LCM showing up randomly at work

Blue_Bird · Feb 02, 2015, 02:46 PM

One day she's going to move, transfer, refer you to someone else.

How are you going to deal with that?

How old are you,?

People are trying to help you and you refuse to see it. You're stuck in a fantasy world.

What was the purpose of beginning to see her anyway? I have no idea what a life coach is, you said you have had trauma. You probably need a trauma T.

This is the definition of a unhealthy relationship. Why not venture out, see someone else, it may help you. You're not her daughter, and referring to her as your "life coach mom" is keeping you attached.

Nobody here is afraid to get attached to their t's like you're accusing people of, they are adults who have a professional relationship with a mental health professional. Why would we be afraid of that? It's actually fairly common I guess to experience transference but not to the extent you have. So what do you do about it? You need to find a T who fits you, and one that fits you is going to be one with strong boundaries.

growlithing · Feb 02, 2015, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue_Bird

One day she's going to move, transfer, refer you to someone else.

How are you going to deal with that?

How old are you,?

People are trying to help you and you refuse to see it. You're stuck in a fantasy world.

What was the purpose of beginning to see her anyway? I have no idea what a life coach is, you said you have had trauma. You probably need a trauma T.

This is the definition of a unhealthy relationship. Why not venture out, see someone else, it may help you. You're not her daughter, and referring to her as your "life coach mom" is keeping you attached.

Nobody here is afraid to get attached to their t's like you're accusing people of, they are adults who have a professional relationship with a mental health professional. Why would we be afraid of that? It's actually fairly common I guess to experience transference but not to the extent you have. So what do you do about it? You need to find a T who fits you, and one that fits you is going to be one with strong boundaries.

No she's not. We talked about this. We'd do stuff online when one of us moves.

I'm 21.

I started seeing her while inpatient.

Blue_Bird · Feb 02, 2015, 02:50 PM

An online life coach?

That doesn't even make sense. Why wouldn't you just see one in person? One day she will retire, you do realize this will have to end at some point?

growlithing · Feb 02, 2015, 02:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue_Bird

An online life coach?

That doesn't even make sense. Why wouldn't you just see one in person? One day she will retire, you do realize this will have to end at some point?

She's 37. I have a long time before that.

unaluna · Feb 02, 2015, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by growlithing

Honestly, this is stressing me out and I think hurting me. I had an intense emotional reaction because I was thrown off guard and felt ambushed by her and her personal life that I shouldn't have to think about. I post on here and I get people telling me I was wrong for having that reaction and LCM said something that I took as shaming me for it. I feel really embarrassed and ashamed.

If i were you, i would ask to have this thread shut down as being mostly unsupportive. I think your own posts have been very insightful and show a lot of growth. You know i have been following you a long time and i can clearly see that. You did not ask for this incident to happen - you were seriously minding your own business! And i am really shocked that it seemed people were here practically lying in wait, instead of being able to just respond to this one incident. You obviously ARE growing in your relationship with LCM. Imo, you are right about so many things you said here.

I cant believe that people are saying things to you, that they would NOT appreciate being told themselves, or even close to. And i dont mean "between the lines" - i mean straight out - as if that makes it better? "Drop your counselor, i dont think they are good for you" - really???

hey, sometimes i wanna write, "Why in the world would you do THAT??? I think thats cuckoo!!"( Okay, thanks, nice to know!!) Who doesnt? But is that SUPPORTIVE? The rules are, if you cant say something supportive, dont say anything at all.

NowhereUSA · Feb 02, 2015, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hankster

If i were you, i would ask to have this thread shut down as being mostly unsupportive. I think your own posts have been very insightful and show a lot of growth. You know i have been following you a long time and i can clearly see that. You did not ask for this incident to happen - you were seriously minding your own business! And i am really shocked that it seemed people were here practically lying in wait, instead of being able to just respond to this one incident. You obviously ARE growing in your relationship with LCM. Imo, you are right about so many things you said here. I cant believe that people are saying things to you, that they would NOT appreciate being told themselves, or even close to. And i dont mean "between the lines" - i mean straight out - as if that makes it better? "Drop your counselor, i dont think they are good for you" - really???

hey, sometimes i wanna write, "Why in the world would you do THAT??? I think thats cuckoo!!"( Okay, thanks, nice to know!!) Who doesnt? But is that SUPPORTIVE? The rules are, if you cant say something supportive, dont say anything at all.

Really hankster? Lying in wait?

