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  #1  
Old Sep 14, 2012, 05:46 PM
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SallyBrown SallyBrown is offline
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Hey guys. Sorry I haven't been posting/thanking/hugging so much lately. I've been pretty down because I did end up terminating with T . It's a long story and I'll probably post about it later when I have more time. Right now it's all kind of convoluted and I can't retell it without writing a post that is even more massively long than what I usually write.

In any case, by the end of it things felt, more than anything else, like an unhappy marriage where both people are frustrated and upset, and one person doesn't want to be the "bad guy" who files for divorce, so he alternately pushes buttons and withholds what the other person wants until the other person finally gives up and pulls the plug. And both people end up hurt, because even the person who was pushing the buttons didn't really want it to end, either -- like a spoiled child.

Oddly, I have been sleeping much, much better than I usually do. I have terrible difficulty staying asleep when I'm stressed, and it can be as bad as waking up every hour. But since the day I terminated -- Monday -- I have slept through the night no problem. That should probably tell me something. But T also disclosed something on the last day (something I told him weeks ago I really needed him to say) that also relieved an extremely stressful burden, one about whether or not he believed me about something (who on earth withholds that kind of information?).

Anyway this is already getting long and before I know it I'll be telling you the whole story so I'll stop here. But just wanted to keep you all posted. Oh, yeah, and I got buried under a massive pile of work so it's hard for me to mess around on the internets lately.

This isn't the way I wanted things to go .
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  #2  
Old Sep 14, 2012, 06:38 PM
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WikidPissah WikidPissah is offline
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Sally,
So great to hear from you. I understand how difficult it is to terminate, went thru it myself. Except I handled it mostly like a huge baby, lashing out after the fact. It is/was painful, and I hate myself for hanging on way too long. Of course you didn't want it to end this way, no one does.

It's good that you are sleeping well. Be extra gentle with yourself, and you know what? It's okay to blame him.
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never mind...
  #3  
Old Sep 14, 2012, 06:54 PM
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unaluna unaluna is online now
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what a dickhead. sorry to hear it. wonder if he - well, does it matter? he just went as far as he could go, I guess. it's not you, it's him. like they say, what do you call med students who graduate at the bottom of their class? "Doctor".
  #4  
Old Sep 14, 2012, 06:57 PM
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I am so sorry to hear things ended on such a sour note.

Also, don't feel like you have to plot everything out in a linear fashion for us. I know how much work that can be. You're hurting. You can hop on here and say "He wore brown socks with broken elastic on the left side. I hated the picture of the dead catfish hanging above the bookshelf!" We'll follow along the best we can to support you.
Thanks for this!
Anne2.0, WikidPissah, ~EnlightenMe~
  #5  
Old Sep 14, 2012, 09:07 PM
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~EnlightenMe~ ~EnlightenMe~ is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SallyBrown View Post
In any case, by the end of it things felt, more than anything else, like an unhappy marriage where both people are frustrated and upset, and one person doesn't want to be the "bad guy" who files for divorce, so he alternately pushes buttons and withholds what the other person wants until the other person finally gives up and pulls the plug. And both people end up hurt, because even the person who was pushing the buttons didn't really want it to end, either -- like a spoiled child.

This isn't the way I wanted things to go .
Sally,
I am so sorry for your loss! When you say it felt like an unhappy marriage where one guy doesn't want to be the "bad guy" who files for divorce, so he alternately pushes buttons and withholds what the other person wants until the other person finally gives up and pulls the plug, reminded me of what happened to me.

Therapy isn't a marriage so this metaphor doesn't fit. Your therapist works for you. You were paying your therapist to help you, and for him to not be forthcoming but be manipulative in getting you to do what he wanted, is so, so wrong. So, therapists are human, I get that. But being punitively manipulative to get his way is unethical, even if it is not written in whatever therapy code there is. I don't know all of the facts, but this could be potentially very damaging to you, so please take good care of yourself (unlike I do). It is a sad state of affairs when this CAN happen and be written off as being okay, by both society and the therapist. It's as if we don't exist. I wish you the best and keep posting if you need to, if you get a chance.

I am so, so sorry that this happened to you. I wish you the best of luck.
  #6  
Old Sep 14, 2012, 09:12 PM
learning1 learning1 is offline
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I wondered how you were doing. I quit recently too- if quit can be the same as terminated. I'm sorry it was not good for you.
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  #7  
Old Sep 14, 2012, 10:43 PM
adel34 adel34 is offline
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Hi Sally,
Good to hear from you again. So sorry things ended so badly. Please come on here for support anytime!
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  #8  
Old Sep 15, 2012, 07:52 AM
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WikidPissah WikidPissah is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pbutton View Post

Also, don't feel like you have to plot everything out in a linear fashion for us. I know how much work that can be. You're hurting. You can hop on here and say "He wore brown socks with broken elastic on the left side. I hated the picture of the dead catfish hanging above the bookshelf!" We'll follow along the best we can to support you.
This ^ is good posting. We hear so much on here about working it out, the kink in the relationship makes it stronger...etc, that sometimes we forget some relationships just suck. Sometimes a T becomes less than helpful and we need to move on, who cares about the reasons? We shouldn't have to explain and re-explain every detail of why we terminated, just saying "I hated the picture in his office" should be good enough.
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never mind...
Thanks for this!
pbutton
  #9  
Old Sep 15, 2012, 09:40 AM
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healed84 healed84 is offline
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Sorry about the termination Sally ((hugs))
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  #10  
Old Sep 16, 2012, 10:26 PM
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SallyBrown SallyBrown is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WikidPissah View Post
Sally,
So great to hear from you. I understand how difficult it is to terminate, went thru it myself. Except I handled it mostly like a huge baby, lashing out after the fact. It is/was painful, and I hate myself for hanging on way too long. Of course you didn't want it to end this way, no one does.

