help!!! my T cancled and i hate her

Granite,

Your feelings are so important because they help you learn more about yourself. In this case, you found out that you very easily feel rejected and abandoned. You also learned that feeling rejected or abandoned makes you feel self-destructive and not want to live. That's important, important stuff to know. It shows you (and will show your t, if you choose to share your feelings with her) what kinds of issues you need need help dealing with. That is why i think it so important that you share with your t how you feel (in whatever way you can - words, email, phone msg, poetry, pictures, etc.). She can't help you if she doesn't know what you're going through inside. Perhaps you have explained in your letter how you feel. If so, that will be really helpful for her to know. But you've also told her you want to quit. Unless you change your mind, you will not be able to work through this very important situation with her.

If you've often felt rejected and abandoned in the past, it makes sense that you would react strongly today to anything that remotely even feels like rejection. Even if it actually is not a rejection. It probably sets off all those alarm bells and pain that you've felt before!! But that's where your t comes in. If you share your feelings with her, she can help you see that she is not rejecting you. That pain is coming from inside you because of things you've been through in the past. She can help you, little by little, to start healing from the painful stuff in your past so that when things happen in the present, like a cancellation, you won't automatically go into that awful, painful, rejection, not wanting to live feeling. You will slowly learn to separate what happened back then with what is actually happening now.

I hope you'll consider working this out with your t. You've been working so hard here in PC and want to heal. You have so much potential to do so if you don't give up.

tree,mixedup emotions,and peaches you words along with everyones are so valueable to me and thank you so much from my heary.today i am totally numb and so am able to think a bit .in fact i have been thinking all night and dont know if things are any cleareri really am reading over what everyone has said and it all makes a bunch of sence.but the reality is i let thingss go to far.it is like i was on auto pilot.BAM BAM BAM no going back.i just destroyed everything in my path so to speak.i could never ask to go back to see her.I'm way to ashaimed and humiliated am basically wanting to hide and lick my wounds.I am more then well awair that i have done this all to myself and now i need to live with the outcome of it all.this is all to familliar and ill adapt.but i dont think going back to T is a realistic optionnot only did i burn that bridge i also burnt any material to maby build a new one.this is chain of events as i see them now.

1.went to take care of the mother for 3 weeks of hell(i know i shouldnt have)
MAGOR ,MAGOR issues around that.didnt feel i could talk to T about everything around this because she said it is my choice to go etc...but she is right again i choose this.but still angry at T
2.i come home i am holding it together so tightly with all kinds of stuff going through my head about T and my visit W the mother,people still being mad at me for even going.I am still very raw from the time with the mother.filled with anger and hate etc..im a time bomb.i even had a small melt down 5 min after i got through my door.but it was ok i had therapy in a week and 3 days so i thought.i just needed to hold it together untill then.sometimes just sitting thar in the quiet makes me feel so safe.even if i didnt talk that may have been enough to get me through another week.things could start to get back to normal.
3.made it this long with holding it together everyday saying i have T things will get back to normal no more emotional upheavel.then lastnight she calls to cancel.
4.MELT DOWN BEGINS
i get angry,how could she do this,i dont care about her reasons,im unimportant to
her,i feel stupid for trusting her,wanting to see her etc..the list of spirling emotions
goes on untill i am totally out of controle with them all.this goes on in like a 10 min
period.think back at everything i may have done and said to her and feel sorry and
humiliated about every interaction i have ever had with her.convinced that this
had to do with the reasons she just didnt want to rescedual.it cant be easy for
her to sit in silence week after week.
I feel bad for being angry and out of coontrole.my husband has no idea how to
make it better now im panicing about everyting.
I can never face my T anain knowing wat i know now.i cancel the appointment.
I havnt felt this out of controle in a long long time it was just soo much stress for
so long holdin it together.i totally broke.the only way i know how to cope is with
behaviors.so i SI and numbed myself out totally.
this is my perception as it is right now maby it will change as time goes bye ang i calm down more.hope so but now im still pritty numb and still a bit in shock

Maybe you can, if you can think of words to tell her how angry you are. That is one of the few things that has worked for me in the past: realizing how angry I am, and putting it into words/thoughts. can be good.

That sounds so hurtful. I would react in a very similar way if that happened to me. You've had a ridiculous amount of stress and no way to relieve it healthly, and then the source of your 'relief', your therapist, disappears. I think anyone would be angry, hurt, upset, frustrated at that!

