emails to a former T

Dear Suddenly Former T,

In therapy with you I learned about younger parts, feelings that come from a much younger place. We dealt with most of the younger feelings and I don't hear from them much these days.

Except now. Even though I never had a desire for any physical affection from you for the whole three years I saw you, thoughts are coming to mind of hugging you or holding your hand, especially when I'm crying. I know that's coming from very young parts. And I'm also having self-harming urges that come from my teenaged feelings, I can tell that part of me feels rejected. I know my adult self is supposed to comfort the younger parts, but my adult self is just as shocked and sad as they are and seething with anger on top of that. So I feel like "Don't look at me, kid. I got nothin."

It's pretty ironic to be using what I learned in therapy to try to handle being abandoned by my therapist.

Mostlylurking,
I am shocked that this happened to you and am so sorry you have to go through this. I don't understand the termination process. I wish someone who knows more about it would clue us in as to why the endings seem to be so contentious on top of the obvious attachment issues. I hope you are taking good care of yourself.

Dear Suddenly Former T,

I have to believe if you knew what this would do to me you wouldn't have done it.

I needed help to stop seeing you, I needed it to be a process. I needed to taper off to every other week first. Do you remember how I cried multiple times because you changed the rug in your office? Do you think I seem like the sort of person who forms casual attachments that can come and go and it's all good, no skin off my nose? Did I seem that way to you?

I have to think I just didn't come into it at all. The consideration was about the topics under discussion vs. your credentials and I, as a person, wasn't even relevant. It's actually better to think that this was how you made this mistake.

If you actually thought about me and still did this... I just can't go there.

Mostly
It’s really hard to understand isn’t it. How can the very person who listen patiently to the little parts be the person who hurts them most. They must be having trouble understanding why, why would someone hurt them like this and then your teenage parts are trying not to show their hurt by wanting to hurt you. It’s very traumatic and upsetting. I hope you can be kind to yourself and give all parts of you a voice without judgement, they have a right to be angry and upset. You have every right to be angry and upset

Thank you. I am really surprised how bad this is. I'm still crying a lot.

It seems to me, from reading posts here for a couple of years now, that T's are often less truthful and less communicative when it comes to terminations. It's honestly like they just didn't get any training at all in how to handle them. If it had been borne in on my T for instance that terminating a client unexpectedly is one of the very worst things you can do to them, that might have let him weigh his concerns about his credentials against his concerns for me as a person. But I don't think they're educated about this, and of course, when they terminate a client they don't see them anymore, so they don't know what they go through.

Thank you, I think that's a big part of why it's so painful. All the younger feelings that felt safe coming out in therapy -- they were connected to him too, and they're hurting now. It's like being hurt on many levels simultaneously. And those younger parts are a lot more vulnerable than my day to day adult self.

I think you all are right, that it deals with our younger parts who are devastated and don't understand, maybe? My current T tells me that my intense reaction to the termination, although it is a product of the time when my PT terminated, it also hit on my vulnerabilities from the past.

Would it have been (still be) possible to see someone who does feel competent to help you in this other area without terminating with this one? Mine did this once, although I refused and asked her why she didn't go and get educated in that issue instead. The main thing was, it's not uncommon to see one who specializes in a particular area while also seeing a primary therapist.

Thanks ruh roh. I've hesitated to explain, but, maybe it would be helpful.

What happened was that after being with my T for over a year and a half, I met someone who became really important to me. She's someone who suffered very extreme trauma over a long period of time beginning in infancy, and as a result she has quite profound dissociative identity disorder (DID) -- i.e. multiple personalities. Neither she nor I understood that at first, but so much has changed in the year and a half since then.

I needed help at the beginning because I started to learn about things that had happened to her, and I hadn't known that kind of evil existed in the world. It's a lot less abstract when it's someone you know personally. And it's awful to hear about terrible things that happened to someone you love. At the start I actually did have a kind of secondary trauma, things like getting images stuck in my head, losing sleep, having a racing heartbeat, having nightmares. But that hasn't happened in maybe about a year.

Some months in, when it became clear she was multiple, I then needed someone to listen to me without skepticism or aversion, or a Hollywood-based misunderstanding of DID. I just needed someone to listen. He told me he cannot advise me how to help her in any way, but I wouldn't ask him anyway because honestly, from pretty early on I knew a lot more than he did about DID. I just needed someone to share my joy, humor, sorrow, and perplexity with, because this is outside of common experience.

I don't want to go to another T because I am worried about them not believing me or not believing my friend. My T already knew me really well before this became a big part of my life.

