I last saw Anita on June 2nd… five and a half months ago. It was an agonising ‘session’ (if you can even call it that). I realised that day, that no matter how much I wanted to stay and see her for another month, I simply couldn’t keep going when she wasn’t fit to be working or handle an ending effectively – she was in survival and winging it. It was simply too damaging to keep subjecting myself to that. Those couple of weeks after she returned from ‘the holiday that tanked’ and said we had to end were horrific. She was so ill, so stressed, and by the final week so much in self-protect that it was absolutely hideous to go and feel like the person I know and love so well had broken and checked out completely.
It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done – leaving it/her like that. My young parts were devastated…still are. Surely Anita in that state would be better than no Anita at all? Well, to them, yes, but my Adult self knew better (maybe). The level of distress it caused me, going to see, crying my heart out, falling apart, and then feeling like the person that was with me wasn’t even fully there or able to engage with my feelings about the situation because she was in survival was traumatising.
I’m sorry if this isn’t making much sense. It’s taking me ages to write this because thinking about it makes my stomach and chest go tight and I feel sick…it’s been so bad. The physical pain that gets triggered off the back of the emotion of it is so intense that I keep dissociating. I feel like I need to try and get this down but getting it on the page is hard because I lose focus mid-sentence and then when I read the sentences back my brain takes me away elsewhere.
Not ideal…but…
That is the reality…
Dissociation, I mean. It’s been particularly bad the last couple of days – I keep dropping things, misjudging space (walking into things), and then of course losing time…I feel like I am suspended between two worlds and can’t land fully in either.
That is the impact this (what the hell is this?) ‘end but not end’ has had. My brain is desperately trying to protect me from the hurt and pain. I guess it’s doing a good job. It just makes life really tricky. I feel like I am in a daze on a level but then in agony on another. I feel like I have third degree burns over my body and everything that touches me hurts. This is making therapy with Elle hard too. This week I have just wanted to run a million miles away from her because everything just hurts.
I wish I was more robust, less sensitive, *all the things* but I am not. I am someone who *feels* and loves *big*… and there is deep wounding and trauma … hence needing the therapy in the first place…and yet here I am dealing with another abandonment and rejection (with Anita) and my system is experiencing this as survival issue. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. And the laugh is, I paid for all this! Being dumped by a friend or a lover is one thing – but mostly they aren’t professional at doing relationships, there’s no training on how to be friend…but therapists are trained professionals in relating. What’s happened with Anita is so weird because she hasn’t done her ‘job’ here – she hasn’t kept her professional hat on at all.
Anyway…get back to it RB.
All the way back in June, we left it that we’d be in touch properly after three months (September) and see how things were for Anita. If she was no better, then we’d come back and do a proper ending. We said we’d spend some time to find a way of keeping connected even if the therapy was done. None of that felt great but it felt like it would at least honour all the work we’ve done and the relationship we had. Looking back, now, I realise there was no thought or provision for me in there. Of course I tried to put things in place to hold myself but Anita never once checked that I would be ‘ok’, or what I would do in this period knowing how badly I would struggle. It’s shit really. Like don’t therapists have a duty of care?
The laugh is, Anita was furious when I told her how Em had ended the therapy. She said the way she terminated was unethical, that Em was dangerous, and should have ensured there was an onward referral… The irony is not fucking lost on me now. And you know what? What Anita has done is ten million times worse than Em. Em was always cold and detached. What I wanted from her and what she was prepared to give were poles apart. Her tick comment and the total shitshow of an ending was really just the icing on the cake.
The therapy with Anita has been soooooo different from the very start. We met on such a deep level. The love and care were tangible. I am not crazy or too attached or delusional…the relationship is/was how I have presented it here. I haven’t made it up. I have every session recorded! So, the contrast from how it was to how it is now is utterly mind-blowing. I feel like I’ve got a whiplash injury. It’s been brutal.
At three months I sent Anita a short text message saying that I missed her and it was a quarter of year… She responded and told me that her inner child was having a really bad time and that she had changed her work into couples’ work because it was more head than heart (really?!). I didn’t push for a meeting, then, because she had told me things were no better for her and so reading between the lines, she’d still be unable to end properly. I knew it was definitely going to be an ending now, no going back to how it was, but I hoped at least at some point she’d be able/want to meet to do that…because it’s the right thing to do and it’s what we agreed!!
As the months have passed, I have tried really hard to give A space. I didn’t want to push her over the edge or further away with my ‘need’ because it’s everyone else’s needs being too much for her that sees her in this place (well, it’s more complex than that!) … but this of course, has meant that I have been left holding an awful lot. There’s been no end. No closure. No celebration of the work we did. It’s just been another situation where I have been dropped from a massive height and left trying to gather all my pieces together and soldier on. Every time the second of the month rolls around, I feel utterly bereft. I struggle to function in any meaningful way and just want to crawl into my emotional hell hole and die.
Don’t get me wrong, things are never good these days – it’s a daily struggle. Inside it’s awful and it’s getting worse as time goes on, not better. There is no sense of distance creating healing – rather, I’ve been hurtling downhill on the struggle bus and there’s no brakes. To say it’s scary is an understatement. I’m in a perpetual state of flight and it’s wreaking havoc with everything. I feel like I am living my life in some kind of bizarre alternate reality, or a movie…you know, like the Truman show or something. Nothing feels real and I am waiting for the ‘scene’ to end and regain some sense of being me again. Or perhaps not that…I don’t want to be stuck in this all too familiar version of me: the one that feels unsafe, lost, alone…unlovable…I want to go back to the one who felt held, safe, and functional the one who was starting to heal.