It's good that you are sleeping well. Be extra gentle with yourself, and you know what? It's okay to blame him.
Thanks so much Wiki . I definitely did my share of lashing the last few weeks, but of course to no avail. I am worried about hanging on too long, because that's kind of what I do. But I think I did the right thing, the more I think about it... I do want to give him another shot if the opportunity occurs, but that will not happen soon.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hankster View Post
what a dickhead. sorry to hear it. wonder if he - well, does it matter? he just went as far as he could go, I guess. it's not you, it's him. like they say, what do you call med students who graduate at the bottom of their class? "Doctor".
I think I know exactly the wavelength you're on. I also wonder... the curious part of me thinks, I know there is more to this. I think part of the reason I kept trying was that I really truly believed there was SOMETHING, and that we could figure it out. And I think I should trust my gut on this and believe that there is something with him, no matter how much he insists there is nothing.

While reading about something totally unrelated, I came across a quote from Galileo: "All truths are easy to understand, once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." Or something like that. Anyway it really hit home: I know things are wrong because they are a million times more complicated than they need to be, and they don't add up.

He's an idiot.

Quote:
Originally Posted by pbutton View Post
I am so sorry to hear things ended on such a sour note.

Also, don't feel like you have to plot everything out in a linear fashion for us. I know how much work that can be. You're hurting. You can hop on here and say "He wore brown socks with broken elastic on the left side. I hated the picture of the dead catfish hanging above the bookshelf!" We'll follow along the best we can to support you.
Thank you . Be careful what you wish for, though!

You guys are the best, for real.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Antimatter View Post
Sally,
I am so sorry for your loss! When you say it felt like an unhappy marriage where one guy doesn't want to be the "bad guy" who files for divorce, so he alternately pushes buttons and withholds what the other person wants until the other person finally gives up and pulls the plug, reminded me of what happened to me.

Therapy isn't a marriage so this metaphor doesn't fit. Your therapist works for you. You were paying your therapist to help you, and for him to not be forthcoming but be manipulative in getting you to do what he wanted, is so, so wrong. So, therapists are human, I get that. But being punitively manipulative to get his way is unethical, even if it is not written in whatever therapy code there is. I don't know all of the facts, but this could be potentially very damaging to you, so please take good care of yourself (unlike I do). It is a sad state of affairs when this CAN happen and be written off as being okay, by both society and the therapist. It's as if we don't exist. I wish you the best and keep posting if you need to, if you get a chance.

I am so, so sorry that this happened to you. I wish you the best of luck.
Yeah, I am definitely feeling this right now. In a way, although it's frustrating to not have time to get onto PC more, it's kind of a blessing to be suddenly really busy at work. Keeps me focused during the day so I don't spend all my time ruminating.

I realized at some point that one thing he did -- knowingly and deliberately allowing me to incorrectly conclude that he did not believe me about something that happened -- would be considered borderline emotionally abusive if it were in the context of non-therapy relationship. We see that so many times here... Ts taking crappy behavior and repackaging it as "therapy". Didn't want to think my T would do that. The complicated part is, I really think he had convinced himself he was doing the right thing.

I know you've really been suffering. I hope things get better for you, and that you find ways to carry yourself through the anger and grief

Quote:
Originally Posted by learning1 View Post
I wondered how you were doing. I quit recently too- if quit can be the same as terminated. I'm sorry it was not good for you.


Quote:
Originally Posted by adel34 View Post
Hi Sally,
Good to hear from you again. So sorry things ended so badly. Please come on here for support anytime!
Hugs for everyone!

Quote:
Originally Posted by WikidPissah View Post
This ^ is good posting. We hear so much on here about working it out, the kink in the relationship makes it stronger...etc, that sometimes we forget some relationships just suck. Sometimes a T becomes less than helpful and we need to move on, who cares about the reasons? We shouldn't have to explain and re-explain every detail of why we terminated, just saying "I hated the picture in his office" should be good enough.
Yeah. It's tough. In the past, working through ruptures really DID make the relationship stronger. It can be hard to know what's going to help and what's just going to be a long awful breakup. I guess it became clear to me when he just kept saying things that were more and more off, and not doing basic things like wondering, have I made an incorrect assumption here? UUUGGGGGGGHHHH.

Quote:
Originally Posted by healed84 View Post
Sorry about the termination Sally ((hugs))


I will say this, though: he was EXTREMELY upset on the last day. Very distraught. It was the first time I really saw his emotions match his words. It's what made me consider trying again at some point. But this week, it will be new T interviews. Kind of nervous, kind of sad, but I gotta make myself do it. Can't wait until things are already bad to look for help.

Thank you all
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  #11  
Old Sep 16, 2012, 11:23 PM
Anonymous32887
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SallyBrown View Post
It was the first time I really saw his emotions match his words.

(((((Sally)))))

I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the process of therapy when terminations occur and a (former) client writes the above.

Hope it gets better and you are able to find another T who can manage their own CT.


