Question:

I dumped my T yesterday. I’m tired of therapy. I want to recover from its damage. I’m cynical and bitter. Spoilered bc I don’t like therapy and I bc I’m tired of having to fit in a mold of either being multiple (bc that’s the model) or "resistant" (bc I do not want to let someone else define me or my reality) or beyond hope. (Those of you who have issues wrt dissoid singletons vs. multiples should probably read this only if you’re up to it.) One splatted curse word. Nothing graphic. 1 1 1 1 1 1 I dumped my T yesterday. It was our last session. I dumped him partly bc we’re stuck wrt the "Haldol" issues (I have some nasty side effects from drugs that my T prescribed for me) and partly bc we’re stuck bc I don’t fit my T’s model. (I refuse to change in order to do so – I have this bizarre and apparently delusional belief that therapeutic models should accurately describe the client instead of the client contorting hirself to fit a model.) The session went ok. We were both courteous. What could either of us say: my T has probably damaged my nervous system, perhaps permanently, and I’m not a multiple, despite his unyielding conviction to the contrary for the last 2 years? (Although, ironically, I’m closer to being a multiple since taking Haldol than before. I think that my dopaminergic system must affect this. So to the extent that I am multiple, I believe that it’s iatrogenic. Sometimes I think that the drugs and part of my therapy were unconscious ploys to make me a multiple so that my T would know how to help me. I wish we could have talked about it instead. I repeatedly tried.) Some good things happened: My T acknowledged (finally) that he felt guilty bc I shake a lot and sometimes become disoriented and confused as a result of the drugs he prescribed for me. My T acknowledged (finally) that he didn’t know how to help someone who dissociates a lot but who isn’t multiple. Imo, he should have acknowledged these things a long time ago so that we could deal with them openly. (I’d been raising the drug issues since Feb and the multiple issue for over a year now.) Instead, we went through numerous iterations of projection and projective identification. (I’d repeatedly told him that, too.) By last week, things were so muddled that I don’t think either of us had much of a clue as to who was thinking or feeling what about anything. (I kept having visions of us trying to play The Five Seasons, which combines classical and jazz music. We kept becoming each other and trying to play each other’s part. My T would understand that on every odd iteration of our mutual projective identification – when he was me – but not on the even iterations – e.g., when he was himself but only as seen by me as seen (and projected) by him. In the end, each of us had played and been every instrument in the orchestra and were waiting eagerly to add our Gregorian chants and electric guitar solos. This is working through something?) Some bad things happened:  My T gave me the tired old line about hoping that I would continue therapy, he thought that it would help me, yadda, yadda, yadda. He said that he is basically a psychodynamic psychotherapist who has worked with a lot of traumatized (and dissoid) clients. That he basically works from a psychodynamic model but understands and uses the trauma model. That I probably need a therapist who works from a trauma model, but who has a good understanding of psychodynamics. And that most Ts probably wouldn’t be able to help me. (I’d already assumed that, although ime few, if any, will tell me so.) Why should I continue therapy? Why does he think it will help me? I’ve been in therapy for over 3 years and I’ve just gotten worse. I went to therapy to help with concentration problems. Now I have PTSD, dyskinesia, and probably dementia. (I seem to be doing ok today, although I’m taking extra drugs and I’ve been working on this post for a few days.) It’s much harder for me to trust ppl now, esp doctors and therapists (and I was very suspicious when I began therapy). I feel used up. My brain and body are broken. I’m a dead woman walking. I was not that way when I started therapy. If I would have known how much damage therapy would cause, I’d never have started. I don’t think I can safely risk more therapy. My T told me that he thought that things would work out if I found the right therapist. But he also said that he thought that I was "a complex person with a complex problem." And that the way I dissociated was different than the way most ppl do. I’m not a multiple and I don’t have the "not quite DID" DDNOS. That he thought that the way I dissociated was more complex and difficult to work with than that. Bc I was puzzled (and not sure if my memory was accurate), I asked "Didn’t I tell you all that when we first started working together? That the DID model was wrong for me in many fundamental ways but that it was probably closer than any other model I knew about? And that what was going on was complicated?" He acknowledged that I had. So, given that in the very beginning I told him all the things that made my therapy unworkable, how am I supposed to find a therapist who can help me?  How am I supposed to trust any therapist to believe me/take me seriously, know hir own limitations, and be honest (with hirself and with me) about whether sie can help me? I don’t get it. I also don’t understand how I’m supposed to work in therapy when my brain is messed up from the drugs he’d prescribed. He acknowledged that I probably should deal with that first. At least he finally acknowledged that he didn’t know how to help me bc I didn’t fit the dissociative model. I’ve been feeling for a long time that he hoped that I had DID bc then he’d probably know how to help me. I felt pressured to become multiple if I wanted to get better. My T never said that but I felt it strongly. When I brought it up, he never directly acknowledged it, although he acknowledged that all the dissociative literature he knew about essentially treated dissociation as some type or level of multiplicity. And that he wasn’t sure how therapy should work if I wasn’t multiple. But that it should work anyway. (Neither of us said directly that it wasn’t working, although I often questioned whether it was.) This bothers me. A lot. Why should Ts pressure anyone into becoming anything just bc it fits their model? Why should I become multiple just bc the ppl who constructed the models saw trauma and dissociation through that lens? Maybe the model fits most ppl. But maybe one of the reasons some ppl question their dx (which is very common among dissoids) is bc the model is close but doesn’t really fit. Maybe they’re torn between struggling to fit the model, to view themselves and their reality through their therapist’s lens, and feeling like they are hopeless, they are isolated, and they are incomprehensible to one of the few ppl who have ever acknowledged their trauma and its importance to their lives. That they are somehow bad or resistant if they aren’t like their T sees them? That they aren’t pleasing a powerful, important person (like a parent) who means a lot to them? That if they just please this person maybe someone will finally help them deal with all this sh*t? I suspect that sometimes the clients are denying their multiplicity but that sometimes the therapists are denying their clients’ reality bc they just don’t get it and it’s easier to create a self-fufilling prophecy by unconsciously encouraging (often implicitly) their clients to view themselves as multiple (solely for the client’s benefit, of course, so that they can heal). Oh, and I just wanted to tell the ppl here who know me this bc it’s so funny. My T said that instead of creating alters, he thinks I dissociate and mentally/intellectually work all the way through a problem. Apparently the consultant we saw a few weeks ago told him this after working with me for an hour or two. ROTFL bc it’s so obvious and I’d been telling him that all along, esp the stuff re: the wormholes and alternate universes (one of my primary metaphors). I still don’t think he understands that if I can’t do that, I’m *completely* lost. And that the drugs have made it hard for me to do that. Not that what he understands matters at this point. I guess I’m done rambling for now. Any ideas on recovering from therapy?       Visualize honest, empowering, beneficial therapy.    e — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:

