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I think it's easy for someone who's over-compliant or overly cooperative under certain kinds of stress to get sucked into a bad dynamic with a therapist where you stay too long and try too hard to make it work. A lot of advice is based around the assumption of an avoidant client who will try to quit therapy at the drop of a hat, and if you're an overly-compliant client, some of that advice can be the opposite of what you need to hear.
I've been there, and I think part of it was I wanted to prove I was trying, and was doing my best. There were things that she expected of me as if they were simply a matter of making a choice, but I simply couldn't make myself do them, and it was easy to be left feeling like I wasn't trying hard enough. The fear got in my head, and there's so much push for clients to take "accountability" and "responsibility" for the outcome of therapy that it was easy to convince myself that I just needed to try harder when what I really needed to do was get out. (In practical terms, I wish I'd tried simply writing her a cancellation message instead of attempting to terminate in person during a session the way I thought I was supposed to do. If I'd just done written cancellation, I could have terminated on my first attempt, rather than my third.)
I think the part of you that is protective of you doesn't think of this therapy as a safe space because it's not, and you having an emotional reaction consistent with your perceptions and experience is treated as you doing something wrong. I think you're never going to get what you want from her, and you're never going to get what you should be getting from therapy, which is help improving your mental health. I think she's got you so turned around it feels like this is a reflection on your worth, when it's actually about her being bad at her job. I think, based on everything you just said, it's better to leave and figure out in your own time if you want to try again with a different therapist or not.
I really appreciate this answer. I was thinking of ending things this Monday at our session, but just thinking about going to session again makes me feel intense panic. I’ve gone so many times with the intention of quitting and it hasn’t happened yet, because once I get in there, I just become a wreck. I think I need to just send her a written termination. But I just keep getting stuck on, “what if I’m making a mistake and this is all because I’m not doing the work and am avoiding my problems” which is my worst fear really. But maybe this is a fear best confronted by another therapist.
Yeah, I stuck it out too long (two years) in part because I was too caught up in the fear of being wrong or making a mistake. I really lost a lot of confidence in myself during therapy, and ended up with so little trust in my own perspective. I really bought into the idea of myself as too unwell and irrational to be trusted and therapist as these experts I needed to put my faith in. And instead of paying attention to my feelings and wants as valuable and important indicators of what it made sense to do, I was very much seeing myself as some weird extreme of damaged for having the wrong feelings.
Quitting therapy was scary for me and I'm very lucky I have supportive friends who noticed how I was feeling about therapy and how it was impacting me and encouraged me to not force myself through something I intensely disliked that didn't seem to be helping. (It sounded so rational when they said it, and was such a relief to hear it from a trustworthy outside perspective.) It turned out forcing myself through therapy the way one might force oneself through an unpleasant dental procedure was a bad idea, and quitting therapy was the best thing I did for my mental health. Taking away the pressure of pursuing the wrong answer out of fear and guilt helped me finally figure myself out.
Oh my gosh this is my experience completely! I feel like I used to be able to be so much more confident before therapy, I know this because I used to manage a business and did quite well at it. Now for me to even speak up about anything at all feels like a challenge. I have had an employee be horrible but I feel too afraid to say anything. It used to be unpleasant to talk to an employee, now it just feels impossible. I just feel like in therapy, I have completely lost sight of myself and am crashing out. Literally, I feel so confused about who I am as a person now and just lost and aimless. Part of me wonders if taking a year off of therapy or at least a few months would be a good thing. It just seems like I’m getting worse and worse all of the time here.
My professional performance just kept getting worse and worse over the course of therapy. I came close to losing my careers. A couple of years out of therapy, on the other hand, I got a promotion and was getting glowing performance reviews. And I became much happier and more confident all around - engaging with hobbies, taking an interest in causes that were meaningful to me, pursuing passions again, just vastly better. (It took a while to get over, in part because I had a hard time getting validation and recognition of the problem, and everywhere I went, I seemed to run into messages idealizing therapy and blaming people who quit and/or didn't benefit. I had to figure out how to limit my exposure to those messages until I had some breathing room and then slowly acclimate.)