Last edited by Anonymous32887; Sep 16, 2012 at 11:40 PM.
  #12  
Old Sep 16, 2012, 11:40 PM
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Chopin99 Chopin99 is offline
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I'm sorry this happened, Sally. It sounds like it is for the best, but it doesn't make it any easier. I agree with Lost, it's a shame considering how long he was your T, that the termination session was the first time you saw his emotions match his words. I appreciate how authentic my T is.

Do you plan to find another T or has work got you so bogged down you have little time to think? PM me if you need anything.
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  #13  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 12:35 AM
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tooski tooski is offline
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It's obvious from the posts that you are right and your T is wrong. Another crappy T!! One wonders how they even manage to get licensed....... We here on PC so obviously have our **** together, and our T's are just such ****ed up jerks. Perhaps the world would be a better place if WE could be the T's, eh????
Thanks for this!
learning1
  #14  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 07:37 AM
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SallyBrown SallyBrown is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lost in termination View Post
(((((Sally)))))

I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the process of therapy when terminations occur and a (former) client writes the above.

Hope it gets better and you are able to find another T who can manage their own CT.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chopin99 View Post
I'm sorry this happened, Sally. It sounds like it is for the best, but it doesn't make it any easier. I agree with Lost, it's a shame considering how long he was your T, that the termination session was the first time you saw his emotions match his words. I appreciate how authentic my T is.

Do you plan to find another T or has work got you so bogged down you have little time to think? PM me if you need anything.
I should probably clarify, I didn't phrase that well -- it was the first time in the past few months, when the poop hit the fan, that his emotions matched his words, but not the first time ever. Although at the same time, (1) that was always a bit of a problem at times and (2) it's still not really acceptable, because it seems like it should happen ESPECIALLY when a termination is imminent.

The most disturbing episode toward the end, for me, was one in which I was crying in a way I never ever cry in front of anyone except my H. I was so upset I couldn't sit upright, I just had my head in my hands in my lap. I was crying so hard the tears were flowing down my forehead and wetting my hair. He was saying something that sounded almost rehearsed, but I hardly remember what. I think justifying the thing that was making me cry by saying he was trying to be honest, and if he had known he would have done things differently, and that he has always cared about me, blah blah, but his calm and collected demeanor was out of sync with my hysteria. As if there was a drama playing in his head that didn't match reality.

What I was crying about? Well, one of the things that made me realize I needed to leave was that I could not seem to extract a basic, genuine apology from him for ways in which he messed up, and things he did, intentionally or not, that had been hurtful in the past couple months. It's complicated, because he did apologize for a select few things (one of which I wasn't upset about, thanks a lot T), but wouldn't engage overall. On this day, literally two sessions before the last, he finally said something like, he was just being honest with me because he didn't want to accept blame for things for which he did not feel he was at fault. I kind of thought this might have been the case -- I know there are people in the world who do not believe in apologizing unless one is fully at fault; I am not one of them. I used to be, and it made me unhappy, and I'm never going back. In any case, I told him, it's not about taking blame to me, it's about acknowledging someone else's hurt, whether it's directly, indirectly, or not at all your fault. [I do think it's appropriate not to apologize if someone is accusing of having intentions you simply don't have.] He said something like, "Oh, well, if that's what you think about it, I'd be happy to apologize for these things every day of every week." Excuse me? "I just thought that YOU thought it was about assigning blame." I thought for a second and said, "I don't recall ever saying anything like that." He conceded I had not. I then said, "And considering I had this exact same issue with H for so long, you ought to know how I feel about apologies. And I know I've talked about my feelings about them in other contexts, when I've apologized to others." He said something like, "It was just something about you that made me think that, I guess."

Nice.

I feel like as I write that, I am writing an exam question for Intro Psych for which the correct answer is, "projective identification."

IN ANY CASE. Thank you both . And thank you Chopin, I appreciate the support so much.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tooski View Post
It's obvious from the posts that you are right and your T is wrong. Another crappy T!! One wonders how they even manage to get licensed....... We here on PC so obviously have our **** together, and our T's are just such ****ed up jerks. Perhaps the world would be a better place if WE could be the T's, eh????
Sometimes I think the people of PC are the people who need therapy the least!
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  #15  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 08:24 AM
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SallyBrown SallyBrown is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chopin99 View Post
I'm sorry this happened, Sally. It sounds like it is for the best, but it doesn't make it any easier. I agree with Lost, it's a shame considering how long he was your T, that the termination session was the first time you saw his emotions match his words. I appreciate how authentic my T is.

Do you plan to find another T or has work got you so bogged down you have little time to think? PM me if you need anything.

I forgot to add! Yes, I am looking for a new T. When I realized things were probably not going to get better about a month ago, I asked my pdoc for a few referrals. Didn't have the heart to check them out, and even now I kind of don't want to. But I also don't want to wait until things are actually bad to start looking.

I have THREE T interviews this week. One Wed morning, one Thurs evening, one Fri evening. Yikes. Two chicks and one dude. I'm nervous about seeing a female therapist, because I tend to automatically get tense and defensive when I talk to women about my feelings. I know this has to do with the sometimes combative relationship with my mom. But I wanted to try to challenge myself and see if I could make that work.

Wish me luck! I'll try to let y'all know how it goes.
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Thanks for this!
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  #16  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 08:25 AM
Anne2.0 Anne2.0 is offline
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You might not want to read this. My perspective could be labeled as unsupportive, if you define support as agreeing with everyone and/or as telling you that your T is terrible. I am genuinely sorry that you were hurt in the process of termination, however. I think that I have gone through something similar, and my perspective and what I've learned for me in my own life seems like it has relevance to what you're raising. It may not, I realize, but wanted to offer it anyway.

