[BudFox]

What if the place you went for help and support during a time of crisis and loss ends up being your greatest source of pain?

What if the person you trusted with some of your deepest feelings and pain is the one who turns her back on you in the very depths of that pain?

What if the moment when it seemed totally hopeless was the point where you most needed her to say "I will not give up on you"?

What if a relationship that was supposed to be a chance for something different ends up repeating the most painful patterns and wounds, without helping heal them?

What if a moment of courage and vulnerability is the very thing that leads to more loss and pain?

What if a relationship that seemed a source of real connection ruptures and only leads to feelings of greater isolation?

What if all this makes you close down even more, to distrust professionals, especially therapists?

What if you told all this to someone who said her door was always open, and all you heard was silence?

What then?

I don't know. I am going through this as well. It has had very negative consequences for me.

I am living through it ^^^ all of it. People ruined my life just for their own entertainment under the guise of "helping me" when all they did was destroy me. Totally destroyed me and every relationship I had that was semi good. They turned their backs on me. I can't trust my very bff of over 40 years. Did he call her too?? She denies it but then so did my T whom I trusted. I was an idiot to trust him and other people who existed around me. They have all betrayed me!!!

What if...you ask? I'll tell you. It feels like your dead inside because everyone has betrayed you. I don't know how many people he called in my personal life telling them untruths. I don't know...he won't tell me. It is a nightmare that I live 24/7 non stop. While they go around enjoying themselves. I have suffered 2 years now. Two long years day and night thinking about this. Why they would do this to me I'll never know. If you knew me before you would never think anyone would want to hurt me. I am living with lots of other problems besides this. This is so bizarre it makes no sense at all. Please help me someone!! It is unbearable.

[ScarletPimpernel]

I'm there too. I just kept going forward, trying again with someone new. You have to remember that no two people are alike. Just because one person hurts you, doesn't mean everyone will hurt you. There are many examples of this in life:

1. Dating ("plenty of fish in the sea")
2. Dogs (just because one dog is mean doesn't mean they're all mean).
3. Just because a food causes you food poisoning doesn’t mean it will the next time (unless your eating from questionable resources).
4. Other doctors
5. Other professionals (teachers, mechanics, receptionists, etc).

Therapy is different because we're exposing a vulnerable part of ourselves. So the risk is high. But if you believe therapy will help you, then the reward is high too. So you go forward. Some take a leap of faith, some take baby steps. Others quit or trying something different. You have to decide which way is best for you. But if you do believe that therapy is what will help you, you have to "tend your wounds" first and then get up and try again.

[junkDNA]

it happened to me. destroyed my life, or what was left of it. i am in a better place now. but it's been 5 yrs. i found a new T and i have already healed a lot. this is not to say that going back to a T is what everyone needs who has been hurt like this. it is just what i needed. also not to say it was easy to trust again. actually i have very little trust in most all people. and it took a very long time to trust my new T. i still worry if he will abandon me or hurt me. but i look at how he has been with me this past 5 years, hes been really consitent and has never hurt me . but yes, what if he does? the T i knew for 5 years was someone i thought i knew and could trust, my old T. then after 5 years things changed, a lot. we had a sexual relationship and he put me in dangerous situations. for 2 yrs. i finally spoke up to someone about it. it was def hard to heal from that. and im not done healing yet..... but ive made progress. i had this same question,,, what then? how do u trust people who say they are there to help?? when the guise of help has been an avenue for abuse.... its a hard place to be in. so i understand your conflict, confusion, and pain. it got better for me. i believe others can get better too.

No. There is no one else who can help me now but the T who refuses to own up to his responsibilities. I can't move forward until he does something or someone else own's up to what they did.

T is a waste for me because the one person I trusted screwed me over so bad and left me to die. How can a T do that?

This happened to me with my first therapist. It devastated me for years afterward.

[iheartjacques]

That's what I'm scared of right now.

[PinkFlamingo99]

...then you go through this process, break your heart, and get spat out sicker and more damaged than you went in. We waste time and money but we don't even care about those things because the hurt takes over EVERYTHING. We talk about "side effects" from meds, but I'd choose that any day over this kind of pain.

I wish we knew how to move on, but I don't. I think we're vulerable to it because we are the type of people who need help in the first place.

I guess we just keep going as best we can, because there is no other choice.