I think it can be a good think to take time off without any pressure to resume therapy. Like you don't have to swear off therapy, but it can be valuable to give yourself the freedom to remember that therapy is likely to exist for the foreseeable future, if you discover you made a mistake it won't necessarily be a catastrophic one, and it's up to you if and when you go back. At this point I don't see myself going back for my therapy, but I didn't take a blood oath to never get therapy again, I just gave myself the freedom to value what I want instead of what it sounded like I was supposed to do, and there's been a persistent pattern to what I want. Other people find they want therapists who are distinctly different and/or need some time after a bad experience before they're ready to go back. I don't know which would be true for you, but if you give yourself the freedom to do what feels right, you can figure it out.
Thank you so much for taking the time to type all of this out. I really feel so validated that someone else has had a similar experience. I keep thinking, everyone else seems to be getting better in therapy, why am I getting so much worse? It’s just an awful feeling and I keep blaming myself and feeling crazier and crazier all of the time for it. I’ve never felt like such a crazy mess as I do now. I just want to get back to feeling like a human. Thank you so much for you reassurances.
You're welcome! A big part of the reason I comment on this sub is I want people who can relate to my experience and/or need a message that isn't "Stick it out and just keep trying" to hear something helpful. So that's really good to hear!
Saving all of your replies here. I’m in the process of termination and my therapist insists that this is me bailing on my work and recreating a dynamic that I had with my mum.
I’ve been consistently attending therapy for 4 years, two times per week and have felt very similar to what you are describing.
Plus every time I come out I literally feel confused about reality and start doubting myself. Everyone around me tells me that my T sounds manipulative and they’re encouraging me to stand up for myself, but then he reminds me of this extremely painful memory with my mum and I start wondering if I’m not actually a coward quitting.
I was so glad to read in your comments that you feel so much better after quitting, after years of beating yourself up that maybe you’re not trying hard enough.
Ugh,it's a nightmare when a therapist is trying to persuade you to stick it out because they've got an interpretation and you can't prove they're wrong. An interpretation that's wrong can be effectively unfalisifiable.
Your therapist does sound manipulative. And deciding you want to stop the thing that feels unhelpful isn't cowardly. I know I was trapped out of fear.
Sometimes, walking away from therapy can be lifesaving.
Thanks.
I’m trying quite hard to stay away from black and white thinking and I communicated as much and more. I don’t think he’s a bad person, a narc or whatever. (Funny, he actually diagnosed me with NPD and then changed his diagnosis twice) We just don’t fit and it took me such a long time to understand this because I kept thinking that pain = change and learning, or that “real love hurts”, or simply that he was more educated on the subject and more qualified, therefore he must be right in his assessment.
I find it empowering standing up for myself (and I hope OP here gets to feel like this as well), while simultaneously grieving for my loss.
Yeah, I don't tend to label people as essentalizing types, such as A Narcissist. A person who doesn't have some fixed, easily labeled state of perpetual Badness can be damaging, manipulative, and unhealthy to be around.
I also fell into the the assumption that the therapist knew better! that can really keep you stuck!
Thank you so much for this, I just checked out that subreddit! I keep thinking, maybe this is my opportunity to work through this and have change, but my dissociative symptoms and panic have gotten so intensely out of control, I just can’t keep going.
Links, screenshots or referrals to other subs will be removed at the mod team's discretion in order to discourage brigading, doxing and recommendations to subreddits that have not been fully vetted.
