therapist just terminated with me

Yes, Lonely, I shall give him space, do what I can to look after me and find myself sources of therapy help and in time maybe he and I can talk about what happened. I do feel that he is not dumping me horribly - which is what I felt yesterday and through the night. I now remember how much he deeply cares about me so there must be a helluva lot more going on in his life to have caused this to happen. right in this moment I am feeling confident that he will find a way to make it okay in the end for me. Somehow. I am sort of trusting him on that.

sent him a card today. It was meant to be the card I give him on our sixth anniversary next Monday. So I sent him to him anyway, saying I hoped he would begin to feel okay soon and that good times will come again.
I don't know if he is in breakdown or his mother is senile and maybe now he has to take care of her now his father is dead and sell the farm they lived on - and I know his partner is ill so he had scheduled to take time off this week anyway for her. So maybe there are just loads of factors that we just don't know about. I also don't think he has had anyone close to him die. I have had many close people to me die, including all parents and parents in law and best friends etc. I think he is new to this grief thing.
Yesterday, I thought it was about him being fed up with me and burned out from me and reacting to me and my text saying that I was having a hard time with him being away and I wished he had spent five minutes setting up some cover for me. Yesterday, I thought his line manager was saying 'he can't work with YOU anymore' when on reflection it is probably he can't work anymore.
So today, with help, I am trying not to take it so personally. I feel less hurt then. I begin to remember how deeply he cares for me and that he will do his best, at some point in the future (hopefully near future) to mend this abruptness and make a better ending happen and 'make up for it' in a way. I may be living in cloud cuckoo land, but I do think he cares enough about me to sincerely want to rectify the mess of this ending.
I didn't think that yesterday, so there is some progress already.
I also strangely started to feel relief that this therapeutic relationship has stopped because it was actually causing me a lot of pain too.

I wondered if there was a mother involved. He may have decided taking care of her now following the loss of her husband is going to require much more attention and time than he realized. The loss of a spouse can be terribly disorienting for the elderly particularly, and taking care of elderly parents is highly stressful. If he was close to retirement anyway, this may have made the decision to start that retirement earlier than originally planned.

Yes, that is what I am guessing. Of course, I AM guessing. I don't really know. But it sort of helps to guess some really difficult scenarios rather than think he just had had enough of me for real.
Ps I sing in a choir too

as I've said, our care providers are human too. Their first priorty is to them and their family. Their practices are merely a job.

Maybe not "merely" a job, but a job certainly. Just like most of the rest of us, our personal lives and families will always take precedence over our jobs, even jobs we are highly dedicated to and take with all seriousness and responsibility.

I'm glad you were able to segue so quickly into not taking it personally. People have lives and struggles just like us. Six years is a long time and I'm sure he had a better plan for you for retirement. Instead, you got the office lackey who is literally trying to shut the place down. Cancel appointments and make referrals for God knows how many patients. She doesn't "know" any of you so she's not considering all the things he would.

I have a feeling you will eventually get an explanation, but IF YOU DON'T you can't take that personal either. When I "**** up" I usually hide from people too. Having to explain to you and everyone else would be daunting. Hope you feel better soon.

The pill gave me a decent night of sleep. Thank god.
I had some acupuncture yesterday which calmed me down a lot.
I have a spa day with my two closest friends today and on Oct 11th we go to Malta for a week. I am lucky in that I have friends who are like great sisters and a loving husband.


I am beginning to see loads of silver linings. Maybe the sertraline/zoloft has kicked in as it is day 14 of that. good thing I went and got on it two weeks ago. I thought I was going on it to cope with a long gap - I didn't know it was being put in place for an abrupt termination.


