Ghosting/ Break Up

My T is very earnest about therapy ,believes in it, is ethical , and gives a very good session . That might BE the whole job, and all the experiences outside the 45 or 50 minute session are the patient's problem so to speak. Certainly, that is my T's view.

He is a little full of himself, a little arrogant- like today he commented he hoped I didnt think he was God!!!! ( I am agnostic lol). God- complex?

My T and I built a good foundation, and shared many sessions of difficult self revelation on my part and immense empathy on his.

I just dont know how it has departed from that, and gone wrong in the dynamic. The trust is less, and the feeling detachment preceding a break up lingers in the room.

I wish I knew how to reel it in, but half of me has a foot out the door.

Maybe it's not possible to reel it in? Maybe it's a part of "the process"? Or maybe not. I certainly don't know, I never had a calm termination of a "successful" therapy.

Sorry if you've posted about this already, but have you been able to discuss your perception and get your T's view? Will he share it?

I think honest sharing of views, which may of course be different, is part of what I would consider a "healthy" relationship. So if relationship-building and coping with reality has any place in your therapy. . .might be worth checking out? If you can, if he is willing to say. And if he's that enthralled with therapy, and a little full of himself, well. . .still seems like it might be interesting to hear what he has to say? Listen to your gut and go from there? And your gut might surprise you, you never know. Or not.

Yes, we have discussed, and he thinks me running into friends on the city street below his office all teary made me feel unsafe in the space suddenly, like we dont put the genie back in the bottle and I blame that on him and like I think they have xray vision and can see things against my volition.

I just dont think that is the issue.

OK, I don't know the man, haven't had any kind of relationship with him, and I'm not your gut obviously! But it sounds to me like he's caught up in the fantasy and earnestness of therapy and his own goodness?

It doesn't seem to me so much a matter of being unsafe as that if you're no longer caught up in that fantasy, then you all are not in the same space and how are you to proceed? Do you really want to reel it back? Does your gut feel that's the best thing for you to do, even if you can?

What are the problems that seem to be important, for you, in leaving the office all teary?

Wow thank you for understanding my side of things, my perception. I wish I could recapture the sense of mission and possibility we once shared, but I lost it and cant find it again. My T, bc he is a good T, has a deep belief in The Work as he calls it, but I am starting to opt out bc the relationship doesnt feel plausible to me anymore as something real.

It is very Dorothy ,oz, curtain, except my T is a great guy and not a disappointment in any way. Dorothy had to go back to her real life and I think I have to go back to putting my best energy into mine.

I think the tears were for some fantasy relationship in which I tell T secrets I never told anyone , and he is THERE for me in a sense no one ever could be. He encouraged that kind of hopefulness, bc he seems to truly believe in the efficacy of what he does, that wrongs maybe cant be righted but can be integrated, and people can go free of their weighty pasts.

I dont doubt that can happen in some really either epic or dogged collaborations between T and patient, but I dont see us being that pairing. It takes so much energy away from my real relationship, bc T has my full attention both in and outside session, but that is like tires spinning in deep snow or investing in junk bonds. He talks so much about The Relationship , but is there even one? I feel like a ducking who imprinted on a science experiment .

A poster win the thread put her finger on the problem that I evade myself by focusing on T. I am too hyper vigilant and frightened by sharing things to male figure who never becomes more known/knowable in one sense, so I dont relax and look at myself complexly enough. I does make me appreciate my real-life relationship with its reciprocity .

I dont think therapy isnt like my T experiences it from his chair, but I do think I am not a good candidate for therapy this kind with the neutral stance.

I do want to reel it in, but there's such a distancing I have done by accident. I hope this is a phase or stage.

. I believe in this I think

SE, this thread is very helpful to me.

I’m in the same place with T1 (I have 2: one psychoanalytic in orientation - this one. - the other uses a thing called ISTDP).

I’m also missing the T I used to have, or the T I thought I had. You said something a post or two back about the original T/relationship feeling a bit fantasy-like. That’s the territory I’m in right now with T1. He acknowledges that yes, stuff happened and things/he has changed, but also brought up this idea that I kind of ‘made up’ the first him. I fiercely dismissed it at first, but am now really pondering it quite seriously.