Response:

e, My heart goes out to you.   Please bear with the following – it is meant to offer hope, not just to tell our story and praise our T: In 1983, I (we) had what we call the "breakdown".  A result of therapy.   Resistant was his favorite word. He was ab*sive, but who knew?  It didn’t seem any different than what we were used to. He was confrontive about every single thing we said and did.  Challenged our motives, our perceptions.  He was into gestalt and he ripped us apart emotionally without offering ANY emotional support or substitute for what he took away. Finally we heard what we called the "voice" that said "Go get the kn*fe" and urged, enticed, chanted hypnotically for us to end it all. After that could barely function for years, intensely su*cidal for many years.   Never dreamed life could be that utterly bleak and grueling.   Well, it turned out that what we called the breakdown was the point at which 2 alters split off because of his therapy.  And the "voice" was one of them we found out.   Lived in terror of that voice.  Gave ourselves more PTSD we now laugh a little. The th*rapist was awful.  He also told us he was a pretty good phys*cal spec*men etc. We didn’t see a therapist for 7 years.  Did tons of journaling etc, but just too scared to see another th*rapist. After a su*ic*de attempt in 1991, we met our current T in the hospital.  Worked with her in group.  Liked her, trusted nobody.  (The attempt was the result of a doctor we had trusted betraying us).   But called the hospital after we got out and got her name and saved it and saw her in group 2 years later for a while, when one of the younger alters was out. Then a few years ago started seeing her individually. When we hit a stalemate in the therapy last year or year and a half – we were too scared to deal with any other issues because we felt so vulnerable with her so we had to just stop and deal with that.  She was SO patient and validating of our fears.  And in time we began to trust her just a little bit, and then a little bit more.  Slow like molasses. Now she said she thought that the reason a lot of th*rapy didn’t "take" was our trust issues, but she has learned from us to be more open to other possibilities (like being multiple in our case – we totally fit the dx). Imagine that!  And we think she stands head and shoulders above ANY other th*rapist we’ve ever known.  Both in terms of insight, compassion, feeling safe, and being strong enough to say and do stuff we might not like but for our own good.  At one time we looked for support groups for people damaged by th*rapy, wrote an article called "Is Th*rapy Tearing Down the Walls We Build to Survive?" and tried briefly to market it to magazines before overload. Anyway, I know how tough it can be and how hard (if not impossible) it is to trust after such sh*t. I want to say that you can look for another T if you want to, and you don’t have to trust right away.  I would even say Don’t trust right away.  Let them earn your trust, wait till you feel safe.  Their willingness to do that and to be open to YOUR reality and to set aside their egos and preconceptions are good benchmarks for assessing them, IMHO. Hard to believe there are any like that probably.  But there are.  Few and far between, but well worth looking for. Don’t suppose you know and trust anybody who might recommend somebody?  Maybe if you say what area you live in somebody here can recommend someone. My own experience is that the masters level people are generally less ego involved and more helpful than the MD or PHD types.  But of course it helps for them to have experience with heavy duty type stuff. Just know they aren’t all like your former one.  As totally impossible as I once thought it would be to trust a th*rapist, I do now to an extent that is unbelievable and it has been such a positive experience.  Like healing a lot of the pain of other messed up medical/T type relationships. There is hope.  You may not be ready to act now.  May need a break, may need to regroup.  But just want you to know there IS hope. Best wishes!! Todoe "May fortune favor the foolish."                                    Captain James T. Kirk        About to attempt time travel to retrieve      2 humpback whales from the past to save the world.              ( "Voyage Home"  Star Trek movie.)                       O.W.L. Productions — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:

