[TalkingToGhosts]

Sorry but I really can't figure out where this topic is supposed to go, so if it doesn't fit this subforum, please someone move it.

I am struggling with an extreme fear of going back to therapy while simultanousley realising more and more each day that I am not coping well and that it's continuously getting worse
I spent 1.5 years in therapy but the main issue with that was that I didn't go on my own accord but basically got sectioned against my will. I was 16 and I was living in an assisted living facility for teenagers after leaving my foster family due to abusive behaviours towards me. I lived there for several months and during that time my mental health deterioated to a point where the people responsible apparently felt like they couldn't give me the necessary help anymore and transfered me to a mental hospital for children and teenagers.
Basically what had happened was that I had completely stopped caring and was negating everything. I stopped talking, I skipped school, I basically completely stopped eating. I wasn't actively suicidal, I simply didn't want to exist anymore.
The hospital was supposed to help me but the things that happened there during the first couple of weeks just messed me up. I know the people there were just trying to help me but they did it by trying to force me to eat and by locking me up and completely taking away my independence. Trying to make me eat didn't work so they gave me a feeding tube. Looking back I think the whole process traumatised me. They held me down and forced that thing down my nose while I was panicking, gagging and screaming. I completely lost it after that, I couldn't think straight anymore, I was screaming at people, hitting them when they tried to touch me and just completely broke down crying, so they sedated me. First thing I did when the sedation wore of was to pull out the tube. They tried to give me a new one, the whole thing repeated and they transferred me to a closed ward.
I spent eleven days on the closed ward before they decided I was calm and complient enough to be sent back to the "normal" ward. I've never forgotten about that and until this day I am unable to find words for how that made me feel. I don't know if there could have been another way to deal with me back then but what they did completely ****ed me up. I continued inpatient therapy and saw a therapist weekly afterwards, because I was forced to. I waited till I was 18 and had finished school, then stopped going to the therapist, went off the meds and moved out of the assisted living situation.
That was a year ago and I honestly thought I was stable and doing ok. For the last couple of weeks I've been feeling like I'm detereoating again. Maybe not half as bad as back then but bad enough that I think I need to talk to someone. I've been fighting against the urge to hurt myself for weeks and today I gave in and I am again having thoughts that it would be better if I didn't exist. I have no suicide plans, I'm just tired of fighting myself all the time and I don't think it would be much of a loss if I got into an accident and died or whatever.
I know these thoughts aren't healthy, I know it would be sensible to get myself a new therapist and talk to someone before it gets out of hand. But I am so ****ing terrified of it going the same way it did back then because I wouldn't be able to handle that a second time. I am ok with the idea to see a therapist voluntarily but not if it ends with someone deciding that I am a danger to myself and locking me up and taking away my independence.

tl;dr I am not in a good place and I want professional help but I am freaking out about them sectioning me and I don't know what to do.

[maybeblue]

I'm so sorry this happened to you. I hate hearing about professionals who are supposed to help hurting people like that. Somehow because it is supposed to be for the client's "own good" they get away with it. But you are an adult now and it's harder for them to lock you up against your will. You deserve to feel better and you probably do need help, if for no other reason than because of the trauma you suffered.

I would suggest that you contact an outpatient therapist who will do a consultation by phone first. When you talk to her tell her that you are depressed and hurting. I'd tell her that you have had some trauma too, but you don't have to go into details. Then tell her specifically that you aren't suicidal. You don't want to die, you just want the pain to stop. If she seems empathetic, which she should, you could tell her that some of your trauma was in a hospital and that you are afraid of them. Then maybe ask her questions about how she would work with you just to see if you have a good feel for her.

I don't know the laws where you are and you should maybe check, but here they can't hospitalize someone against their will unless they are an imminent danger to themselves or others. That almost always means active suicidal thoughts or plans or being so psychotic that they can't care for themselves. It could maybe mean an eating disorder, but I think that the person would have to be really, really underweight and refusing treatment. Self-harm generally would not count unless it was very deep cuts on top of veins, which then would be more like a suicide attempt. Here a doctor can hospitalize someone for 72 hours or so, but any longer than that would require a court order.

