So… I wish I could say things are getting better this end, but they really aren’t. I haven’t felt this awful in years and honestly, at this point, it’s just my dogged determination not to give up that’s keeping me functional – albeit, barely. Talk about living life in survival…it’s fucking beyond exhausting and I have really just had enough, now.
There’s such a lot of shit going on in one way or another and I haven’t really known where to begin which is why I have been AWOL (mind you, looks like everyone on WP has gone awol this month). I want to write. When I feel isolated and alone like I do now, this blog always helps – but, which therapy do I even talk about?: the one that’s ‘ended but hasn’t really’ with Anita or the new one that seems to be ‘like flying through turbulence and is triggering the shit out of me’?
I was laid up in bed most of last week because my neck seized, and I couldn’t move! The tension was triggered on Tuesday during and after my session with Elle and it’s only today that I have even the slightest bit of movement before hitting the pain. But that’s another story…for another post because I’ve just received an email…
Last time I was here I was telling you all about the messages Anita and I had exchanged at 5 months post ‘end but not end’ (5 FUCKING MONTHS!) and how her lack lustre, ‘I know but I just can’t work at that level of work anymore’ reply just set a fire under my ass and I sent her a long message in reply knowing that really it would signal no going back.
What I hadn’t bargained on was her ghosting me.
When I wrote my last post it was about two weeks after the message I’d sent and there had been total radio silence… well, the radio silence persisted and then it was 6 FUCKING MONTHS on Saturday – and Anita had ignored that message altogether for a month. I can’t even really believe the woman/therapist I worked with for all these years has become this. It makes me wonder who she even is? Was any of it real, or was this version of her there all along and the whole thing has just been some elaborate act? It certainly feels that way.
To say that this whole thing has been driving me insane (making me ill) would be an understatement. I don’t know why I expected better from her – but I really did. I have a tendency to want to see the best in people and remain hopeful even when there’s a shit tonne of evidence to the contrary telling me people are fucking shit.
I didn’t imagine for a minute that when she face planted so badly in May that she wouldn’t at some point reflect, take herself out of the immediate situation, and think about what she had done to her long-term clients – me – and want to make a decent end…because why wouldn’t you? Like if you know you have hurt someone really badly, wouldn’t you want to try and repair as much as possible?
If you genuinely cared about someone then surely, as a therapist, that’s the very least you’d do….ESPECIALLY if you were still working and have a client load. I can’t believe an hour out of her life on a working day is beyond her. I can’t believe she wouldn’t be willing to want to try and make an end that mitigated against how fucking appalling this has been. I can’t believe that she hasn’t taken this to supervision and her supervisor hasn’t given her some advice on how best to handle the clear up…
But there we are. Can’t apply our own standards to others – even if those others have been paid by us for years!
It’s maddening.
As First Aid Kit so accurately wrote,
“I always thought that you’d be here, but shit gets fucked up, and people just disappear”
Anyway, on Saturday I decided to switch to email. You want to ignore my messages then let’s try another prong of attack!
This is what I sent titled ENDING:
I’m guessing that given you’re now completely ghosting me, that the agreement that we’d come back and end properly if things were no better isn’t going to happen either.
I’m at a complete loss to understand how it’s got to this point – as walking out the room six months ago it did not for one minute occur to me that it would be like this now, “It’s not what either of us want”… really?
3.5 years of work and relationship deserves a better close than this and how it’s not, and I’m not, worthy of a proper end even if it would be hard and painful feels shit.
This time three years ago you gave me the beating heart necklace… I can’t understand what’s happened to now be in a place where you won’t even talk to me but it’s really hard to be approaching Christmas and you just not be there.
RB
The weekend has been pretty rough – I’m navigating all kinds of angst and feelings of disconnect with Elle — that of course are intensified because of all this bullshit with Anita so I feel like everything is very very fragile.
Anyway, I’ve been soldiering on and then just now I received this email…
Honestly, guys, tell me what you think because at this point I am just at a loss:
Hi RB,
It’s not I’m ghosting you although can totally understand it feels like that.
I just I have so little capacity at the moment.
I know my friends and family are also struggling with me not being as available as I once was but that’s just how it is for me.
I am also unsure what it is you are looking for from me, I think we both agree we can’t go back to a therapeutic relationship so not sure what it is you are looking for as I am really not able to offer very much in my current situation.
With sincere apologies,
Anita x
I was frankly speechless when I received it. I didn’t even really have many feelings, initially. Part of me locked down somewhere inside is probably crying – but the most dominant parts are really just fucking flabbergasted. This is the best she can muster – after all this time?
