Trying to get out

Yes, this is right on. I LIKE and LOVE both T2 and my husband so much, but the sexual attraction isn't there. With T1 it's like a magnet.

Just having a rough morning suffering over T1. I made a TERRIBLE mistake confronting this guy on his ****. I could have just gone on having this exciting moments with him in the office and now I'm cut off and get nothing. I am so angry that I listened to friends who told me to stand up for myself. Now I can't even send him an email. It is so humiliating.

Terrible terrible mistake. I could have had SOMETHING with him. I could have had these sessions to look forward to to make me feel alive and I could have at least emailed him non-controversial things between sessions to keep SOME sort of connection. Now I'm locked in the basement because I asserted my power.

Wow, what a powerful and sad metaphor.

YOU DID THE RIGHT THING! YOU ARE DOING THE RIGHT THING! YOU WILL GET OUT OF THAT BASEMENT! I know it!

This has happened to me SO many times. People say: "Stand up for yourself! Assert yourself! It's OK to get angry!" And as soon as I do, I get punished HARD--like completely smacked down and PUNISHED. This has happened to me many times. I act like a doormat, and people say "don't be a doormat!" And then when I stop being a doormat, they're like "who the **** do you think you are?"

Standing up for myself has gotten me kicked in the face over and over again. I LOSE and LOSE and LOSE things that are precious to me, and never gain anything from it. I took a stand and got the **** slapped out of me and I'd best keep my mouth shut unless I want another one. I should be grateful this guy hasn't thrown me out of his office yet--I guess that's because of the money. But if I want any kind of affection from this man I've got to make him feel comfortable, unthreatened, safe, and "right."

This lesson has been presented to me SOOOOO MANY TIMES in my life and I've NEVER ****ing learned.

I think what might be difficult to realize right now is that his behavior is not a punishment - it is a gift. Yes, it feels bad, but if he gave you the affection you want now, it would still never be enough, and you would eventually feel even worse.

I spent 2+ years in the same situation as you. I stopped seeing him. For 3 months I felt like I was in a black hole. I felt I would disintegrate and my hair would turn white. But it got better, and I never regretted leaving. Of course, I thought about going back, but the memories of how awful I felt around him were fresh enough that it stopped me. I left with my self intact, and that is probably the biggest consolation. Yes, of course I would have liked to be able to continue seeing him, not because therapy was so great with him, but only because of my feelings for him. But every day I am grateful to be off the rollercoaster.

I've stopped frequenting this board because it is painful for me to see people in the same situation I was in and to be able to do nothing about it, but I couldn't help but try to write to you. One other thing. I made sure when I left that I had options for a very good therapist, one who I felt I could trust to help me deal with all my feelings about him. I was lucky to find someone, and I am working through everything that happened in therapy with the ex-T with the new therapist.

Be well, take care.

I'm really grateful for you responding to this and sharing your experience. So, you know of the black hole that I'm terrified of. Three months sounds like SUCH a long time to survive before things get better.

I saw T2 last night. I SOBBED and SOBBED and SOBBED and SOBBED some more. This was a good thing, because it's typically very difficult for me to cry. T2 said that he's scared for me because he can see me being torn in two. He said that some day soon I am going to have to make a choice both between him and T1 and between T1 and my husband, because I'm being torn in half.

He said he was finally able to speak with T1 by phone. I was terrified to hear about the conversation but decided that I wanted to. He said that T1 has absolutely no idea what to do over this situation. He said he asked T1 what his "method" and "target" is for me at this point, and that T1 said that he is just taking the "blank slate" approach to let me "project my anger" onto him. Except that whenever I speak about my anger T1 gets so defensive and frightened and completely checks out and steers the whole session towards what he wants and needs.

The simple truth is this: T1 IS BAD AT THERAPY. He's literally just BAD AT HIS JOB. Truly. He was a businessman who had some sort of Buddhist awakening and decided to become a hippy dippy therapy guy and had no idea what the **** he was doing, and now I'm paying the price for it.

