Today did not go well, advice? thoughts?

I feel similar QM, but also would be very confused about a therapist using touch. Some have used touch with me in a training environment and it has always increased my yearnings for more touch. I was deprived of any kind of touch as a child and now I fear it but yet crave it.
I think a t needs to be very careful who they use touch with and how they use it. It should always be openly discussed about what touch means for both the therapist and client before initiating any touch.
I have found touch very helpful. Some ts have asked to hold my hand when distressed but that was too intimate so I refused. Some have touched my back and rubbed it. Others asked me to close my eyes and touch their face.
Others have asked me to ground myself by stepping on their feet. All have been very appropriate and helpful in the context they were used.
Anyway, I am really sorry your t backed away from what he initially said he would be ok with doing. I can see why you are so upset and hurt by it.

Did he ever disclose feelings for you?
It’s not wrong to want touch from someone, your feelings are totally appropriate and normal here, please don’t punish yourself for your feelings and urges. It was very brave to share them with your t, too bad he couldn’t handle them.
Is it so wrong to want somebody to care about us and to express that longing to them.
It hurts to be rejected after allowing ourselves to be vulnerable but you followed your path of the heart and allowed yourself to feel those feelings.

I really hope you have some support outside of therapy? It’s so hard to rely on our therapists when they are the very ones that sometimes cause this pain.

Nope he did not but he would never anyway because of rules but he was very flirty with me many times.... and did a lot of things he probably should of not done.

Not really.... my family is ****, I have no real life friends, my best friends lives in another state and I have some online friends. I dont tell most people about him anyway so I would not go to them with any issues about this

So he did encourage these feelings? That’s just what I am picking up from your posts but I could be wrong. Is it your sense that he encouraged your feelings?
Are you thinking of seeing a new t?

Yes very much so.... about the feelings an no never, I refuse to try therapy again after this nightmare.

Sorry for double posting but I just want to thank everyone who read and replied. Was very nice to feel support over this. I'm still in shock and trying to process how I feel.... if anyone is willing to chat via DM that would be great too, I could use that. Again, thank you all though and its gonna be so hard to break from him, Im not sure I can.

I'm so sorry. I have similar feelings/fears about touch. I would be sickened if my therapist or anyone turned something innocent into something else; it would be like a repeat of childhood. There are ways to "practice" outside therapy, while processing it in therapy, but it's going to look different for everyone. In my case, I visit a nursing facility where there's someone I've become very fond of, like a replacement mom. She often reaches out to hold my hand. In therapy, my therapist and I talk about what happens and how to cope with what comes up for me.

Ya I'm struggling now with how he went from being so understanding and trying to prove that there is safe touch and its not all sexual to basically saying, I want him. Sad thing is, not even sure I posted this part yet but months ago we talked about how we would handle my dog's passing as I knew it was coming and he said for clients he does a hand hold for comfort.... he did it with me and said we could work on more safe touch when I was ready... so like 2 weeks ago we did something really hard for me with regard to my dog and thats when I felt like I wanted the hand hold, when I told him, he shut me down. It was like, all my lifelong fears of ME wanting to touch someone, means I want to **** them, were true

Yet he claims nothing has changed but how can I feel comfortable with him anymore about things like this? I'll always assume I'm gross and will be rejected.

Anyway no I'm not comfortable even trying to touch anyone, and surely not after this so like your thing is a good example but would not work for me. I'm still in such shock, because I thought he was ok with touch and he understood my fears about it but I guess he doesn't know me at all

Okay. Well, for me it's a lot more than a thing (it took a lot to share it, in fact) but I get that it's not for you. I wish you well. This is a painful topic, and I'm sorry your therapist has made it even worse.

I know the agony of having literal proof that things have changed but hearing the T say things have not changed and it's all in your head.

It's a type of gaslighting.

oh no, I am sorry it came off so rude... I totally appreciate you being brave to share and I understand how hard that stuff can be, it was simply bad wording and fast typing. I've been really out of it mentally today, so again i apologize. Thank you so much for sharing, It is wonderful you are able to do that and it helps you

Agreed. Some textbooks even say therapy is a "laboratory to practice".