"Supportive" =/= agreeing with OP. You can be supportive and point out that certain behaviors and reactions are just categorically unhealthy.

Puglife · Feb 02, 2015, 03:14 PM

I have followed most of your posts. I am sorry that you were hurt by LCM, regardless of whether it was unintentional or bad judgement on her part.

Obviously, she is very very important to you and could *possibly* be a good tool and resource for reaching goals in your life. At this point I know that you cannot imagine her ever being out of your life and even the thought of it sends you into a spin.

However, the fact is that she is not a licensed therapist at this point and therefore she is crossing a major line in the way she is treating you. There is a big difference between Life Coaches and Therapists.

I looked up a very good article on the difference between a LC and a Therapist. This quote stuck out at me: “I do not take on clients who, in my judgment, have serious mental/emotional problems — problems such as substance abuse, major depression and personality disorders,” he says. “When I suspect any of those issues, I refer the client to an appropriate mental health professional for a thorough evaluation and resume work once the client is emotionally stable.”

And here was another good quote: Coaches work with healthy clients who are striving to improve their circumstances, he says, and counselors work with persons needing help and hoping to identify dysfunction or trauma to heal and resolve old pain

I know you don't want to hear it. Your LCM is crossing a major line by doing more therapy with you than coaching. If she is in school to become a therapist, she should know this. I'm curious how many other clients she has and does she work out of an office with other coaches or professionals?

Please seek out the help of a trauma therapist who can truly help you.

unaluna · Feb 02, 2015, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NowhereUSA

Really hankster? Lying in wait?

"Supportive" =/= agreeing with OP. You can be supportive and point out that certain behaviors and reactions are just categorically unhealthy.

Supportive doesnt have to mean agreeing. But i really dont think it means saying, "aha! We TOLD you to stop seeing her!" Thats what this feels like to me. A huge overreaction by the hive mind. This was one incident. We havent heard from growli in a while. Shes working. And so she has a pretty common transference reaction. That doesnt mean "run, forrest, run!" Is her dependence "categorically unhealthy"? I dont think you give up therapy that is working, the minute things get rough. You work thru the rough parts. Growli would have this reaction to any other t she sees in the wild. I know i did. Its not "unhealthy", its how it works. Maybe not for everyone, but for some of us. And we CAN get past it. We are not doomed because our mothers were doomed. The buck stops here.

NowhereUSA · Feb 02, 2015, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hankster

Supportive doesnt have to mean agreeing. But i really dont think it means saying, "aha! We TOLD you to stop seeing her!" Thats what this feels like to me. A huge overreaction by the hive mind. This was one incident. We havent heard from growli in a while. Shes working. And so she has a pretty common transference reaction. That doesnt mean "run, forrest, run!" Is her dependence "categorically unhealthy"? I dont think you give up therapy that is working, the minute things get rough. You work thru the rough parts. Growli would have this reaction to any other t she sees in the wild. I know i did. Its not "unhealthy", its how it works. Maybe not for everyone, but for some of us. And we CAN get past it. We are not doomed because our mothers were doomed. The buck stops here.

See, I don't really know what's going on with growli. All I know is what's going on in this thread and honestly, yes, it comes across as categorically unhealthy. When the reaction of coming into contact with another person's life is to basically break down, that's unhealthy. Look, yeah, it'd be majorly weird if I ran into my T and his wife. I'd probably feel a little "Whoa!" and then I'd shake it off. I depend on my T for a lot of things. And, he has a life outside of me.

I get that she may not be there yet and at the same time, it's not unsupportive to suggest that ideally that's a direction she should head. Breaking down to this extent is *not* healthy.

I was shocked to find out she's seeing a life coach and not an actual licensed therapist. It seems to me (again through this thread) that this woman is operating well outside her training.

ScarletPimpernel · Feb 02, 2015, 03:51 PM

Actually, I feel that criticizing the posters who disagree with your perception of support is not being supportive and is detering the focus away from the OP to the people responding. This is how threads get locked. We obviously disagree. That's okay. But you don't need to point out the disagreement. You can offer your support the way you see fit and none if us will directly criticize you for it.

I have had a thread that I wasn't finding helpful. With some discussions with people I "trust" (in the sense of their perception), I decided to delete the thread. OP has the same rights as all of us.

Feb 02, 2015, 03:54 PM

As with most posts, I don't think we are ever really getting the full picture. Getting a strong reaction from the forum is a risk any poster takes when there's a conflict with a therapist or other professional.