Is it not clear what I have been holding out for and asking for over the last few months- to honour the fucking agreement that we would meet in person and try and do a decent end? Like the therapeutic relationship is long gone. My trust is decimated, and I feel so fucking angry and let down by Anita but an end… come on now. Is she that dim?
Never has she checked that I am ok in all this (clearly, I’m not). Even when I left in June, you’d think she’d at least have made some kind of plan with me to ensure that I was ‘emotionally’ looked after, even if it was with a colleague or her supervisor. The level of neglect and basic lack of care is staggering to me. I mean a twice a week client with outside contact who has complex trauma and a history of self harm – of course it’s fine to just drop them and never look back right?!
This email, again, like those sessions in May, is about her: her lack of capacity, her struggle, how hard it is for her… and you know what, I get it, but it’s not fucking good enough. This ‘crisis’ has been coming for years. I can’t understand why, as a therapist, she wasn’t able to see her issues (certainly after her first meltdown in September 2021) and take herself into personal therapy to help get a handle on it before it shattered her world. And to be clear – the issue she’s ‘dealing’ with is not uncommon; her elderly mother needs increased care. Lots of people and families navigate that without completely falling apart and wrecking their careers. I’m sure it’s brought up all kinds of issues from childhood and stuff about meeting other people’s needs – but go do the fucking work before you act it on on your paying clients!!!
Anyway, that’s that. I don’t even know how to reply. It’s not worth my emotion is it? She simply can’t/won’t see what she’s done and cannot give me the closure I so badly need. I need to talk to Elle tomorrow and see what plan I can make for my books (which Anita still has btw!). Anita’s city office if literally across the street from Elle so I am wondering whether I can ask Anita to drop them in the door at Elle’s. At least then I don’t receive them in the post and get body-slammed.
Of course, that all relies on tomorrow with Elle going ok. We are in rupture territory – I’ll come back and write about that next. Needless to say I am not having a very good time.
It just feels like I am screaming into the fucking void: Can’t somebody help me PLEASE!!
Rubber Bands and Chewing Gum 
OMG. This is awful.
She’s clearly not even functioning at 50% if she can’t understand what you’re asking for from that email. That’s not dyslexia, that’s avoidance. SHE’S the one who isn’t being clear here by not clearly stating what’s happening and she’s projecting that onto you. I think, to be brutally honest, she’s giving you the answer you’re looking for… it’s just not the one you want ☹. She’s gone hunny, for good ☹. To be frank, I would highly doubt she would give you an ending session at this point, even if you did ask extremely plainly and simply. Even if she did, would you really want one? My feeling is that seeing her again might throw you back to where you were 6 months ago, because what you need is for her to WANT to give you the ending and WANT to honour the work you have done together. You shouldn’t even have to ask! She should see this as a deep intrinsic part of therapy, one of the most important parts. Without a good enough ending, it becomes much harder for clients (particularly those with attachment trauma) to hold the work done and go into a new therapy trustingly and openly. This is therapy 101 and I’m shocked at the number of therapists who do not know how to give a client a good enough ending when it’s premature. It’s not ok.
I’m not convinced it will heal you or do you any good to have to push her into an ending because you’ll believe that she doesn’t really want to. Which is so beyond painful it’s untrue and my heart breaks saying this to you. I hate that my wise part is telling me she needs to go now. That there’s nothing more she can give you and any further contact is simply going to harm you… you deserve SO much better than to be repeatedly harmed by having contact with someone who is so checked out of your relationship she can’t even give you an ounce of what you deserve. You deserved FAR better than that and it speaks of HER inability to meet your needs, not that your needs are too much or you’re unlovable. This is about HER inability to be clear and straightforward and end appropriately and well, not your value or lovability or growth. I hope you can see that and hold that.
I wish there was something I could say to magically take it away. You’re never far from my thoughts at the moment.
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Yeah – I agree. If she can’t see or, rather is unwilling to see what it is I’ve been asking for for the last few months then there’s absolutely no point in pursuing it. I shouldn’t be having to beg for her to the right thing and I know that she is utterly incapable of honouring or closing the relationship. It feels like a whiplash injury- like how has it come to this? Really all I need to do now is find a way of getting my books back – as painful as that will be. I’d like to think in having to gather those together might give her a pang of fucking feeling. People are so disappointing. Thank you for thinking of me and being so supportive 💜
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Wow at Anita. Wow. Seriously.
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Yeah – it’s hard to believe it isn’t it? Like really … wtaf?!