I had absent/inconsistent/abusive/neglectful parenting at various points along the way, and I know for sure I am inclined to sort of fill in the gaps of people and make scraps or hints of caring much bigger than they are. Sort of like how kids make the bad parent good, because the reality would otherwise destroy them. I think he connects with with self-nurturing and over-independence.

Not entirely sure - I’m too ashamed to explore it in any great depth. Story of my lifeblood right now.

I don't think I can help much on this, since I'm not one for individual therapy. I prefer group therapy. Have any of you tried that? It's cheaper than individual too.

When a maintenance worker appeared in the window of my therapist's office, I had an immediate experience of seeing my therapy from the outside. The theater and construction of it shook me and, to this day, I can't get it out of my head. I guess that's because it exposed a painful truth. What's left is just using therapy as a sounding board to hear myself. I don't really buy into the theater of it anymore. There's a grief that comes with waking up to the reality, but maybe in the end the healthiest way for me to experience this bizarre construct is to see it from the perspective of a maintenance worker looking in the window. I don't think there's a way to buy back into the illusion unless one is on drugs (legal or non).

This does sound like a very similar place- kind of magically making the T we need, then reality setting in. I like your comparison to kids making bad parents good; I certainly did that too. I do appreciate both our T'S for being honest, instead of soaking up reverence permanently, but it sill stings. My T talks about how I can have a "corrective relationship" with him. This definitely bewilders me what this actually means in real time, like how that plays out?

This is an amazing post- what a moment and a metaphor .

This IS what it comes down to- it is a sounding board to hear oneself, and not a relationship with another person. The language of therapy confuses that: Therapeutic alliance, The Relationship. Nonetheless, the truth is it feels like a touching human connection, but that isnt what it actually is.

I think basically it's purchased caring. And because caring cannot just be dispensed, it's also probably fake or feigned caring. So, you have a practice that purports to treat nothing less than trauma, using a form of convoluted and synthetic caring. But the client receives insistent messages suggesting this caring is actually superior to the real thing, because the therapist has been expertly trained in this special kind of caring, and can ladle it out, just so.

So scientific!

I'm not sure if therapy is making me worse, so much as calling for confrontation of harsh realities that elaborate defenses set aside in my mind for my whole life so that I "looked" pretty much like my peers, functioning well in most areas. . My T gives cool metaphors for this process, and I understand what it is to have CPTSD now, though I never heard of the term 18 months ago.

I'm scared. My foundation is weaker than it looked like for most of my life, and there's something about therapy that is taking away the capacity to compartmentalize and get everything done, give full attention to BF and dogs. Nightmares, not sleeping, unrelenting sadness, SI, - these are new but have taken over at least fifty percent of my experience, while I struggle to act normal and keep engaged with my relationship, friends, clients, family. For the first time, I understand how someone who looks great on the outside ends up giving up the fight, bc it is exhausting to feel so bifurcated.

My T came through big for me last week when I had a bunch of 18 hour work days, couldn't sleep, and my BF is very concerned that I should stop going to therapy( which I didn't tell T bc it seems like triangling or manipulative). I cried the beginning to the end of the session, and he was like- I am going to help you, its going to be okay by the end of session, and he really did patch me together and lend me some kind of strength. I felt like someone gave me a shot of novocaine in my brain, instead of the dentist doing it to a tooth, and I got everything done.

My T does care( I think), but he cares within his strict parameters . He cares two 50 minutes periods a week, and there is a chance he thinks about the case formulation if you know what I mean. It is weird because working with a T for 18 months is less than the number of hours in 1 week. Something in me struggles to understand if we know each other or not . I understand what the therapeutic relationship is not, but not what it is. I wish he would check on me, or just lifeguard the situation. I feel like there is an unraveling going on, when I have so much to do it scares me( need to be at work by 8am today). Talking about dark horrible things for two hours a week, then rejoining the happy daily world is kind of like a culture shock that repeats over and over.

