Dying Inside

This is my thread explaining it all: http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...t-left-me.html, http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...-part-2-a.html, and http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...-part-3-a.html.

Short summary: Sat down in her office, she said we're terminating, I was crying, lost control of my anger a little (yelled a little, cussed at her once, and slammed a door), left, went to hospital, emailed her next day, she emailed back, she said she was going to offer closure sessions, I asked for them, she said no and no more contact. I filed a grievance with the county, she gave in and gave me what I wanted (a letter and object), new T offered a 3 way phone convo so I can get more closure, ex-T said no.

I don't really know why I was terminated. She has told different people different things. I don't know why there's no contact allowed. And I don't know why she turned down the 3 way phone convo.

***Please don't go off topic trying to guess at the whys. It's not supportive nor helpful to me. The only person I need an answer to those questions is from my ex-T. This is to people in general. Ty***

That's rough. Hope new t can help you through the grief.

I forgot to ask - did you open the letter yet? There might be something in there to give you some peace.

For what it's worth, even with a 3 way phone convo, I suspect you would not have gotten the real answer especially in the presence of a third party. They 'why's' of the reason she thought termination was best for you or best for her, are feeling based and likely difficult to articulate, especially to someone with heightened sensitivity that's going through a hard time. It's like asking why you love someone - you can give all these squishy reasons, but at the end of the day the feeling just exists even when it doesn't factually make sense. You had, and likely still have, a strong connection to this T that nobody except the two of you will ever understand, and like I mentioned, the termination was likely as enigmatic as the relationship itself.

Not to try to instill some kind of false hope, but maybe once you and T have had a cooling off period, you may be able to approach her a year, or 2 years later and get some answers. I recently read Love's Executioner, and there was a chapter about a T relationship gone wrong - where the T had a personal relationship with the client, then cut contact all together and it tortured the former client. The 'behind the curtain' reason was so out there and strange and ALL about the mental state of the T... It's just so hard...

No, I have not opened the letter yet. New T and I were hoping to open it when I'm in a better state so it will have more benefit than triggering the feeling of loss. For now, it sits on my dresser. Part of me really wants to read it, part of me wants to shred it. The pain has tainted all my good memories. I can't even trust my memories or feelings anymore. It's like my relationship with ex-T was just a dream and I have finally accepted that the reality was it was a nightmare.

You are right, I probably wouldn't have gotten any truthful answers from ex-T in the presence of new T. But I had to try. It still would have provided me with a little closure especially if she apologized or admitted to some wrong doing. So far, most the blame has been put on me. The only blame she has taken was that she wasn't experienced enough to treat me which imo is a total cop out.

When new T asked ex-T for the phone conversation, she also asked for future contact. Ex-T said no, never. All contact will always have to be through another T. I am to never have direct contact with ex-T.

It makes no sense. How am I going to harm her through a phone call or an email? And why won't she give me any closure. She's a doctor, ph.d. She took the oath to do no harm! How the hell is no closure less harmful?

I am so sorry for all of this. But i am so proud of you that you did not cut. Great job!!!

I think the letter that you have from her could be special. I think you should read it. You have alot of patience I must say. I would be to tempted to read it of it was on my dresser.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Imo, you should open that letter. Now.

It provides the closest thing to closure that you are going to get.

I understand that you may be fearful of this. It will bring finality. After the letter is opened, there will be nothing more from her. A nail in the coffee of your relationship with her.

It may say hurtful and blaming words. More by!!***** explanations about how she was not qualified to treat you, blah, blah.

I think that you are not opening it because it is the last hope for contact - in fact, it IS the last contact, and you're not ready for that yet.

I think opening that letter, with or without your therapist present, is the best choice.

Hugs,
Pam
Formerly Gavinandnikki (accidentally logged out and can't get my username back yet)

So here's the email my T is going to send to ex-T:

"I think" this is the last bit my T and I can do anymore with ex-T. I said that with the 3-way phone conversation though...

I have given it a lot of thought over the past 4.5 months and I think I will be filing grievances against her with the state and APA. I know it will prolong the pain, but I desperately need a sense of closure. If this email thing doesn't work, then I'm 95% certain about going forward. My fiance and my mom support it. I know some people here support it; some are against it. But I just don't think I can emotionally "rest" until I've exhausted all my options. But this of course depends on my ex-T. If she writes a sincere apology, I will be at peace. If she answers my questions honestly with no b.s., I will be at peace. But as things are, I'm struggling too much with the abandonment still. I think new T might even be on board with the grievances. She didn't play "devil's advocate" today.