By not asking anything of Anita, or holding her to the agreement we made, I have been stuck in a kind of awful limbo since September. I really hoped things would improve for A but the reality is she won’t have changed all that much in her life and some of it is not possible to change. She’s still working, though, (ain’t that the kicker!) and although she swears it’s the long-term depth work that’s beyond her capacity, knowing her as I do, she’ll be hanging by a thread even doing what she’s doing.
I guess I just hoped that somehow, she’d want to find some way of not severing our connection altogether. I hoped that everything that she had said over the years was true: that she wouldn’t leave, that she loved me, that no matter what she was there for the journey, that she couldn’t let me go, that I was safe with her… you know the drill. And whilst I know no one can promise ‘forever’, I honestly never believed she could walk away and not look back. When I walked out her house in June we were not leaving on bad terms, it wasn’t a rupture. It was a “neither of us want this”, “I love you”, and “let’s find a way to figure this out” (her words not mine).
But something has happened in the last few months to change that – I don’t know what – but I know now that I am not going to get an ending. In fact…I don’t think I’ll hear from A ever again.
I can’t believe I am even typing that.
So, it’s got to November now and the struggle bus has careered off over the cliff edge and gone up in flames with all the passengers on board. I don’t really know what to do if I am honest.
On the 2nd November I text Anita a simple, “5 months. I miss you”. I don’t know what I thought would happen. I guess maybe I had hoped that she’d dig deep into her therapist tank and think, “I really need to sort this out with RB. It’s not fair to keep this dragging on and we need to meet so we can end properly”.
But, like most of the interactions we’ve had since June – she replied with something so lack lustre that it just lit the fire under my teen,
“I know but I really can’t work at that level any more xxx”
I’ve been hanging on for 5 fucking months and that’s the best she can do??? Like come on, that’s not fair. She is still working AS A THERAPIST and yet she can’t find an hour to meet me face to face to talk with me and get a sense of closure AFTER EVERYTHING WE HAVE BEEN THROUGH…and knowing my history so intimately?
It was just too fucking much.
So…then it came…the words that I have been swallowing. I typed a message on WhatsApp knowing that this was it. But I have been so fucking contained, quiet, giving her space and time….and what about me? Where have I been left in this?
Shafted.
I knew that sending this message would probably stress Anita out. We all know she’s not good at reading, but you know what? What other choice have I been left with? She hasn’t offered to meet. She’s just been waiting it out… I guess hoping I would just disappear, and she wouldn’t have to deal with a difficult emotional situation. She wouldn’t have to face what she’s done. Anita is inherently avoidant in her personal life so it’s hardly surprising that she’s behaving like an ostrich when she knows she’s hurt me. But again…she’s a therapist. Suck it up and do the right thing. Do the right fucking ‘ethical’ thing.
This is what I sent:
I’m not asking you to. It has never been about going back to how things were. I know that would/could never happen and not only because you have no capacity/bandwidth but also because the hurt this has caused me means it would never work again how it did because my trust in you is gone and I’m just in a state of survival now. You don’t want to repair that. Or can’t. And so, it’s really hard.
I don’t know how to explain this or get it to come over in the way it’s meant – because this isn’t a conversation to have on WhatsApp it should be in person.
I know it’s really fucking awful for you, and I really really see that. You know I do. I’ve always seen it, often before you have. And this is why it’s so fucking hard for me now- you let me into so much of what was happening for you – and I’ve watched you get more and more stressed and have been unable to do anything to make any of it any better – it’s been hard watching the person I love so much break bit by bit. I have so wished there was something I could do to make things better for you. But then you slammed the door.
It’s so confusing. I feel like suddenly I became the problem and too much and it’s really hard because I didn’t change and yet it feels like massive displacement – like this isn’t all about me. I get your capacity changed but did the love just die too?
Our relationship moved so far outside of what therapy is but equally we’ve spent so long together that the reality is we are also just two human beings in a relationship and it felt deep and important – to me at least. Like I know it was messy and complex sometimes and I really know I can’t go back there like that (with you or anyone else)- but I do really still love you and care about you and miss you.
And this is why I’m struggling – I can’t believe that how you have been with me all this time is just fake or just ‘work’ because it hasn’t felt like that to me. Like when you take away the work what’s left underneath? Because when I take away ‘therapist you’ and the intensity of seeing you all the time I’ve got Anita – someone who I just really love, who I miss, and who I’d like to see every now and then.
And so, this has completely broken me in ways you would never understand. It’s not just a bit difficult or upsetting it’s totally flattened my inner world. You made me believe that I meant something to you and that I was safe. Stupidly, I thought our relationship would evolve into something else eventually. And yet here I am five months down the line and I’m alone with it. I cannot understand how you can completely cut me out of your life after everything. Like it totally screws my brain up thinking that the idea of seeing me in any way at all feels overwhelming and too much.
I didn’t expect us to return to how things were, but I hoped that we’d find some way through this – somehow. Like find another way of connecting.