Months ago my T said that if my friend came to visit me I could bring her in so he could meet her and see how I interact with different people in her inner family. The rupture began because now that she is coming to visit the last half of May, now that it's a real thing, he's changed his mind. And then he just got plain weird about my seeing him, altogether. I do discuss other things in therapy, and sometimes I don't even mention my friend for 2 or 3 weeks if something else is going on. But it is true that I likely would no longer be seeing him regularly if it were not for the support I need for this relationship. So it is kind of the main reason I've been going for around a year now.

But again -- I didn't need him to know anything about trauma or DID. I just needed someone to listen. I can't talk much with family or friends because first of all, I can't mention the trauma (I didn't even tell my T about much of that) and secondly, some of it just sounds rather odd and people have had negative reactions of various kinds. (Most people have been supportive, but it feels dicey.)

The last time I saw him, he suggested that my being upset by something a young person in her system had told me was because I must have unprocessed trauma of my own. This was the sheerest bull****. I don't have any more unprocessed trauma, I sure as heck don't have any trauma anything like what happened to my friend, and I don't think we need a tricky explanation for why I'd be upset at hearing about something horrific that had happened to a close friend whom I love. It was like he was grasping at straws to find a reason why he wasn't qualified to see me. Because I have "unprocessed trauma" and he is not a trauma T. Balderdash and codswallop.

He just got spooked in some way, professionally.

Thank you for explaining. I have d id, but no way would I see a friend's therapist to help the friend be able to interact with me, so I think I understand your therapist's concern. Does your friend not have therapist of their own?

I would not call this a deal breaker, btw. He just said no to seeing your friend, which from my perspective makes a lot of sense and seems pretty responsible. I would try to work this out with him and see if he can help you not be so intertwined with this person's issues. That would be the best kind of friend, anyway. But I don't know the specifics, either. If your friend has their own therapist, that therapist might be the one for you to contact, with your friend present of course, to see how you can be a support to them (if that's what you're wanting to do).

Thank you for explaining.

No, my friend doesn't have a therapist currently. I am her primary support with emotional things.

It wasn't to help us interact, we already do that well. I really didn't need anything from my T except to be like "Oh hi, nice to meet you," and then some chit chat, certainly not about anything trauma or therapy related. But yes, it would have involved DID in the sense there was more than one person I wanted him to meet. He told me it would be okay, and the when he changed his mind I don't think he was truthful about why, and that's what caused a kind of rupture.

But when I went in the last time I saw my T, I had let that go. I didn't bring it up. I talked about various things, not just my friend, because I've had a pile-up of stressful things in the past month. He just sat there, having no real reactions (although lots of anxious facial expressions) and saying nothing for a whole half an hour, and I just kept talking because it kind of covered up how weird he was being. Finally when I fell silent, he started saying he has nothing to say that would benefit me. Mind you, just active listening has been extremely helpful to me for a long time, but suddenly he refused to do that. He also didn't say anything about the other topics I had mentioned, where normally he would have -- they were things we've talked about before, including just recently.

Basically, he had already decided to wash his hands of me. I don't think it really mattered what I said in the last session.

I'm so sorry.

Could I ask those of you who have felt abandoned by a T, did you experience a reversal of any of the progress you had made with that T?

I messaged a friend today to ask if she was angry or annoyed with me, after she postponed a get-together from this week to next. It's the kind of thing I'd have done before therapy, assume the worst, that I must have done something wrong and that my friend is likely disgusted with me. But it's also just a bad time and I feel pretty fragile, so it may not mean very much.

I know I had lots of doubts come back after the rupture with MC, but they were mostly regarding my current T. Like: Will the same thing just happen with him? Any little misattunement or misunderstanding seemed like a bigger deal for a couple months there. It seems to have calmed back down.

I suspect that in your case, you're just feeling really vulnerable right now. So it's probably a temporary thing, and it's not that you've lost all the progress you've made with your T. And the ending with your T seems really confusing, like there wasn't really much explanation. So it makes sense that you're trying to read into other people's actions, trying to figure out their intentions. I think it most likely will pass.

Thank you, that's a good point. It's been a big loss and for no really clear reason, so it makes sense I'd be afraid of other losses and afraid of not knowing what's really going on with people.

In the one really bad termination I had, it pretty much undermined most of my therapy with that individual and left lasting damage. I think it will be different for you because you probably have enough you gained from therapy throughout the 3 years that you can retain what was helpful. In my case, the manner of the termination underscored a pattern of inadequate therapy that was provided, so that played a lot into the fact that I didn't really walk away with much in terms of a benefit.

Dear Suddenly Former T,

I would have been in your office now if you hadn't done this. I thought maybe I'd see that you had thought of me and opened one of the recent emails, but nope, you didn't. Out of sight, out of mind.

