How does a client's suicide affect their T?

I am torn between literally giving her chunks of the posts that I wrote on here or writing a new letter. I did write her a note in June but then I dreamt about her being annoyed when I gave it to her so I immediately paper shredded it the next morning. I feel like the stuff I've said about her on here would be more honest than a letter I would write. It's candid. But at the same time... that's scary.

Thinking of you, growlithing, wondering how you are doing, and wishing you well.

Thanks for asking.

I'm really painfully lonely. I'm just trying to keep thinking ahead. I'm very overwhelmed thinking about where I should start with my T next month.

Honestly, it's been my experience that it really never mattered where I started with my T. We'd get where we needed to go. I think that sometimes my crying was more from frustration at feeling overwhelmed than anything else. You don't need to present her with a pretty package--you don't have to be perfect in therapy.

Well, if I have no idea what I want to talk about, I will often just talk about garbage for 20mins. But what I really don't know how I want to handle is I don't know how or when I want to tell her about the attempt I made. I know I need to tell her about it, but I'm scared she'll send me back to the hospital. I also don't know how I want to bring it up. I don't know if it is something I should talk about right away or wait a session or two or what.

Well, for me, I couldn't not blurt it out. I'd sat on it for 2 weeks because of vacation schedules.

She's not going to rec IP unless you are actively sui. Something you did in the past, is in the past.

I would just let it out--one sentence, and let her take it from there.

That's exactly where I am. I feel so guilty for it.

I feel so bad about being scared all the time while I am here. I don't feel like I have a right to feel like how I do and that what happened in my childhood doesn't justify the level of pain I feel. And I hate myself for being over dramatic.

I recognise that feeling I think it happens to a lot of people who've had their emotions invalidated as children. My mantra to myself at the moment is 'It's okay to feel whatever you feel.' Whether it's for a big and obvious reason, or a reason that seems small, or when I don't understand the reason, or even for no reason at all. Just feeling something can't be wrong. I'm still struggling make myself believe that all the time though.

You have a right to all your feelings growlithing.

Your thought is that your T csn leave sui in the past, why can't you leave abuse in the past? You feel ashamed that you can't just leave the abuse in the past.

I agree with feralkittymom that IP is recommended when people are actively, currently, dangerously suicidal. However, an attempt in the past that has not be talked through is still relevant and worthy to be talked through with T.

The abuse that you experienced in the past sounds wide-ranging if not all ecompassing. You have not had a chance to heal from that, and now you are at a highly triggering location with the abusers. To me, it is no wonder that you are triggered and fearful. I am so sorry for your pain, and I admire your resilience. Hang in there!

Thank you. I guess I know that I have a right to feel however I do, I just don't feel like I have a right to feel that way. They told me that everything was normal. I don't know if I've totally let that go.

Well, that's what I'm worried about. I'm worried that she won't leave sui in the past and overreact to what I did.

What do you mean by "all-encompassing"? I have 24 days left. I am just practicing and playing video games to pass the time.

I mean that the abuse you ecperienced growing up was pervasive, it touched and affected many parts of your life, it got into your central core and affected very many of your feelings and experiences. It was a big deal and that is why it still hurts you now.

With regard to T: the standards for involuntary IP are as feralkittymom and I said above. However it would b naive to imagine that all Ts follow these standards with exactitude. You could ask T about it, hypothetically. Ultinately, though, you would have to be able to trust her to do the right thing, to be professional. What do you think? Does your experience with her to date give you good and sufficient reason to trust her?

Good job passing the time!

Growlithing, if it's any help, my T directed a Univ counseling center,, so his practice there was largely traditional aged students. The philosophy with that age group, in particular, is to do the most conservative treatment possible: so, diagnoses tend to be the least stigmatizing, and interventions are as rare as possible while still meeting standards of good care and safety. There is also great care taken to limit future access to records as much as possible.

Part of this is because the clients are often adults legally, but there's a recognition that maturationally, they are young adults in transition. No one wants to burden anyone with a case history that could be lasting, for a condition that may very well be temporary.