I’m just left in a state of complete and utter confusion. There is no closure only me driving myself mad with questions that I have no answers to. I find it very hard to understand how you can just stop caring. Like I can’t get my head round what ‘love’ even is if you can just act as though the relationship was nothing.
And it’s not about therapy now. I feel in lots of ways that it got really blurred anyway but that’s not a bad thing – but it’s a reality. I am seeing someone else now and honestly, it’s just breaking my heart. It’s different. I’m not trying to replicate what I had with you because I’m not interested in that, and I also know I can’t go back to that either. So please know I’m not asking you for that.
When I message you it’s because I miss you. Not because I’m asking you to go back to twice a week and loads of contact. It’s not that. But I’m really really struggling to get my head round this. It’s like I’m grieving you but you’re still alive.
I know this won’t make much sense because I don’t make sense to me either.
A. I love you. That’s really it. I just really love you.
So, I sent that on the 3rd of November and have received precisely NO response.
No acknowledgement whatsoever. Two weeks and nothing at all. Not even a “I need to speak with my supervisor and will get back to you”… zilch.
I never, for one minute in all the years that Anita held me to her chest for hours at a time so I could listen to her heart beat, read me stories, told me she loved me and kissed me on the top of my head, washed my elephant, bought me so many gifts – and even a fucking beating heart necklace to remind me of her heartbeat when I wasn’t with her… would ghost me.
I don’t know what I did to deserve this.
But there we are.
That’s life, I guess.
Rubber Bands and Chewing Gum 
RB, this is beyond heart-breaking to read. It’s a cry from the heart of loss & grief & betrayal. Please know that you matter, so much, and that you are loved. Xxxx
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Thank you darling. It’s just heartbreaking that it’s come to this. I just never ever saw it coming…
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You went into your work with her with an innocent and open heart, and you trusted her. How could you have seen this coming? You took your wounded young parts to be healed into a therapy relationship which should have been safe: you were very honest with her from the start about what you needed. She failed you horribly but I don’t think you could ever have seen it coming.
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Well yeah, that’s the worst of it. She knew exactly what she was getting into from the beginning. I laid it bare from the outset about what I needed, how I had been hurt, etc etc and she was so receptive and attuned. I just cannot believe that she has ignored that message….like totally radio silence.
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I’m trying not to use words to describe her that rhyme with *ducking ditch*. You took your whole heart into that therapy and I remember reading those posts as you started tentatively to trust her; you tried so hard and were so brave and she has stamped on your heart. RB honestly you are one of my sheroes as I was so devastated after my first therapist left me and really in that place of just numb cold despair where I could hardly speak or think and just vomited for days; it took 2 years really before I could start to work with my current therapist as opposed to just being a puddle of numbed-out dissociation. The thought of building that trust again, of everything it takes to hope and try and make yourself go to sessions when you want to vomit from fear & your legs are shaking; to go through everything you did and have her fail you in this way is just unbearable. Please know that you are seen and cared about by random internet strangers xxxx
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Ah yes I’m a fan of a good rhyme…although I am leaning towards “lucking hunt” …gotta laugh. I just feel like after Em…and how bloody damaging that was, and how much it has hurt me, Anita would have done better….like why wouldn’t she want to make this better for me knowing that? Not to mention my actual out of therapy traumas! I am so glad you have a T now that feels safe and containing….and I really really know what those feelings you describe are like. And the panic too – like absolute hellish panic is what I am dealing with now. Random internet strangers have quite honestly been my life vest when the shit has hit the fan…which is why when Hannah said I couldn’t blog I had to find another therapist.
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Thank you so much – I feel devastated….
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And she should not be bloody working with anyone!! Her practice is just dangerous at this point and the idea that there are magical people who don’t need their therapists to be safe out there just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of therapy. She should be signed off for a year so and in her own therapy. She’s unprofessional and unsafe as a practitioner frankly and showing that she is also unethical because she hasn’t stopped.
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I’m sorry, I have period pain and I think I worded that a bit too strongly. I just feel that you have been so failed and so let down and so betrayed and I am genuinely outraged that she is still seeing clients. You deserve so much better. If you were up for working online I’d be happy to give you the details of my therapist as I think he could really help you. You deserve better than this xx
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Not at all. I think you are responding exactly how it is. It is outrageous. It’s damaging. It’s poor. I really just feel like I have been so badly let down here. The worst of it, is she knew what had happened with Em….and I just honestly feel like she’s taken my heart and stamped on it. I’m feeling so sensitive right now. I am really seriously considering walking away from therapy altogether as I just feel triggered all the time.
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When I read your posts I feel really concerned for you. I’m not sure about your new therapist, not in a negative way but it’s just so new that I can’t form an opinion, but I really feel with the nervous system activation that you are experiencing that it would be worth looking at brainspotting- have you heard of that at all? It’s a very gentle treatment for Complex trauma, my therapist uses it with me and I found it very powerful and really helpful with the dissociation and the intensity of physiological arousal that you experience with attachment trauma. I just feel you need someone who meets you where you are and can hold you in this. You are so brave but you’re also trying to be a teacher and a mother and a wife and yet you’re bleeding inside. I am so sorry you are feeling such terrible pain xxxx
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No I haven’t heard of that but I will certainly google it. It is really hard…I am trying to do my life whilst feeling like I am going to simultaneously explode and collapse. I am not raging or anything – I just can’t sustain this level of anxiety buzzing energy. I need sleep. I need to ground. I just need for this not to have happened! Thank you for being so understanding.