Ugh! Why wont she give me closure?!?! I would freaking go away if only I could understand or at least get an apology!

Your closure might be in the letter on your dresser.

You said you filed a grievance...with the county I think? Perhaps that is why she refuses to have ANY contact with you?

Nah. She didn't want contact with me before the grievance with the county.

Besides, if I didn't file with the county, MHS (county mental health) would have filed. Ex-T did NOT inform them of the termination beforehand.

I'm sorry this is so painful. I do hope you read the letter before you pursue any further efforts. There might be something there. They are, in essence, her "last words" to you, so to speak. You may find something helpful.

But I suspect that impending grievance that she probably figures is coming has pretty much sealed the deal against any further communication. I'm not saying its your fault. Please don't be upset with me. I'm just saying at this point,, with what she probably sees coming down the pike, she won't risk any further contact. That's just the legal reality in this I'm afraid. I suspect you won't get any answers to your questions because they will be tied up and tangled up in any future grievance proceedings. You might get an apology, and maybe that's what is in the letter, but she's walking a very fine line at this point and is going to act for her own protection. I know that's hard to hear and not what you want, and I don't mean to cause you any grief, but she's bound to be in self-preservation mode where your case is concerned.

And the I'm avoiding a response about the letter. I really don't know why, but I don't want to open it right now. Maybe after this email. I know some of you think I'm golding onto it as my last piece from my ex-T. Others might think I'm in denial. My new T wants me to wait, and I'm following her advice for now. And I know some of you think I shouldn't follow new T's advice.

Any which way, it's not going to be opened yet. Before a grievance yes, but after the email outcome.

What if her apology is in the letter? Most likely it's not but the next sttep might be that iif closure is all you desire.

I'm not mad. But maybe I didn't make it clear: ex-T told new T she could send her questions I have and she will answer them. This was not my idea. It's why I thought the phone conversation was the last effort.

I'm 99% sure her apology is not in the letter. I asked for the letter. It was supposed to be an encouraging letter...nothing sad or depressing. There shouldn't be anything in there about the termination. It's more like:

"Dear SP, It has been a pleasure working with you for 17months. You have X strength, Y skill, etc. Keep going forward. Ex-T"

That's my guess

Okay. I still don't think she'll answer them in any way that might remotely show herself in a negative light professionally, and those are some pretty loaded questions that could really be used against her later. I suspect you will get more of the same that you've already gotten unfortunately. I just can't imagine any person who has gotten the pretty clear message that their career could be in jeopardy due to their own botched handling of a case openly providing any information that could in any way show them in a negative light if it comes up against a grievance board. You may get answers, but I suspect you won't like them, and probably rightfully so. Between then and now, if she is smart, she's already gotten some legal advice on how to handle further contact which is probably to keep it to a bare minimum if at all. (Of course, her smartness is questionable clearly.) I just hate to see you set yourself up for further hurt here. I could be way off base and I hope for you I am, but this therapist has put herself first through this whole thing and I would be surprised (pleasantly for you though) if your questions get answered to your satisfaction.

I honestly, wholeheartedly, agree with you. I don't think I'm going to get anything from these questions. "If" she answers any of them, it will probably be a b.s. excuse that makes no sense. My guess is she's not going to answer them. Once she reads the questions she'll probably be like "Oh ****! Why did I offer to do this?" And then she'll back out and change her mind.

I'm not to sure she's contacted a lawyer. She asked my advocate if she needed one, but she didn't get one for the county grievance. Or maybe she consulted with one? Idk. I thought she was smart at one point, but I'm not so sure anymore. She's done a lot of dumb things (i.e. offering closure sessions and then withdrawing the offer). And some of it is documented. But maybe I need to give her a little more credit.

Even the apology. I hoghly doubt I will ever get one. That would mean she's admitting to doing something wrong. No, she'll probably give me a b.s. apology like "I'm sorry SP that you felt hurt by the termination". I could see that. Technically, she's already said that.

I just don't know how to get past all of this. I feel like I have to keep trying every which way to get my needs met. And I'm well aware, grievances or not, I probably never get closure. But there's this part of me that won't let go. It wants to fight to stand up for myself. It want to try jumping through all the hoops. I don't know why. Logically, I understand what you all are saying. There's just this drive in me that won't give up.

I wish ex-T would see that. She should know. Look how hard I fought to keep her as my T through Medi-Cal and Optum. I took the fight to senators and people in Sacramento. It made it to the head of Medi-Cal and Optum. If I fought that hard to keep her, why would anyone expect anything less to try to get closure. I will exhaust every avenue until I get my closure or until there are no roads left.