As for this thread and others by the OP, nothing has been shared that suggests the life coach is a competent professional; but then again, I think the OP posts when she's upset. Like any of us when that happens, we tend to relay only the worst version. I do know that I would expect any professional to disclose if a referral has a personal connection. That's just all kinds of wrong, and I hope the OP gets that straight with the LC.

brokenwarrior · Feb 02, 2015, 04:03 PM

Do you know what her credentials are? I'm just curious.

divine1966 · Feb 02, 2015, 04:25 PM

Yes you are obsessed. I say it with compassion as I know how it feels.

I have a therapist, it doesn't bother me that she has a husband and kids, it certainly doesn't upset me. I don't mind to look at their pics but I don't even care to. If she showed up anywhere I am at it wouldn't affect me, I won't cry so bad I had to leave work or go drink. It wouldn't bother me. I don't want to hug or touch her and don't want her to be my mother whatsoever, she helps to get my mental health in check because she knows how to, but nothing more than that.

Saying all that I know what obsessions are. I was very obsessed with men before and know how that goes. I am obsessed with one now. You are obsessed.

But I don't blame you. I am on your side here, I know what obsessions are. I blame LC. She isn't helping you. It isn't professional of her to feed the obsession. Maybe you are doing better but that isn't good enough.

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Gavinandnikki · Feb 02, 2015, 04:26 PM

My feeling is the "hive" gets frustrated when a fellow bee repeatedly seeks support and then flies off regardless. And gets stung over and over.

divine1966 · Feb 02, 2015, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by growlithing

You guys literally do not know if she is making me sicker or not. You only know when I post here which is when something bad happens. If you haven't noticed, I haven't been posting here that frequently anymore. I have been doing a lot better.

I'm not obsessed with her. I don't really know how you guys are drawing that conclusion without projecting your own feelings onto it. Yes, a year ago, I probably was. I would have a session with her and dwell on it until the next time I saw her/spoke to her. Now, I think about her every day, but not constantly and not in an unhealthy way.

All of you are so afraid of being attached to your T's that you characterize mine unfairly as being delusional or sick. It isn't. I am allowing myself to occasionally address her as "mom" which is a word I do not understand. And for the record, the amount I have been doing that has been diminishing recently. It really is no different than any other maternal transference. Except you guys want to believe that because she might not legally be qualified to handle that, that makes it different. She's finishing up school. Her not being technically officially qualified makes no difference.

She is more than a life coach not because I'm trying to call her my mother. She is because we've barely done anything that a life coach does. She is a T to me. We don't work through trauma. We work through daily stuff and she listens to me if I need to talk. Her title is life coach but we do more than that.

I know our boundaries are weird to a lot of you and she has accidentally hurt me a few times. That's okay. Stuff like that happens. It's part of the progress.

Really she helps because I know she cares deeply about me. I need to have someone I can identify as caring about me.

She does not coddle me. And she isn't mean to me. Her boundaries are kinda sloppy. Everyone makes mistakes.

And my actual mother would have no idea if she's helping or not. She doesn't give a **** about me and doesn't really know me. She wouldn't be able to tell. So being upset that she's paying for it is odd to me.

I am not afraid to be attached to my T. I just am not Attached and don't have the need (saying that I know what means to be obsessed and attached). The issue is not with you being attached but with her allowing to get worse and worse rather than enforcing boundaries from the day one.

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growlithing · Feb 02, 2015, 04:36 PM

How do you define an "obsession" vs an attachment?

divine1966 · Feb 02, 2015, 04:53 PM

Obsession and attachment (unhealthy kind) could be the same thing.

But we all experience amount of emotional attachment to people we love but when it starts being unhealthy it becomes obsessive fixation.

Seeing a person in a public place and becoming so disturbed that you cry and have to leave work and drink is unhealthy obsession that is beyond regular attachment.

I love my daughter and would be very happy to see her in a public place, she lives too far for me to accidentally bump on her but I bump on my mom in public places, I love them but isn't disturbing to me in fact it is always joyous event and we always laugh how we ended up in the same place.

Maybe I would be surprised if my mom showed up at my work (I teach high school so no way she would show up there) but I wouldn't be upset or cry or drink. Why would I?

What you have is unhealthy and she is to blame as she supposed to help you grow not get worse.

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divine1966 · Feb 02, 2015, 04:53 PM

Double post don't know how to delete

growlithing · Feb 02, 2015, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by divine1966

Obsession and attachment (unhealthy kind) could be the same thing.