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https://bspuk.co.uk/brainspotting-explained/
My therapist is a clinical psychologist and uses brainspotting, and I genuinely think it’s a helpful and powerful approach and the right one for where you are just now in terms of just regulating the body to help you sleep, but looking at their website about 50% of the practitioners seem to be life coaches or have other dodgy qualifications so definitely look very closely. That said both of us have been dumped by clinical psychologists in the past! I really think your body needs to discharge that energy though as feels very trapped just now for you and you are being tortured. Xxxx
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Thank you for this. Yes… I’m starting to wonder if anyone is safe!
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Yes, there are definitely good and ethical therapists out there who can hold you and help you heal. You deserve it my dear friend. I’ve had 9 years of solid therapy now with one person and things are really different. Old wounds are healed and I’m much freer and lighter. It takes a long time and it’s bloody expensive but it is possible and there are good people out there. I hope you find someone who deserves your trust
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I agree. At this point I am struggling to see how any of this can be deemed as ethical practice. It feels cowardly to be honest. It’s such a betrayal of my trust. I understand her having to end – sort of – but I don’t understand this running away and ghosting thing. I find it beyond words that she is working with anyone tbh.
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I can’t imagine it’s in the guidelines of any therapeutic body-is she BACP-accredited? She should have an ending session with you with her supervisor there to support her if she needs it but she should do this bloody properly and put her big girl pants on. At the very least she should write you a therapeutic letter. If she’s so unwell she can’t do either of those things then she should not be at work at all. But ghosting you is selfish and cowardly and immature and I have nothing but contempt for her for that. As far as I can see she keeps taking refuge in a victim role of “oh I’m so ill I can’t cope but I still love you/this breaks my heart too” instead of stepping up and owning it and allowing you to be angry with her. She could just say “I’m outside my competence and I failed you horribly and re-enacted childhood wounds and you deserve better from a therapist frankly. You deserve to know I’m in supervision now and not working with complex trauma clients anymore because I’ve seen the damage I’ve done to you and realised my limits”. Then if she said she thought it was harmful to you to have any further contact so she was ending it then at least you could start to grieve properly but she has kept you in limbo for months because she hasn’t got the courage to own what has happened and the damage she has done. I don’t know how she sleeps at night to be honest. But it’s a narcissistic injury to her and that’s why she’s not replying to you; you represent all sorts of uncomfortable truths about herself that she doesn’t want to look at. I’m so sorry rbcg, none of this was or has ever been your fault xxxx
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Yes. Yes to all of that. There is no ownership or taking responsibility for this monumental fuck up. I have so much care and understanding when things are difficult for people, but she is still practising. That’s my massive sticking point. She isn’t dead. She isn’t off sick. She’s running and hiding and that is so far from ok. She would not handle my anger but she also can’t handle my upset….and so instead she’s turned her back on me and all the parts she made so many promises to. How she cannot see how absolutely traumatising this would be and not seek to make this as painless as possible for me is …well…crap. But as Elle said the other day – people know what they should do, what would be the best thing to do, but often shy away from it because it’s hard. And so yes, Anita needs to put on her big girl pants – but is refusing to and hiding behind things being hard. It’s fucking terrible isn’t it?
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It is fucking terrible, but it’s also a complete abdication of her professional responsibility towards you. You don’t get to feel like that when you’ve taken someone’s money, you’ve just got to step up and do the damn job even if you don’t want to. She’s causing you further harm now because she’s too much of a coward to look in the mirror. Her supervisor must be an enabler if they aren’t challenging her on this. There are a lot of crap therapists out there and they tend to find each other and feed each other’s nonsense. You deserve so much better RB, and the worst part is that you really loved her and she could really have handled this with courage and made it better for you. Her behaviour is just appalling. I’m so sorry xxxx
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Yeah – I can’t even get my head round the fact I have PAID for this….even those absolute shit last sessions where she was unloading all her stuff… like wtf? I feel like it was would always have been massively hard but a sensitively handled end would have made such a difference. Her supervisor is an absolute useless waste of space….and I imagine that A hasn’t really told her the truth of what’s been going on in the room and out of it over the years. Right – I am off to bed now – so not ignoring you, just need to try and sleep…lately it’s all nightmares about Elle. Such FUN!
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Sleep well; I wish you peaceful and healing sleep. And yes I can’t believe she charged for those sessions!
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I know this pain. Ella is still working too. Ten months after ending with me and not offering a break as she didn’t think she’d be practicing beyond three months. She even has a waiting list people can go on. I hate her. And I hate Anita. They took our hearts in their hands, the thing they should have been most careful with, and not just clumsily dropped it, but intentionally smashed it into a million pieces then walked away pretending they were never there.
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Sending you so much love. What’s happened to us both has been beyond shit. I feel like they just don’t take their job seriously. Like, A has twenty years experience – and she’s still done this. I wonder if I just got too close…maybe she’d have been less shit if she’d been less invested. I don’t know what we do with this though – because it’s exhausting feeling this bad for so long. That early wounding is bad anyway but when it is perpetually triggered….it’s like a fire alarm is going off in my nervous system and I can’t turn it off. I can’t work out if there’s even a fire now – but I feel like I am burning anyway because of the noise.