I've been in the place, with my H and occasionally with others, where I have used the phrase "extract an apology" and have been completely distraught that the other person hasn't fully realized how they have been hurtful. But the level of hurt this has felt like to me is that kind of hurt that is historical in nature, that it's not just about what's going on in the moment and it is pulling up some deeper pain. Maybe it's the same thing as being triggered, but I recognize that place now when I'm there. A few days ago I had an exchange with a friend who betrayed my trust and blabbed about some medical issue/testing to someone else, and this thing, about how I deal with people when they apologize to me, was full front and center. It's come up in T, although I wouldn't call the issues around which he needed to apologize to me were terribly serious.

For me, I came to understood that even getting to the place where I could tell my H (or other people) that they had done something to hurt me was something of a major step of progress. This comes from a childhood of silencing where there were at least a couple of people who were very invested in making sure I didn't say anything to anyone about the things that hurt me. In my FOO, there also existed a broader dynamic that you pretty much got shamed or disbelieved if you did say something about being hurt by what someone said or did. I guess stoicism and seething silent resentment were the values cultivated as I was going up.

I think as a younger adult, I had two modes of confronting people about the things they had done to hurt me: 1) mostly complete silence, with little passive aggressive "hints" like failing to follow through with plans or other promises; or 2) fire hose pound down, where "extracting an apology" would probably be a mild way of putting it. I'm not sure that I really have the effective strategy now that is somewhere in the middle of that, but I'm in the general zone.

I think that looking for someone to apologize in a particular way and trying to extract from them exactly what you want is something to consider as at least partly your own issue, rather than the failure of the other party to give you what you want. I used to try to demand that people apologize to me in a quite protracted process, and it was like some police interrogation gone terribly wrong where I don't stop shining the bright light in their eyes until I hear exactly the words that I want. It was partly like I wanted them to make up for every apology I should have gotten in the first 18 years of my life, and to be responsible for all the crappy apologies that came after that.

Some people would probably call this a boundary issue, that any time we demand that people give us a specific reaction is a time when we are having difficult with allowing people to be who they are and give us what they can. Over time I have more seen apologies as something that everyone does in a pretty crappy fashion and also that I accept that no one's apology is ever going to be good enough for me, because the things I really need apologies for are never going to happen, and there is no way to make this up.

For me, I experience the insufficient apology issue as people doing the best they can, that they are trying to give me what I need. When they fall short of the mark, as they always do, I try not to blame them for their very human inability to get it right according to the Doctrine of Anne and accept what they have offered. Even if I feel that they are not trying enough for me, and that they could if they only cared about me enough, I recognize that this is really about me and not about them.

But the bigger issue I think is that I have wanted to get to a place where I don't need to have or get anything specific from people when they apologize, that I don't need them to dance in this particular way or organize their words in that other way. I ask for what I need, I accept what they offer in return. I suppose if they didn't offer anything in return, that would really honk me off. But I find that when I allow people more space to give me what I have asked for, as opposed to try to extract something very specific from them, I actually do get more of what I need. If I allow people the freedom to respond to me with how they really feel without me trying to tell them how to respond, it's a much more satisfying exchange.

I guess that in my experience, asking for what I need is most successful if I am open to receiving back whatever they give me. It's doesn't mean that I might not continue to talk about it and ask for more, but when I get to that space where I realize that I'm going nuts because they are not doing it Exactly Right, then that's where I'm interfering with them. And when I'm screwing up the relationship between us by making them see it precisely as I do and dance to exactly the tune I'm playing. My relationships tend to go better when I allow people to be different than me in how they see and do things. I also can let go of a lot of control in these circumstances, which is really pretty much of a relief.
  #17  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 08:51 AM
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SallyBrown SallyBrown is offline
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Hi Anne,

I can't really respond to what you said at length now, but I did skim through it and I do appreciate it. I don't see it as unsupportive at all, and in fact, I mostly agree with you that focusing too hard on having someone apologize in just the right way can make a person miserable. Been there and done that with my H!

There are definitely people in my life from whom I'd love an apology, but know I won't get one. However, these are people from whom I keep a careful distance. I know if someone can't admit that what they did was unnecessarily hurtful, I'm not really going to be able to get as close to them as I might otherwise, and that might be sad, but it's life and it's ok in the end.

For my T, though, I do need someone who can say, yes, I hurt you, and I'm sorry about that. And I think if he was doing it in his own way and giving me everything he could, that would have been something I'd try to find a way to be ok with.

My problem was, though, that he would not even discuss the matter of an apology with me. He didn't want to tell me why he wouldn't, and he didn't want to know why I wanted one. I feel like that's a real failure in therapy, if I'm stuck on something and he changes the subject every time I bring it up, or ignores it if I've put it in an e-mail.

Beyond that, I saw him for 5 1/2 years, and he had no reason to believe that I see apologies as a mechanism for blame, but he held that assumption closely enough to say that it was more important that he not apologize than that I stay on with him. That I find to be problematic as well.

So in a way, it wasn't the apology itself that became the problem. The problem became not being able to even discuss it, and then it became finding out he was acting based on an assumption that had nothing to do with me that he could identify, just "something". It would have been different if he said, "I'm not apologizing because in the past, you have used it as a way to blame me for things that are not my fault." And also assuming that I actually did that, which I didn't. That would make sense. But holding out for so many weeks, having so many arguments, based on an assumption he never questioned? That bugs me.

