[intheblood]

I recently had an extremely humiliating email exchange with my therapist. I don't really trust him anymore but I am so attached, I've gone weekly since 2013.

As it stands now it's been a month since I've seen him. Has anyone else dealt with an abrupt ending to their long-term therapy? It probably helps to know I have BPD (he diagnosed me last Dec.)

Possible trigger:

You don't want to see me anymore, correct? I already know, as my comment about us being done professionally wasn't mentioned in your reply. I had to destroy this. All my relationships. I don't want to hurt anyone anymore I don't want to be the problem.

I don't know how we move on in any kind of therapeutic way. Seems the more we try to work on this the more hurt you are. I'm sorry you've lost trust in me. I will help you get hooked up with someone else if you want.

You said you wouldn't abandon me no matter what. These weren't new hurts. I can't believe you. I should've know better I'm so stupid. None of the stuff wasn't anything you hadn't heard before now you're ****ing abandoning right when I need help the most.

I can't handle this. You promised me so many times. What in the actual ****. Over and over. Why couldn't you just be honest with me???

I don't know what to do. I know none of this is new. I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. I am off til Tuesday. I will call you then and we can talk.

Please don't. I need you. You promised me. You said twenty times this year "I know it's hard to believe but I won't abandon you again." I can't handle this. Don't leave alone like this.

Ok I will continue to work with you. But we have to figure this out. I won't, I know it wasn't you.

You have so much power over me I can't believe it. I'm not trying to manipulate you. I hate myself so much for being this way

I know you're not trying to manipulate me. If you want to continue in therapy, call the office and get appointments scheduled.

[Rive.]

It's up to you. He said if you want to continue with him, you could call the office.

Your message(s) to him are confusing: you say you no longer trust him, yet when he offers to refer you to somebody with whom you could work on your issues, you get angry and accuse him of abandoning you. It seems he can't do anything right.

You need to be clear whether you do still want to work with him or not. If a client doesn't trust a therapist, there is not much work a therapist can do. In this sense, he was trying to do his best for you by looking for someone else.

I don't see him doing anything wrong. He is right in that if you want to keep working together, this push-pull: 'I don't trust' vs. 'don't abandon me' is going to leave you in a stuck place. It is not ethical for a therapist to keep a client who remains in a stuck place. Hence why he wants to discuss this with you IF you want to continue.

I would also suggest you ask yourself what you want from him: reassurance? an apology? what...? He tries and you don't trust him. He offers to refer you out and you get angry. The poor guy doesn't have a leg to stand on, if you are not clear with him.

[intheblood]

That's given me a lot to think about, thank you for your reply.

[intheblood]

Thanks, you've given me a lot to think about. There's context I'm leaving out but you're right, the push-pull has gone on for too long. It's the worst part of BPD for me, I can't seem to stop splitting on him.

I have been clear in the past about wanting to continue therapy with him. The freak-out after him saying we couldn't move on together stems from this being the fourth time he's suddenly said he wouldn't see me anymore.

He's says he wants to start fresh and rebuild trust but I don't know how to do that and not be scared something else will upset him enough to say we're done again.

I understand it isn't ethichal to keep a client who is in a stuck place, but he keeps saying no matter what he will continue to see me. And then the opposite happens.

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[corbie]

Hmmm. On the one hand, if you lost trust in him and he feels you're stuck, it's only responsible to try to refer you to someone else. On the other hand, It seems quite irresponsible to make promises to never abandon you. Even if he can take absolutely everything you throw at him, which doesn't seem to be the case, there still might be situations where he has no choice. Starting fresh and building trust sounds good, but does he actually have an idea how to? I don't get the sense that he really knows what he's doing. Would it be an option to start seeing a 2nd therapist to either help stabilising the current relationship, or to help to come out of it without feeling abandoned?

I'm saying this because I had a very bad experience with my ex-T - I also have a BPD diagnosis, and ... she didn't try to terminate me, but the situation became unbearable enough that I did (sorry if that's too vague, hard to find the balance between that and derailing the topic ... it was very messy). I was also crazy attached, and even now, well over a year later, the attachment stuff is really difficult to deal with. One idea I had back when still trying to fix things with xT was to involve an outside therapist. I did not pursue the idea then, but after I started working with my current T, I couldn't help but think that if I found and started working with her back then, it could have led to at least a smoother termination with a possibility to work out lingering attachment issues.