Yes and no. When I first started with her, she (well really her supervisor) kinda tricked me into IP. I had been saying a lot of dark things and I sufficiently scared one of my friends that does not go to my school enough that she called my counseling center and said she was really worried I would kill myself. I went in at a time that wasn't my appointment time because I needed help for the thoughts I was having at the time. Someone called her and her supervisor in and they told me that they wanted me to get checked out at the hospital. They had one of the RAs come take me to the hospital and when I was there, I was told I had to either commit myself voluntarily or I would be committed involuntarily. I literally had nothing on me but my phone (which was I was not allowed to have in the psych ward) and the clothes on me. It was terrible, but luckily my social worker noticed how stressed and triggering the hospital was and convinced the rest of my team to let me go after two nights. I lied about the severity of my condition for months after that. IP was probably the right thing to do then though in all honesty.

But since then, I have told her about sui thoughts (ish) without having any intention of doing them and she didn't report me or anything. She wanted to be extra careful that I didn't have intention, but she didn't overreact.

I should say that her supervisor is actually never present unless there is a risk for sui. If they are concerned that I am a danger to myself, the head of the department comes in and my T and her make a decision about my treatment. She's not really a "supervisor" per say.

Yeah, they haven't diagnosed me with anything. I got my diagnosis of ADHD years ago. I was actually diagnosed with it multiple times but my mom never bothered to treat me for it. She would just have me retested over and over trying to find someone who would diagnose me as "normal". It was really damaging to do that because she would imply that having any sort of mental illness was something to be ashamed of. I knew I had ADHD for 18 years before I got treatment.

But part of that is that I’ve been diagnosed with other things too… but I have no idea what they are because she still believes that having any sort of mental illness is shameful and I suspect that they might serve as some proof that what my parents did affected me. I know that I was diagnosed with adjustment disorder at one point. My T and I question that diagnosis though because there was nothing I would be adjusting to in order to cause adjustment disorder and at that point, I wasn’t talking to anyone about the abuse I experienced. I know she is suspicious of an anxiety disorder- specifically PTSD- but neither she nor my pdoc have diagnosed me with anything.

I don’t know how much longer I can do this. My mom won’t stop talking at me. I’ll be busy doing something like watching TV, or in my room on the computer, or playing a game, and she just gets in my face and starts talking to me about my weight or telling me about how much of a horrible child I was. She can’t stop telling me about how fat I was or how I need to lose more weight to look “normal” or talking about how much everyone hated me as a kid because I was such a pain. My brother is 12 years old and she loves to talk about how much of a better kid he is than how I was at 12 years old and how everyone likes him while people couldn’t stand to be around me.

She’ll just go on and on about how my 15 year old sister is so diligent and hardworking while saying I was lazy and useless at 15. She’ll make fun of me for having “bad grades” and being “lazy” and “unproductive”. On a 4.0 scale, I had a 3.6 at age 15. I was in National Honors Society. My sister has a 3.78. And yet I was “lazy” and I had “bad grades”. I don’t understand why she has to mock me for being 0.78 lower than her, when I never was trying to go into anything academic and ESPECIALLY considering that she knew I had severe ADHD and never bothered to get me treatment. My first priority was always music. I try to defend her and tell her that. I tell her that I clearly can’t be lazy because I have been fairly successful musically for someone my age, and she just blows it all off and says “that didn’t require any real work. You just got lucky. You’ll fail when you stop being lucky and have to actually put time into it”.

I try to ignore her. I try to continue what I am doing and make it obvious that I’m not interested. She keeps talking at me and I can’t just tune her out. If I tell her that I’m preoccupied or busy, she starts making fun of me for watching TV. She starts calling me lazy and immature based off of whatever I’m watching AND THEN SHE KEEPS ON TALKING. I walk away, and she follows me. I go to the bathroom, she talks through the door. Sometimes, she’ll follow me to the shower. If I tell her to leave me alone, she explodes and starts screaming at me and I get triggered even worse out of fear that she’ll hurt me.