I woke up this morning from another dream about being late to therapy, being unable to get there and then realizing it was too late, the session time was basically over. In this one my car would only spin around, it wouldn't go forward. I was frustrated to the point of crying and wanting to scream. When I woke up I felt the relief of it just being a dream, followed by the realization I can't be late to therapy today because there isn't any.

I am so, so angry now I don't know how I can be near you when I bring my daughter tomorrow. I'll just have to not look at you when she goes in, I don't want to disrupt your ability to be calm and helpful to her. I could wait in the car but I want you to be reminded of what you did, I don't want to hide. I'm not the one who screwed up.

I'm so so so sorry I've just read this whole thread and the shenanigans this T was up to is angering and heartbreaking. I just want to say: PLEASE DO NOT GO BACK TO THIS PERSON FOR A FINAL SESSION OR TO VENT YOUR FEELINGS. Don't even email them. It's not good for you and at the risk of sounding paranoid it's not safe either. Anything you write, and any further contact, is going to be read in the worst possible light should you choose to report this person someday. It is quite literally abandonment and there are rules about it.

(Not saying you should. I'm no expert, and to my untrained and naive eye this doesn't sound like the thing I would personally choose to report. But this is YOUR story and YOUR decision. So.)

What strikes me most is this gaslighting and emotional manipulation. You are so right... just like a partner who doesn't want to be the bad guy by breaking up and forces you to do it instead. It's awful. I'm so sad. I'm sorry.

Now, to answer your question. I went through something similar but much less "bad" - but it DID cause me to regress.

The emotions and powerful feelings surrounding termination made me realize I had some issues surrounding dependency needs and avoidant attachment. Therapy was the first time I had unknowingly begun to trust, and it freaked me out when I realized it. Unfortunately, my T took it to mean that I was *too* dependent (taking my freakout at face value rather than understanding that I was depending on them to a healthy extent given my history of being avoidant in relationships). They decided to push me towards termination simply because I was afraid of being dependent, in order to prove to me that I would be fine on my own.

I never needed proof of that. I got kicked out of home at 16, I put myself through college! I have been a single mom for years! I'm in no doubt about my ability to make it! What I needed was reassurance that it's ok to depend on someone - I needed an experience of a safe relationship. T talked about that.... but didn't seem to follow through in actions. IDK why.

After termination, I have become much more wary, consciously, of trusting others and depending on them. The facade of "I'm fine, no need for help" has become stronger rather than weaker. Even though I have begun to work with a second T since Nov, I have not yet mentioned this termination business. I go into every session with this new T checking with myself to make sure I will be fine even if they terminate me right this minute. I'm always on guard... That's no good. Hope to work on it.

Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry this happened to you, it sounds like this T did exactly the wrong thing for you, the very opposite of what you needed. That sounds really harmful.

A lot of T's are taught that dependency is to be avoided, it seems. What I don't understand is, they are also taught that transference can happen where our younger feelings come forward and the therapist becomes like a symbolic parent or just a caring adult. For instance, your 16-year-old self should have been able to count on caring adults, but wasn't able to when you were kicked out. Perhaps the feelings / part of you from that time could have found healing in a consistent, reliable T who could be counted on. For some clients it's much younger feelings / parts than that, and younger feelings are often dependent feelings -- which is natural in childhood. For anyone with attachment issues, having a strong attachment with a T that is consistent and secure and safe seems very healing. Anyway, unless I'm misunderstanding something, a certain amount of "dependent" feelings would seem to be par for the course for clients who need to delve into childhood issues. I don't understand why so many T's are so afraid of that.

I just keep coming back to the idea that so many T's really have no idea what actually happens in therapy. They see part of what happens in session, and almost none of what happens the other 167 hours per week. They don't fully know what therapy is for many of their clients. And yet they have all the control. In my case I tried to tell my T about 5 separate times that what I needed was exactly what he had been giving me in terms of support. I feel like I am fairly educated now (after three years of pretty dedicated thought) about both myself and therapy, and that my opinion of what my care should look like was a reasonable one. It wasn't simply that he disagreed. It was that he didn't even listen. My opinion counted not just less than his, but not at all, because he wouldn't even discuss it with me.

I hope that you can talk about the termination with your new T and find it helpful, at some point. I know sometimes T's don't want to sound critical of other T's, but I also know people do go to T's to process bad experiences with previous ones so it must be quite helpful in some cases. Thank you for reading all this, I wish you a much better experience with your current T.

Dear Suddenly Former T,

What is with you? You could barely be bothered to glance my way or be civil when I'm handing you checks? What on earth? I didn't look angry or sound angry, I don't understand why you were so incredibly cold. Do you literally hate me? I don't think you care about me one way or the other, so why can't you just be normal?

Have no fear, T. After today I'd imagine you'll never lay eyes on my again.

Hi, I've been following this thread with interest to see where it goes. I will let you know from my perspective of someone that does stuff like this...