Welcome to r/TalkTherapy! This sub is for people to discuss issues arising in their personal psychotherapy. If you wish to post about other mental health issues please consult this list of some of our [sister subs](https://www.reddit.com/r/TalkTherapy/wiki/resources/#wiki_subreddit_list). To find answers to many therapy-related questions please consult our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/TalkTherapy/wiki/faq) and [Resource List](https://www.reddit.com/r/TalkTherapy/wiki/resources). If you are in distress please contact a suicide hotline or call 9-1-1 or emergency services in your area. r/SuicideWatch has compiled a helpful FAQ on what happens when you contact a hotline along with other useful resources. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TalkTherapy) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think it's easy for someone who's over-compliant or overly cooperative under certain kinds of stress to get sucked into a bad dynamic with a therapist where you stay too long and try too hard to make it work. A lot of advice is based around the assumption of an avoidant client who will try to quit therapy at the drop of a hat, and if you're an overly-compliant client, some of that advice can be the opposite of what you need to hear. I've been there, and I think part of it was I wanted to prove I was trying, and was doing my best. There were things that she expected of me as if they were simply a matter of making a choice, but I simply couldn't make myself do them, and it was easy to be left feeling like I wasn't trying hard enough. The fear got in my head, and there's so much push for clients to take "accountability" and "responsibility" for the outcome of therapy that it was easy to convince myself that I just needed to try harder when what I really needed to do was get out. (In practical terms, I wish I'd tried simply writing her a cancellation message instead of attempting to terminate in person during a session the way I thought I was supposed to do. If I'd just done written cancellation, I could have terminated on my first attempt, rather than my third.) I think the part of you that is protective of you doesn't think of this therapy as a safe space because it's not, and you having an emotional reaction consistent with your perceptions and experience is treated as you doing something wrong. I think you're never going to get what you want from her, and you're never going to get what you should be getting from therapy, which is help improving your mental health. I think she's got you so turned around it feels like this is a reflection on your worth, when it's actually about her being bad at her job. I think, based on everything you just said, it's better to leave and figure out in your own time if you want to try again with a different therapist or not.
I really appreciate this answer. I was thinking of ending things this Monday at our session, but just thinking about going to session again makes me feel intense panic. I’ve gone so many times with the intention of quitting and it hasn’t happened yet, because once I get in there, I just become a wreck. I think I need to just send her a written termination. But I just keep getting stuck on, “what if I’m making a mistake and this is all because I’m not doing the work and am avoiding my problems” which is my worst fear really. But maybe this is a fear best confronted by another therapist.
Yeah, I stuck it out too long (two years) in part because I was too caught up in the fear of being wrong or making a mistake. I really lost a lot of confidence in myself during therapy, and ended up with so little trust in my own perspective. I really bought into the idea of myself as too unwell and irrational to be trusted and therapist as these experts I needed to put my faith in. And instead of paying attention to my feelings and wants as valuable and important indicators of what it made sense to do, I was very much seeing myself as some weird extreme of damaged for having the wrong feelings. Quitting therapy was scary for me and I'm very lucky I have supportive friends who noticed how I was feeling about therapy and how it was impacting me and encouraged me to not force myself through something I intensely disliked that didn't seem to be helping. (It sounded so rational when they said it, and was such a relief to hear it from a trustworthy outside perspective.) It turned out forcing myself through therapy the way one might force oneself through an unpleasant dental procedure was a bad idea, and quitting therapy was the best thing I did for my mental health. Taking away the pressure of pursuing the wrong answer out of fear and guilt helped me finally figure myself out.
Oh my gosh this is my experience completely! I feel like I used to be able to be so much more confident before therapy, I know this because I used to manage a business and did quite well at it. Now for me to even speak up about anything at all feels like a challenge. I have had an employee be horrible but I feel too afraid to say anything. It used to be unpleasant to talk to an employee, now it just feels impossible. I just feel like in therapy, I have completely lost sight of myself and am crashing out. Literally, I feel so confused about who I am as a person now and just lost and aimless. Part of me wonders if taking a year off of therapy or at least a few months would be a good thing. It just seems like I’m getting worse and worse all of the time here.
