I’ve had such bad experiences with therapists. This one was the only one in my city who would take my insurance and was accepting new patients now, not two or three years from now (that is literally the wait list for most of them). When we started early this year, I thought she was going to be good. I told her I’m autistic and sometimes I speak slowly, so I need you to be patient and give me time to process my words. She seemed to understand, and she did that at first.
But lately she’s been interrupting me, talking over me, talking past me… and invalidating the fuck out of me. Especially about this situationship I was in. A friend and I had become intimate but he didn’t have romantic attraction, even though he often acted like he did, which led to me developing feelings. I had to figure out what to do with that.
Finally, we had a two-week break from each other, and that helped me clear my head and focus on myself again, which helped me get over my feelings. But my therapist insists that I want a romantic relationship with this friend. Even though I’ve explicitly said, over and over, that I do not. Neither of us is in a good position to be in a relationship with anyone right now, and we probably wouldn’t be compatible in one at this time. That’s an entirely different thing from feeling attraction. But she’s cishet and neurotypical so I guess she didn’t understand that difference.
Today, I tried to give her an update: that the friend and I had met up again and I feel that my attempts to resolve my feelings for him were successful. But instead of like, asking “how do you feel about that” or something, she kept interrupting me, insisting I want a relationship, saying I’m just “following his lead” and not being authentic to myself, saying it’s not fair to me… and I’m like, b*tch what do you want from me?? Do you want me to pine forever after someone who doesn’t want me?? The fuck???
I ended up shutting down mentally, tears streaming down my face, while she was on her soapbox, telling me what I wanted, making it seem like my feelings (and how I handled them) were wrong… It’s very reminiscent of “conversations” I have with my narcissistic mother, which is why I don’t talk to her about pretty much anything anymore. I got so triggered today that I had to cancel the plans I had immediately afterward (stupid me for scheduling this appointment before something else, I guess).
The irony is, my mental health had been better lately, just by me dealing with stuff in my own (healthy) way, and she just set me back. I hadn’t sobbed like that, or felt so alone and hopeless, or needed to dissociate / take sedatives in a while now, until today. Isn’t that the opposite of what therapy is supposed to do? She keeps saying it’s her “job” to “challenge” me on things. Uh no. Your job is a lot of things, including active listening, validation when appropriate, and challenging distorted thinking when needed. But it’s not just… fight with me about every goddamn thing I say. Don’t call that your fucking job, that’s such a cop out.
She also keeps pushing me about work stuff. She herself is disabled and needs accommodations and whatnot, but her disability is different from mine, and she doesn’t seem to understand mine. Especially the ME/CFS. She asked me today how many hours I could work. I said I thought 10 was my absolute limit right now. She went off about that, like I was just arbitrarily limiting myself. “How do you know until you try” sort of bullshit. Like after 41 years, I don’t know my own damn self. Fighting with her about that took up 40 of our 45 minutes, until I finally had to say “you know, there are actually other things I want to talk about…”
I had stupidly hoped for some help healing from C-PTSD, but I see now that I’m sure as hell not going to get that from her, since the first thing you need to heal from C-PTSD is a safe and supportive environment. So I guess I’ll just… figure that out on my own, like I have all along. Even though the continued trauma is why I’m so physically disabled (my body holds my trauma, it manifests physically). But honestly, sometimes I think I do a lot better on my own than I do with people like this triggering me week after week.
So now I’m going to be mentally shut down, and the only reason I’ll keep seeing her is for shit like forms I need signed (it’s disgusting how many things require a mental health professional to fill out, considering what a socio-economic privilege it is to have access to mental healthcare, especially with 2 year wait lists, your other services should not depend on that!). As soon as my top surgery is done, I will probably drop out. I can’t handle any more of this Person Who’s Supposed to Help Only Makes Things Worse bullshit.