I think it is quite bad form for your therapist to cancel a prearranged appt for a seminar. She had plenty of notice of your appt and she should prioritise prior engagements. If this seminar is so uber important she simply has to go to it then she should have at least offered another appt or stated that she unfortunately didn't have any more. She should have, at the very least, acknowledged that you may feel disappointed by the change in plans. I don't need to be a therapist to know that if I cancel on someone at the last minute it might piss them off slightly! For me in this situation the key part that stands out is the total lack of acknowledgement. My therapist will say 'this break will be hard for you won't it?' even if she has no intention or way of making it less hard. It doesn't take much effort to acknowledge and think about how someone may feel!

And I don't understand this reasoning that maybe your therapist didn't realise how important it was for you to have therapy....you turn up every session and even if you don't talk endlessly if she's anywhere near human she'd notice that it helps you enough because otherwise you wouldn't bother going! So no I don't believe that reasoning either.

But at the same time I doubt you would go to a therapist continually if you felt she didn't care or wasn't offering you any help. I feel she has made a mistake which hurt you very, very badly....but was a mistake. I don't think she thought what she was doing through and perhaps was simply seeing it from a time-tabling point of view.

I wouldn't be embarrassed at all about your melt down or subsequent contact with her. Nor should you feel guilty for not talking in appts and think you caused this situation to happen. I think you are perfectly within your rights to express how hurt you are, and you did that in the only way you knew how. You are in therapy to deal with feelings like this, if you already had it down then there would be no point in going!

I don't think you've burnt any bridges, I think you finally managed to express yourself!

I don't think you've burned any bridges either. Your t will understand. I hope you will go back to her and work through these events and the abandonment/rejection issues that cropped up.

granite, I know what it's like to have those abandonment and rejection triggers hit. It's not fun. I'm sorry you SIed last night, but you don't have to add insult to injury by feeling guilty about it. It was a way to cope with your feelings, and it's over now. So no point in beating yourself up over it, ok?

I hope your T will respond to your email. I encourage you to call her today and just ask if you can see her sometime before the 14th, but I also understand how difficult that phone call could be.

please just take care of yourself today. You don't have to hurt yourself. It's ok to love yourself and do things that feel good, ok?

Granite.... when I lost my temper with T over feelings of abandonment and rejection, and ranted and yelled, she told me the next time i saw her that she thought that was a good session. When she said that I was stunned!!!

By that time I was killing myself with recriiminations for having spoken to her as I had done. But she helped me to see that I have buried my feelings all my life and that the fact that I could come OUT with them (even if at top volume) was not a bad thing. She (and your T also, i am betting) is healthy and well adjusted enough to know that my rage was NOT really about her, and she didn't take it personally at all (and I am betting that neither will yours). Hard hard lessons, deep lessons, but very necessary ones and I think I will find them to be healing ones.

From what you've said at PC it seems that you may be a bit like me, accustomed to keeping things inside until they fester in the darkness. Do you think that you could give yr T another chance? Even if you have to ask a friend to call and make the sooner-than-the-14th appointment for you?
Here this is for your pain and anger, I know it so well

i know calling her isnt an potion at all she has never given me permission to do that.i dont even know if she is gone now to her thing she is going to.i did email her to tell her i wasnt comming anymore but dont even know if she will get thati dont know what her feelings are about any contact i never have at all i really havnt ever been this out of controle in a long long time it really came out of the blue
one thing funny is how i forgot about basic things to calm me.i just took a really hot shower.something i do when i am full of anxiety the feel of the hot water grounds me and i really relax.anyway i took my shower just a bit ago and this relaxed me some.i find it funny this wasnt even an option lastnight or early thismorning.never entered my mind.nothing but SI was thare i forgot any coping skills i have.im not saying i am completely recovered from lastnight but the shower sure relaxed my body some im alittle less numb do you ever loose track of how to help youself i mean completely?

i dont think she is the kind of T that gives 2ed chances esp to grown people who pull this crap.anyway she has a long line of people waiting to see her it took me 3 months to get in to see her

i have no idea what her feeling is about me not comming anymore over this. but i do know she wouldnt be happy to find out about the SI. i know she would stop seeing me over that.but i have a feeling me saying im not comming anymore and canceling my apt made her mad and is probibly glad to be rid of me.i messed things up quite badly im affraid.i dont see her as the kind of T that gives people 2ed chances.dont know if i blame her

YES! yes. That used to happen to me a lot. I would just not be able to think of any other coping skills, other than SI. Even after I learned other skills, and learned why SI isn't helpful, it took me a looong time to be able to think of those skills in the moment when I am in distress. I still forget, sometimes, and that's why I try to have things written down so when I my mind is blank I can just look at my index cards and figure out what to do.