[Rive.]

Originally Posted by intheblood

Thanks, you've given me a lot to think about. There's context I'm leaving out but you're right, the push-pull has gone on for too long. It's the worst part of BPD for me, I can't seem to stop splitting on him.

I have been clear in the past about wanting to continue therapy with him. The freak-out after him saying we couldn't move on together stems from this being the fourth time he's suddenly said he wouldn't see me anymore.

He's says he wants to start fresh and rebuild trust but I don't know how to do that and not be scared something else will upset him enough to say we're done again.

I understand it isn't ethichal to keep a client who is in a stuck place, but he keeps saying no matter what he will continue to see me. And then the opposite happens.

Great, tell him that (cf. what I bolded above)

In your discussion, you can calmly tell him what you just said above: that you do want to continue with him, you do want to rebuild trust though you are not sure how BUT that this is what you want to work on, with him... Tell him that if/when you freak out, you need [reassurance? show he cares? for him to stick by you? him to help you work it out? something else?] from him but not for him to refer you out.

But if you (both) keep hitting the same roadblock or the same pattern (i.e. push-pull) over and over again, then maybe it would be best to seek someone else. For your own goals.

[ElectricManatee]

My long-term T really, really disappointed me about two years ago. She let me down in a way that felt unforgivable, and our entire relationship became like a tangled mess to me. I kept going to see her for a while afterward, but I had a hard time functioning in my life because of how badly I felt about her and us and how poorly the resolution of the situation was going. Eventually I left because it became a safety issue for me. (I don't have BPD but I do have some borderline traits.) I found a different therapist who had a different way of doing therapy but still a lot of training and experience with trauma. We worked through some of the stuff from my past and the situation with my T (and the glaringly obvious similarities). The secondary T felt that my relationship with my long-term T wasn't toxic or unsalvageable (which is what the other people in my life were saying), and we eventually got to a point where I could go back to my long-term T and start working with her again. The secondary T was very validating and helped me see where my long-term T had let me down, but that that didn't mean that she is bad or that I had to end the relationship.

So that's my story of the "seeing another therapist" route. I think that can be really useful when the initial/main therapist becomes a trauma trigger and can't really effectively help you through the rupture. I was doubtful that the rupture could be healed but now that I'm partially through the resolution, I have found it really healing to be able to work it out with her (and work it out within myself). I definitely could not have done it with just my long-term therapist, though, because opening up to her about my pain just led to more white-hot searing pain and the whole thing was unbearable.

[ScarletPimpernel]

I also have BPD. When I feel the push/pull feelings, I recognize them and try to remind myself that I don't want either. I don't want to push L away because I love her and need her. And I don't want to be clingy because she can't meet all my needs and it will feel like rejection. So what I do is I tell her I'm feeling the push/pull. Then together we process it, try to figure out why that's being triggered, and how to understand and hopefully soothe those parts of me.

I don't think your T is doing anything wrong per se. It sounds like he feels stuck, not knowing what's best for you.

Are you doing any skill based techniques? Like DBT or CBT? Or are you simply doing talk therapy? It sounds like you need to build up your skills before diving into processing. If you don't think you have enough skills, then maybe suggest that to your T. Maybe even bring in a workbook and you two can work on it together. The skills do help.

L and I are mostly processing now, but we still work on skills. She has taught me a number of things that do help. But she says that if I didn't learn enough skills from T, she probably wouldn't be the right fit for me right now.

And that might be the case with your situation. I'm not saying you or your T are "bad" or wrong. Just maybe he's not the right fit. Maybe he doesn't meet what you need right now. And that's okay.

I know because of attachments this might be hard to not only hear, but to do: maybe find a new T one that's skill based. And then go back to your T when you're ready. Another possibility might be to join a DBT support group. I did that when I was seeing T. It helped.

It just seems like both you and your T are stuck in your patterns. In order to move forward, something has got to give.

[ElectricManatee]

Scarlet makes some very good points. I just wanted to add that the secondary T that I saw was trained in DBT, and it was really helpful, especially in the initial stages of seeing her when I was super dysregulated. She also did EMDR, which was helpful once I had some of the DBT stuff down and I felt calmer and more stable in general.