Interesting. I'm for sure bringing this up because it felt rude to me. Like he knows I barely have support and I am not comfortable talking to people much in general so how he thinks I'd practice and feel safe about it elsewhere is beyond me

I think though, he handled it so badly that it will make me even more uncertain of talking to people and asking for things, sharing feelings etc. I feel so ashamed and worthless, even after the call. He said he could not "help" me with my feelings of rejection and that I should discuss that issue with my best friend. I
miss my T, because the man I spoke to on the phone is not him. I'm scared to meet a stranger at my next session.

A T telling his client to discuss difficult matters with a friend instead of in therapy!? Imo that tells pretty much everything about this therapist and his "therapy".

I have felt rejected by my T before, and she absolutely helped me through it by talking about what happened and how I felt (without changing the thing that made me feel rejected in the first place). Talking it through is the only way I could have stayed in therapy with her. And it's literally her job to talk about my feelings. All of my feelings, including the ones I have about her.

I will say that I subscribe to the practice laboratory idea to a certain extent, but I don't think that means the therapist has to agree to touch (or to anything else that makes them uncomfortable that is outside the therapeutic frame). I have made great strides in some of my touch issues by talking about them in depth with my T. I have never had any kind of hugging or touching access to my therapist, but her skill in getting to the root of what is going on with me makes growth in that area a possibility. I actually think that at this point (in the thick of things), touching her would be counterproductive, even though it might feel good to me.

I know that touch is a delicate, complicated subject, though, and I'm sorry that your therapist's inconsistency and mixed signals are making this so hard. I agree with the person upthread who said that maybe what you were doing with him never really was therapy, so going to another therapist to untangle the mess this situation has created might not be such a stressful experience. Even for people with good outside support networks, the intensity of emotion and the mixed signals given off by your therapist would be incredibly hard to deal with. I feel safe telling my therapist how I feel about her in part because I know for sure that she will never, ever be anything but my therapist, due to her rock solid boundaries. Would we be good as friends? Yeah, probably, because we get along uncommonly well, in my estimation. But there are a few billion people in the world who could potentially be my friend and far fewer who could be a good therapist for me. I think your good therapist (should you choose to find him or her) is still out there somewhere.

He said he didn't think he could help with he rejection piece because I felt it from him, and thats usually the last person you want to comfort you. He tried to reassure me but fell flat as I am obviously not feeling better.

I am either gonna write a long email or call again tomorrow and discuss it more. I get that touch thing but I think my issue is that he already said months ago we could work on safe touch there when I was ready and he showed me a comfort hand hold and how he does it with clients sometimes. I don't think he is completely rejecting touch, its just me touching him he doesn't want.

Anyway, no, I am not gonna bother with therapy anymore. I'd rather save money for something else. I survived over 20 years before I tried to go back.... I'll be ok somehow, eventually and if I stay with him, I just gotta remember that he is only pretending with me. He doesn't actually care

Its kind of paradoxical, but i think your t sees you as being in denial about your romantic feelings, and as long as he feels you are in denial about them, he cant ethically work with you on them? Cuz like holding your hands - he KNOWS that would be feeding your fantasy, even tho you deny it. Even if the fantasy is just the two of you running in a park with a dog. He's going to interpret that fantasy as something else, they always do!

Whereas, if you could ACCEPT your fantasy, and follow that train of thought and think about what it ultimately means to you - i think that would salvage this therapy.

For example, i desperately wanted to marry my last two ts. Following the fantasy, i realized what i wanted was for them to come to sunday family dinner and shut my brother up. So... ultimately thats what i needed to do for myself, accept that my relationship with my brother is crap, has always been crap, and probably will always be crap, unless he gets struck by lightning and turns in Christopher Walken.

For the record, yes, my t hugs me - greeting and goodbye. But he is cute as a button and fit and i am... way not. Plus we are both old, but in denial about that! Plus we are both old hippies, so there is a lot of shared history, even if we havent actually shared it together, it SEEMS that way.