I asked T2 if he thought that T1 cared about me at all. T2 said that he believes T1 DID care, but that now he's just scared and that's all he can think about.

When T2 said "Some day soon you're going to have to make a choice" I started wailing like Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice saying "Please no. Please no."

T2 seemed to think that T1 is not malicious, but rather incompetent, but now I'm suspicious about T2 as well because I know that he has known T1 for several years. T2 says that it is a good thing that I am suspicious of him because it means that I'm learning to protect myself, and that it's OK if I'm afraid to trust him, and that trusting him is not a requirement.

I'm overwhelmed with sadness. I am seeing T1 tomorrow morning.

Not sure if you'll be checking back on this message FrackFrackFrack, but if you do, could you say more about "the memories of how awful I felt around him"? I'm assuming at some point there were positive feelings which made it hard for you to leave. How did you finally make the break? Did you have a final termination session where you said goodbye, or did you just leave a message that you weren't coming back anymore?

Thanks in advance.

I think T2 is making a lot of sense here. It sounds like T2 is keeping the focus where it should be - on you and what will be helpful to you, rather than using you to stroke his ego like T1 has been doing.

Going to see T1 this morning. It has been a VERY long week.

Why on earth are you still going to see him? You just keep opening yourself up to more of his mistakes. Sure hope you can see your way through this and separate from therapy with him; it isn't therapeutic anymore.

Just be careful, Ramona... maybe try to get him to talk more about the contents of your e-mail? Try to focus on the negative of him, not the positive.

Thinking of you, Ramona.

T2 is making a lot of sense. About everything, He tells you your feelings are valid,your mistrust is valid your pain is valid.
It's funny, when you look at T1 and T2 together, and you say you see T1 as the powerful one.
When the truth is T2 makes his job look easy, it's a natural progression for him to work through and understand people.
Yet T1 with all that so called power is like a terrified child about to wet his pants because a girl he teased has called him out and his mom is gonna find out.
There is nothing powerful about this man, perhaps if you could look at your perceptions of power you might make some progress?
Also sounds like ALOT of parental transference here that got muddled up with ET along the way.

I do hope your SO has sensed some of what's going on otherwise he is going to get hit with a bag of spanners when you tell him.

Ro, I just wanted to make a point about people who stand up for themselves.
You say you always get smacked back down.
This is because you allow people to use you and walk over you, then you try and get up. At which point they turn and say, "no! That's not your place" and you get smacked again.
This has nothing to do with standing up for yourself, it has to do with all the times you DIDN'T stand up for yourself.
If you learn not to take the shyt right from the get go, people are inclined to just leave you be.

But changing people's perceptions of who you are is hard,and yes you have to fight harder.
You said you wished you never said anything, problem is you seem to have forgotten that wasn't an option.

At the time you were so distressed, something had to give. You didn't just suddenly decide to confront him for fun, you did it because you were so disturbed by how you felt it needed to go somewhere.

All this lusting after power.
The irony is you're left with this sad weak little man who is afraid of you.

Please take care as always Ro.

I honestly don't get it I've read every post in this thread and I still don't know why you're doing this to yourself...

You go see T1 of your own free will, you walk into that room knowing you're going to be subjected to some kind of torture.

So if you honestly don't like it, Why go back?

If you love it so much, Why complain?

If I had a vote?

I would vote for just run and not look back, no long tapering process, prolonging and delaying the inevitable, just one swift move like ripping off a band aid.

You keep the band aid on long enough without cleaning the wound and it festers...

I assume you've never been in a relationship that brought you both intense joy and intense pain? I've been there--thinking of an ex-boyfriend from college in my case. Where I loved him so much and was so happy some of the time, but then he also caused me lots of pain and often made me wonder if he was about to end things. Yet I couldn't let go because of the love and the good things. (Eventually, he let go of me, and I realized I should have walked away much sooner.)