Anyway, silver linings:
1. I don't EVER have to go to that NHS mental health centre EVER again. My hsuband can go at some point and collect my teddy etc from there.
2. I don't have to go through the long protracted anguished ending process with my t.
3. I am free of that - that feels a relief, strangely
4. I can plan from now to do the things I couldn't because I was tied to the long protracted ending until July next year. Now I am not tied and I can go and look after Orangutans in Borneo for a month in March with my son. Yippee.
5. He handled the ending so badly I have lost a lot of respect for him and it makes me see that I was loving someone who wasn't up to that standard. That makes it easier.
6. There is always the possibility that my t will feel so bad about how he handled this exit, that when he is not working for the NHS anymore and writes me a letter (which he apparently told his line manager that he will do at some point - how magnanimous of him - not) he will try to make some contact and for us to meet and talk about it. It might shift the relationship into one of having him as a person in my life I can lean on occasionally (because that is always 'useful' and my other one, (first T) has just been diagnosed with ovarian cancer so is not 'working' as a leaning on sort of person.) I am getting pragmatic in my old age.
7. I can get on with my life now; I was tied down to here because of seeing my T. I was stuck in 'awful trauma work' with him. I am now free to stop all that and do other things. (not sure if this is cloud cuckoo land but that is how I feel - like 'enough!')
8.One person at that centre actually told me two weeks ago 'you have a life long psychiatric condition that you need to learn to manage'. I do not. I have trauma symptoms and coping parts. I am more sane than most of the people who work there. I don't have to put up with that crap being thrown at me anymore.
9. I have contacted a body therapist about 20 mins away. I have the new private social worker cum counsellor to see on Friday (social worker, counsellor who is kind - must tell you more about her some day - you should see her contract - it is AMAZING - . I would have hired her on that alone. Sooooo respectful to the client.)
10. I shall see my life coach in October. We don't have to work on therapist ending stuff as I have been ended, so we can move on.
11. I hadn't been listening to the recordings of therapy sessions since about July or June. I was bored with them, and my t sounded so disengaged. They didn't 'satisfy' me. They didn't give me any sense of being loved or cared for. So I was already turning 'off' him.
12. I experienced the grief of losing him in early August when we were on the boat on a river and I suddenly felt him walk away from me. Like he was there in front of me. And then I collapsed and cried for about ten days. I think it was like my psyche let me know it. And I felt the grief THEN.
13. Even the residential centre doesn't feel like a stressful decision that I would have to get my head around. We shall make the NHS go though the procedure to fund it. I will go if we get the money. I won't pay for it myself as I was not happy with the way the assessor told me that I would have to be able to soothe my younger parts more myself before I got there as she would not be available except for the three sessions a week and my younger parts would find it hard to know she is next door and they can't reach her if distressed. so that made me aware that I must work hard on soothing them. And it made the younger parts aware that they don't want to go there yet, so there is no hurry.
14. I have had over three weeks with no therapy and you know what, it has felt such a relief - eventually. I was always living until the next mega traumatic therapy session. I was in a state of heightened anxiety all the time. I was driven nearly crazy with need and loss and abandonment issues around my t.
15. I also feel a bit vindicated. I said he would treat me badly and he has done. that proves that therapists are not to be trusted. So I was right.

I do wonder if my protector self has just stepped in and is leading the show and the littlies have run for cover.

oh dear, I sounded a bit crazy in that last post.
But I am still doing okay and still feeling some relief.
My life had got taken over with the mega anxiety and distress that therapy was causing. ANd now I don't have that. At all. that is a relief.
Someone pointed out to me that I can't keep referring to him as my T as he is not my T now. He is my ex-T. He is no longer my therapist. I think that is hard to get my head round still - not even 48 hrs later from the termination call.
I thank each of you for reading this. I thank you for not judging me - when I am obviously all over the place. I thank you for your kind feedback.

well folks, iit's finally time to get my own shirt in a knot....

Back at my last appointment in June I was advised my psychiatrist would be out of the office for 6 months (not sure if it is a sabatecal, personal, or what). He did sit down and draw up an emergency plan with me though.

Well I called his office today hoping they were making appointments ahead of his return. I had a woman say he's not making any appointments and no explanation. This kind of freaked me out, certainly by her terse attitude. My mind is flooding with catastrophic thinking why no appointments are being made. Is he not coming back at all? Will I be left on my own?

If he was going to be away for 6 months starting in June, he's due to be gone til December/January, it may just be too early to start thinking about booking his diary just now. He may come back with a changed work pattern, or not have fully decided on a return date yet or the clinic may just not want to start planning his diary so far in advance.

At the moment he's not due to be at work for another 3 months so he isn't booking appointments, because he's not there.

I'm so sorry JustAFriend, I truly know the turmoil. I wish you didn't have to go through this. I awoke this morning at 4am in anguished turmoil. I just can't seem to process that he has done this to me. I just find a part of my mind just keeps going 'but, but, but' and remembers all the things he said like ' I will not drop you' 'I will always give you plenty of warning if I am having to stop work'. and 'I do not want to cause you more suffering'. On another forum a man keeps accusing me of being too close to my therapist (sorry EX therapist ) and that it is kind of his and my fault that I am suffering like this because I was too close to him and he let me be. I find that hard to get my head around too.
My (ex) T was like a dad to me, a dad I had never had, kind and caring and listening and there for me. So this is like a bolt out of the blue. I actually keep going cold all over.
I can't believe he has done this to me.

I don't think it's your fault at all, but your therapist made promises to you that he couldn't keep. I think it's fine to say "I'll do all I can to avoid hurting you, I'll try to give as much notice of us ending as I can" but to say it in absolutes like always and never wasn't wise because we just don't know what's around the corner.

Yeh, Merecat, I know but it feels like it needs to be a multiple pile up traffic accident in his life to justify what he has done. He has just run. Quit. Bailed out. Walked away. All the things we spent tens of hours discussing and him assuring me that he was going to make it as good an ending as he could with me as he knew how deep the abandonment issues go.
in the end he abandoned me in a worse way than any of them.

