It felt like a skylight was closing as I saw my therapist transform from someone who hurt me sometimes but I could still see that she had some jewel faucets for healing deep inside of her to someone who turned into a cloud of muck.
One thing I noticed from working with a ton of therapists at the women’s shelter is that (sadly) I realized in working with them that what these therapists were really doing is that they were making their client’s private therapy sessions about themselves which is completely unfair because not only did the individuals I’m sure think that their therapists were there for them instead of themselves but also each individual is a completely different.
With my old therapist I wish that she had let me do it my own way. I tend to write my pain in stories, anthonlogies, and mythologies (this is why I have this blog) and I was curious if there was a different way to author or heal the story with using the knowledge and the training that she had as a therapist so that way I had a new way to write the story but also hopefully have certain tools so that way I won’t be continually writing the same story on repeat.
I wish she hadn’t changed her techniques every time – that was very difficult and jarring for me. It was really confusing and made me feel scared.
I wish she hadn’t gone into attack mode every time she felt insecure because when she did that I went into a “fawn response” (fawn, fear, frozen, or flight are ways people who have been traumatized can react to stressful events in) and couldn’t participate safely in the therapy.
She looked so apathetic and bored out of her mind when she would ask, “What do you want to talk about?” And I was so desperate for help that even though deep in my spirit I knew better, I was vulnerable and told stuff to someone who it wasn’t safe to be that vulnerable with.
It was traumatizing to advocate for myself so what when I was in such a broken with the organization that was subsidizing the therapy services. The person who helped me though was and is such a sweet heart, I’m grateful that she was there to go too in even just some small capacity because otherwise I would have had the entire therapy experience be a black mark experience in my brain, such a negative experience. But this lady was kind and listened but I kept on saying that something had gone really wrong and was trying to advocate with her for myself without having the ability to have the words too. Or knowing how to really describe it – therapy was traumatizing me. Not because of what we were talking about but because of how the therapist was acting, and then on top of it – I had a breakdown by myself into so many pieces like it was like china shattering on the ground and tried to pick them up while in a compromised state by myself (thank goodness I had a girlfriend in another state and my mom who just stayed on the phone with me while I cried) I cried and cried at just how unfunctional therapy had left me. I couldn’t do the most basic things. Things that you need to do in everyday life, especially when you only have yourself to rely on and you don’t have anyone else.
This lady (who ran the organization who had subsided the therapy) was kind and listened but I kept writing her sharing that something was serious wrong with how therapy was going with me. She herself is a therapist and she spoke to her colleagues and an art therapist (I had asked if her if the organization provided connections with art therapist or somatic therapists). She was able to find an art therapist ( everyone who works with this organization has to be vetted because of the type of organization that it is because it works with a population of people that most people in the world aren’t familiar with – or rather they are familiar with but we are a highly stigmatized group).
When the art therapist heard what happened to me (I had a complete somatic psychotic breakdown – or at least that’s what I’m calling it) she refused to work with me which I really wish my old therapist had done in the first place.
I had told her my signs and symptoms and shared what happened to me in a coaching experience I had last year which had dived into and opened my traumas (without me fulling realizing it) and I had an extremely bad psychic and physical reaction too. Yes, she (my old therapist) made a safety plan but even the next session when I asked her a question about my safety plan I received push back on it! The bottom line is that I was above what she was capable of providing for.
And then, when I sat in front of her broken she acted like it was normal, “It’s supposed to be this bad.” Lady I couldn’t remember my login for my bank account. Therapy shouldn’t ever do this to people.
And even in that broken state not only can I feel her physically hating on me because I can read minds. But she felt the need to drive in the nail further when all my defenses were down by mentioning, “See, this happened before to you – you said this happened before. Right? Right? Right?” As if I’m just supposed to say yes!! Which I really don’t think I did but the session is hazy.
Just because my body is reacting this badly to trauma doesn’t mean it’s my fault it is.
She did look a little bit concerned which I’m grateful for that – she told me I was disassociated which I knew too.
The beautiful thing is that without even meeting me the art therapist knew instantly to ask the therapist with the organization that was subsidizing the therapy and asked her a to ask me a question and in response to my answer to her follow up question she knew that what I needed was a somatic therapist.
That’s not the end of it. To throw the trash can over when my old therapist had already puta lid on it – my therapist’s supervisor emailed me celebrating my symptoms and saying that means that therapy is working. Inferring that I was supposed to be this broken from therapy. Chic! I could barely wash myself in the shower because I couldn’t remember how to use the soap or how to walk to the bathroom. Don’t me me that there therapy is working when I’m going through something like that!
I asked for help and it wasn’t there.