her in bullet points and sent it to my therapist friend.

Good for you! That should help you move past her and also bring attention to her harmful practice.

I had a similar but opposite experience where I had a bipolar diagnosis, said "I don't remember a lot of my childhood, guess it was okay," and they attributed a lot of PTSD symptoms and the BPD syptoms (that formed from the environment) to psychosis (oh yeah, ADHD can make them think I have psychosis disorganization rather than scatterbrain disorganization. My psychotic disorganized thoughts feel a lot different from the day to day chaos). Got labeled Sz or Sza depending on who, and of course I got assigned to the laziest of therapists who just ask what you've been up to and what your plans for the next week are (and of course with those two questions I could go on for the whole half hour, at least at the time).

I talked with my therapist friend a long time last night about my experiences with my ex therapist. He had me write out bullet points about my experiences with her. He said they were good. He’s helping me report her. Talking about therapy with my ex therapist to my friend gave me a bad anxiety attack complete with chest pains! I was worried I was having a heart attack but it lasted less than half an hour and then went away so it was anxiety.

Stories like these all make me so reluctant to try therapy.
It all looks so hit and miss and most of the people 'helping' have not been through the experience. It feels more like I would be having a rent-a-friend for an hour.

I hope your next person is good and is able to help you. I'm also glad that you are doing that report so the person that was a really bad experience doesn't keep hurting others.