Upset about what I asked T

Yes, I regret it but he’s better off than having to deal with me.

I'm sorry you're upset. From what I've read, therapists are just supposed to take clients at their word if they say they're quitting--they're not supposed to try to convince them to stay. So your T is actually doing the ethical thing by taking you at your word. If you just told him you were considering quitting/having doubts and wanted to discuss it with him, that would be a bit different. I hope he calls you.

I’ve been upset and told him I was quitting before. But he didn’t do anything about it. I have called him and he said he was helping somebody set up for the Super Bowl and then they were going to have lunch and then he said he would call me after that.

Now if he calls I don’t know what to say. I’m crying, my mind is racing and I’m hurting. Where would I even begin?

Why did you quit? Cuz he can't keep in touch?

I would not bother him anymore today. Let him enjoy his sunday super bowl stuff. If he calls ok but if not...dont reach out again until tomorrow

Now would be a good time to journal

I’m not bothering him anymore. I took my anxiety medication and I’m laying in bed crying. I used to getting hurt so I’m fine.

It seems a bit strange that your therapist immediately responded to your email of quitting and told the front office on a Sunday.

Hope if you really want to continue therapy I would suggest emailing your therapist back and telling him you changed your mind. It also might be helpful to just stop the emailing until you have a chance to talk to your therapist in person it seems to be causing you more distress and not helping anything.

I know you said your first pdoc told you you could keep in touch because you remember he did not have good boundaries and that entire situation did not end well. As stopdog said it's fine to ask your therapist that question but you must remember that any therapist that holds good ethical boundaries it's almost always going to say no. In addition due to ethics and boundaries I'm sure no one would say yes in writing on an email. If you really feel the need to ask those types of questions it's probably best to ask that in person but again he prepared for an answer that you probably don't want. Therapist are paid professionals and not meant to be friends outside of the therapeutic relationship. This is not a rejection of you it is just the ethics they are bound to uphold.

I relate and it sucks but as my t said...he can't be there for Me 24.7. I'm telling you journaling your thoughts helps. It's how I cope when I struggle most.

I agree with journaling it helps me tremendously. I'm able to get the thoughts out of my head and on the paper and that's where a lot of them will stay. There's something I want to tell my therapist where they're right it to him in the journal or make a list of things in my journal to bring up in the next session. I always bring my journal to my sessions sometimes I will hand it to him to read a certain part otherwise I just use it as a reminder of what I want to talk about.

Another great tool about journaling is it gives you a record of your thoughts and feelings. Sometimes it's very helpful to go back a few months or a few years even to see if your thoughts have improved or changed. It helps me to see patterns in my thinking. Once I noticed the problem myself it's much easier to start to work on improving the situation.

What Now I tried to tell him that I changed my mind but he’s not responding to any emails at all or I don’t even think he is reading them now. I keep thinking what if he was using that as an excuse to get rid of me. My mind has all kinds of scenarios played out.

I’m in severe pain and he doesn’t even care.

I regret ever trusting him.

I’m at my wit’s end.

Try to take a step back and think about this rationally. It's Super Bowl Sunday. He was setting up for a Super Bowl party and with a friend for lunch. Lunch probably went late and then the Bowl party started. Maybe he'd been "celebrating" and wasn't able to call you. If he was even slightly intoxicated and had called you, that could have been a very unprofessional, costly mistake for him.

You quit therapy with this therapist often. He knows you don't mean it and always works with you to fix things. He needs time to not be a therapist, too. I'm sure he will be in contact with you in the morning.

Maybe you should stop and think before reacting on your emotions. Because it seems like you're playing a game with these male professionals. You want more from them then what they can provide, and when you don't get your way, you throw a fit. Just remember that people do have a right to say no, and that doesn't make them a bad person.

Hope, you have done what you can for now. I would step back and try to calm yourself. What's done is done. It is now up to him. I would call the office tomorrow to see if you are still on the schedule for your appointment and try to attend if so. If not, remember that regardless of how many times you have "quit" therapy through email before, an ethical therapist is not supposed to try to get you to stay in therapy against your will. If you state you are quitting they need to take you at your word. I know this sucks. I am constantly wanting to quit and would love for my therapist to beg for me to stay. Maybe that would convince me to stick it out, but I also have to accept the fact that he is doing his job by reminding me that I can quit at any time. I kind of understand this concept in that to be successful, a client needs to be invested and really want to change and accept their therapists help. If they begged us to stay many people would attend simply to please the therapist and this would not necessarily motive the client to work on their own problems. Therapy has to be wanted the most by the client, as they are the ones doing the most work. In the end, that is why I stay because I want to get better.

You state you regret ever trusting him. I don't see what he has done to lose your trust. Regardless of the outcome from this, please remember while it is acceptable to ask, no medical professional that works with you as a client can maintain ethical boundaries and also be your friend. Know that going into the relationship. If you can accept that fact I think you will eliminate a lot of distress and heartbreak in the future. Don't take it as rejection, it has nothing to do with you. They are simply doing their job. Even after you quit being their client, it is a boundary any good professional should uphold. This type of question seems to be a repeat source of grief for many people on this board who are not prepared to accept their professional's answer.