I guess an important note here also is that he himself said that he was happy to apologize, if apology just meant acknowledging he hurt me. So in reality, I wasn't trying to get anything from him that he was unwilling to give. He just refused to give it to me for reasons that had nothing to do with me. And that, for me, is a real problem.
  #18  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 09:29 AM
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unaluna unaluna is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SallyBrown View Post
Well, one of the things that made me realize I needed to leave was that I could not seem to extract a basic, genuine apology from him for ways in which he messed up, and things he did, intentionally or not, that had been hurtful in the past couple months. It's complicated, because he did apologize for a select few things (one of which I wasn't upset about, thanks a lot T), but wouldn't engage overall. On this day, literally two sessions before the last, he finally said something like, he was just being honest with me because he didn't want to accept blame for things for which he did not feel he was at fault. I kind of thought this might have been the case -- I know there are people in the world who do not believe in apologizing unless one is fully at fault; I am not one of them. I used to be, and it made me unhappy, and I'm never going back. In any case, I told him, it's not about taking blame to me, it's about acknowledging someone else's hurt, whether it's directly, indirectly, or not at all your fault. He said something like, "Oh, well, if that's what you think about it, I'd be happy to apologize for these things every day of every week." Excuse me? "I just thought that YOU thought it was about assigning blame." I thought for a second and said, "I don't recall ever saying anything like that." He conceded I had not. I then said, "And considering I had this exact same issue with H for so long, you ought to know how I feel about apologies. And I know I've talked about my feelings about them in other contexts, when I've apologized to others." He said something like, "It was just something about you that made me think that, I guess."
Nice.
I feel like as I write that, I am writing an exam question for Intro Psych for which the correct answer is, "projective identification."
I'm gonna be "unsupportive" too, hope that's okay. How does a T hurt you, "intentionally or not", that he would need to apologize for it? The reason we go to T is to reprocess old hurts, so if they are doing their job right, it's supposed to hurt. So i'm confused. You did say he didn't believe you recently about something. Again, that would just be part of the process - he is showing you that, for some reason, you are presenting yourself as unconvincing, as if you don't WANT to be believed, you were expecting to be disbelieved - why? It's like you lost distance or perspective - you were no longer "watching" yourself in therapy, you were acting as if it were real? Like the judgment about the apologies - there ARE different rules for therapy than IRL, and you know that. I am concerned about the "hair crying" - what's really going on? Somehow I feel like this isn't just about T.
  #19  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 11:11 AM
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SallyBrown SallyBrown is offline
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Originally Posted by hankster View Post
I'm gonna be "unsupportive" too, hope that's okay. How does a T hurt you, "intentionally or not", that he would need to apologize for it? The reason we go to T is to reprocess old hurts, so if they are doing their job right, it's supposed to hurt.
Well of course it hurts! I've been doing this for 5+ years now. And I would have LOVED to talk to him about how this brought back old hurts. I told him about how this brought up stuff with my mom, with my H, with my general past. He would listen, but it seemed to have no impact on his impression of the things that were bothering me.

For example. His morning schedule changed. This is a massively long story that I started typing, but what it comes down to is, the way he disclosed this to me was less-than-ideal. I wasn't bothered by the schedule change itself, but I was frustrated at how difficult it was to get him to say, "I can't really come in before 7:45 anymore." I can tell this story if you like. But the point is, I wasn't actually upset that he couldn't come in before 7:45, just that it was an excruciating process.

However, no matter what I said or did or how thoroughly I explained my thoughts and feelings, he INSISTED that what was REALLY bothering me was that he had less time for me in the morning. But... not really. I mean yeah it makes scheduling tougher, but it didn't feel personally hurtful at all to me. Not even a little bit. So we spent WEEKS fighting about that. When I spend all my time telling him how I DON'T feel, it leaves little time to talk about how I DO feel.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hankster View Post
So i'm confused. You did say he didn't believe you recently about something. Again, that would just be part of the process - he is showing you that, for some reason, you are presenting yourself as unconvincing, as if you don't WANT to be believed, you were expecting to be disbelieved - why? It's like you lost distance or perspective - you were no longer "watching" yourself in therapy, you were acting as if it were real?
No no, he DID believe me. We had a phone conversation in which he said something EXTREMELY unhelpful, but he didn't remember it later. When I told him about it, he said, "That doesn't sound like something I would say." Um. OK? This was maybe 6 weeks ago or so. Then later I told him that it really seemed like he didn't believe me. Nothing. Then when telling him the final reasons I was leaving, starting about 3 weeks ago, I told him that it was really a dealbreaker that he just wouldn't discuss this phone conversation as if it actually happened, and that his only words about it, and all his actions, left me to conclude that he just didn't believe me.

Then on the VERY LAST DAY, I told him, look, you say you are trying to see things from my point of view, but you won't even entertain believing me about this conversation. And he said, "I do believe you, Sally. I believe you when you say that I said that, and I'm sorry that I responded in a hurtful way." I was shocked. I said, "But you knew I thought you didn't believe me!" He said yes. I said, "And you knew it was tearing me up that you didn't, and that it made me feel like it was going to be impossible to work with you if you didn't believe me!" He said yes. I said, "And you knew it was driving me nuts that you seemed to think I was the kind of person who would make something up just to elicit an apology!" He said yes. I said, "I don't think I was unclear about any of those things!" He said, "No, you were very clear." I said, "I have no way of knowing that you believe me unless you say so!" He said, "That's true. Now that we are talking about it, I wish I had just told you I believed you when you asked so many weeks ago."

