at least I finally cried

(((((((((((zoo))))))))))))))))))

You have friends here. You are not alone. She is a do do brain, at least for right now. Do not call her. Keep talking here until you feel better. We have all been there. Your kids LOVE you, guaranteed. You are worth it. WE CARE.

thank you, all of you. The thing that got through to me the most was this, that if I talk to her she might say or do something that makes me feel worse.

called her and left a message. I fail at life.

some of the things she said that are going around in my head: that she has never encountered this before in her career. That it's not me calling for coaching that's a problem, it's me calling to check if she's still there, or me asking if it's ok to call her. My need for reassurance is "draining" and "damaging the relationship". That she was working hard on not being sarcastic. She didn't realize it before because once I leave her office someone else comes in and she's focused on them and then when she goes home she's focused on home. It's ok for me to have needs but I have to know that people aren't obligated to meet those needs.

I'm angry/sad/angry/sad/angry/sad right now.

((((((((((((((((((Zoo)))))))))))))))))

You don't fail. Your reached out to someone you want help from. You are amazing. I am so happy that I have you as a friend. You will get through this even if it doesn't seem like it right now. You will survive! We are here to support you.

no offense, but this is true. She does sound bit harsh, but it seems she tried hard to accomodate you and it - for some reason - was not enough for you.

Zoo, nobody will give you exactly what you need emotionally... only you can. People are going to react differently than you hope to and sometimes not a bad way... just differently.

If you feel it's time to move on, sit with yourself and decide. You need to do what is best for you in long term.

obviously I KNOW that people aren't obligated to meet my needs, which is why it bothered me so much that my T said that. Evidently she thinks that I go around demanding my needs be met. I told her that she only sees one facet of my life, and that I thought that therapy was the place where it is ok to be needy and emotionally messy.

Hey hun

you did not fail just because you tried to help sooth your inner turmoil by calling her...I think most of us on here can fully understand how it feels to have something go wrong with our therapists and to just want to put it right as soon as we can; even though leaving time between our next interaction with them may be the best choice, it feels impossible to wait and cope with feeling so bad until that next contact.

The things she said sound like they would be very painful to hear, I can fully understand you feeling both angry and sad at the points you highlighted.

What is coaching exactly? I thought it was just when you rang your T because you where having a hard time and needed some help and advice? Therefore I would have thought the fact that you have an issue with needing reassurance would still be a valid reason to call.
I think we all know that no one has to meet our needs but I think the way she spoke seems quite unprofessional for a therapist. To really make a client feel bad for their needs and to actually be sarcastic towards them is not right at all. The T is supposed to be the level headed person who can remain objective and try to do what is best for us. I would have thought that she would have been trying to find a way to help you with these issues, not start having a go at you for them

(((huge hugs)))

I need help reframing this in a way that makes it not T personally rejecting me. That's what stings the most right now, the thought that I let her in, let her really see me, and she can't take it. If she needs space, if she needs down time, that I can completely understand. But her coldness and her rejection, it just hurts too much.

The quote going through my head right now and which I hope she understands is - bad behaviour doesn't mean your a bad person. I dont even mean that as in saying you did behave badly but just that you as a person are not only the sum of your behaviour in therapy.

It sounds like your T doesn't have good boundaries. She should have never said you can call her if you need to or want to. That is not realistic. If she tells all her patients that, she will surely burn out. No wonder you need reassurance from her because she says it's ok, but behaves differently. You probably sense that and test her to see what's true. I don't know, but i have gone through similar things with my previous T years ago. I burned her out and she lost it with me on a few occasions. But, today we have a great relationship even though she terminated me almost 10 yrs ago.

With my current T, if i call it's for coaching and I show her that i am willing to do what it takes to get myself out of crisis mode. I think therapists need to feel that they are helping, and they get frustrated and feel helpless when nothing seems to help. I'm not saying that we need to take care of our therapists, but it's just simply true that they are motivated to help when they feel that they can and do help.

Zoo- can I ask how this session started? Was she snarky right off the bat? She called you and asked you to come in. Why did she want you to come if she was just gonna dump on you?

And.... short of crying- did you say anything to her?

Think this might tie in a bit with what I said in another post....it sounds like your relationship that you feel with her is expecting her to act like a FRIEND with you rather than your T. Not saying that T's aren't supposed to be nice....but you hired her to make a BREAK THROUGH & FIX the things that are causing your life problems....not reinforce them.