Posting here or on the SI forum helps, too, there are lists of grounding techniques and always someone there to offer a shoulder or a listening ear.

I also have agreed to call my T before I SI, no matter when or where or what's going on. It has been a long, slow process but I haven't SIed for at least a few months (not sure when the last time was) and I don't think about it too much anymore even. It comes up sometimes, like when I'm really freaking out and the emotions seem so huge and I can't think at all, but I haven't even come close to doing it for quite a while. I guess maybe I am starting to heal?

You are doing a lot of mind-reading for your t. Why don't you let her address this herself. You may very well be wrong about her.

Isn't this the same Granite1 who wrote >> i tend to push people away who tend to want to interact with me.once i feel any responcibility to them i run dont walk away so i try real hard not to get myself into these situations but i always seem to find it anyway.and i get totally overwelmed.<<

isn't "messing-up-quite-badly" and "never-going-back-to-T" just more of the same, Granite? Can you work on it? even if it's hard?

I really hope she calls you on here own... urrrrrrr... You need to have support right now. I am sorry you are not getting that from her but maybe she really does not get it that you have a NEED right now for her. Sometimes they have stuff come up that we don't know about (like my T last week when his grandma died) UGGG! I thought he just ditched me! So just be honest and also open about things. Stay safe!!!

wepow i think she has probibly already left for the seminar she is going to, so wont call me back or e mail me. i dont have a number to call her either .it would be nice if she did call but i would go into a total panic but hey things cant be worse.im accually doing ok you guys are all so awsome here and have really given me all the support i need for now and i truely hope that someday i will have the pleasure to return the favor and be here for someone in need and not make things worse.

it probibly is more of the same.mabye even more then probiblysome day i hope to stop doing this it really is quite distructive iv'e probibly lost someone who could have really helped me but i need to start focusing on what i do from here.

if she lets me back im sure she will want to talk about it but god that terrifies the heck out of me and so does the asking her if i can still come.dont think i can.mabe another letter to ask but then her reading them outloud to me would just torture me dont know if i could sit through that grrrrrrrim sorry farmer girl i really am trying to figure a way i can communicate with her i really am it just isnt easy at all

(((((((((((granite))))))))))))

How do you set up appointments with her if you don't call? Is there an office number you call? Could you just call and set up and appointment to see her?

I know it's hard to go back after telling T that you're done. I've done that more than once, especially earlier in therapy. You and I aren't the first people to ever do that...I'm sure it's really common. Therapy is hard, and it's hard to stick it out and not run away when something difficult happens, or when we get angry, or scared, or whatever.

(((((((((((granite)))))))))) thinking of you!

(((( Granite ))))) Just thinking of you and hope you are doing ok.

i had a standing apt on mondays at 5.every friday someone would call to remind me of my apt not my T.i guess i could call and leave a message with the secitary or something but that is kind of strange.i am calming way down now and i have two more weeks to decide and get up the currage to ask if i can come back.i have never done that befor.yes i have bailed out of therapy and never went back but i have never asked if i could come back.if i left i left going back wasnt an option not so sure it is this time either.

thanks wepow you guys are all awsome

OMG i cant believe i just did this.i sent T an email saying i was sorry and if it was ok and i got up the guts could i please keep my apt for monday 14th

wow now i just need to get up the guts to show up if she has her secitary call me to let me know that i can .any ideas on this one im gonna feel like a total brat if i go in thare after asking her if i can and i say nothing.this is my worst fear and i know that will happen.but i am trying to make it all right

(((((granite))))) hope you feel better soon

This is wonderful that you were able to do this! hooray!
You aren't a total brat, you are a good person who was hurting badly. This might be something that opens up a lot of gentle discussion. You just went though are really hard time and there is a lot to talk about. Not judgements or blame or shame, but the experience and how it started, what happened during it, and how it calmed down. This is great therapy stuff And these can be very good therapy experiences that end up making us feel more connected and accepted.

ecos i hope so this is if she will let me keep the appointment.she still hasnt reasponded and i doubt she will.i'm hoping her secitary will call next friday to let me knowand i dont wimp out.i think it was all of you people here that gave me the gut to even send the e mail.THANKS