Another comparison is an addiction--you know you should stop drinking or using drugs or smoking. It's not healthy, and the hangovers or withdrawals are awful. But for the bit of joy and/or escape you get from it, you keep doing it, even if it causes you physical or emotional or financial pain.

So, Ramona, I get it...I know it can be really difficult. Hope you're doing OK.

You assume wrong, I was addicted to a very toxic ex bf, but when I realized how abusive the situation had become my self preservation kicked in.

And yes it hurt like hell to walk away, and I probably suffered what some would call withdrawals tbh, but the point is.. I walked away.

Staying when you know beyond all reasonable doubt that its bad for you is the part I don't get, and I really really have and am trying, that's why I've been following this thread so diligently.

I mean no disrespect and am trying to empathize, I just generally find it hard to understand when logic leaves the building, yet no delusion / psychosis sets in to take its place.

I'm sorry for assuming. It sounds like Ramona's self-preservation *is* kicking in, she's just not quite to the walk away part. It can often take some time between realizing something is unhealthy and making the change to get away from it. But realizing it is a huge, important step, and, Ramona has gotten there, just not quite to the walk away part.

To compare it to a current situation of mine, I know I drink more than I should. I know I need to cut back. Realizing that is important. But I'm not quite at the point where I'm actually going to cut back, partly because it's serving a purpose for me right now, of self-medication. If I can get to a point through psych meds and/or therapy that I don't feel the need for that self-medication, then I'll find it much easier to cut back on/stop the alcohol.

Ramona, for you, this could mean finding some other outlet for your sexual feelings, something else (external or internal) that gives you that rush. And T2 can help in the sense of being someone else you can confide in and trust and who cares about you, which is some of what you were getting from T1.

Then I believe you never truly lived through addiction. The main feature of it is that it defies all reason and logic, we engage in destructive compulsions despite severe adverse consequences, no matter how smart someone may be otherwise. I experienced both substance addiction and an addictive relationship and both were THE most difficult things to overcome in my life. No other challenges in my life so far has come even close. And I am a highly educated, strategical, pretty reasonable person otherwise... definitely not someone who tends to fall slave to my emotions frequently. But addictive behaviors are a whole different world, it truly is often like being in an alternate reality and a different person. In the end my better mind won over all that, but it wasn't overnight (took years) and it wasn't linear either. There is no clinical psychosis involved, it's just that certain desires take over everything else.

One reason among a few I keep posting here and encourage Ramona is because I know the longer we stay engaged in cycles like these, the more difficult to get out with an intact mind and life. In this sense, I absolutely am an advocate of the "cold turkey" approach, I think often it's much easier than tapering and running in circles even if it does not seem that way in the moment.

ramona, would it help at all to think of the financial impact this relationship with your first therapist is having on you? from what ive read you seem to be in a dire financial situation. you are paying this man to hurt you

First off I just want to TRULY AND SINCERELY thank everyone for commenting and giving a **** at all. TRULY. It means a lot to me that there are all of these people that I don't know who care enough to help me through this nightmare. I AM going to get out. I know I am close. Every time I see him is a reminder of how little he has to offer me.

I went yesterday and it was "better" than last week. I didn't cower in fear like I did last week. But it was still ridiculous. He is TRULY bad at his job. When I bring up anything that makes him uncomfortable he immediately changes the subject and steers it in a completely different direction. I brought up that I'm talking to more and more people about my situation and he said that that was really good for me to get that out and reach out to other people. Then I reminded him that every single person I've talked to about this says I should run for my life and that it's a toxic relationship and he completely ignored that and changed the subject.

He and T2 talked this week and he's clearly pretty annoyed with T2 confronting him on ****. T1 said, as T2 did, that I'm going to need to decide between the two of them. We made a list of pros and cons of each of them, and he said "From what you've listed it sounds like T2 is the obvious choice." To which I said "Does that mean you think I should leave?" To which he responded "No, I want you to say. You love to twist things around and not hear what I'm really saying."