It's not an easy break through for any of us.....changing what hasn't been working in our life is the hardest & most painful thing we can ever do. Sometimes even with our own children, when we are really kind & easy then in our training....sometimes "tough love" (telling it like it is) is sometimes the only solution that works. "Telling it like it is" hurts & requires change that isn't comfortable.....no change is comfortable or easy.....but if you give up now & don't continue....you will loose the guidance your T really knows that you need to heal & to become truly functional....part of being functional is NOT being controlled by your abandonment issues & not controlling others by them either.

Remember, change always seems to hurt....but not changing will end up hurting you worse in the long run.

Think of this as just being another step in your healing.....& sometimes healing means breaking up scar tissue in the physical sense which hurts like H@!!.....just as it does in the psychological part of our life.

For me, there are two dynamics going on, perhaps analygous to tectonic plates colliding. One dynamic is the need for assurance the person is lovable, an overarching concern the product of past abandonments. The other is a reaction to a perceived threat to the therapist's self-concept of her competency.

The viability of the connection between the patient and client is critical to achieving a good result. In my view, the connection here has been irretrievable broken.

Some of my therapists once having recognized a break has occurred simply said so and got up and left. I am somewhat surprised your therapist has not withdrawn.

What I think is critical, zooropa, is for you to try very hard to understand the importance of seeing what happened as a client/therapist connection problem and not as an affirmation of your already beleaguered sense of self-worth.

Zoo, haven't post in awhile... just wanted to send safe hugs....

I'm sorry, I wasn't very clear. Too much posting in the middle of emotional tornadoes. This was my scheduled session, I had called to cancel and she was asking me to keep the appt. So it wasn't a special extra session or anything.

A lot of what she said, especially in the beginning and also at the end of the session, speaks to what Byzantine mentions. She said that things had been done by both of us that damaged the relationship. She said that she believes it is possible to repair, although honestly I wonder if she still felt that way after our 50 mins was up.

I did say things to her, although as I mentioned she interrupted me several times. I told her that I believed therapy was the one place where it was ok for me to be needy. I told her that i know she is human but I am also aware that the therapeutic relationship is unique in that it is so one-sided. I reminded her that I don't know how she interacts with her other clients or how often anyone is calling her or what she says to them and if it's the same things she says to me.

I also told her that I was hurt, and sad, and disappointed, and angry. I told her I don't know if I will come back next week, that I have so many other things (big things!) going on in my life and that I don't know if I have room to spend time and energy going to therapy if it isn't helping anymore.

there is more, but I'm sleepy and sad and I need to just float away for a while.

I fell asleep, and T called. Luckily I had the phone on the pillow next to me, lol.

She said it's not my fault, and I'm not a bad person. She said she failed to set her limits and follow through and that I was just trying to get my needs met. She cares about me and cares about the relationship, and she knows we can work through this. She said something about how I can learn from this and use what I learn in my other relationships. She is still there and I can still call her.

So. I guess she said everything I needed to hear. I don't know how I feel about it, I mean, it's good but I don't feel okay. I don't feel relief. I don't feel calm. I feel numb. My trust is broken and I am not sure whether or how to fix it. I am hoping that my frantic, overwhelming emotions of earlier are done and I will feel better tomorrow.

I know in my head that T is still there but in my heart it is not the same, and this may be the lesson in this whole thing. That it's time to learn to count on me, nobody else. at the very least, I need to not be so invested in someone that them leaving leaves me empty, because everyone inevitably leaves in one way or another.

now, more pills and more sleep. thank you for being with me these past few hours, PC. I truly truly don't know how I would have gotten through it, but it would have been much worse than it was. Thank you.

Zoo, I keep trying to post to you and I keep losing the post. I'm sorry you had such an awful session. I've gone through that with my former T. It's hard for those of us who want a certain type of connection with our T, and as much as we understand what the relationship really is logically, it's hard to deal with it emotionally. It gets me with each T I've seen. The T becomes more than a person to us, but they don't really understand or know how to deal with that.

I'm glad she called you back but I understand why you don't know what to do, and don't feel that much better. I don't know what to say except that you are NOT a horrible person at all!!!! I like you very much.

(((((((((((Zoo))))))))))))

I'm glad T called and said the words you needed to hear. I honestly don't know if I could continue with my T if he was sarcastic with me...I'm trying to imagine it...and I think I would at least need an apology. I hope she apologizes. If she failed to set the boundaries she wanted to set, that is her issue, and NOT yours. The T is honestly the one responsible for the boundaries. If she felt she needed to redraw the lines, there are gentle, compassionate ways to do it. I'm sorry it all happened like it did.

I honestly don't think you've done anything wrong. If T said "please don't call" and you called over and over again, or something like that, then you would have consciously been crossing her boundaries and you would owe HER an apology. It sounds like she wasn't clear, and that is her issue.