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Hearing this enrages me and upsets me and hurts, far more than I wish it did. It’s been nearly four years since I was dumped and it still fucking smarts. I hate them all. It’s so unfair.
A’s being horrible, totally horrible. How can she still be working with vulnerable hurting people?! How can she still be a t? It makes zero sense, none at all.
I’m just really sorry, rbcg. I really wish there was some closure, some relief, some repair. You’re not wrong for wanting that and for holding out hope. Xo
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Thank you darling. The pain never goes away does it? I mean it’s coming up to 4 years since it went to shit with Em and frankly even thinking about it or her makes me feel really upset on a visceral level. The damage these fuckers can do is massive and they just get to walk away and continue on. Anita has updated her website with loads of glowing testimonials and honestly I want to puke. She’s hurt me so badly. Ending was going to be hard enough but not ending and ghosting me when I’m having what I think is a perfectly reasonable response to the situation is beyond words. I feel ill. Like properly properly unwell. Thank you as always for your support xxx
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Gosh … what a terrible, heartbreaking mess RB ):
I am so so sorry you are going through this. It isn’t right at all. Anita developed, nurtured, and encouraged a highly dependent relationship with you in which she held all the power. I know it came from a good place and I don’t at all discount the work you did nor that the love and care was (and is) real … but for whatever reason her boundaries in this were virtually non-existent and you’re the one paying the price for that. I honestly don’t think dependency in therapy is a bad thing generally speaking … it is important for us to learn to rely on others, to know we can reach out in distress and be held and supported and loved. It is natural and okay for us to ‘depend’ on other human beings … but the framework of therapy is so unnatural and it is *delicate* work … she’s royally fucked this up and of course you are left with so many questions that you will never get answers for because it seems like she has run away from the mess and complexity of all this. It is so cowardly and so unfair and I am so, so sorry …
The only only only thing I might say (and this is not a defence of her absolutely horrendous mishandling of this situation) is that perhaps she hasn’t offered the ending sessions you had discussed because she’s kind of waiting for you to ask for them directly? I’d imagine she would be worried about bringing that up with you if she wasn’t sure if you wanted to go there? I mean, this absolutely should have been clarified and discussed when you were in the process of ending, no doubt about that. But I guess I’m just thinking how easily things can be misinterpreted over text and the short messages you’ve sent her over the past few months have been quite general (which I know you’ve done purposefully not to overwhelm her) … but in that, she’s not necessarily seeing what you are needing/asking for, which is some closure and certainty about what’s going to happen/not happen between you. I had an argument with my best friend via text the other week, and we never fight and have a really solid relationship, but within that context I was absolutely certain he was abandoning me while he was absolutely certain I was saying I didn’t want him in my life any more because he wasn’t being a good enough friend. Neither of those things could’ve been further from the truth and when we spoke on the phone it was like …. ‘oooooh … yeah … I did not get that at all’ … I know it’s a vastly different circumstance, but I just wonder if might be worth it to send her a really simple, clear message saying like, “A, I need some closure. I understand we won’t go back to working together, but I need the space to say a proper goodbye and have a proper ending. You owe me this – personally and ethically – and I’d like to book a session for us to discuss this.” ………. but perhaps it is too late …… I just can’t really fathom that things with A would end like this for you. You deserve so much more. Your relationship deserves so much more.
Sending lots of love and care to your heart … we are with you in this mess … ❤ ❤
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I have wondered about her being reluctant to ask if I wanted to meet knowing it would be an end and would ultimately upset me but then I think my most recent message to her shows her I know we’re not going to resume therapy but that the conversation we need to have shouldn’t be on WhatsApp. I think in reality this is more about her avoidance of facing this with me. It is really upsetting to see her revamping her website too – as someone who is ‘barely able to work’ she seems pretty fucking active in pushing her business and attracting new clients. It is hard, now, not to feel like this is about me…or it’s morphed into it. Like I have become the ‘thing’ that makes everything hard so if she doesn’t see me she can maintain that I am the problem – not the plethora of shit that she’s not dealt with.
Whatever the reason for this doesn’t actually matter at this point because it’s me left carrying the pain of it, it’s me that’s broken into pieces…and she simply couldn’t give a flying fuck about it.
Thank you for your support – as always x
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Yeah, this all makes a lot of sense and it definitely seems like she’s just run away from the discomfort of it all and clearly isn’t/hasn’t been honest about what’s going on here (with herself or with you) … which really just leaves you in an impossible position because you can’t repair shit with someone who’s lying to themselves/hiding from themselves in some way ):
I almost feel like any contact now would have to be with an (unbiased) supervisor and centred around her unethical practice more than actually helping you process this or even say goodbye because fuckkkk what a mess … part of me really wants to see her being held accountable for this … but I know seeing her in that context would absolutely destroy you … (then again … maybe it could be an empowering experience for you to call her out on this and not just disappear like she’s hoping you/all her issues will) … ugh. Impossible, impossible stuffs …
I’m so so sorry darling. She should have done so much better with all this. It’s such a terrible mess </3
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It’s beyond words really. The level of internal collapse is huge. I’m barely hanging on as my life feels like it’s disintegrating. I am so anxious and overwhelmed that just doing my basic responsibilities is proving really challenging. I don’t know how I get back on my feet. I’m trying to but everything is triggered to hell. I have no idea what to do or say to A. Elle suggested meeting with A and a mediator to balance it a bit but I doubt she’d agree to it. And i want to be able to say goodbye… properly. I think none of it will happen. I sometimes wonder how she can just ignore everything like this. I want my bloody books back too!!