Why won't she give me closure? Is that too much to ask for? Why does she not care about how much I hurt? Why did she stop caring? I'm not going away. I'm not giving up. And I'm following her "rules". I have not made any direct contact with her for 4.5 months per her request. Technically, I'm not even harassing her since she said, and I have email to prove it, that all communication must be made through another professional.

I'm hurting so much! I need this pain to go away. I have to fight. I feel like I will die if I don't.

Btw...still not mad at you lolagrace

This is why my new T is encouraging me to try all these steps. I'm still not coping well with the abandonment. I'm in so much pain all the time. I have regressed so much that my hw is taking showers....showers! How pathetic am I! And I'm still fighting SI urges. This all hurts so much. I can't really express how excruciating this is to me. I still miss her and love her. I still don't understand. I want to kill the part in me that won't let go, but I'm not allowed to.

I'm sorry. I'm just hurting.

I'm glad to hear you have a realistic expectation of what kind of response you might get. That's good. Maybe you had said it before and I missed it along the way, but that was my big concern for you, so that's good.

Unfortunately, I don't think she CAN give you closure. Somehow you are going to have to get to that point of closure on your own. Even if she tried, I don't think it would heal that wound for you. That's going to have to come from within you, but right now you are desperately trying to get that closure from without. The hard lesson I've learned in life is that my healing has to come from within myself. No one has the magic word or solution to fix that for me.

I had the opportunity once to confront one of the people who wounded me the most. I had that opportunity to sit face to face and ask those hard questions, to try to find closure. He did what you and I suspect your T will do: he justified his actions, he blamed me, he pretended to apologize, he pretended to be ashamed. But I knew he was just covering his butt and getting through that conversation. It didn't bring me closure. Even if he had said everything I needed him to say (and honestly, thinking back, there was nothing he could say), it would not have brought me closure. It could not because the wound was still pretty much gaping open and needed time and work and treatment to begin to heal.

I DID find that closure for myself, within myself, many years later. Life wasn't put on hold while I reached that place. Don't think you can't keep living in the meantime. You can. I moved on with my life. I got married, had kids, continued with my career, etc., but that wound took a lot of time and work before it was truly closed. It HAS closed though which after all these years is just an added bonus. In retrospect, I realize that that lack of closure didn't end things for me. It created some challenges -- big ones at times, but I was able to keep moving forward while over time the closure came.

You can move forward and allow yourself whatever amount of time it takes for this closure to come for you. Don't put your life on hold waiting for it to happen. It is only one aspect of the life you've lived and you have SO much more ahead if of you; don't let this open wound put the brakes on your movement forward. Don't give her that much power. YOU will find the closure in its due time. In ITS due time.

I know. My T did to, but the answer really wasn't in those steps is what I discovered.

I'm so sorry you are in so much pain. I do understand that kind of pain, not the same circumstance exactly, but your description of your pain is very familiar.

No need to apologize for being in pain. Just remember to care for you, to treat yourself gently, to give yourself time. There is no clock running except in your mind.

If you get stuck in a riptide and try to fight the current to swim directly to shore because your instinct is to take the most direct route, the current will pull you under and you will drown.

But if you relax, stop fighting the current, stop fighting to find the fastest way to shore, and instead swim parallel to the shore which is completely counterintuitive in your panic, before you know it, you've swum your way out of that riptide into calmer water that you can navigate without drowning.

Maybe you don't need to fight. Maybe you need to float in a direction that is counterintuitive.

I think the questions in your email are very appropriate and deserve answers. Only thing is... and this is based on my own experience with a toxic therapist, I think there is a 99.9% chance that ex-t won't give satisfactory, honest answers. People like that won't get the harm they've caused, and sure won't take response for it or express genuine grief for the pain they've caused. So even if she responds to the email, what you get out of it may be more self-serving dishonesty that will prowling the pain and be another group of things that you'd want her to explain. What she did was not therapeutic in the first place. She's not going to figure out how to be what she isn't when she gets the email.

Lolagrace:

I also once was able to confront someone who hurt me. It was my mentor from church. She abandoned me after a yrauma happened to her. Actually, she kinda abandoned me twice. I found her again a few years later and went to confront her. I did feel a little better. She seemed sincere and asked that we spend time together. I agreed and we had a little mini date. Then I found out that she moved a month later w/o telling me. She abandoned me again! Least I wasn't really hurt the 3rd time around.

I also confronted my h.s. counselor who told me I would never graduate h.s. because I'd wind up killing myself befire then... That didn't give me any closure. She just used the excuse that she tried to help me, but didn't know what to do.