It is a strange experience to tell a stranger all these secrets, then not speak again. I do well with relationships, better than my DX predicts, until they are very emotionally intimate . With T, it is a struggle to see him as safe, even though he is. He just came through big, but here I sit feelings like he is irresponsible in a way that is unfair, that he is tearing down the bearing walls of my pyschoogy, and then going off to have a picnic with his family on the beach in Bali, while I try and keep balance. I don't feel entitled to his extra time, and I have never asked for an extra session; it is more that I feel dazed like a bird that hit the window panes after not sleeping and nightmares, and I want to keep my life outside of therapy functioning and he is no where. Bc trauma in this case is relational, he says we need to have a corrective relationship. I do feel that trust sometimes, and sometimes lose it unfairly. My T is caring, but I struggle to stay constant and vulnerable, and lose my sense of him as being on my team for no real reason.

I might not be able to handle therapy, I wish I understood it better. Many of the T's on the forum seem warmer to extra contact, but mine is both very devoted to the craft/frame and also a older parent of young kids and really staunch on work/ life balance tilted toward his kids. There's no "more time" or more contact- it wouldn't make sense with his life , his philosophy or world view. I am afraid I am going to end up in a hospital or go down hill if this continues, and I feel like my life is slipping away or my composure is. I want to stop going, but I am so attached to this person I do or don't know(?). I don't understand the relationship.

Do you think that you could ask your T for more information about what therapy for CPTSD is supposed to accomplish, and how? Do you feel that a better cognitive understanding might help as you try to go through the therapy as well as continue with your adult life?

As I have said before, the "corrective relationship" did not work for me. Except, perhaps, that close to 2 years after the relationship ruptured without repair, I see that as the T's issue and failure. And although I seriously doubted my ability to have "corrective" relationships with anybody, especially other females, that anxiety is improving as I have lucked into meeting some people and some friendships, I think, through some support groups.

Best of luck to you! I'd like to think that maybe this stuff could work for some folks, because my life had been pretty miserable and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy -- except if going through it could help my worst enemy, somehow, in a way that they wanted or at least were glad to have had after they got through it. But that means somebody has to get through it, and I don't think there are any guarantees about that, currently. Hence, maybe it would help if therapists provided more information? Or maybe not, just a thought.

I think there is a lot of danger in tearing down defenses and opening wounds - especially when it's done intensely in therapy for an hour or two a week and then the client is left to deal with the fall out for the rest of the time. I had one therapist who told me to keep it all in a mental box on a shelf without ever explaining how one does that. For me, I was able to maintain (although not terribly well) a facade of being just fine during the week - while my mind was roiling constantly, obsessing over my thoughts and feelings, wondering if I was going insane...and the only "safe" space was the therapist's office - which then developed into an obsession about the therapist himself. Does he care? Is this transference? What the F**K is going on here? (This is a composite description, there were numerous therapists - some adequate, some dismal).

And I bought into the whole "it's going to get worse before it gets better" - only it got worse for YEARS.

A couple of things were helpful for me - and I had to go find my own "program" - mostly because there isn't a one stop shop for any of this. First, I had a therapist who, while not actively helpful with "treatment" was able to sit and listen. He did tell me several times, he wondered why he was there - and, at the time, I just needed a place to go and someone to listen without judging or trying to fix me. We tried to do trauma work together, but he was not trained in it (and was very much aware of that) and I ended up retraumatized after every exposure.

So I did a full DBT program - very much by the book - it helped me learn to ground and self-regulate without actually delving into any trauma. Basically, I learned skills I wasn't taught as a child and also had relief from constantly picking at the trauma wounds, since we were specifically told not to deal with it.

Then I found a therapist who did Somatic Experiencing and learned how to dip in and out of the trauma memories - a totally different type of exposure therapy. Presumably, this helps in changing neural pathways...for me, it was life changing.

Throughout it all, I kept the therapist who just sat there - because he was safe. I struggle a lot with whether or not I was wasting my money on what was essentially a paid warm body (I likened it to seeing a prostitute) - but ended up deciding that since I could afford it, it seemed to keep me more stable so it was worth it.

All of this took years of trial and error - looking for what worked and what didn't work for me. A lot of it was terribly frustrating - misdiagnoses, bad therapists, therapists with good intentions but lack of understanding, hospitalizations, and on and on. I think the most frustrating part was the assumption (on my part, but clearly encouraged by the industry) that there is one cure (talking therapy, exposure therapy, group therapy) and if it doesn't work, the client must be at fault.