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Seriously. All the hugs to you.
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💜💜💜
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💌💌
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fuuuuuck ….. I’m sorry RB, this is so hard and so awful. I really know this desperate place … the terror and confusion and pain and longing for some kind of answer that you’ll probably never get. It’s horribly unfair and painful. I second otterscorner in that I really think any further contact with her will damage and hurt you even more. It makes so much sense that you’re still trying … to make sense of it … to reach her … to get some closure … but it would be like trying to get blood out of a stone. For whatever reason, she can’t and won’t face you (or herself) …….. you are grieving with so many questions and when the person is still alive and that is one of the hardest, most fucked up things to do. Be so so gentle with yourself and I truly hope things with Elle settle soon. I’m sorry RB. This is so, so awful 😞
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Yeah there’s certainly no sorting this out now with her – it wasn’t about returning or going back to how it was but at least getting an end that fitted the level of relationship we had. For whatever reason she can’t go there. It’s devastating really. I don’t know what’ll happen with Elle. I feel like it’s really hard to make sense of what’s going on and it feels hot and cold. I am obviously very sensitive now but it feels like there’s more to it. Hope you’re hanging in there x
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I wish I had something educated to say but I’m only coming up with expletives. How utterly utterly horrific a situation, I’m furious that this can happen with seemingly no impact on the professional, and the client is left in essentially a worse situation than when they began. Knowing you so intimately makes her stance even more painful. There is so little awareness from her it’s staggering. She’s still working so there’s very much an element of choice here in what she’s doing, it doesn’t sound like the same person does it, just all those horrendous feelings of shame etc reignited from someone who’s, supposedly is meant to be safe. She actively welcomed that relationship with you, to work at that depth, but now has dismissed that out of hand with seemingly no thought to where an earth that leaves you.
If it’s any consolation, I’ve come to similar conclusions, with my ex T, the ending that never came, the text that never was responded to. Ultimately, I’ve walked away, because as desperate as I am to beg her to see/ to be the person I knew, I know that’s gone, and I’ll never know for sure if I even knew her at all. Moving myself into that headspace has been awful, but I needed to rip the dog eared plaster off. If you can cope with the books being dropped off it sounds like a good idea, I didn’t bother chasing my stuff, it just felt like collateral damage, and her gifts to me just went in the charity box, god I cried for a bloody age that week xx
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Tbh expletives are absolutely what are required for this epic fucking mess of a situation. And yes, she’s completely checked out of the situation- and has done nothing whatsoever to make this any less bad . Like ending was going to be heartbreaking but making such an absolute balls up of the ‘end’ is just beyond words.
Like you did, I feel like I’m now approaching the stage where i have to let it and her go and accept that she’s not the person I believed her to be. As you say the gifts feel completely ridiculous now. I was looking back at part of last years’ Xmas gift today and the coaster has the words ‘one of the best feelings in the world is when you hug someone you love and they hug you back’…. The irony. Like honestly. Where did that Anita go?
Huge hugs to you and thank you for sitting with me in the trenches x
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Hi RBCG. I’m so sorry. That reply from Anita.. i don’t even have words. I guess the absolute kindest interpretation I can put on it is that she feels you had an ending six months ago and she’s been trying to be supportive to you in your grief about it but she feels that it’s unhelpful to you to keep responding warmly as it’s keeping you engaged with her so she’s trying to help you to leave by reminding you that the relationship is over. That is the kindest interpretation I can put on it, I have other thoughts but I don’t know her and I’m wary of my own stuff getting in the way. I’m disturbed by how much her needs seem to impact your therapy work, I’m bewildered why you are seeing her advertising for new clients when she is clearly stating to you that she’s not managing her life or personal relationships at present.