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It makes so much sense that you would be struggling so deeply 😔
Elle’s idea of meeting with a mediator could be really good? I wonder if she knows someone who could facilitate that for you? A might not want to, but it might be worth asking? Perhaps if all the contact was done through the mediator? That way it wouldn’t get lost in the emotionality of it all? Just someone asking A directly/clearly for a meeting between you could be difficult to ignore? I think Dr. Jeffery Smith in NY does this kind of consultation …. I think we’ve mentioned him/his blog before. He’s very knowledgeable and experienced with this kind of stuff and would be really fair and unbiased I think … could really be worth looking into? ❤
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At the moment I feel like I need to take this stuff to Elle. I finally got to talking about it a couple of weeks ago and it was such a relief… I think the more I talk to her the more sense of what I can/should do will come to me. She’s a supervisor too so she knows the score.
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Hey RB. Yeah this is all atrocious. As PS said, the work is *so* delicate. It has to be carried out so very very carefully. We are fragile glass ornaments and can be so easily damaged. And despite it coming completely from a place of love and care, on her part, its just been handled clumsily and you are in a pile of broken pieces. I’m so sorry.
You do deserve, and are entitled to a closing session.. even with a third party there, if that helps anyone. She’s not only let you down, she’s let the whole profession down here. I can imagine how you feel reading the glowing reviews. That’s crazy!
I’m so sorry 😞
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The reviews are literally boiling my piss. I can’t believe 1) she has time to add all this to her website given how ‘she might even have to retire it’s so bad’ and here she is going all out promoting herself. I don’t doubt she’s helped a lot of people and people have lovely things to say about her — but given how she’s left this with me it feels really fucking disingenuous to put that up whilst she’s not ended appropriately and has left a long-term client in distress… where do we get to put our reviews when things like this happen? Because I sure as shit, as a potential client, would want to know this stuff. What happens when things are hard? Do you bolt? – nah I’ll find someone else thanks!
It’s maddening. But more than anything – hurtful.
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That’s so wrong. Honestly. I do think a review system is needed here. It’s the same in my job too, there’s nothing like that. Yes a therapist can be quick to promote themselves but there’s nowhere to comment when it went wrong. I wonder what the supervisor has been told.
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I imagine she’s not shared a lot of it tbh. If she has then her supervisor is even shitter than I already thought. It’s a mess…all of it.
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This is beyond horrific and I’m so, so sorry. Prior to being in therapy myself I genuinely wouldn’t believe these things could happen, especially from people registered, experienced and supervised. But the do, seemingly more than anyone realises (who would, like you say where an earth do we go with our reviews, the ones that wouldn’t make a nice little feature on the website…) so we hold more shame and more wounding and try and carry on whilst not falling apart.
A lack of an end is just salt on the wound, and fuck it hurts. My ex T informed me of instant termination in one swoop from nowhere, no ending, essentially get out of my house and leave, the end. All the stuff, the cuddly rabbit (urgh, the bloody, bloody velveteen rabbit which will just hurt forever I think), the voice notes, the texts, the blanket that she wrapped me in so many times. I’m left wondering how an earth I fell for it all. I’ve managed to make a start on getting rid of it, they just represent broken promises now, but that’s a hard task all on it’s own.
Ex T is still very keenly advertising for people, apparently her clinical specialism is complex trauma… Part of me wants to report her to anyone that would listen (not that they’d believe me) and the other just desperate to wake up and hope it’s all been a horrible dream.
Being abandoned by the very people we pay to support us, we pay to heal, just feels like such a mind fuck. Relational Therapy- where more damn relational wounds are made than healed. 🤦
Thank you for writing it all, seriously, this is such a horrible place to be in, so poorly understood, the sense of togetherness in the mess is lightening. Anita has caused you such awful suffering, and her health isn’t a get out of jail free card to exempt her from the responsibility of this. If this ghosting is the end, then closure turns into a one woman show. I’ve wrote so many angry letters to ex T (never to send, just to try and process some of it) and it sort of eases the pain a little. But in reality, closing a depth relationship on your own is a minefield. There is no positive spin, it’s not ok, it’s not right, it’s unethical and harmful and screwed up. Xxx
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Exactly – in any other field you’d never get away with such appalling practice. I would never teach another lesson if I did this – and rightly fucking so! The fact therapy is SOOOOOO expensive as well makes it even worse. I get really stressed about money and finances and I calculated the other day that I had I not seen Em or Anita I would have zero debt other than my mortgage…. but instead I have ££$$ on loans and credit cards for basically being traumatised. Fuck!!
I am sooooooo saddened to hear what has happened to you. That’s just utter bollocks. How on earth can they justify this? Surely…surely, they’d seek supervision and if necessary do a mediated end with another person. Elle suggested this for me and Anita the other day – she’d never agree though because another professional hearing how things have been would be too much for her I am sure.
I so wish that there wasn’t this community of people who have been so hurt and damaged by experience in therapy….because we shouldn’t exist. But I am glad that given so many of us do, that we are able to find each other and share in the experience knowing we are not alone.