He's NUTS. And I think maybe not very bright. But him just saying "I want you to stay" was a crumb that got me high all day. It faded and now today I'm hungry again.

He said "from that list it seems like T2 is the obvious choice, so why are you still coming here." I said: "BECUASE I'M SEXUALLY OBSESSED WITH YOU AND DESPERATE TO GET YOU TO SAY YOU FEEL DESIRE FOR ME AGAIN BUT I'M TERRIFIED OF YOU REJECTING ME AGAIN."

He said: "Well, our work together means you having to overcome that fear."

He's NUTS.

I opened the session by saying that I wish I knew exactly where things went wrong. He said "What makes you think things have gone wrong? Maybe this is exactly where the therapy needs to be."

He says I'm too judgmental of everything--he's always "correcting" my words. He said to stop looking at things in terms of good or bad. I said: "Well, a few weeks ago when I was shopping for guns on the internet to blow my brains out over this situation with you, that felt pretty bad." He just completely changed the subject.

He sucks.

And I made another appointment with him. Because I tell myself if I can bring myself low enough to beg him to tell me again how he desires me and get him to hold my hands again that'll get me high for at least a couple of days.

It sounds to me like you're becoming more and more assertive with him, ramona, and seeing through him more and more. You're not going to be able to quit him overnight, but things are definitely changing. I think you're on your way outta there.

Thank you too for sharing everything you have here.

i think this man is covering his *** and trying his best to 'correct' his mistake.... i see this in his subtle coercion for you to leave him and see T2 "he is the obvious choice"- that is a strong statement.

he is also trying to salvage what he's done to you, maybe for his own good- maybe for yours (who knows?), damage control.

this man is scared i think. hes tossing you away while trying to repair what he has already done, maybe trying to get you to leave with a good feeling of resolution about what has occurred. dont buy into that please...

hang in there... i see you made another appointment. maybe this is the best, though? each time you go you are growing more and more angry. your anger is your wisdom. my T always tells me that

Wow, he's totally gaslighting you. Trying to act like you're just imagining things, that you're just twisting his words around, etc. While avoiding taking responsibility for anything. Part of it may be trying to cover for himself. But I also wonder if he even realizes he did anything wrong?

And I can't imagine my T or MC ever changing the subject if I said the thing you said about the gun. Or if I told MC that I was sexually obsessed with him and scared of him rejecting me, that he'd say maybe that's where the therapy needs to be right now. He's not being a good therapist, as you've said. He's not looking out for your needs, he's looking out for himself. If he was truly looking out for your needs and saw your list, I think he'd tell you to go see T2 instead of him. That he didn't think he was helping you. It sounds like he sees T2 as competition, the enemy, rather than someone who could help you.

As others have said, it's encouraging that you're seeing through him more and more each session. You're standing up to him more and being stronger. I think soon, you'll be ready to walk away. Take care...

Its like you dont realize youre in therapy. You take things literally, like in the cartoon Bobbys World.

When you say you are terrified of him rejecting you, HE hears the 12-year old you. Thats a good thing.

But when he says he wants you to stay, you hear him saying it lover-to-lover, in the present. Thats not bad, per se, but you cant instantly switch from 12 year old to grown woman in session. "Thats not how it works!"

The 12 year you is not safe with this person. He needs to be a t, not a lover. The safe t is just absent. I think thats why you say hes a bad t. It does take gentle maneuvering, imo.

What helped me, honestly, was finding another t (say t3) that i found as attractive as t1. THEN i realized it was me, not them, cuz i was insanely in love with both of them. Difference was, t3 knew what to do, how to handle it. Unfortunately, in the time period between / during, i did hit bottom. Unfortunately, there is nothing to stop you or protect you from this bad match, these bad choices, thats all it is.

It reminds me of the Dylan lyrics,
"You coulda done better, but i dont mind.
You just kinda wasted my precious time.
Dont think twice, its alright."

Feeling so sick today. I feel like this guy is an actual parasite eating me alive. SO draining.