Indeed, those very words he spoke to me were words I had pleaded with him to say, if they were true, just say to me so I could stop feeling so hurt about this.

So that was what hurt. He had given me a fair impression that he didn't believe the conversation really happened. He did not tell me he did believe it happened when I asked or when I brought up that it did not seem he believed me because he changed the subject every time we talked about -- so it's not even like I was able to change my impression by discussing it. He knew inside himself that he DID believe me, every time I told him it hurt me so much that he did not believe me, after all this time together.

What hurt was that he DID believe me, but didn't tell me -- he said he wanted to "stay with my perspective" (hard to believe when he spent the rest of his time correcting my emotions about his time in the morning, as I said above). He could have said, over many weeks, "No, I know I said it didn't sound like me, and it doesn't, but I believe you when you say that it happened." He chose not to.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hankster View Post
Like the judgment about the apologies - there ARE different rules for therapy than IRL, and you know that. I am concerned about the "hair crying" - what's really going on? Somehow I feel like this isn't just about T.
I'm not sure what you mean by "judgment". I suppose I do, in a way, judge people who would rather lose loving relationships than say the words "I'm sorry", but that's kind of their problem, and not mine. I do think he has a right to believe that apologies are only for when one is at fault. But he has to own that belief, not say that he believes it because of me, with no evidence. If he had said, "I'm not apologizing because in the past, you have used it as a mechanism to blame me," that would have been different. He didn't say that, because it isn't true and he knows it. He just said it was "something". I don't really want a therapist who forms impressions of me based on "something" that contradicts everything I have said, done, and report having done with others.

Of course there are different rules for therapy; that's how I decided it was time for a new T. I would like a T who believes in being more spontaneous and open, and I know they exist. It's his call if he doesn't want to do things that way. It just makes me really sad.
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  #20  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 11:47 AM
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I see. It sounds like he was trying to bully you into an insight about something, see what HE thinks he knows about you regarding the morning schedule change. But I agree, it doesn't sound like he was being open and spontaneous - it was more like he had an agenda. I don't think just pounding away in the same spot works, in therapy and in various other enterprises requiring finesse. That's my theory about Andy Roddick, for example (that's tennis).
  #21  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 12:44 PM
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Originally Posted by hankster View Post
I see. It sounds like he was trying to bully you into an insight about something, see what HE thinks he knows about you regarding the morning schedule change. But I agree, it doesn't sound like he was being open and spontaneous - it was more like he had an agenda. I don't think just pounding away in the same spot works, in therapy and in various other enterprises requiring finesse. That's my theory about Andy Roddick, for example (that's tennis).
Yeah, I get that impression too. I do think he was trying to do something, and I do think he thought he was doing something that would help. I can't tell you what that is, but it sounded like he was much more in his head than mine. About what was going on, about what would be helpful, and so on. As soon as someone is flagrantly not making sense -- like "keeping with my perspective" about the phone convo (my perspective was that it happened and we should talk about it!) -- you know there's something else brewing.

At times it seemed like I thought I was asking a simple, straightforward question, and he responded as if I had backed him into a corner. And in the last several sessions, he kept emphasizing that he would always love and care about me even if I left, and I had a special place in his heart. Which is a wonderful thing to say. But the timing was very strange... at times where I was trying NOT to leave, trying to understand what was going on with him that we just weren't connecting, he responded as if it were a sappy romantic movie where our love was doomed from the beginning or something. So it just ended up feeling weird. Kind of like there was a way in which this was supposed to play out in his head... all of the sentimental phrases, followed by revelations in the last three sessions that he was willing to do what I had been begging him to do all along, and how tragic that he was just understanding all of this now. It's very weird. No idea what to make of it.
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  #22  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 03:35 PM
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Yeah, I get that impression too. I do think he was trying to do something, and I do think he thought he was doing something that would help. I can't tell you what that is, but it sounded like he was much more in his head than mine. About what was going on, about what would be helpful, and so on. As soon as someone is flagrantly not making sense -- like "keeping with my perspective" about the phone convo (my perspective was that it happened and we should talk about it!) -- you know there's something else brewing.

At times it seemed like I thought I was asking a simple, straightforward question, and he responded as if I had backed him into a corner. And in the last several sessions, he kept emphasizing that he would always love and care about me even if I left, and I had a special place in his heart. Which is a wonderful thing to say. But the timing was very strange... at times where I was trying NOT to leave, trying to understand what was going on with him that we just weren't connecting, he responded as if it were a sappy romantic movie where our love was doomed from the beginning or something. So it just ended up feeling weird. Kind of like there was a way in which this was supposed to play out in his head... all of the sentimental phrases, followed by revelations in the last three sessions that he was willing to do what I had been begging him to do all along, and how tragic that he was just understanding all of this now. It's very weird. No idea what to make of it.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Here are a few examples of my experience, it seems like you had a somewhat similar one. It makes it more difficult after termination when you understood nothing of what happened during the so-called termination phase. My T was really erratic and confusing. One day it was, okay you are the one who can determine whether the fact that you are not progressing and staying in therapy is ethical or not (?) He spoke about my lack of progress and I had NO say in it. IT was as if his word was WORD, as if he had the last and only say (and he actually did).