You're not likely to know what has happened in his life to make him stop working, in fact it would be pretty unethical for him to be sharing that level of detail about his own stuff. The simplest explanation is often the most likely and you know he's suffered a significant bereavement which, in and of itself, would be enough to take many people out of the workplace.

You keep talking about that not being enough, that there must be a disaster or pile up of stuff that's happened. Do you have a picture of what that might be?

So sorry you're suffering so much. I was betrayed by my T almost a year ago and I know the feelings of anguish, pain and helplessness. I still feel them. I still feel like she injected herself into a part of me and I can't get her out but I can't talk with her in order to get closure either. It's so painful and T's should be above doing this to their clients.

Thank you MagicalPrince
I am sorry you also know this abandonment
and thank you Merecat.
I guess, Merecat, that I fear that the problem was me.
that I was too much for him
that I broke him
that he couldnt cope with me anymore and so
when his father died
that was the last straw.

I checked out today if he has abandoned just me and is seeing other clients and I was told : "he has stopped working because of personal reasons' which I think is about him not working anymore at all with clients.
so it wasn't personal.
I actually left a donation to charity of choice on his dad's funeral page. That might give him a shock. I meant it kindly but he might feel I shouldn't have. But I wanted to.
A consultant neurologist I had to see today anyway about my migraines (been waiting to see him for four months) told me he would refer me to an out of area trauma psychologist - as urgent. That means I have side stepped the awful centre in my own area who are not being helpful and hopefully got a referral to a specialist. this just might have a real silver lining after all.

today has been a day of confusion and conflict in my own head about what has happened. I feel bitter and resentful, dis-empowered and angry.

But I also feel okay underneath, though I still wake at 4am each morning with my mind racing - trying to work out how on earth he did this and how he can live with himself.

i really hope that you get some answers from him in the near future as to why and what really happened.

Yes. I hope you get answers too. It's only decent to hash out what happened and not leave you hanging. I was left hanging for years by an unscrupulous T. I am doing awful tonight and you can imagine how bad it's been for me all along. Hope you are not suffering like I am.

I am suffering pretty bad but the Zoloft is helping. Amazingly so. Today I met a woman by chance who was also a client of my T . I knew her from a couple of places and I knew she saw my T. She did not know he has stopped working! She said she was told he was off on indefinite leave!! My god! So I told her that he has stopped working there for ever. She went into shock, just like me two weeks ago. She has known him for two years and sees him regularly and she has cancer and is seriously unwell and probably not got long to live. she said he was the only person she felt she had in her life. She said he was like an uncle to her and she was really close to him and felt heard and understood by him. she could not believe that she will not see him again. she really could not believe it. It was horrible for me to be the bearer of bad tidings - and to see her go through the shock and disbelief that I am going through. Oh, this is such a terrible horrible mess.

so he sent me a letter - one month later. In it he says he can't work with me anymore and is sorry he can't do the closing plan we had created and that he is saying goodbye. He gives a poor synopsis of the last six years of therapy and then tells me I can't contact him anymore. however, my other support person who is a more senior psychologist is going to write and tell my ex T that proper closure with 5-10 sessions (when he is ready, maybe in about six months) is better than being taken to court or a formal complaint to his professional body. So I shall sit back and see what will come of that.

I have to say, contrary to what a lot of people have said about T's being human and things coming up in their lives etc etc, I think this is absolutely shocking behaviour! I don't think there is any excuse at all for your T not having contacted you in person. I don't want to talk about me, but I happened to send a text asking to talk to T on the day of her dad's funeral. She responded by saying she is really sorry but just can't for personal reasons. She texted me the next day to make sure I was okay and told me the real reason when I saw her in person the next week. I don't believe in ANY circumstances that there is an excuse to terminate like that with a long term client and let them hear the news second hand with no explanation. When bad stuff happens, things always have to be done. If someone dies, funerals have to be arranged, people have to be informed. It is no impossible to communicate because things are necessary. I don't see why it was not possible for him to send you at least a text message, at the VERY least. I, like you, believe my T cares deeply about me, she is the same age as your T and I have to put my trust in her (as I also have abandonment issues) that she will not just drop me suddenly. It is SO hard to believe that and I was be devastated and distraught if this happened to me.

I am so sorry for you, I really am. I was hoping, for your sake, that he was going to contact you separately since you were such a long term client and say he would continue to work with you at a later date to finish things off. My T tells me that even if she retired she could still see me. Of course, that remains to be seen but it can be done. I am so sorry to hear that your T used a letter to say goodbye. That is so wrong in my opinion.

Take care

I completely agree with this. There is NO excuse for his behavior. It doesn't really surprise me though based on what I know about most therapists. They just don't give a damn.