I do like that she sounds like she wants to work it out with you. I know your trust must be SO shaken, but something I've learned in therapy is that our T's can make mistakes, we can be hurt, AND the relationship can still be worth repairing, and we can still grow together with our T's. That has been a huge and valuable lesson.

You don't have to decide ANYTHING tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day, or even next week. Even though it's so uncomfortable to be in the gray place of "not knowing", it's okay to sit right there in the discomfort without trying to figure anything out. It's okay to just be where you are for a moment.

Thinking of you and sending lots and lots of love and hugs, sweet friend

I think part of what is so confusing about this is that she told me so many times to call if I want to or need to. We have talked a lot about the process I go through when I'm deciding to call her, and she has always said to not think too much about it, just call her and let her sort it out. So then when I finally, finally started doing that...it's not okay.

very confusing. Very hard to think about how hard the next few days are going to be, with all these questions and all these old wounds from my earliest childhood ripped open.

I am glad she called and said the right things......now she needs to DO the right things, like keep good boundaries, because I think the people who mentioned that were right.....and she was honest in saying she didn't set good limits. I hope you both can learn from this and move forward, although I understand very well how hard it is to move forward with T when trust is broken, when T has hurt you, failed to set good boundaries and hurt you.....it happened to me recently but we are managing to move forward, so i hope you are able to, too!

"She was sarcastic and condescending." This part bothers me a lot. Also, if she said to call her whenever you need to, then whenever you need to should be ok. If she is not happy with the subject of your phone call, then she needs to take responsibility for not setting specific limits about your calls which should be done in person at a session. I'm glad she admitted she didn't set limits etc. Still, you have to decide about the sarcasm. Maybe you could bring that up if you go back and let her know how hurtful that is. You can make your needs known too. You can let her know what you are not willing to accept. Also, another thing that stands out is why is she doing all the talking? Why is she interrupting you? That is pretty disrespectful behavior on her part. Only you can decide if this is worth it to you or if you need to find someone else. How long have you been seeing her?

What she said about "she has never seen this before in all her practice" or whatever it was really struck me, I would be very demoralized too to hear that. I'm not surprised by your comment about feeling unloveable by anyone at the beginning of this thread. I would suspect there is a close connection between those two things.

The phone thing doesn't seem entirely fair either as others have pointed out. Perhaps she is feeling frustrated that, by looking for reassurance, it's sort of like you're questioning her interest and commitment in you over and over again. And every T wants to believe they are a very nice person who is magically can cure people with their empathy and support. So the fact it's not working is maybe pissing her off. But that's NOT your fault. It's absolutely not and the more she gets "sarcastic," as I'm sure you're aware, the more she's giving you actual, legitimate grounds to doubt her.

I guess one thing I wondered following this post is how you feel about all this, if at some level, you'd be relieved for her to let you down once and for all and end this relationship. I know for me that would be in the back of my mind and might influence my feelings about calling in the future.

All relationships have their ups & downs & issues that need to be worked through.....Our relationships with T's are in that way no different than any other relationship whether just friendship, or a closer relationship where we have an emotional involvement rather than JUST an acquaintance.

It's the working through & resolving the problems & learning better how to relate to others on both sides of the relationship that is the growing process of life. I have found that when both sides are willing to grow from an issue that comes up that it can be resolved & worked through.

Was in a marriage where my husband didn't want to grow or make the changes necessary for a successful marriage (or just a reasonable relationship) & because I had tolerated it for so many years, he just expected me to continue tolerating it & didn't want to put any effort into making the change that would make the marriage really work......SO I LEFT......but I wouldn't have if he had shown any desire to grow as a person....but because he was never FORCED to make changes, he refused.

Going through a lot of difficult emotions today. I've been writing out a lot of the things I want to say to t, just to try to get it out of my head. I actually downloaded an app for my phone that allowed me to block myself from calling or texting her, because when those waves if emotion come I am almost overwhelmed with the urge to let her know how this is affecting me and what I'm going through. And I know that doing that will not help, only make me disgusted with myself for my weakness.

So that's where I'm at with it right now. I have serious doubts about whether my trust in t can be repaired. I think in some ways I am in shock, feeling that I have lost Ts support so suddenly and completely. I find myself thinking that if I had any self respect I would end the relationship now and not give her more opportunity to hurt me. I keep reminding myself of what tree said: I don't have to decide anything right now.

There is more I would like to say about a couple specific comments, I will come back when I have more time.

PS reading the replies here is so helpful, I really can't even express it with words. So validating. Thank you all so much. Keep talking to me, so I know I'm not alone.