Then, after he told me that he was leaving the decision up to me whether to leave or not, he exclaimed, "When a boyfriend and a girlfriend break up, the one who gets terminated doesn''t go back to the boyfriend for help." I was like, WTF? He just said it was my decision. We were talking one day, and again he told me it was my decision to leave or not, and I said, "Well, I'm not taking leaving off of the table." And he exclamed in a sarcastic tone, "Well, thanks a lot for not holding your staying over my head." As if I could?

I told him, I may be projecting, but I'm getting the idea that you are also crazy.

He clearly wanted me GONE, and not for my benefit, but for his. I was so confused, seriously, and still am. And angry, enraged, hurt. What do you think went on with your T? I still think my real therapist had to have been abducted by aliens. After my T's behavior, that's the MOST rational explanation I can muster.?. lol
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  #23  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 03:50 PM
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Termination sucks, I think that T's pretend to have no feelings because inside they hurt. My ex T said before we terminated that it was the hardest part of therapy and she found the goodbyes so hard, Her behaviour changed towards me too. it was as if she was preparing to detach. Must be something they teach you to do at T school.
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  #24  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 05:23 PM
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SallyBrown SallyBrown is offline
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Yeah, I know what you mean. Here are a few examples of my experience, it seems like you had a somewhat similar one. It makes it more difficult after termination when you understood nothing of what happened during the so-called termination phase. My T was really erratic and confusing. One day it was, okay you are the one who can determine whether the fact that you are not progressing and staying in therapy is ethical or not (?) He spoke about my lack of progress and I had NO say in it. IT was as if his word was WORD, as if he had the last and only say (and he actually did).

Then, after he told me that he was leaving the decision up to me whether to leave or not, he exclaimed, "When a boyfriend and a girlfriend break up, the one who gets terminated doesn''t go back to the boyfriend for help." I was like, WTF? He just said it was my decision. We were talking one day, and again he told me it was my decision to leave or not, and I said, "Well, I'm not taking leaving off of the table." And he exclamed in a sarcastic tone, "Well, thanks a lot for not holding your staying over my head." As if I could?

I told him, I may be projecting, but I'm getting the idea that you are also crazy.

He clearly wanted me GONE, and not for my benefit, but for his. I was so confused, seriously, and still am. And angry, enraged, hurt. What do you think went on with your T? I still think my real therapist had to have been abducted by aliens. After my T's behavior, that's the MOST rational explanation I can muster.?. lol
He does sound crazy! It's things like this that do make me appreciate old T. We might not ultimately have been a good match, but he was NEVER sarcastic with me. And this boyfriend/girlfriend thing... not so appropriate...

Sounds like your T was really hurt about something. And it kind of sounds like maybe he didn't really want you gone, but wasn't getting his way and so kept saying it's up to YOU to leave, it's up to YOU to leave, knowing that that was not what he himself wanted, but it's a way of putting the blame for the end of the relationship on you. It's just the vibe I get from what he said. Kind of a temper tantrum.

With my T... I'm not sure. I've started this thing in a private blog I have called "letters to T". Obviously this stuff goes over and over in my head, and I need a place to let it out. So I've been writing it as if I were still sending him e-mail. I figure once I don't feel the need to do this anymore, and once they're a little less tinged with anger (already they're looking better), I'll be in a better spot to decide whether I want to give it another try. Unlike your T, he told me I could always come back, and it didn't matter how long it took. I also need to interview these new T's and see if I get a "click". I already spoke to one on the phone, and he asked me what had happened with old T. I said, "Well, there was the 'blank slate' thing..." and this guy (I'll call him The Dude, because among my referrals, he's the only guy) responded with a knowing, "Ohhhhhh." Bonus points for The Dude.

But I think also in these letters I might be able to piece together a picture of the things that are there for me and the things that are missing. Today it has occurred to me how much he really was in his own head the last couple of months, and how it really got started when I asked if I could come in 3x a week instead of 4x. I did tell him that sometimes I wondered if he was angry with me for doing that, and taking it out in other ways, but he insisted he was not.

However, that same period was the trigger for this whole "early morning" issue, of whether he had time earlier in the day. He'd made me a promise back in the fall that he could always do earlier in the morning -- he can't stay late, but he can always come in early. This is because I knew I would have a new job this year, and I needed to make an FSA budget for 2012, so I needed to know how often I could expect to come in, depending on where I worked. But sometime in February, his schedule changed, and any time before 7:45 became very inconvenient. He failed to tell me this -- which is actually ok, it's something I'd probably forget too, because it wasn't an issue until I started having Wed morning meetings at work.

But instead of either just telling me that he couldn't go earlier than 7:45 and we'd have to work something else out, or just offering me a time and not saying anything about it, he waffled a great deal. I called him on the promise he'd made, curious as to why this was suddenly a problem. Instead of telling me his schedule had changed, he told me that he "didn't want to come in before 7:45, and was trying not to." Ouch? FINALLY, weeks after my work schedule had become an issue, he told me his schedule had changed and before 7:45 was tough but he could make it work. But at that point, I already knew he didn't want to come in that early. He kept saying he'd be happy to, and I believed him, but it made me really uncomfortable. I guess because being happy to accommodate did not fit in with the weeks and weeks it took to have what should have been a one minute conversation. "I thought you said you could always do earlier?" "Crap, I did say that, sorry but my schedule changed and I forgot to tell you. I can't do that anymore. But I can give you x, y, and z times. We'll figure it out." Should have been that easy. Instead it was so convoluted that for a time I thought he had forgotten he said it at all, and was killing time hoping I'd just drop it.