[unaluna]

I think the what ifs are true if you are an animal in nature and "the one" who was supposed to protect you does not. But we are thinking beings and can make other choices. Its not easy, it doesnt feel the same, it doesnt even feel right or good enough, but we can use our minds to overcome these challenges. Thats my what if.

[stopdog]

Humans are animals.

[PinkFlamingo99]

Originally Posted by stopdog

Humans are animals.

I usually prefer my dogs. I trust them, and they're loyal. Plus I don't doubt their love ever.

[unaluna]

Right. Which is why we have these feelings of dread. But just saying we have resources to overcome them. Dogs have a harder time finding another therapist, for example.

[stopdog]

Read Patricia McConnell - The Other End of The Leash.

http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Lassie..._i9166123_.htm

[PinkFlamingo99]

Originally Posted by hankster

Right. Which is why we have these feelings of dread. But just saying we have resources to overcome them. Dogs have a harder time finding another therapist, for example.

They don't need therapy... Pork products help their mood more

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by ScarletPimpernel

I'm there too. I just kept going forward, trying again with someone new. You have to remember that no two people are alike. Just because one person hurts you, doesn't mean everyone will hurt you. There are many examples of this in life:

1. Dating ("plenty of fish in the sea")
2. Dogs (just because one dog is mean doesn't mean they're all mean).
3. Just because a food causes you food poisoning doesn’t mean it will the next time (unless your eating from questionable resources).
4. Other doctors
5. Other professionals (teachers, mechanics, receptionists, etc).

Thanks. I wasn't really looking for advice, this questioning is more rhetorical, but I think the point is that the disillusionment and devastation that comes from being harmed or betrayed in therapy can change you in fundamental ways. Also with these other areas you mention I don't think there is the same systemic danger (except with doctors but that is another discussion…).

I've tried or interviewed 9 or 10 Ts since, and even with the latest one who was the best of the bunch and about whom I had a good feeling, there was already the seeds of trouble -- her slipping into advice giving and subtle control, and me slipping subtly into compliance and submission (even with my guard up and armed with knowledge).

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by hankster

I think the what ifs are true if you are an animal in nature and "the one" who was supposed to protect you does not. But we are thinking beings and can make other choices. Its not easy, it doesnt feel the same, it doesnt even feel right or good enough, but we can use our minds to overcome these challenges. Thats my what if.

My intellectual understanding of what happened has increased dramatically. But seems that trauma and emotional pain live in the body, and you can't think your way out. Also if early childhood stress or trauma is reenacted in therapy, there can be unconscious and deeply ingrained patterns triggered that are not so easy to sort out with your rational mind. For me anyway, my mind is the problem not the solution. Humans are more complex than other animals.

[musinglizzy]

Originally Posted by BudFox

What if the place you went for help and support during a time of crisis and loss ends up being your greatest source of pain?

What if the person you trusted with some of your deepest feelings and pain is the one who turns her back on you in the very depths of that pain?

What if the moment when it seemed totally hopeless was the point where you most needed her to say "I will not give up on you"?

What if a relationship that was supposed to be a chance for something different ends up repeating the most painful patterns and wounds, without helping heal them?

What if a moment of courage and vulnerability is the very thing that leads to more loss and pain?

What if a relationship that seemed a source of real connection ruptures and only leads to feelings of greater isolation?

What if all this makes you close down even more, to distrust professionals, especially therapists?

What if you told all this to someone who said her door was always open, and all you heard was silence?

What then?

I am in this right now too. It hurts. A lot.
Thank you for sharing this!

[stopdog]

1. Dating ("plenty of fish in the sea")-certainly there are a lot of therapists/types of therapy to choose from in urban and suburban areas -perhaps not so easy in rural areas
2. Dogs (just because one dog is mean doesn't mean they're all mean).Here I don't think of dogs as mean - I would think all dogs die - but that does not mean one can avoid the grieving of their loss and also get attached to a new one
3. Just because a food causes you food poisoning doesn’t mean it will the next time (unless your eating from questionable resources)classic conditioned taste aversion comes to mind.
4. Other doctors often a lot to choose from in urban/suburban areas - rural not so much
5. Other professionals (teachers, mechanics, receptionists, etc).see #4

[PinkFlamingo99]

Originally Posted by BudFox

Thanks. I wasn't really looking for advice, this questioning is more rhetorical, but I think the point is that the disillusionment and devastation that comes from being harmed or betrayed in therapy can change you in fundamental ways. Also with these other areas you mention I don't think there is the same systemic danger (except with doctors but that is another discussion…).

