[susannahsays]

I think I tested the therapist in a way that there wasn't a "right" response she could give me.

I had a session yesterday. I've been dealing with some trauma bs that has been bothering me. Nightmares and stuff. I have been very resistant to sharing stuff about that with the therapist - partially for the same reasons that I guess many people avoid talking about trauma, and partially because of my irrational paranoia that she will laugh and mock me. Anyway, for some reason, I decided to disclose a bit yesterday.

The issue is the timing, and that's what makes me most suspicious about why I chose yesterday to spontaneously bring up trauma stuff. See, the therapist is going to be out all next week. And she's not the type to encourage out of session contact even when she's working, let alone when she's on vacation.

If she weren't on vacation, I would feel less inhibited about shooting off an angry text or two to relieve my feelings of anxiety and vulnerability, not to mention the transient paranoia about her laughing. She doesn't really like it when I text her, but she tolerates it. She doesn't do email.

That leaves me feeling angry and impotent. I went and told her stuff, now I feel vulnerable, and she's off gallivanting on her vacation and laughing at my trauma - and I can't even exorcise my outrage at her perfidy by sending an angry text.

Yet if the therapist had stopped me from talking about trauma because she was about to go on vacation, that also would have outraged me. After all, she's said it might help to talk about things, how dare she reject my hard won trust when I at last decided to talk about something?

So, I think I set the therapist up, but that hasn't stopped me from being angry.

I was also annoyed because she said see you in a week on my way out. When she takes a week off, that means it is actually two weeks between appointments (unless I steal C's, then it will be 1.5). But I chose to bite back my angry retort.

[downandlonely]

Well I think it shows some insight that you realize you set the therapist up to fail. Maybe it's something you can discuss with her when she gets back.

How does she deal with it when you send her angry texts?

[susannahsays]

Depends. Most often my angry texts aren't very clear and don't really require a response. I wouldn't need a response now, but ever since we had a rupture a few months ago, she seems worried about not responding to me. The rupture happened because I texted her and asked if she was laughing at me, but I wasn't clear about what I was worried she might be laughing about, so she didn't respond. This caused my paranoia about her laughing at my traumas to verge on the psychotic and I texted her that I never wanted to talk to her again. So then she responded. Anyway, she wasn't happy with me over that, but I wasn't happy with her for ignoring me when I asked if she was laughing at me.

Right now I just want to make proclamations about how she doesn't know me, I can do whatever I want and I don't care, we'll never speak about [x] again, and she's not the boss of me.

[susannahsays]

Also, I want to tell her to leave me alone, even though she is leaving me alone.

[here today]

Originally Posted by susannahsays

. . .

If she weren't on vacation, I would feel less inhibited about shooting off an angry text or two to relieve my feelings of anxiety and vulnerability, not to mention the transient paranoia about her laughing. She doesn't really like it when I text her, but she tolerates it. She doesn't do email.

That leaves me feeling angry and impotent. I went and told her stuff, now I feel vulnerable. . .

I don't know that I set my therapists up to fail and disappoint me, but they did. Maybe whatever it was that was doing that was pretty unconscious and/or kinda still is.

But what happened months AFTER the last therapist rejected me, please forgive me if you've read this before on a post of mine, is that the overwhelmingly awful feeling of have having been looked down on, unwanted, etc., in my family in my early life made its way into my consciousness. Really, really awful, I was in the bed depressed for 2 days and it affected me for a month or more.

So -- you probably know this advice already and can/may probably give it to yourself already -- feel your horrible, possibly unbearable feelings of anger and impotence. You're not really impotent now -- you're recognizing or speculating about what may be going on. You have an adult self, you may be powerless over your therapist in some ways but NOT in general.

Hope this helps some. If not, please ignore/reject it. (That kind of thing doesn't "hurt" me any more, if that is worth anything to know.)

[here today]

Originally Posted by susannahsays

Also, I want to tell her to leave me alone, even though she is leaving me alone.

Yep, that's another "good" response to being hurt, etc. Good as in instinctive, natural, sometimes effective, etc., OK, understandable, even if you want to try, and can, develop something else later, too, if you want to.