ANYWAY. This was when he started insisting that I was upset that he didn't have as much time for me. But I was just upset that I had had this backwards upside-down ordeal just to figure out something simple. I didn't really mind that much about the time itself. But he would NOT let it go, right up until the last day I came in before taking a 2 week break. There were other things going on, too, that I haven't even mentioned, but that don't intersect so much so I can set them aside for now.

When I came back from the break (this is late August now; my Wed schedule changed at the beginning of May), he was suddenly all "I'll always care about you even if you decide to leave" and "I will continue to love you regardless of what you choose." Sweet things, but very out of sync with my attitude, which was this needs to get fixed NOW because I can't stand how many problems have piled up anymore. It was as if he already expected I would leave, and to be fair, I was leaning heavily toward leaving. But I wanted to give it one last go.

And it was just so strange, when he told me in the third-to-last session, after it was final that I was leaving, that he'd been willing to apologize all along, and then cited an incorrect assumption about me as the reason he didn't, which just broke me down because I was already on my last nerve about it, and I was so sad that we had spent all that time fighting, all that time being unhappy, just because of some poor assumption that showed a real lack of understanding, on his part, of my character. It was strange because I was beside myself with grief, but he calmly went on this speech about how he would have been being dishonest with me if he had accepted blame for things that were his fault, and this is all a terrible misunderstanding, and how many things might have been different and how many problems that we had had over the years would have been solved earlier if he had only known? But his voice lacked the gravity of a realization like that. And it should have been surprising, caught him off-guard.

And it seems so convenient that he should make an attempt to heal the last big wound, that of not believing me, on the very last day, right after telling me he'd always be happy to have me back if I ever decided to come back. He cited "sticking with my perspective", which was something he had cited more than once over the past couple months, even though that appeared to be the opposite of what he was doing. He was sticking with a perspective, but not mine! It was almost like he was just saying over and over, "this is what YOU think, this is what YOU think," while talking about what HE thinks. HE felt guilty about the time, not me. HE see apologies as admission of fault, not me. HE ignored what I said about the phone convo, that I was upset about it and wanted to go through it, and thought the more important thing was how it seemed like he didn't believe me -- not me.

So this is all a long-winded way of saying, I think he got stuck in his own head. I think he had an idea of how this would play out. He's always had a flair for drama, and it's much more dramatic for me to be distraught that he doesn't have as much time for me, than for me to just want to get my calendar in order and rely on him to tell me when he can and can't meet with me. It's much more dramatic if he tells me he will always love me, then uncovers our misunderstandings of the last MONTHS on the very last days. I'm not saying he did this consciously. But I do think he had a narrative in his head, and in some ways it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Why? I dunno. I totally accept that this theory has been pulled directly from my bum, and it could be utterly wrong. Truth is I have no idea. I has asked whether this had to do with a certain technique he was trying that wasn't working; he insisted it wasn't that. He also said there wasn't anything going on in his life that would make him act differently (except for one, but that was related to other stuff that had happened between us). I've wondered if the events paralleled something that happened to him before, which was why he already had these preconceived notions, that had nothing to do with me or who I am, in his mind.

Because one thing I realized as I was writing today was that the first time he really showed that he was upset (which he kept saying, but without much emotion) was when I gave him a very personal gift as a goodbye. He wasn't expecting it, at all. I knew he wouldn't be and at first I wanted him to open it when I wasn't there. He suddenly pinched his eyes shut and leaned forward "The Thinker" style, and I could tell that on the inside he was crying really hard. I felt like the worst person in the entire world, so bad I wanted to take everything back just to make him not so sad. He had an extra box of tissues by him, and said, "Usually I don't need the tissues over one my side." I knew he'd been prepared to be upset, but this was beyond what I'd expected. I'd expected sadness and some of these sort of "fated" sentimentalities, but not this. It was really the first time since the conflict started that I felt we were TOGETHER. And it had only happened when something he had not expected at all happened. Which is another thing pointing me toward expectations that become self-fulfilling prophecies.

As you can see, I have given this some thought.

Once again, I'm aware this is BS. It's just what I've been thinking about.

Quote:
Originally Posted by button30 View Post
Termination sucks, I think that T's pretend to have no feelings because inside they hurt. My ex T said before we terminated that it was the hardest part of therapy and she found the goodbyes so hard, Her behaviour changed towards me too. it was as if she was preparing to detach. Must be something they teach you to do at T school.
I agree that sometimes the feelings are muted for a reason. So sometimes when his words didn't match his demeanor it was a little unsettling, but i could understand why he'd need to keep it together, since he's the T, and might be overcompensating for that and coming off cold. So I also think some of his coldness had to do with that at times, and might be why he only showed emotion when caught off guard.

Termination sure does suck!
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  #25  
Old Sep 17, 2012, 06:11 PM
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Hi Sally -

I haven't been posting for quite a while for a wide variety of reasons, but I just wanted to say that I wish you could have avoided the termination process because it seems like you and your T made incredible progress together, but I do think I understand why it was time for you to move on.

I hope your T interviews go well. I'm looking for a new T/supplemental T right now, and I have hesitations about seeing female Ts, too.
Plus, there are just not many therapists out there with whom I connect, and that makes the interview process tedious.
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