I do get the mistrust and disdain for the industry as a whole - but I had life-threatening issues that needed to be resolved...and, for some reason, I was able to keep pushing and searching until I cobbled together my own treatment plan.

I see a lot of myself in what you've written, Esme. I can't tell you to stay or leave this therapist. What I would highly recommend, however, is that you find a way to ground yourself. The one thing that has come out in the research about trauma is that the first step is stability. And it's not a one time thing - if you've got the grounding tools and you start trauma work, then find yourself unmoored, you stop and go back to stabilizing.

You might be interested in the work that Porges has done regarding windows of tolerance. The goal in this model of trauma therapy (Van der Kolk, Levine, etc.) is to expand the window of tolerance without leaping outside of it.

Thanks very much, ByStarlight, for your story.

I'd like to add that grounding, or mooring, of some sort has been important for me, too. For me, I've found a little bit recently in spirituality -- finding my own, I guess you might call it. Religions help a little -- some interesting and helpful ideas, sometimes. And other people's experiences. But ultimately what I needed, I think, is my own which is inside. A definitely irregular meditation practice nevertheless probably helped some with this. Other people may not be like this -- I'm an introvert, don't know if that makes any difference or just that different people need different things sometimes.

Also, keeping pushing, in a direction that makes sense for me, at least in the moments, and having to change and realize the many wrong turns I took when my hopes in one direction or another were dashed. What are the alternatives? I definitely considered them, and found them lacking as well.

Trying to find what else it is that grounds me -- that's still ongoing. I'm letting go of the hope, wish, dream, fantasy that I am grounded in my/a family. I could say "trying to let go" but that wouldn't be exactly accurate. My heart is holding on tight. Reality is what it is, though.

Spirituality has played a big role for me as well. I am a member of a liberal, non-Christian fellowship (UU), but lean more towards Buddhism. I am an introvert as well - and for many years, attendance at services involved sitting in the back and just trying to be ok surrounded by people. I've since become more involved and have found it to be good from a social aspect - but my spirituality is more personal and I tend to keep it to myself. Of particular help to me was Pema Chodron's "When Things Fall Apart". Meditation has been helpful for me, but I understand that for many traumatized folks it's triggering.

Yes - this has been my experience as well. And as you stated, what's the alternative. But the wrong turns were, at best frustrating, at worst deeply traumatizing.

I had to let go of that hope, dream, fantasy as well. I did some "parts" work combined with art work (I made collages of the parts), which was very helpful. I've found, for myself, when that longing comes on strong, it's usually means I'm not listening or caring for my younger parts in a way that they need.

There is also another forum that was, for me, very helpful. It is specifically for PTSD and folks there tend to be pretty blunt. But I found it helpful to be among a group of people with similar issues. It also helped guide me towards things that were helpful rather than harmful, possibly saving me some time and grief.

I don't think what your T is doing is right. Your last post seemed very protective of him, but I just don't see how plunging you down into the depths while also having the boundaries he does can work. I'm not faulting him for his boundaries - he has a right to set his own. However, I think those boundaries are a poor fit for you and for many people with CPTSD. I can't imagine how hurt I would be if my T told me I couldn't contact her between sessions - and I have only done so twice since I started seeing her 2x/week last October - so it's not that I am utilizing the option frequently or anything. My T also only allows phone calls - I don't have her email, and if I text her with something other than scheduling, she will ask if I want her to call me. So she has tighter boundaries than many other Ts on here. Yet I know she is there, and I don't feel as you do that no lifeguarding is going on. I think something is wrong with the therapeutic relationship when the client feels like it only exists within the bounds of sessions.

Idk, esme - seems like ts are like booze - you can either have all you want of table wine, or you can have a single glass of cognac. It FEELS to me like you're complaining you cant slop your brandy t around like hes a wildberry wine cooler. I FEEL like i found my second favorite t after mouse's, except you havent quoted him enough. He seems smart, but is he insightful? Does he hold the frame? Is he doing the job during the hour? I dont understand what you want OUTSIDE the hour(s)? You dont have to respond to any of this of course.

I don't see how it's different from a drug dealer or doctor (same thing) encouraging you to get hooked on the product, then only giving a quick hit once a week. It's like a regularly scheduled withdrawal ordeal.

