Ghosting my therapist today - I cry so I can´t breathe

Hi Sarah, I believe that your decision to ghost is totally an option. You have the right to make that choice. I am just trying to understand - what did your t do to cause the termination of your therapy with her?

Thanks. It´s a rather long story but what happened was that she in the beginning of our therapy told me I could see her as long as I needed which turned out to be far from true. She saw me within church, for free, and the congregation had a 20 sessions limit. She told me about this limit in the beginning but after a while she said this about I could see her as long as I needed and I believed her.

I also took for granted that she had established that with her supervisor and the congregation, to see me for more than 20 sessions that is.

She also was very encouraging about our therapy and as late as before summer, therapy ended a while after her summer vacation, in September, she said she was happy to continue our work together.

But after she had to consult with her supervisor on a thing in our therapy, her supervisor found out about us having had almost 40 sessions and her supervisor told my T to just end it all.

After I e-mailed the supervisor it seems like she didn´t tell my T to end it all so abruptly, my T told me her supervisor had told her to end our therapy more or less immediately.

From one day to another I got to know, through an e-mail from my therapist, that our next session would be the last. I asked her if there was a possibility to continue our work. We talked on the phone as I was too shocked to go see her on this very last session and I told her the importance of some time to terminate.

But she meant she couldn´t do anything about it, which was mostly true I guess, but it was my therapist who caused all this from the beginning. She knew she wasn´t allowed to go beyond the 20 sessions limit and she told me she wasn´t able to end it with me, that she was worried how I´d react. she meant that was the reason she just kept going but she was of course aware of how it might end if someone within the congregation got to know about the lenght of our therapy.


Instead she kept going and it ended in a catastrophe.


As she more or less lied to me about me having the possibility to see her for as long as I needed and as she kept lying and encouraging me about our therapy in many ways I now felt the only thing left was to ghost her.


I felt I couldn´t talk to her about the ending as it was she who caused it all, it wasn´t just a mistake. Also, I couldn´t talk to her and end on a positive note either, that had just been fake. For the same reason, she can´t console me. I didn´t think she was worth me cancelling the phone session so I decided to ghost her.

Now afterwards I just hope she sometimes thinks of me, perhaps she worries a little about what happened to me as I suddenly now just vanished. Even if I think she partly expected that, we had two phone sessions before this one I now didn´t use and she knows I was disappointed and also ended up feeling worse than I did before entering therapy with her.

Ohhh, wow. The "free" thing.

I have seen many therapists in my life. 2 of them were at no cost (one Veteran's admin, the other, my current therapist, free because I have medicaid, which covers my medical care at no cost).

The VA therapist I saw for 6 years. Pretty good therapy and who can complain about 6 years? Except that he terminated abruptly - absolutely no warning. It was six years of very consistent weekly sessions. Then one day I went in for my usual session and he told me that he had been transferred to another location without warning so, bye bye.

The sudden loss of that therapist, without any closure whatsoever, was traumatic. In fact, I still have nightmares about it - and the end to that therapy occurred 22 years ago!

At this time I have been seeing a therapist I adore - technically for 14 months. The problem is, I am supposed to see her weekly, but she is chronically ill. That means that sessions are frequently cancelled. At this time I have not seen her for 2 weeks. Very disruptive to therapeutic consistency. In fact, the situation might be more harmful than helpful.

So...free therapy. It seems to me that "free" therapy actually comes with an extremely high cost.

My God. That is a truly terrible experience. What a thing to go through, such a betrayal of trust.

Wow. It's when I hear that these things happen with therapists, it makes me wonder if seeing a therapist really is a good idea, when all is said and done. So many people are unjustly damaged by therapists (I sure was). Is the damage they can do worth it? I'm not entirely convinced.

I didn't tell her I knew she was golfing with the boyfriend, because then I'd have to admit to snooping on the boyfriend's IG page and I just couldn't say that I saw her car that morning. Thought about both and then felt bad because I didn't want to put her on the spot.

All I could manage to write in my termination letter is that I knew she wasn't telling me the truth. Even then, I couldn't say "you lied to me," rather, "I don't think you were completely honest with me."

I remember trying to write it in a way that wouldn't offend her, even though I was hurt. Oy.

And that's why there was no longer a point of therapy. When she told me she wanted to "keep me, not lose me," I felt obligated to her. Like I didn't want to let her down. Even wrote the termination letter with that in the back of my head

Yup. Totally agree. I think what was harder for me was going back into my regular personal life and explaining to my very small inner circle, why I felt betrayed. No one understood me and thought I overreacted, saying, "We've all made an excuse to get out of something." And inferred I should have given her a pass on what was a little white lie.

Not that way I felt at all. Was completely devastated and couldn't imagine sitting across from her and ever trusting (her) again.

No, absolutely not. I can't understand...I mean, if a friend did such a thing to me I would have a hard time remaining their friend. But if a therapist took such a thoughtless action? I would be devastated, feel completely betrayed - plus I could never see her as a professional again.