I know you are struggling Hope, and I wish you the best. It may be helpful to read through you old posts and see if there are any patterns that you can recognize. Try your best to learn from the past. You are a very intelligent woman and you have what you need to succeed inside yourself. Dig deep for it.

Please be careful. This sort of thing can cause major boundary changes. You need to remember he has a life. He's allowed to do things with friends and family. Esp on weekends.
I'd advise not contacting him on weekends. Do you have a bf or husband or even a friend to talk to? Might be a good option as well
If no...maybe make it a goal to make a new friend...not your t...
To confide in or just talk to for distraction
It's a tough reality to know t can't be your friend and that they do have other clients and family etc they have to be here for too
Really decide what you want from here. New t or try to keep this one. Don't keep contacting. Just let him contact you now

Hope, it seems like you have had many crises very much like this. You send an email about something and do not get an immediate response or the response you want. Then you get upset and send another email saying you're quitting therapy. Again the therapist either doesn't respond right away or it's not the response you want, and you get even more upset. Later you calm down and decide not to quit therapy after all. It sounds like it's very painful and ultimately doesn't change anything in your life.

I wonder if it would be useful to think about ways you could change this pattern? I think you could spare yourself a lot of time and pain. Not emailing is one way but I know that's a hard change to make. What if you held off from sending your emails until you feel calmer? Even just a half hour might help.

It would also be good to think (or maybe talk with your T) about what you get out of this pattern of behavior, why you keep putting yourself through all this.

This is very good advice. I think you would endure so much less pain if you created a boundary for yourself where you did not email your T between sessions, but instead wrote your feelings out and brought those notes into session to discuss. Do you think you could try one week where you do that and see how you feel?

I decided that I am creating my own boundaries with this.

I will post the other email that really upset me. It just felt so cold.

I don’t have any support from my family with all the comments my father was making. I slid into a deeper depression. I usually would not have tried to call him at home unless it was urgency and at that point it was an emergency.

He understands that I can be impulsive when I’m not on my ADD medication.

I’m pathetic. My life means nothing and doesn’t matter.

Hey-

OK, Let me do this for you, I will leave it totally up to you whether not you want to stay in therapy. I feel it is my responsibility to explain my job: I have to work on things with you while we are in session so that you can get better.

That is basically my job. Now things that are not my job:
To care about you as a friend, to love you, to be your emergency contact, to be available by phone whenever you need me, to respond immediately to every email you send, to prove to you that I am not angry or that I care or that I am feeling anything.

Perhaps we need a fresh start and just begin again. That said, I have to let you go if you question my motives, question whether or not I care, question whether or not I’m doing my job, threaten suicide, or call me.

If you want to email me occasionally between sessions and tell me about your dad or ask a question about how you can handle a certain situation that will be fine. I am happy to help with things going on in your world. I cannot, however, be pulled into every patient’s world myself.

I hope this makes sense and I hope you understand and I hope you make good choices! It is totally up to you-

I don't think advising you not to email will work.
To an extent, we set ourselves up for rejection (though not replying isn't really rejection per se)

Then when we've got that feeling of "told you so" we're back in our familiar terrority.
This kinds stuff takes years to resolve. There is no quick fix.we get to repeat these feelings over and over. Hopefully if you have a competent T your work through it. If not, your flounder like this for ever.

His email is exactly what most of us have told you. As I said, try to find a friend if you don't have one, even an online friend, to talk to when he isn't there or journal your thoughts, he is seemingly changing email boundaries, and to me that's great.

He's right, he can't be your or anyone else's world, I don't have support outside my T either except here and a few online friends, so you need to find any way to cope and not keep doing this.

"I’m pathetic. My life means nothing and doesn’t matter." Just because he can't do what you want, when you demand it does not mean that. He needs boundaries and a life just as anyone else does. The fact that he took the time to email you after all this drama is something, I am sure not every T would have, in fact, some may even have terminated you, so be glad for that... but please stop being so impulsive like this, the only way to move forward, even with him in your life is to learn ways to cope besides email him a bunch.

It's hard, it sucks but it is the reality of this type of situation.

I don’t feel pathetic because of T. I feel pathetic because of my dad. He makes it sound like I’m a loser because I can’t “snap out of it” and hold down a job.

I don’t think I can be fixed.

I feel this way often. I even told this to my T and he replied "Well, I don't think you're broken"

It's a long process for some people, it isn't magic. Hang in there, find a friend or two, find some hobbies or things to distract yourself with and you will be ok, I promise

Do you like animals? If you do, get a pet if you don't have one, they can be such incredible help for healing and finding a purpose... but you can always volunteer with a rescue to walk dogs or something if not. So many people on this forum are here to support you, we would not do that if we also believed you could not be fixed