I totallly agree – poor health is not a get out of jail free….especially as she is is working. It’s taking everything I have got not to pose as a potential client… but part of me knows that a reply and her agreeing to meet with someone not too dissimilar to me would break my heart.
This stuff is crazy making…
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omg also RB far out the posing as a potential client thing ahhhh … totally get why you’d want to do this … I’ve literally been reading through all this and wanting to get the actual names of all these therapists and contact them and ask really direct questions about their ethical practices and how they’ve handled difficult terminations etc. because honestly they should have to answer to someone!!!! 😠
I know obviously it wouldn’t do much … but the sense of injustice in all this is just so fucking strong. Fuckkkk :((
I think you’re doing yourself a really caring service not to pose as a client though 😔 A has not been clear or honest and you already know that … confirmation might make you feel a bit more certain in that … but would probably be more wounding than anything …
Suddenly I can see how therapists get dragged through court cases and shit with clients claiming they took advantage of them or whatever … there has to be some repercussions for their horrific fucking actions!
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Yeah – the temptation is absolutely there but then so is the possibility of an even worse hurt when it could be that all this has been a complete string of lies and just a way to move me on. I already feel so betrayed that it would only intensify it.
I really think therapists should have to be more open about the times they’ve fucked up….and how they have repaired that… or not! We are all here seeing these wonderful glowing testimonials and there sure as shit is a shadow side!
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hallo Laura … (and I hope you don’t mind the slight detour on your post RB x …) I just have seen you comment here a couple of times about your therapy experience and wanted to say that I am so, so sorry for what happened. I honestly can’t imagine showing up to a session as normal and then having that dropped on you with no warning?! Like what??? There wasn’t even a rupture or any kind of issue in the relationship that could have warned you????!!! Like wtf is wrong with people?!? … I’m not sure how long you were working with her, but it sounds like it was a pretty established relationship … I just … I can’t imagine how wounding that was/is … I really hope you’ve found some way in all this for little pieces of healing and can know in some part of yourself that it wasn’t your fault.
Sending big love and care x
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👋 It’s nice to say hello, shame it’s not under nicer circumstances though!
Nearly 3 years for me, twice a week. Huge huge support and then dropped off a cliff. No warning, no closure. The shame is huge, even more so that no one else will touch me with a bargepole to work with. They proclaim therapists don’t abandon their patients. One even said my history of being dropped makes them feel uneasy about working with me! Therapist abandomenet really is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only am I in a worse position than when I began, now no one believes what happened either! 🤦
Reading all your heartfelt and courageous writing has selfishly saved me from feeling so alone. I’d love to blog, a combo of dyslexia and shame of being too much for a complex trauma specialist currently stopping that, but maybe one day, cause the little bits of the community I’ve seen are so lovely in a lonely journey xx
(RBCG, hell yes to wanting to pose as a prospective therapy client, totally understand that one, but yeah, would only feel so much worse if your suspicion is true)
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Jesus Christ … this is just absolutely bizarre to me. I absolutely believe you, but I can understand why therapists would be doubtful only because it is absolutely unfathomable!! And god that must just leave you in such a horribly isolated and frightening place with all that doubt and questioning around you 😔 . Was there any discussion at all about why? Or did she just go cold and like …. Here’s a speech I prepared earlier? Far out …. I think this is probably my biggest fear in therapy … I’m so sorry … I really can barely grasp how someone who’s trained/paid/specialised/supervised/literally just a person in a professional role could do something like that. Like I fully understand that therapists are people and when they engage with us at a deeply relational level, their stuff can be triggered and they can become overwhelmed etc. but their training and their code of ethics and their role as therapists (and also just as decent fucking human beings) are supposed to prevent things from like this happening. It’s absolutely insane. I’m so so so deeply sorry that you’ve experienced such a horrible situation … I’m a recently graduated counsellor and just truly cannot believe what I’m reading/have read of clients experiences ):
Sending lots of love and care for the journey … I hope you might find some solace in writing here … the community is very holding and understanding and can really be a place to put things down that otherwise don’t have a place in the world 💛
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OMG set up a blog. You are sooooo not alone and this little pocket of the internet is so lovely – and yes, in such a lonely journey people that get it really really help. This is why I couldn’t stop the blog when Hannah asked me to and had to end that therapy….I couldn’t trade off the potential of an ok therapist with what I know to be a massively supportive group of people who GET IT. I understand the dyslexia – and how it can be a challenge to get things down – but if it’s a self-conscious thing about spelling etc – noone will judge mistakes. xxx I AM SO SORRY to hear what you have experienced. It feels so fucking wrong that potential therapists are unwilling to even go there….like fuck me….it’s just wrong. I do feel like it’s a difficult balance seeking out new therapists and what to tell them. I feel like Elle is going to have really firm boundaries because of what’s happened with A and that feels punitive. It’s not my fucking fault what’s happened! Ugh… big love to you and do start a page. We’d love to follow you. x
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Hey Laura, I don’t blog much anymore and took down all my vulnerable posts about my therapy, but I spent years on WP only commenting like you do. If you ever start a blog, I would be happy to read it. The community here is small and sometimes really quiet but it’s incredible in ways I don’t know how to describe.