To me based on what you have said, I can't see that any reasonable professional would try to involuntarily hospitalize you. And I can totally understand your fear. My experience with hospitals is not nearly as bad as yours, but I am still terrified about it. I've talked to therapists even about suicidal ideation though and they still have never tried. My doctor suggested it once, but only voluntarily. I told her that I had a safety plan and what it was and she stopped talking about it.

[guilloche]

Oh, wow... I am so sorry that you went through that. Under the circumstances, yeah, of course you're terrified about trying therapy! I would be too!

I also think that Maybeblue is right, it's harder to lock up an adult, and you're not saying anything that would get you locked up.

Are you going to be able to choose your own therapist (i.e. do you have insurance, or are you able to self-pay - versus having to go to a clinic where you'll be assigned to someone)? That should help some. Just remember, you are in control now. You can fire your therapist. You can walk out of a session. You can pick (hopefully!) who you'll see, and what you tell them.

I think this might sound a bit corny, but you're going to need to lean hard into your intuition when you talk to potential new therapists. Like, how do they react to you... do they seem reasonable and caring? Are they willing to listen and help you plan ways to deal with your emotions when you're overwhelmed?

Personally, I usually like to ask lots of questions at a first session (or on the phone) to try to figure out if we'll work well together. But, it doesn't always work out. I usually find I have to watch HOW they react to my questions, rather than what they specifically say. Like, are they impatient or stressed when I ask something? Are they easily offended? These are people that probably won't work well with me, no matter what they actually *say* as a response.

(I also tend to screen people out who talk a lot without answering the question, but that might not be relevant for you.)

If it helps reassure you at all... I've seen a LOT of therapists (over the last ~20 years or so), and in some cases was actively self-harming, but was not *ever* hospitalized. Not even voluntarily, but certainly not involuntarily. Lots of discussions around medication (which I refused), but nothing was forced on me.

You might want to check online and see if you can find out what the requirements are in your location for having people committed? Maybe knowing where that line is would be helpful?

Again, I'm so sorry that you went through all that. Honestly, it sounds horrific and really traumatic. I hope you can find somebody amazing and trustworthy to talk to!

[HD7970GHZ]

Originally Posted by TalkingToGhosts

Sorry but I really can't figure out where this topic is supposed to go, so if it doesn't fit this subforum, please someone move it.

I am struggling with an extreme fear of going back to therapy while simultanousley realising more and more each day that I am not coping well and that it's continuously getting worse
I spent 1.5 years in therapy but the main issue with that was that I didn't go on my own accord but basically got sectioned against my will. I was 16 and I was living in an assisted living facility for teenagers after leaving my foster family due to abusive behaviours towards me. I lived there for several months and during that time my mental health deterioated to a point where the people responsible apparently felt like they couldn't give me the necessary help anymore and transfered me to a mental hospital for children and teenagers.
Basically what had happened was that I had completely stopped caring and was negating everything. I stopped talking, I skipped school, I basically completely stopped eating. I wasn't actively suicidal, I simply didn't want to exist anymore.
The hospital was supposed to help me but the things that happened there during the first couple of weeks just messed me up. I know the people there were just trying to help me but they did it by trying to force me to eat and by locking me up and completely taking away my independence. Trying to make me eat didn't work so they gave me a feeding tube. Looking back I think the whole process traumatised me. They held me down and forced that thing down my nose while I was panicking, gagging and screaming. I completely lost it after that, I couldn't think straight anymore, I was screaming at people, hitting them when they tried to touch me and just completely broke down crying, so they sedated me. First thing I did when the sedation wore of was to pull out the tube. They tried to give me a new one, the whole thing repeated and they transferred me to a closed ward.
I spent eleven days on the closed ward before they decided I was calm and complient enough to be sent back to the "normal" ward. I've never forgotten about that and until this day I am unable to find words for how that made me feel. I don't know if there could have been another way to deal with me back then but what they did completely ****ed me up. I continued inpatient therapy and saw a therapist weekly afterwards, because I was forced to. I waited till I was 18 and had finished school, then stopped going to the therapist, went off the meds and moved out of the assisted living situation.
That was a year ago and I honestly thought I was stable and doing ok. For the last couple of weeks I've been feeling like I'm detereoating again. Maybe not half as bad as back then but bad enough that I think I need to talk to someone. I've been fighting against the urge to hurt myself for weeks and today I gave in and I am again having thoughts that it would be better if I didn't exist. I have no suicide plans, I'm just tired of fighting myself all the time and I don't think it would be much of a loss if I got into an accident and died or whatever.
I know these thoughts aren't healthy, I know it would be sensible to get myself a new therapist and talk to someone before it gets out of hand. But I am so ****ing terrified of it going the same way it did back then because I wouldn't be able to handle that a second time. I am ok with the idea to see a therapist voluntarily but not if it ends with someone deciding that I am a danger to myself and locking me up and taking away my independence.