I CAN’T TAKE THIS.

I should mention before anyone gets concerned based on my previous posts that I'm not in danger of doing anything. I'm just really done with being here and I want time to move faster but it just won't.

Maybe you can record her and play it back really loud when she starts *****ing. Maybe she needs to hear how awful she sounds.

She used to try and video tape me when I cried as a kid so she could play it back and have me see how much of a pathetic jerk I was. I don't want to do that. I don't think she'd be able to see anything wrong with it anyway. And I'm too scared of her.

Sorry. It sounds awful.

Wish tuning her out would work, like saying "I'm not talking to you when you get irrational like this".

Did.you cry a lot as a child? I did.

Children cry when parents fail to establish secure attachment. The irony is that then the parents turn around and blame the children for crying!

I am sorry that she rages at you so. You never deserved that and you don't deserve it now.

Many of us here (like me) are old enough to be your parents. Know that we would gladly hug, protect, and nurture you if we could.

What do you find to be the most effective ways of dealing with her? The best you can do under the circumstances?

All kids cry--secure or insecure attachment. Your mom probably did too. Nothing to be ashamed of.

One great thing about being an adult is that you can choose who is a part of your life and who isn't.

I'm not really sure how much crying is normal to compare it to. I know I threw lots of tantrums and they always involved crying. I'd get really upset that she never listened to me and I'd start screaming and crying because I figured if I raised my voice she'd have to listen. I was too young to realize that there is a big difference between hearing and listening. I remember crying alone in my room at night a lot. After a certain age, I stopped crying when she could see me.

You're going to make me cry. I always wanted a dad that gave a **** about me. He's in this house and hasn't talked to me in weeks.

What did I do as a kid? I think I just took it or dissociated. Right now? I wake up at noon and go to sleep at 4-5 (if I can sleep at all) to minimize my time around her. I spend a long time in the bathroom, obsessively shaving my legs or something because I'm not in high school and she isn't monitoring my homework anymore, she doesn't monitor my shower lengths as aggressively. She'll yell at me about a water bill (despite not having a problem AT ALL paying $2 or whatever for a slightly longer shower) if she can hear the water running too long, but hiding in the bathroom is save. Practicing is safe but I can't do that for hours. When she's ranting at me and I can't escape, I think about SI to be honest. I start thinking about where on my body I can do it and when and with what or trying to remember what it feels like. Or I just pretend I don't exist.

Eventually I can. I need to wait a little while longer with her until I either complete my original plan for financial stability or come up with a new one with the help of my T and some teachers that care about me. It's too overwhelming to think about doing that right now.

This may sound completely off the wall, but is it possible for you to spend as much time as possible outside your house? I don't mean going anywhere, just outside, around your house? Make yourself a comfortable spot (close enough to still get wireless!)

The reason I suggest this, besides the calming effects of just hearing birds, etc, is that I wonder if your mother wouldn't scream at you outside. I know my mother wouldn't have--it was too public, and she was all about keeping up appearances. Do you have any neighbors within earshot?

That's not a terrible idea actually. I lose wifi immediately after stepping outside my house so I'd have to play my games on my DS. I just don't know where I'd go. If I sat in our backyard, she'd still yell at me. If I went down the street, I'd have no where to sit and I'd be out in the public where people could see me and wonder why on earth I was sitting outside playing on this thing. There is a place I could sit that is up the street, but it is infested with spiders and my mom could find me and yell at me there.

I hate being here. I'm working really hard at getting my license, but my mom has made it aggressively clear that even after I have the license, I won't be allowed to drive because they won't put me on their insurance when I don't live with them. I don't care what they say to justify that. They just want to control me and force me to need them. I just want the stupid document. I feel like if I have it, there has to be something I can do. Maybe buy my own insurance but I don't own the car so... whatever. I can figure that out then.