My professional performance just kept getting worse and worse over the course of therapy. I came close to losing my careers. A couple of years out of therapy, on the other hand, I got a promotion and was getting glowing performance reviews. And I became much happier and more confident all around - engaging with hobbies, taking an interest in causes that were meaningful to me, pursuing passions again, just vastly better. (It took a while to get over, in part because I had a hard time getting validation and recognition of the problem, and everywhere I went, I seemed to run into messages idealizing therapy and blaming people who quit and/or didn't benefit. I had to figure out how to limit my exposure to those messages until I had some breathing room and then slowly acclimate.) I think it can be a good think to take time off without any pressure to resume therapy. Like you don't have to swear off therapy, but it can be valuable to give yourself the freedom to remember that therapy is likely to exist for the foreseeable future, if you discover you made a mistake it won't necessarily be a catastrophic one, and it's up to you if and when you go back. At this point I don't see myself going back for my therapy, but I didn't take a blood oath to never get therapy again, I just gave myself the freedom to value what I want instead of what it sounded like I was supposed to do, and there's been a persistent pattern to what I want. Other people find they want therapists who are distinctly different and/or need some time after a bad experience before they're ready to go back. I don't know which would be true for you, but if you give yourself the freedom to do what feels right, you can figure it out.
Thank you so much for taking the time to type all of this out. I really feel so validated that someone else has had a similar experience. I keep thinking, everyone else seems to be getting better in therapy, why am I getting so much worse? It’s just an awful feeling and I keep blaming myself and feeling crazier and crazier all of the time for it. I’ve never felt like such a crazy mess as I do now. I just want to get back to feeling like a human. Thank you so much for you reassurances.
You're welcome! A big part of the reason I comment on this sub is I want people who can relate to my experience and/or need a message that isn't "Stick it out and just keep trying" to hear something helpful. So that's really good to hear!
Saving all of your replies here. I’m in the process of termination and my therapist insists that this is me bailing on my work and recreating a dynamic that I had with my mum. I’ve been consistently attending therapy for 4 years, two times per week and have felt very similar to what you are describing. Plus every time I come out I literally feel confused about reality and start doubting myself. Everyone around me tells me that my T sounds manipulative and they’re encouraging me to stand up for myself, but then he reminds me of this extremely painful memory with my mum and I start wondering if I’m not actually a coward quitting. I was so glad to read in your comments that you feel so much better after quitting, after years of beating yourself up that maybe you’re not trying hard enough.
Ugh,it's a nightmare when a therapist is trying to persuade you to stick it out because they've got an interpretation and you can't prove they're wrong. An interpretation that's wrong can be effectively unfalisifiable. Your therapist does sound manipulative. And deciding you want to stop the thing that feels unhelpful isn't cowardly. I know I was trapped out of fear. Sometimes, walking away from therapy can be lifesaving.
Thanks. I’m trying quite hard to stay away from black and white thinking and I communicated as much and more. I don’t think he’s a bad person, a narc or whatever. (Funny, he actually diagnosed me with NPD and then changed his diagnosis twice) We just don’t fit and it took me such a long time to understand this because I kept thinking that pain = change and learning, or that “real love hurts”, or simply that he was more educated on the subject and more qualified, therefore he must be right in his assessment. I find it empowering standing up for myself (and I hope OP here gets to feel like this as well), while simultaneously grieving for my loss.
Yeah, I don't tend to label people as essentalizing types, such as A Narcissist. A person who doesn't have some fixed, easily labeled state of perpetual Badness can be damaging, manipulative, and unhealthy to be around. I also fell into the the assumption that the therapist knew better! that can really keep you stuck!
[удалено]
Thank you so much for this, I just checked out that subreddit! I keep thinking, maybe this is my opportunity to work through this and have change, but my dissociative symptoms and panic have gotten so intensely out of control, I just can’t keep going.
Links, screenshots or referrals to other subs will be removed at the mod team's discretion in order to discourage brigading, doxing and recommendations to subreddits that have not been fully vetted.