tl;dr I am not in a good place and I want professional help but I am freaking out about them sectioning me and I don't know what to do.

Hi TalkingToGhosts,

First off, thank you for sharing your story. I had to ingest what you shared slowly, and take stock of what you shared with an open mind. In short, it brought tears to me eyes.

Second. I want you to take a moment when you read this, and pause...

You are a survivor. You deserve a moment of respite and acknowledgement for the hardships you have faced, as well as your resilience to survive in the face of immense suffering. You have been through so much and it hasn't ruined you. You have come out the other side and you have a choice to rise above it and help others, or continue on the path of defeat.

This is no easy choice, and there is no shame in whatever path you should decide. But know that you have a lot to offer fellow survivors - and in this world that is so devoid of hope, we need people like you to share you hard-earned insight. Please don't give up.

Therapy is inherently dangerous, however, there are therapists who can help you. If you treat a therapist the same way you treat a complete stranger (as in, you protect yourself and set boundaries and gradually let them earn your trust). I believe you could very well find the help that you need. There are plenty of good, ethical therapists out there who want to help. But they are fallible just like everyone else. Therapists like to market therapy as a safe place - but in truth - the environment is inherently dangerous and (in my opinion) even more-so than the normal world. It affords them a power imbalance like nowhere else on earth, and whether they choose to take advantage of that power depends on their moral compass. There is no one to hold them accountable but themselves.

I believe you can find someone to help you. But trust your gut. Trust your intuition. If you find someone who is seemingly off or gives you a bunch of red flags - don't hesitate to make the necessary actions to set boundaries and remove yourself from that relationship.

Where are you residing? If it is legal to record conversations - I highly recommend recording all interactions with your therapist on your phone and saving them on a computer or somewhere safe just in case they should decide to abuse their power. Be sure it is legal though. In some states it is considered illegal, whereas, in Canada it is legal through the one party consent law.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

@TalkingToGhosts I am so sorry that happened to you. I am actually applying to grad school to learn about this very special type of victimization. I had been abused by a therapist as an adult, and therapy abuse makes it hard to benefit from therapy when therapy itself is a trauma trigger. Desensitizing from it has not been my experience, and when I asked about treatments for therapy abuse, I get no answers or reprieve to my suffering.

Fortunately, there are alternatives to mental health treatment. You can do a Google search for "alternatives to mental health treatment" and find many options. Also, non-clinical support groups in person might help. Self-help books might also offer tools to cope.

There are also websites specifically related to therapy abuse, which also include a notion of iatrogenic effects of treatment (unintended and negative consequences of treatment that helps some but not others). Iatrogenic effects are not the same as therapy abuse or malpractice, since they are based on presenting symptoms and an assumption of homogeny. Nevertheless, it can feel or actually be traumatic. Again, there are no specified therapies I know of for iatrogenic effects.

But there are support groups for various symptoma such as trauma, grief and loss, depression, anxiety, etc. In-peraon, peer-led support groups might feel safer than clinical ones, that is if there are safety protocals in place.

I hope these suggestions help.