I've tried or interviewed 9 or 10 Ts since, and even with the latest one who was the best of the bunch and about whom I had a good feeling, there was already the seeds of trouble -- her slipping into advice giving and subtle control, and me slipping subtly into compliance and submission (even with my guard up and armed with knowledge).

I'm in therapy now with someone else and the ONLY reason for this is because I did the intake at the hospital outpatient program before everything got really bad with my normal T. The new one is actually great, she's smart and we work on actually improving my life instead of obsessively talking about my attachment and fear of abandonment. We have made more progress in 3 months than I did in over 5 yrs with the other one. She never says anything questionable (with my old one it was always,"wtf did that mean??"). HOWEVER, the whole situation makes me extremely fearful. I'm absolutely terrified of the same thing happenkng, to the point where if she says something nice to me like "I really don't want you to have to feel like that anymore," or "I care about you," I freak the hell out internally because it feels good and I don't want it to. I don't even want to like her as much as I do.

It's really hard to put yourself willingly back into that kind of dynamic, especially when you're still really damaged. Maybe we need more time to grieve? I don't really know.

If I could just think my way out of things I probably wouldn't have needed therapy in the first place.

Also it is really hard to go into MORE therapy after you have been damaged and harmed by a therapist. I will NEVER trust like that again. EVER. Maybe that will be what saves me. I think it was a good lesson that trusting someone like that is really stupid.

[Syra]

Originally Posted by hankster

Right. Which is why we have these feelings of dread. But just saying we have resources to overcome them. Dogs have a harder time finding another therapist, for example.

Isn't that why we're in therapy. To help develop our resources. Not to give us more opportunities to use them when we aren't very good at it already.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Originally Posted by stopdog

1. Dating ("plenty of fish in the sea")-certainly there are a lot of therapists/types of therapy to choose from in urban and suburban areas -perhaps not so easy in rural areas
2. Dogs (just because one dog is mean doesn't mean they're all mean).Here I don't think of dogs as mean - I would think all dogs die - but that does not mean one can avoid the grieving of their loss and also get attached to a new one
3. Just because a food causes you food poisoning doesn’t mean it will the next time (unless your eating from questionable resources)classic conditioned taste aversion comes to mind.
4. Other doctors often a lot to choose from in urban/suburban areas - rural not so much
5. Other professionals (teachers, mechanics, receptionists, etc).see #4

Okay. Clarification for my post and examples. To believe that only one person of a specific profession is the only one who can help you is... self-defeating, idealistic, all or nothing? I can't think of the right word. The issue with the OP's thinking is it's if one person hurt me then all will. Or if one person helped me, then only they can help me. I did not intened those examples to mean that there are a lot of other options though I see how it came across that way.

I've been 10 weeks w/o my T. I still struggle. Actually, last night I had another breakdown. Haven't had one for a few weeks. My new T is nice and I like her, but she's not ex-T. She feels like a "step" T who is trying to replace my ex-T. I struggle with trusting her. But what options do I have left? Stay stuck in my misery or try to find a way to better myself? I choose to better myself. It's also why I closed my own thread.

I don't know you're situation specifically BudFox, so if my post doesn't apply to you, then I apologize.

[stopdog]

I was not being super serious. The dog one and the food one are the two I thought could be viewed another way - just more options.

Indeed the only one of anything is usually not the case.

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by ScarletPimpernel

Okay. Clarification for my post and examples. To believe that only one person of a specific profession is the only one who can help you is... self-defeating, idealistic, all or nothing? I can't think of the right word. The issue with the OP's thinking is it's if one person hurt me then all will. Or if one person helped me, then only they can help me. I did not intened those examples to mean that there are a lot of other options though I see how it came across that way.

I should have stated up front that I wasn't seeking advice, was just a rhetorical post, and thought others who have been in same place might be able to relate.

I see a forum like this as analogous to therapy itself, and as in therapy I would bet that what most people need is to be heard and acknowledged and related to in some way. Your post, while clearly intended to help, is more of the advice and instruction sort, which for me misses the point. There is also some judgement in what you said above. No offense meant.