And some therapists have the nerve to say... behold my impeccable boundaries! That's a special kind of crazy.

Does he think just exposing all your s**t constitutes some sort of achievement?

Or maybe that's the whole point... to switch on the transference worship and show how special they are. People need me, i am the messiah!

I found this experience just ridiculous.

Thank you so much for the feedback and thoughts, and especially for sharing your stories. It gave me some heart and fight to hear you have been there, struggled, and found a path.

This is what my T said too, and he kind of gave me informed consent about how much this would hurt, and it does.

I understand we have to carry our own pain through the world, no matter who originally inflicted it and who wants to teach the skills to integrate it. I guess my prefrontal cortex comprehends that, but the whiplash between this shadowy safey office world in which kind blue eyes stare into mine and alternate really intense questions about way too intimate subjects with so much touch on language, metaphors and symbols, and then trying to pull it back together for sunny days, chitchatty world, 15 hour work days, puppies and boyfriend is like having two unrelated lives within one person.

My T says things like "I am right beside you", I am here with you, and that is what confuses me. It probably is a failure of object constancy in me that he doesn't share and maybe doesn't understand, but I never feel like he is with me unless he is with me.

Over time, a weird exhaustion is getting the better of me. I can't sleep, bc we dislodged nightmares and images that were walled off from consciousness, but the cheery every day world continues at its breakneck pace- daily life is the same but I am different- preoccupied with a childhood my T calls The Crime Scene whereas I never used to give this literally a thought and lived in the present intensely.

He says hang in and it will integrate, we will integrate it and tons of energy will come rushing back like a waterfall for daily life to feel vivid and meaningful again. I hope so. I don't have a sense of "we". We talked about the fall of Junot Diaz briefly, and his comment was whatever women went through, it is good his daughter will grow up in a safer world bc of # me too. This is a good example of me struggling with myself and my suddenly unreasonable feelings. My brain understands this and agrees, but my heart flinched bc he seemed to show his hand that he doesn't truly empathize, but his beautiful empathy is a skill set which makes is hollow or makes it hard to suspend disbelief and go with it.

Wow. It's like he's having a different conversation, mainly with himself it would appear. I don't know if transactional is the right word, but he comes across like a cash register or calculator--you enter the worth of your soul and he converts it into his own currency, for his use and meaning. I'm sorry. I don't intend to cause doubt where it's already taking root. I have no way of knowing what's really going on in your therapy, the potential that's not apparent because of your pain--something I grapple with myself, wondering if it's my intuition or my fear that causes this failure to trust in a good outcome.

Do you feel like you're in control of the pace? If I'm having more stressors or turmoil or even something banal like a minor illness, I know I am perfectly within my rights to pull back from the heavy stuff until I feel better. My T encourages it, in fact. The chance of re-injuring yourself is way too high if you forge ahead when you aren't really able to accommodate the things that are coming up for you. Being overwhelmed and unable to function properly in your life is not the path to integration, in my opinion. You're just going to end up with pain that serves no purpose. I think this is doubly true if your T doesn't provide a safety net via outside contact to help you tuck away the things that leak out when you are not in the office.

I'm with ruh roh. This would have been a one-way ticket to Rupture Town for me. What does his daughter's relative safety have to do with your healing? Is he so hellbent on proving his "wokeness" that he will trample over your sensitive spots? That is sloppy therapy, at best.

Yes, I tried to assert myself about this the next session, that he'd taken off his therapist hat and erased what happened to me bc of the more important to him enthusiasm that it wouldn't then happen to his daughter. He said "maybe" in an amiable way, and I didn't know where to go from there, and I am embarrassed to say I ended up apologizing for bringing it up. He's so enigmatic from my chair, that I don't know what to say sometimes, even though I have ideas.

Doesn't seem ethical to imply or promise this sort of transformation. I guess they feel they can claim anything, since nobody is watching.

I know these people fancy themselves doctors of the mind, but in practice it's just like religion. They pretend it's evidence-based but it's really faith-based.

Gotta be a better way than attaching to these saviors-for-hire. I look back on the ones I tried, and I see a bunch of emotional vampires. Their core demographic is the traumatized class, and their main marketing message is that you need their "treatment", thus medicalizing that which is not medical, and shutting off other options for healing.