You can always try to revisit therapy while trying out alternative options, as you might find a really good and caring therapist who understands the traumas you experienced in past therapy interventions.

I am so sorry you went through this. I hope you find some encouragement in knowing that you are not alone.

[seeker33]

Dear TalkingToGhosts reading your story broke my heart. I can't even begin to imagine how traumatic your experience was.
You're very strong and based on your post I believe you have enough strength to work on your healing.
I agree you can first contact the therapist by phone and only slowly open up. You can stop seeing them any time. If you don't like the T, you just don't show up for another session. That's it. I've also discussed SH and thoughts about not wanting to live and although meds were suggested, I refused and that was it. We continued talking and my wish to stay without medication was respected.

Trying alternatives to therapy can be extremely effective as well! I especially recommend exercise and creative arts. I know it sounds cheesy and I was very reluctant to these but they do work! I'm not a crafty person at all, no talent. But I sometimes do creative projects for children and there are tons of extremely easy tutorials online - from painting to sewing and crochet which you can do with zero skill or experience.

When it comes to exercise I find walking, strength training and yoga most effective. I even enjoy walking outdoors now in the autumn. The streets are almost empty and I feel the fresh cool air....

It's also very healthy for your brain to learn new skills. It helps with creating new synapses and increases your self confidence. It can be anything really - musical instrument, a language or cooking! It's all great for healing your brain on a physical level.

I know maybe hearing this makes you cringe. I wasn't keen on trying anything. My reaction was "I don't care about anything, it's all stupid". But the key is to at least try. Just one time. Just 10 min. If you truly don't like the activity after 10 min, you don't have to continue. Then you choose something else.

If you can find something you enjoy, you might feel a little better even without a therapist.

Y'all raise good points about needing (psycho)therapy but having experienced therapy abuse in the past makes it harder to benefit from future therapy and/or feel safe in approaching therapy again.

Although there are alternatives to psychotherapy, alternatives are not the same as therapy. You read it all the time on social support sites or alternatives that their offerings are not to replace therapy. Such warnings are there for a few reasons, the most notable being that alternatives are not going to offer treatment to necessarily process and maintain your mental disabilities.

What I think we do need is for more therapists to be trained on how to work with individuals who have had prior negative experiences with therapy, including therapy abuse. I think that therapists should have an opened mind when it comes to other colleagues within their field actually emotionally abusing their clients, instead of victim-blaming and considering that the psychological field can do no wrong (at least not without proof). Like issues with the codification of laws concerning child maltreatment, emotional abuse is hard to detect, prove, and therefore substantiate. It doesn't mean that emotional abuse does not occur, but it does mean that the lack of evidence demonstrates a problem for clients who need healing from such often hidden, unsubstantiated, and nearly unprovable cases of abuse behind closed doors.

Until treatments are in place for that, abused clients are at a loss. The treatment for therapy abuse is seemingly tantamount to PTSD treatments regarding establishing safety, remembering and mourning, grieving any losses, and acclimating back to society (or in this case, back into a safer therapeutic setting) - if we are to follow Judith L. Herman's (1992) recommendations from her book, Trauma and Recovery. Such would need to take place first in order for any therapeutic alliance to form and for work on the original (pre-therapy-abuse) conditions to take place. This gets more complicated when the pre-therapy-abuse conditions comprise PTSD and/or some other trauma-related disorder, including continuous traumatic stress (e.g., microaggression stress, workplace bullying stress, school bullying stress, harassment, domestic violence, intimate partner violence, human trafficking victimization, immigration stress, medical trauma, continued polyvictmization, continued revictmization, continued repeat victimization, etc.).

Until therapy abuse is acknowledged, understood, and prevented, we survivors of therapy abuse will continue to seek treatment without its full effect and/or will continue to avoid clinical settings altogether. --At least that is what I'm hearing, observing, and feeling for my own self.

What do you all think?

Originally Posted by TalkingToGhosts

Sorry but I really can't figure out where this topic is supposed to go, so if it doesn't fit this subforum, please someone move it.