I agree with other commenters you are not ever going to get what you need from her at this point, and I think you have been treated very badly all the way through. I don’t think she has the slightest clue what she is doing with complex trauma; she’s just enacted the old ‘rescuer/give the client false hope that a perfect person exists who can heal all their pain’ then got burned out and rejected you, and didn’t even have the courage to tell you this or acknowledge her part in it but keeps hiding behind her own health needs. It’s so damaging and it’s not proper therapy; real therapy is about holding space for your client’s pain and helping them to mourn and grieve but not stepping into allowing your client to think of you as someone who can love the pain away. I think you have been very badly let down and the really frustrating thing is that you end up spending more money in therapy just to recover from therapists like this instead of being able to work on your own stuff and get on with your life. I am so so sorry rbcg. I’m wondering about how we can give you some kind of ending, perhaps as a group of blog followers or whether you need to do some kind of ritual in real life or with Elle. Endings need to be marked, and it sounds as though you need to be able to take a sense of closure. With regard to the books, if you want them back I’d be inclined to email her and arrange a royal Mail parcel collection to be sent to your house, they collect it from her house and she can even leave it outside if she wants to in a safe place, all she has to do is package it up and weigh it to work out how much it costs. It just gets the job done without asking anything of her and you don’t want it getting messy with your new therapist and her potentially having a chat or whatever or even Anita knowing that you’re working with Elle. https://www.royalmail.com/parcel-sending-options?cid=SM_RMP_0223&s_kwcid=AL!10933!3!659535508921!e!!g!!royal%20mail%20parcel%20collection&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt4HS-Iz6ggMVb4xQBh2fZAJaEAAYASAAEgLoD_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
I am so sorry you’re going through this and that there is also a rupture with your current therapist, after my first therapist left me and I started working with my current therapist I think we had really bad and almost constant ruptures for the first few years- it’s hard to remember now as I was so dissociated but I think I was just re-enacting relational trauma constantly and couldn’t see him clearly at all. I’d been so traumatised by what I’d gone through with my previous therapist and it took a long time for that to settle and the trust to begin to build. I don’t know if that’s helpful for you to hear or not, it may well be that you are bringing so much pain into the relationship with Elle that it’s hard to see her clearly or it may be that you are rightly picking up on something, I don’t know but god I wish we could keep you safe from any more harm at the hands of therapists. It’s been more than enough for one lifetime. Please know none of this has ever been your fault and take lots of care xxx
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Thank you darling. Yes. I agree. It’s been a complete and utter disaster. I think if a therapist is going to enter into the work in the way Anita did then they have to be fairly sure that they can maintain it and go through the process until there is a sense of individuation and then moving away from the attachment figure as part of a developmental process. Reparenting is a huge deal and massive undertaking and needs conscious thought and planning and LOTS of supervision. You can’t just wing it because getting it wrong essentially reenacts the very thing we are in therapy trying to heal in the first place- parental abandonment and rejection….FFS! She’s in a complete state – not because of me – but her burn out has meant she’s lost all capacity to be caring and human – it seems. Compassion fatigue teamed with avoidance is a winning combo! To be honest after that message being so completely fucking appalling it’s moved me into a bit of a different head space. I know she can’t/won’t be able to give me the end I want so I have to find alternative ways of moving through this. Thankfully I think Elle will be able to help me with this. We had a really good session yesterday and sorted out the thing that had really upset me last week. So that’s good. And I am very conscious of the fact that I am super sensitive at the moment and so will react to things much more than I might used to have because my hypervigilance is off the chart. Ahhh…. still…. I’ll get through it…. and thank you as always for your support and thoughtful comments x
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Hey, I wrote you a long comment but I think WordPress may have eaten it. I was just thinking about other options for endings, normally I would suggest asking her for a therapeutic letter but I can imagine she might put stuff in there that would leave you with more questions and no space to work through it so that risks being more traumatic and damaging rather than helpful. I think to me at this point it feels as though she is a burned out and avoidant parent who wants to cause the door on their screaming child and walk away and starts to resent the child because the child is still expressing distress that she is unable to meet- which is of course what is triggering the child’s distress!! I don’t think she has particularly enacted it yet but I think she risks becoming quite punitive towards you if the relationship continues; she has definitely shown that she can’t give you what you need and I’m trying not to describe it as her own narcissism getting in the way but it’s hard not to feel that you have been damaged by her allowing her own needs to intrude into the therapy from the beginning. I am so sorry you have had to go through this twice. Love xxxxx
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It all went to ‘approve’ – so not lost, I just had to click a button. I am not going to ask anything of Anita now. Because asking for it feels like I would be just trying to get blood out of a stone. I’d like to have thought she would have wanted to do that for me – but clearly not. And I agree about the risk of her turning punitive or colder or whatever. The fact that she couldn’t see what I was asking for in my recent messages is astounding but shows the level of avoidance she’s in. We were both clear that May wasn’t an end because she wasn’t fit for it…the agreement was always that no matter what we’d come back together and figure a way through even if it meant ending and finding a different way of connecting – occasional dog walks – etc. So to now be in this place is really fucking weird. Ah well, you live and learn eh?!
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*close* not ’cause’
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What a complete and utter shit response.
I don’t have anything more intelligent than that to say. But yeah, that was absolutely heinous of her, it truly is.
I apologize, I will need to come back. I can’t even, with what she wrote.
