Finally I asked for a referral and I feel guilty

I got tired of pretending I was improving...

That's the only thing I learnt these last 3 years from mental health care: to pretend to be OK even if I internally felt the same.

I think I have become a pressure cooker about to explode.

My therapist looked sad when I told him it, I feel guilty

The therapist can feel sad and it is not your fault. Getting what you need is better than staying with a therapist who is wrong for you.

Why do you think you have to pretend? What would happen if you told the truth?

From experience, they don't understand, or tend to think it's not that bad, or mistake it as an attention seeking behaviour, or say I have a bad attitude... The few times I was IP I ended up pretending to get better so I would be discharged because I was feeling worse while IP, and when I told the psychiatrist I was feeling worse he would ignore it (worse because of the meds and how they treated me). I remember once, there was a lady who was having a depressive episode because of her husband death, the staff was really gentle with her (and her psychiatrist seemed to be gentle too from what she told me), I was in the middle of a depressive episode because of 18 years of mental and physicial abuse from my parents and being completely alone and almost homeless and they treated me like a wayward child, as if I had done something wrong, deeply mischievous.

Like "You are wrong for feeling that way".

Once I had a therapist that helped me a lot, he was really supportive, I didn't hide anything.

The one I asked for a referral today asked me if I seriously thought I needed therapy... then he said he was sorry for being unable to help me. I don't know, maybe he thought I was Ok because I stopped telling him the problems I am having since his answers were almost always invalidating?

I guess... maybe my suffering is normal and I just have to bear it all my life? Maybe it's normal to be unable to have a social life, go out ot my room without an almost anxiety attack or a full blown panic attack, sleep less than 6 hours a day (5.5 is being lucky), have nightmares almost every night, the hypervigilance, feeling the most worthless **** on the world, losing my job and missing all my exams (I can do them in July, I have a second chance...)

How your therapist feels -- how they respond internally -- is their response. It is not your responsibility.

I've had the same kind of confusion most of my life, feeling guilty if someone has an unpleasant response to something I've said or done -- like I'm responsible for the feelings of the whole world! It's very confusing to sort out what is legitimate to feel guilty about, what I want to and am able to do about it, if anything, etc.

It looks like this T can't help you much with that. Maybe 3 years of pretending has been enough for your impulse/instinct for self-care to take over and make itself heard? That seems positive, to me.

Thank you,

It's the only positive I can see...

Yeah, some IP places treat you like a criminal or something. I was hospitalized 4 times at 3 different places - 2/3 of them treated the patients like delinquents. Sorry you had that experience, too.

It's so sad...