I am struggling with an extreme fear of going back to therapy while simultanousley realising more and more each day that I am not coping well and that it's continuously getting worse
I spent 1.5 years in therapy but the main issue with that was that I didn't go on my own accord but basically got sectioned against my will. I was 16 and I was living in an assisted living facility for teenagers after leaving my foster family due to abusive behaviours towards me. I lived there for several months and during that time my mental health deterioated to a point where the people responsible apparently felt like they couldn't give me the necessary help anymore and transfered me to a mental hospital for children and teenagers.
Basically what had happened was that I had completely stopped caring and was negating everything. I stopped talking, I skipped school, I basically completely stopped eating. I wasn't actively suicidal, I simply didn't want to exist anymore.
The hospital was supposed to help me but the things that happened there during the first couple of weeks just messed me up. I know the people there were just trying to help me but they did it by trying to force me to eat and by locking me up and completely taking away my independence. Trying to make me eat didn't work so they gave me a feeding tube. Looking back I think the whole process traumatised me. They held me down and forced that thing down my nose while I was panicking, gagging and screaming. I completely lost it after that, I couldn't think straight anymore, I was screaming at people, hitting them when they tried to touch me and just completely broke down crying, so they sedated me. First thing I did when the sedation wore of was to pull out the tube. They tried to give me a new one, the whole thing repeated and they transferred me to a closed ward.
I spent eleven days on the closed ward before they decided I was calm and complient enough to be sent back to the "normal" ward. I've never forgotten about that and until this day I am unable to find words for how that made me feel. I don't know if there could have been another way to deal with me back then but what they did completely ****ed me up. I continued inpatient therapy and saw a therapist weekly afterwards, because I was forced to. I waited till I was 18 and had finished school, then stopped going to the therapist, went off the meds and moved out of the assisted living situation.
That was a year ago and I honestly thought I was stable and doing ok. For the last couple of weeks I've been feeling like I'm detereoating again. Maybe not half as bad as back then but bad enough that I think I need to talk to someone. I've been fighting against the urge to hurt myself for weeks and today I gave in and I am again having thoughts that it would be better if I didn't exist. I have no suicide plans, I'm just tired of fighting myself all the time and I don't think it would be much of a loss if I got into an accident and died or whatever.
I know these thoughts aren't healthy, I know it would be sensible to get myself a new therapist and talk to someone before it gets out of hand. But I am so ****ing terrified of it going the same way it did back then because I wouldn't be able to handle that a second time. I am ok with the idea to see a therapist voluntarily but not if it ends with someone deciding that I am a danger to myself and locking me up and taking away my independence.

tl;dr I am not in a good place and I want professional help but I am freaking out about them sectioning me and I don't know what to do.

@TalkingToGhosts

I reread your story, and like the others have commented, I am heartbroken from hearing what you went through.

First, it sounds like you went through an incredible amount of childhood trauma prior to the traumas you had experienced in the hospital. Your winding up in foster care is telling enough to indicate that your home life prior to foster care was abusive. That alone should have signaled child welfare providers to offer you trauma-informed care, but such may not have existed during your time. My half-siblings (not raised with me, much older than I am) were raised in foster care, and they are not doing well adjusting to the abuses they had encountered while in substitute care.

Second, it sounds like you went through trauma during foster care, prior to your experience in the hospital. Being transferred (or what they call having different "spells" or "placements") in child welfare adds to the feelings of rejection, neglect, instability, insecurity, and many other trauma triggers you may have experienced prior to your entry into the child welfare system. Such transfers between one foster care setting to a more residential, specialized treatment setting is scary enough for children and adolescents. That alone is traumatic, as is separation trauma, etc. Although the child welfare workers in one facility were ethically inclined to transfer your care to a place that are trained in areas you were suffering from, where they transferred you to seemed to sound, according to your descriptions, invasive and traumatizing. You may have had trouble concentrating in school, or may have had trouble adjusting to your ever-changing circumstances while in foster care. You may have had trouble with your identity, self-worth, self-esteem, efficacy, lack of psychological hardiness, and many other areas that are effects of originating traumas from childhood. Feeling internalizing emotions such as depression, and then exhibiting externalizing behaviors such as not eating, truancy from school, etc., are all known effects of childhood maltreatment and the traumas that are rarely discussed among professionals - most notably the paradoxical nature of child welfare involvement itself - the separation trauma, the trauma of not having stability in psychosocial and emotionally salient connections, the trauma of experiencing or witnessing deviancy from foster care peers, the trauma of losing autonomy during your adolescence and therefore feeling a loss of childhood, a loss of control, and perceived and real victimizations.