So it is LIKE having a friend, but more like an online friend rather than IRL. Weird!

I don't know what kind of training this therapist has, I can say that my T has rejected me and worked through it with me. Like ElectricManatee said, without changing her position, without it becoming about her, and will full focus on my needs. This has been one of the best experiences for me. A T should be able to help you through your feelings of rejections without becoming defensive and without caving to what they think you want. This statement with a few others from your T are red flags for me.

I hear you on not wanting to seek another T, that is your right. I can say finding the right T can be an amazing thing - it is not easy, it is well worth it. It is also possible, as many find, that switching T's after some progress is actually helpful in making additional progress. I've also seen situations where people leave these types of confusing and damaging situations to find much healing with a T that is better for them.

Everyone seems to think I have romantic feelings for him. I guess I'm confused. I've never thought of us dating or having sex or anything. For me, that sort of thing does not really happen anyway, i have a hard time romanizing anyone. I also feel I'm not appealing in that way to anyone so I tend to just keep myself in the friend zone so to speak

I've already admitted to him and basically everyone that I want to be friends. that is no secret.

the hand hold, was in a time of grief for me, so it was at that moment, a comfort issue, however i never actually asked to hold his hand at any point, i just told him i had that urge in the moment. what i wanted from him was to be able to initiate a touch where i felt safe, like a hand on shoulder etc. i figured since we hug all the time, it would be ok. i was very very wrong.

i personally think if anything he had feelings for me and is just denying it and trying to put the blame on me for all of it.

This is possibly very true. Hard to say.

I do hear that you do not want a sexual relationship with this man. My first wife did not have a bf or gf before me. We were together for almost 7 yrs. After we broke up, she did have another relationship that lasted a couple of years. Since then, I believe she has realized that she is asexual. I figured she was asexual when we were together. So I do believe there are people out there that just don't have much of a drive towards a sexual relationship. Have you explored the possibility that you are asexual? I have found with the few people I have met that are asexual is that for them, their lack of desire towards a sexual relationship did not mean that they did not want to have an emotionally intimate relationship; that seems to be a different part of the overall puzzle in human sexuality. I am not saying that you were thinking in those terms either. Just throwing it out as information.

LITERALLY what S said to me.
Except exchange rejection for abandonment or whatever.
No. No. That's not how it works. He is actually the BEST person to really work with you on the rejection, because it is coming from HIM.

I agree.... I am so bad on the phone, I don't say much so the convo was mostly him rambling.... but I intend to bring this up, because how can I deal with the rejection otherwise? My friend wont help me, I'll very much still feel rejected when I see him if its not worked out.

Could you see him in person instead of talking on the phone?

Yeah, this is the point I was trying to make (along with what Elio said). The thing a T can provide that's different from a friendship is space to fully explore the awful rejected feeling and figure out what to do with it. That's not the same thing as being comforted or reassured, either.

This type of situation is actually exactly what I meant about therapy being a laboratory. Something happened interpersonally that feels really, really awful. Can you stay and figure out with the other person what the heck happened? Can you repair the relationship in a healthy way? Casual friends can't/don't do this sort of conflict resolution thing very often, but good friendships and strong romantic relationships can do it when the need arises. Therapy is a place to practice dealing with intense stuff in a sort of "training wheels" way. You can mess up, express your anger is somewhat unproductive ways, say things that you don't quite mean, and still somehow come back from the mess. A good T has a relational stance that makes that possible. They can care about your feelings and your pain while ultimately making it all about you.

The thing here, though, is that I don't think DP's T understands any of this. If he can't do the therapeutic work here for whatever reason, he isn't a safe option to be a therapist. This is just going to get more complicated and painful until it explodes in an even bigger fireball. I'm not just saying that because his shifting boundaries created the situation (although that's a pretty big red flag) but because he already sounds like he has no clue how to work through the situation.

We will on Tues but I called because I didn't want to sit on that feeling all weekend. I'm already uncomfortable as it is going on Tues... I feel things are too weird now....

I'm trying to write up an email for him to send before session because more than likely I'll end up sitting in silence and saying nothing and just feeling shame