I wish I was as strong as you are. To continue your life while struggling. I have never seemed to be able to do that, least not in the way you describe. I try. I really do try. But it's like I'm pit in slow motion and have to work my way back up to speed.

I get the riptide analogy. I never heard that one, but I've heard the quicksand one: struggling in quicksand won't set you free...you'll only sink further...instead you want to try to float...more surface area...to get out of it. Or the one: if you keep running into a wall, maybe you should try a door.

I know I'm fighting...and losing. It's almost like an addiction, or an instinct...a habit. It's like if I just can take one more step I might get my freedom.

I just want this pain to go away. I don't sit well with it. That's why the urge to SI is so strong. It's quick, easy, and it works. I know...the downside is it's unhealthy and very dangerous. But the urge for closure from T, from outside, is so strong. I have already accepted she will never be my T, I will never see her again, and I will never hear her voice again. But the pain is still there. All the "whys" are still there. And I want justice. I only want to be validated by the person who violated me. I know you and everyone else is right, that for one it's not going to happen and two it won't help. But I still want it

Well, the emailed questions is going to happen. New T probably already sent them. And I probably won't find anything out for 2 weeks. I still really want to file a grievance. I also kinda want to contact all the people who helped me fight to keep her as a T so they know she wasted their time and efforts. I want her to know that she was in the wrong, that she's not Miss Perfect or Miss Ethical as she claims to be.

Idk. I'm still stuck in the middle of this. After 4.5 months, I'm still shocked this happened to me. I try to get away from her in my daily life, but I can't. Everything reminds me of her. And then I still have nightmares about the termination. I'm trying to move forward which is why I found a new T as soon as I did. I'm even taking little steps to improve. I contacted the community college near me to find out about finishing my AA in psychology and maybe switching my major to architecture. My doctor prescribed me meds for when I'm ready to quit smoking. And I have been trying to talk to a reverend of a church to gain a bigger social network. They're only baby steps, but still steps. And I haven't SI'ed, not for 3 months. I am trying. It's just so hard.

How were you able to continue on in your life after your trauma?

I've had multiple traumas over the course of my life, so I guess keeping going just was just what I did. I think I watched my parents, who lost a baby to cancer and then had another daughter with cancer that consumed a good portion of 10 years or so when I was younger. Keeping on with life just had to happen. It wasn't an option. I saw them suffer and cope and all the while keep on with life with amazing strength. Having their resilience as that model for me certainly helped.

Trauma comes in many forms, and I've just learned it takes time to heal and that's okay. It doesn't have to be all better all at once. I can't put my kids on hold while I work on myself; I have to keep being an attentive and nurturing parent. I can't put my marriage on hold while my trauma heals; I have a commitment to be there for and with my husband. I can't put my career on hold until everything has come to closure; I have to make a living and my career brings a great deal of pleasure that is in itself healing. I can't put my life on hold until I heal. If I had done that, I wouldn't have even started my life until about two years ago, and I'm 52.

Did I feel great through all of it? Of course, not, but life is painful at times, very painful at times, excruciating at times. But pain doesn't negate the ability to find pleasure in life. Pain didn't keep me from having beautiful relationships with my husband and kids. Pain didn't keep me from being able to keep on. I didn't let it.

Did I go through personal mental health crises while I continued with my life? Oh boy, yes. I've been hospitalized 15 times in the past 12 years. I've been through ECT twice. I've been on more med regimens than you can imagine. But even through all of that, I kept on with my life. I had to. The only option would have been to kill myself because the pain and mental health issues were not going to go away simply -- and I contemplated that and even attempted that more than once. But I have an adoring husband, three amazing sons, a family that loves me deeply -- I realized I had to continue with my life while I continued to work on my healing.

I thank God I survived and kept moving forward with my therapy and my life because now, finally, I have reached the other side. I am so grateful I kept my life moving because so much would have been lost if I chucked it all in or simply sat paralyzed, afraid of experiencing the pain. Pain is hard and inevitable, and it is survivable except in the most extreme of circumstances. My parents taught me that and it has kept me continuing forward with my life through everything I've been through in my past and through all the pains that I experience here and now.

So, I guess I didn't just sit there with the pain. In fact, the times I did just sit there with the pain were the times I let it get too much control over my mental health. The times I've been healthiest, even in the midst of great pain, were the times I pushed forward with life, dedicated my time to my family and friends and stayed determined to honor my own resilience. Sometimes it felt like I was faking it in the moment, but I gained so much from the life around me that I continued to participate in. I would have missed so much if I had just stayed sitting with the pain. I had to work around it and with it and through it.