Of *course* people are crying inside. She fucking lied to you. Whilst knowing what it would do to you. It is her job to take care of her own shit whilst providing therapy to others. HER JOB.
I’m so sorry RBCG. It is so not okay.
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She really couldn’t have done much worse than that could she? I mean I think it shows how departed she is from being competent and safe – not just for me but for any client. She literally cannot hold anyone’s experience but her own. I find it mindblowing that part of her isn’t going ‘I know that I need to sort this out properly and as much as I feel like it’s gonna be tough, I owe it to RB to do the right fucking thing’….and also WHAT THE FUCK IS HER SUPERVISOR DOING? Like I really wonder what Anita has shared in supervision because if she was in any way honest about what was going on in that room then there’s no fucking way it should have been left like this. Ugh…what a shit show!
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Ugh ….There are no words to describe what a s&*t show Anita created. I am so angry at Anita on you behalf RB. She messed up so many things from leading you to believe she would be the one to save you, that she would ALWAYs be there for you. Terrible terrible boundaries…So so many therapeutic failings. And now with this horrendous ending.
I don’t doubt that she genuinely cared for you and her feelings were real and that she experienced some mental breakdown which led to the demise of the relationship. I do wonder now if she is continuing to use that as an excuse as she thinks its the most helpful thing for you when in fact it seems to me it’s just causing you more confusion and pain. It reads to me like since her breakdown her feelings have changed and she has disconnected and is avoiding the same way someone who leaves a romantic relationship would disconnect and avoid once they have decided to leave, whilst the other person is left heartbroken and floundering. I’m so sorry that she dealt with this so badly there are some great posts above on how to maybe get some closure. I honestly do worry about her future clients. You would have every right to report her but I know you say you wouldn’t want to do that which is also understandable. I’m just so sorry she has messed this up so SO much!
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I also worry about her current and future clients. She isn’t fit to be working with clients at all. I don’t have the energy to report her and it would only drag this crap out. I am really just now trying to get through this, and over it… I mean, it’s never going to not hurt but I am resolute now on the fact that the only thing I’ll be asking for is her to return my books. I am not going to beg to meet or for an end. It’s not worth my emotional energy and she isn’t up to doing what’s necessary. If she can’t see that she’s royally fucked it up and needs to try and put things right a bit then there’s zero point. It would just be more trauma.
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One of the things that irks me in hers responses right now is that she seems to be putting all of the blame and fault on the fact that she is not in a good place and does not have capacity. This sounds like crap to me. If she was at that level of incapacity then she wouldn’t be working IMO. Also if she has reached capacity it is due to her poor boundaries so all of her responsibility. …ugh.. Sorry that’s possibly not helpful I know but what I mean is at this point it feels less about her capacity and more about her wishes. Sounds like you are making the right move in trying not to waste emotional energy on having a better ending. She doesn’t want to and can’t see her fault in this which is possibly what adds to the pain. Anyway I’m so sorry I hope your new therapist can help you in the way you need
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It sounds like crap to me too. She’s a fucking joke at this stage. It’s beyond words. Yeah— I have high hopes for my new T. I like her a lot 😊
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hey RB, I’m a little late catching up with this, I’m just wondering about Pinks comment. As she said is there anything that we as a group can do to help you have an ending?
Maybe all share some positive thoughts of your time with A?
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Actually, right now I think validation about how shit this has been would help rather than what was good. The good is lost so far down the road now – so sad it’s got to this. The positive is that I have come through it – albeit in pieces and yet again have survived something awful. I shouldn’t have had to but I feel like I am proud of myself for not completely falling off the planet…I mean it’s been close…but not right over the edge. The other thing that’s positive is as much as this is bloody painful there is a good part of me that sees and knows that this isn’t my fault. And that’s huge!
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I think we can do that. It has been utterly dreadful and the way she has let you down is truly awful. None of this is your fault, she’s behaved atrociously..and yes, where is her supervisor?! I can’t quite get my head around the supervisor?! Does she even have one? Or at least, recently!
Well done for keeping going. Truly an awesome achievement..
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Thank you darling xx
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I’m shit at commenting on things as of late, so I’m sorry I haven’t written much out. But I did read this and I want you to know that I’m in agreement what Anita did was really awful and she shouldn’t be blaming this on her lack of capacity, because that means nothing to you. You needed and deserved more.
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Thank you darling. It’s really disheartening what a complete shit pile of experiences we’ve all been through collectively- you wouldn’t believe it would you? Like this is a hidden side of ‘therapy’.
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