But we all experience amount of emotional attachment to people we love but when it starts being unhealthy it becomes obsessive fixation.

Seeing a person in a public place and becoming so disturbed that you cry and have to leave work and drink is unhealthy obsession that is beyond regular attachment.

I love my daughter and would be very happy to see her in a public place, she lives too far for me to accidentally bump on her but I bump on my mom in public places, I love them but isn't disturbing to me in fact it is always joyous event and we always laugh how we ended up in the same place.

Maybe I would be surprised if my mom showed up at my work (I teach high school so no way she would show up there) but I wouldn't be upset or cry or drink. Why would I?

What you have is unhealthy and she is to blame as she supposed to help you grow not get worse.

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Obsession - an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind.

So by that definition, I would be obsessed if. I thought about LCM constantly or to the point that it was consuming my mind.

By your definition, an obsession is an unhealthy attachment. I think that being obsessed with someone is a type of unhealthy attachment, but I don't think that all unhealthy attachments are obsessive in nature.

I was upset because I was extremely off guard and overwhelmed. You're also comparing her to an actual mother which despite the word games I want to play, isn't totally honest. I'm not saying that my reaction was okay. I'm saying that I don't think that trying to shame me by falsely calling it an obsessive reaction is productive.

divine1966 · Feb 02, 2015, 05:06 PM

Absolutely no shaming whatsoever. Trust me. I do crap in life you won't believe and I am almost 50 years old. I recently became a victim of major financial scam that I have no one to blame to but myself all due to obsessions and attachments etc

What I am saying is your LC isn't helpful the way she should be. She facilitated your obsession knowingly or maybe just because she is unprofessional .

I am not shaming you at all, not your fault and listen we are in the same boat or in fact I am way worse. You are still young but what's my excuse?

Hugs and I just want you to get better and be happy and healthy trust me

PS I only brought my mom as an example because you said earlier that moms and daughters would warn each other of showing up, no, don't really have to. No matter. And because you said you love her, I don't get upset when people I love show up places I am at. What to be upset about? And bring upset of seeing her daughter's pics? Why? That is not healthy.

That's what I am saying. Not healthy but again not your fault

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growlithing · Feb 02, 2015, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by divine1966

Absolutely no shaming whatsoever. Trust me. I do crap in life you won't believe and I am almost 50 years old. I recently became a victim of major financial scam that I have no one to blame to but myself all due to obsessions and attachments etc

What I am saying is your LC isn't helpful the way she should be. She facilitated your obsession knowingly or maybe just because she is unprofessional .

I am not shaming you at all, not your fault and listen we are in the same boat or in fact I am way worse. You are still young but what's my excuse?

Hugs and I just want you to get better and be happy and healthy trust me

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I'm sorry to hear that. I still we have different definitions of the word "obsession" and the semantics doesn't really matter. I understand what you are saying.

I don't think I'm being scammed by her. But if I were and we were in the same situation, if it isn't my fault, then it isn't yours either regardless of age.

unaluna · Feb 02, 2015, 05:28 PM

Divine - you acted out your obsession in real life. Growli is acting hers out in therapy, and will have the opportunity to work it out. I know my previous t would have GREATLY preferred i acted out more in therapy, rather than come in on a monday and announce i got married over the weekend, without ever mentioning my plans to t beforehand. Its not the details of what happened - oh, she cried and went home from work - that is important. Because lets face it, we both have her beat on that account. Its the big picture. She is working it out with her t. I was still in the mode of treating my t like my actual mother - "what i do doesnt concern you" because that was the message she gave me from day 1 - that what i needed didnt concern her. My current t - EVERYTHING about me concerns him. Its reparative. We need it for as long as we need it, then we learn to walk on our own.

ruiner · Feb 02, 2015, 05:33 PM

I hear what you're saying, but this isn't therapy. LC isn't a therapist.

Feb 02, 2015, 05:34 PM

The problem here though is that this isn't a licensed, certified therapist. The fear and concern for many of us is that this person is in over her head and her lack of complete training and license could really end up causing Growli harm. Technically, this person is not a therapist, but she is acting as one. Technically, she doesn't fall under the ethics codes, and it is unclear if she is being actively monitored and supervised now that she doesn't work for the hospital where Growli initially came into contact with her. That's a scary situation that can't be ignored. That is our concern.

Gavinandnikki · Feb 02, 2015, 05:35 PM

Growli is not "in therapy". LC is not a therapist- I think that is part of what is so crazy making.

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