Third, it sounds like the procedures/treatments involved in your care for not eating, depression, trauma, etc. were invasive. You mentioned how you didn't have a voice in your treatment, and that raises concerns about what rights youth have when they are patients and Wards of the State. It's sad that they didn't provide you options for treatment, even though their main concern was for your physical safety (e.g., trying to get nutrition in you so that you wouldn't die from starvation or malnutrition), as opposed to your mental health safety. Tubes being stuck in someone during a medical procedure, even if life sustaining, is a form of medical trauma, even if your mental disabilities at the time affected your ability to self-care. It's the trauma of having been adultified and self-caring in a neglecting environment (from your family of origin who neglected/abused you to a foster care system that also has issues with neglecting youth under their care) that reinforces the trauma triggers, both consciously and unconsciously, in my opinion. That often gets overlooked in terms of physiological care. What's lacking is emotional care and trauma treatments for youth in foster care, and some safety protocols when medical attention is required, so as to reduce medical trauma during such procedures. This is where the break in communication between psychology and medicine occur - especially for youth.

Finally, now that you are emancipated from the child welfare system and an adult survivor of polyvictimization and multiple forms of non-victimization trauma, you are experiencing the effects of not only your originating traumas and the effects of those traumas that were onset in your youth, but also clinical/medical traumas and potential therapy abuse as well. It is understandable that you fear such settings, and you distrust such systems that have the power to take away our power. I'm so sorry for all your losses, traumatic experiences, and suffering. Although you do need help to manage your symptoms, it seems understandable that no matter what is offered, those things you described are intrusive thoughts from traumatic memories that bring about fear concerning seeking treatment.

My half-siblings and some of my peers in college and some of those I spoke with in homeless shelters when I was homeless had similar stories as you. I've heard it time and time again from different generations (my half-siblings were in foster care during the 60s or 70s; my peers in homeless shelters were in foster care and/or clinical settings spanning from the 60s to the 90s; my peers in college were in foster care and/or clinical settings spanning from the 80s to the 90s). Additionally, some of the research I had read about just five years ago revealed that many youth in foster care average between 4 to 8 placements before either reunification, adoption, or other permanency is established (which doesn't include kinship care), dependent on the jurisdictions and different legal systems for child welfare.

It's sad how such settings have affected youth and adults who survived such experiences during their youth. I'm so sorry this happened to you.

If there is any way for you to find an empathetic therapist who understands the foster care system, trauma, and all of your disabilities, that would be the way to go. In the meantime, while you are seeking treatment or dealing with your fears of seeking treatment, online groups here help, in-person and peer-led support groups for eating disorders/trauma/depression/foster care alumni/etc. also help, formal or informal mentoring programs for emancipated foster care alumni might also help, victims advocacy groups might also help to empower you, self-help books on trauma/CBT/DBT/eating disorders/depression might also help, and many other alternatives to care. That said, alternatives will not help you manage or heal all of your disabilities' symptoms, but they might help a little. What safe and good therapy offers are ways for you to heal the totality of yourself, but it is really hard to find, especially when your income is limited, your insurance is limited, etc.

If you have social support networks such as safe friends, safe family members, or safe acquaintances through group membership (e.g., church, support groups), that will also help in the interim of seeking treatment.

I hope these suggestions and my reflections of what I understood from reading your post help. My apologies if any of what I shared or reflected on was triggering. I'm not good at identifying triggers, so forgive me if I failed in that area.