Therapy Trauma, Healing and Starting Over

Hi Everyone -

I took a bit of a break from these boards over the last few months as I’ve been recovering from a traumatic therapy relationship and termination.

I started this thread because I wanted to let everyone know that there is hope and a path to recovery after therapy trauma.

As some background, I quit an extremely damaging therapy relationship 8 months ago, despite being obsessively attached and dependent on my therapist. Quitting was the most mentally destabilizing and destructive experience in my life - with a pain unmatched by even my traumatic childhood. Simply, it felt like death.

I didn’t jump into another therapy relationship right away, but took time to figure out who I was, what went wrong and developed a solid picture of the type of person I wanted to become (strong, healthy, independent and stable). I realized how much of my ideal self bad therapy blocked and robbed from me. Every day after termination I worked hard to develop my own internal resources - at first, just by getting up each day and living my life without my therapist.

Over many more months, I started to truly take care of myself - be it getting more sleep, eating healthier, getting enough exercise, meeting people and figuring out what I liked to do and doing it. I did this every day, no matter how hard it felt. After 8 months, I still carry on with a very solid self-care routine because it helps me.

In the most current phase, I am actively getting Chinese acupuncture and EMDR to treat the therapy trauma. Both appear to be helping. Finding an EMDR therapist was the most challenging since it required re-entering the therapy world (which I had previously sworn off). However, I am realizing that there are many types of therapy and not all require being ‘good enough mothered’ and engaging in what I see to be potentially dangerous attachment work.

Anyway, my life right now feels normal - which I couldn’t have visualized when my world came crashing down after therapy ended. I still have emotional flashbacks and periods of intense grief, but I am hoping the trauma treatments I am engaging in will help diminish this last remaining painful part.

More than anything, I want to let anyone out there struggling post-termination know that you are not alone and that recovery is possible. Also, if you are in a dysfunctional therapy relationship please seek whatever help you can to get out. We all deserve better.