A big part of this type of behavior for me is when I've made a decision that I think is for the best in the long run even when it is what I don't want to do in the now, so I try to avoid temptations by avoiding the object/person of the immediately wanted item. Thus, trying to avoid falling into old patterns that feel comfortable and good.

Another reason I might do this level of avoidance is when I feel what I have done is wrong and I feel embarrassed, judged, or something like that and am having a hard time facing the person I've hurt.

This does not dissolve your T of any responsibility, if anything, it shows an area where he needs to do his own work. He should be able to interact with you in a profession, courtesy, caring way while still maintain his boundaries of whatever... his inability to do that, indicates to me that he is struggling internally in some way with what has happened. I do feel your T is in the wrong here, completely. I feel that your understanding of what he can and cannot provide for you is invaluable. I am very puzzled why he seems so unwilling to split apart your needs and see the areas he is able to meet them, the areas he is not, and work with you within those areas that remain within his scope.

Thank you for this, it does help. I'm sure that he isn't happy with how things went down even if he feels he was in the right. It definitely didn't go well. I just would have thought he didn't care that much, because I am quite sure he has no clue at all what I am going through or how much this has hurt me.

At the end of my daughter's session he hid in his office again. She came out, and I had a half-second glimpse of him looking at his phone as he closed the door. He normally comes out and goes down the hall between all his sessions but he didn't before nor after my daughter. I actually feel worried about him possibly feeling sad or hurt. I really can't see how he left me any choice though. It was terrible to be talking to someone who was essentially not my T, who wouldn't listen to me or even discuss my own view of things. He even agreed that I'd feel he was a different person altogether -- he agreed he was. How is that okay? To become someone totally different and then stonewall your client? What choice did I have?

Dear Suddenly Former T,

I guess things are getting better, sometimes I think I am okay, I didn't really need to see you anymore. I'd have stopped pretty soon anyway. The self-harm urges have lessened, I'm crying less.

Then sometimes I feel desperate, like what the hell happened? Am I never going to see you again? I would rather come in (not now -- maybe in a month or two) to find some kind of closure so I can feel good about my therapy with you and about you. But I don't know if you'd see me and I am too afraid to ask.

And anyway, what if you're all weird and anxious and stiff and textbook-like again? And write me emails beginning with "To be clear." Full stop to show your annoyance. And then yell at me about how you've been re-evaluating our work as if what, as if I've manipulated you? All of a sudden the scales have fallen from your eyes and you've realized it was all a trick and a nasty plot, and you never should have let me be your client? Because emotionally that's how it feels even though I can see nothing that I did wrong. Nor can I see anything you did wrong.

Remember the first time I got mad at you, when I accused you of not wanting me as a client? I brought up the fact that in our second session you said you could recommend a trauma therapist if I wanted. I interpreted this to mean you had been trying to get rid of me ever since session #2. Do you know how crappy it feels that in the end that really was the reason you got rid of me? Because you're not a trauma therapist.

No, I guess you're not, or maybe you'd have had the f**king sense not to do this to me.

Dear Suddenly Former T,

I'm not dreaming about therapy every night, but still often. It's almost the only thing I do dream about, I think because I tried to remember those dreams, and I paid attention to them and talked to you about them. If you pay attention to dreams you have more of them, I've heard, and for me this happened but only with therapy dreams.

I remember the first one I ever had, I was sitting on your couch and kept finding sets of keys half under me, poking me from between the cushions, etc, and I was picking them up and handing them to you. I always liked that I was the one finding the keys to things, but I wouldn't have been, had I not been sitting on your couch and talking to you.

Toward the end of therapy I had a dream where I laid down in your office and could hardly stay awake or open my eyes. Your office was the same except the little alcove was larger, and had a mini-fridge and microwave in it, like a dorm room. As my eyes were closing you got up to go to the alcove, I thought you were getting yourself water, but actually you got me Vernors and heated it up for me, and brought it over in a cup and bent down and said "Here, drink this." My mom heated up Vernors for me when I was sick with certain things as a child, so I know this was a very caretaking dream. I never told you about this one, for no particular reason except I had other things more pressing. Now I feel sad I didn't tell you about it -- it was a nice and positive dream.

I guess I just feel really sad in general. [Thank you guys on the forum for putting up with me still posting here -- it really helps me, I'd be going crazy without an outlet.]

I emailed my former T and asked if, in a few weeks, we could meet once or twice so that I could have a different kind of closure, and he wrote back and said he was not convinced this would be helpful to me, so no.

I am pretty much still in shock about it, I assume I will be enraged beyond anything in an hour or two but right now I am just so surprised. I'm being infantilized and I'm not even being treated with civility. It's just shocking to me. I really thought I had a good T.