Would be honoured to witness your journey, be it posts or comments ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
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Hey hunny. I’m leaving IG now (the toxic masculinity is extremely triggering), so thought I’d comment here instead. I wonder if you know who A’s supervisor is? Or which body she’s registered with? I tried to have sympathy with her but to totally ghost you over such a heartfelt message when she promised you an ending and all you’re doing is asking for what she promised, is nothing short of cowardly and disgusting. I’m now of the opinion that if she’s so ill she can’t end properly and ghosts ex clients who she’s made promises to, then she’s unsafe to be working at all. That is totally unethical and dangerous. Either that or she’s not that bad and has lied to you about something (or worse, both). Either way, she’s not a safe therapist and I feel you should consider reporting her. If you have the recordings, there’s your evidence. Yes you would be believed.
I was hoping she might at least message back with ‘Im sorry I let you down, but you’re right, you deserve an ending. I can’t promise when, but I’ll be in touch in the new year to update you’ or ‘Im on holiday right now, back at work on …. I’ll message more then’. SOMETHING at least but to ghost you for 2 weeks is just SICK.
I’m so angry for you and I can feel every ounce of your pain. I want to give you a huge hug and remind all of you that they did nothing wrong and they don’t deserve this. This is her fault not yours. I’m sorry hunny. I wish there were words that could take this away for you xxx
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Thank you for validating this … absolute bullshit fucking situation I am in. It means a lot that people see this and agree that it’s not reasonable to do this to someone – let alone someone you’ve had a long-term therapeutic relationship with doing trauma healing. I mean it’s just beyond words at this point. I know that she’s with BACP but I only know the first name of her supervisor. I don’t think a complaint would achieve anything much other than to completely destroy any good there was. I do think she should bloody step up and end with me though. This feels so bloody unfair and abusive – especially knowing she’s already triggered the abandonment and rejection wounds I had — but this is other level shit.
You’ve still got my email if you’re leaving insta so do keep in touch with me there too. Huge hugs to you xx
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I’ve no words about A. The pain you and all your parts are in… so wish all of us here on WP can ease that. We can’t, but we all want to sit with you in the darkness. Sending so much love.
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It means an incredible amount to me, actually, the support of the people here – long time friends and more recent – because yes, it is fucking bleak and dark and lonely out in the world where people have no idea what this sort of thing feels like. This little corner of the internet is such a wonderful refuge. Big hugs x
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Big hugs. Yes, this corner of the Internet is amazing, and that’s because of people like you 💌
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Oh darling, that’s such a lovely thing to say ❤️😘 thank you xx
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RBCG, so sorry to hear all of this. You do not deserve her incompetence and lack of consideration and she does not deserve your amazing self or your consideration. You have been an incredible client; one who has courageously dived into depths many clients don’t dare to, and it would seem many therapists don’t either.
Anita claimed to be many things and seemed to be real for a very long time. It’s still possible she believed some or all of her own words, but she certainly hasn’t lived up to them and actions speak louder than words.
When she told you, “I love you”, it sounded more like a relationship than therapy and I wonder if she just got too close. It would explain why she is being so unethical. I strongly suspect she hasn’t taken any of this to her supervisor, probably from the first “I love you” and certainly not the ending. Or lack thereof.
She is without excuse. It would be bad enough if she retired early through ill health, but she’s still practicing. If she’s that sick, she couldn’t. She had allowed her feelings to rule her professional head and I suspect hiding her head under the sand is her go-to coping. Again, that is not an excuse. I am so sorry she has injured you this way.
Everyone else has said so nicely all the words that we all feel in support of you, here on WordPress. RBCG, you are one in a million; you have such a way of conveying your thoughts and feelings and keep it so raw and real, you are truly a treasure that the likes of Em and Anita do not deserve. It would have been a bitter pill to swallow if either ‘therapist’ (and I use that term reservedly) decided they weren’t cut out for long-term or deeper work, and had let you down with as much dignity and care as is humanly possible, making sure you know it is entirely on them and not you, but the way they have clumsily trampled all over you with their inadequacies leading the way, is absolutely the worst. It’s like a surgeon wielding a knife in brain surgery when they only normally delivery babies. Sometimes you’re not the right person for the job, so don’t even try because you’ll risk leaving the patient in a much worse place than had you never started.
As always, I wish words alone could work magic to relieve you of your pain, but sadly, time, and an actual proper therapist who does what it says on the tin, will probably also be needed. Meanwhile, you have a lot of people standing here with you 🤗❤️
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This made me cry LS. Not in a bad way, but in a thank you for seeing me and the situation kind of a way. It’s so easy to go into a self-blame scenario with it all – I mean my track record with therapy isn’t all that great is it? I mean it would be fucking funny if it wasn’t quite so tragic…and Hannah was the icing on the bastard cake! 3 strikes and I am the common denominator. However, having it spelled out like this – how you have- reminds me that I’ve been fucking shat on and it’s not my fault. Even if I was THE MOST DIFFICULT CLIENT IN THE WORLD (which I am not!) this wouldn’t be ok. I am at a loss right now to make sense of this…Anita has just shattered my understanding of what safety, and care, and love are…because you just don’t treat people this way….or apparently you do? I honestly don’t know what to do about it other than hang on tight and try and not fall apart (easier said than done especially with Christmas coming and the radio silence is gonna hurt such a lot.) Anyway, thank you, as always for your support xxx
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