Response:

I don’t have to spoiler this. I want to say to e that I am happy for you to have lost this T who assumes patients as models of "what ever" disorder??? I have never heard of such a thing as fitting into a mold such as discribed in a book. I have heard terms such as "classic case of PTSD" but not in a way that one "classic" would be even close to the next "classic". What you discrib sounds so in human. I have been in therapy consistently for over 6 years and in different groups and workshops. Some helped and some didn’t. My T will sometimes say something like, "I read in ______ that you ever felt that way? (or) Do you think that is true? Have you ever heard one of your Dis. friends say they felt like that?".

Hi, Denise. Thanks for replying.  :)  I didn’t explain myself very well. My T never said that I should be DID. That was my dx so obviously that’s what he thought and expected. And since he expected it, I felt like I should be it. If I talked about how it bothered me that he thought I was/expected me to be DID, he’d say that my dx didn’t matter to him. But obviously that wasn’t the case bc he wouldn’t change it to a socially-acceptable dx like dysthymic disorder. He did say he’d change it to DDNOS if it was important to me. (Oh. I see. You’re denying that it’s important to you but I’m supposed to be un-PC and say that it’s important to me so that then you can say – to yourself – that I’m tripping over this and it’s probably bc I’m in denial bc I’m really DID. No thanks. I told him that it didn’t matter to me. Besides, there’s so little difference between DID and DDNOS that I didn’t care much which one of those it was.) Since he wouldn’t talk about my dx being important, significant or meaningful (I tried all kinds of synonyms to him, not only did I have to deal with him expecting me to be DID, I had to deal with him denying that he expected me to be that. So things just got worse bc then I felt like I couldn’t talk to him about it since (1) the only acceptable thing for him to say was that my dx didn’t matter to him and (2) it would just confirm his impression that I was upset with the dx bc I was really DID. I couldn’t ask him why he didn’t want to talk about it being important bc he was denying it. I couldn’t ask him why he wouldn’t change my dx since it wasn’t important or meaningful to him. (Although I did try. I just didn’t get anywhere. And I kept trying to figure out why he wouldn’t talk to me about it: Did he think I was too fragile? Was he afraid that he didn’t know what was going on? Was this some weird boundary issue? I thought of lots of possibilities. It would have been so much simpler if he would have just come out and said that my dx was important/meaningful/whatever to him. (I tried being un-PC a few times and acknowledging that it was important to me but that got me nowhere. Oh well.) I think the professionals I have been involved with so far don’t really believe what they see or read in professional journals, books or such. They may believe that it is true for that one person but not everyone as a mold. I am sorry you had this experience. It is sad that professionals would rather fit you into some type of research someone else has done to give you a lable rather than to listen to you as an individual and know that each person’s experience is different. I think that is lazy on the part of the professional.

I think in his case he was just trying to figure out what was going on and how he could help me. I think he worked really hard to try to figure those things out. I just don’t think that he ever did. I love my therapy sessions and gain a lot from them.

I’m glad. (: Maybe I have always leaned toward a T who hasn’t had much experience in my particular disorder but who is willing to say when we meet, "But, I would be happy to learn more about it if you feel comfortable with knowing that we will grow in knowledge together with this." Something to that effect anyway.

I’m glad that works for you.  I tried that with my first, clueless T. Not that he admitted to being extremely clueless. Not that he ever learned much. ~ It sounds like your Ts have been better than my first one.  :) FWIW, both my T friends and every T who’s ever worked with (or even tested me, has said that I need someone who’s really knowledgable and experienced. I guess I’m just (1) weird and (2) a strange combination of incredibly vulnerable and incredibly well-defended. (When I first started therapy one of my T friends told me "You’d be really hard to work with bc your T would have to hit a bullseye just about every time or you’d either deflect what sie said – and you’d do that most of the time – or you’d fall completely apart." Her impressions were confirmed by my psych eval. 3 SDs on most measures of each. Only 2 SDs on some of them, though. Ditto to Domino’s post. You do sound releived.

Thanks, Denise and Domino. I appreciate your support. It feels good. I’m not sure that relieved is the right word. I think I’m relieved and devastated and all kinds of other things that I haven’t begun to deal with yet.     e — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:

Response:

e, Going below your spoiler to share some of my similar experiences. I dumped my T yesterday. I’m tired of therapy. I want to recover from its damage. I’m cynical and bitter.

:( – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Spoilered bc I don’t like therapy and I bc I’m tired of having to fit in a mold of either being multiple (bc that’s the model) or "resistant" (bc I do not want to let someone else define me or my reality) or beyond hope. (Those of you who have issues wrt dissoid singletons vs. multiples should probably read this only if you’re up to it.) One splatted curse word. Nothing graphic. 1 1 1 1 1 1 I dumped my T yesterday. It was our last session. I dumped him partly bc we’re stuck wrt the "Haldol" issues (I have some nasty side effects from drugs that my T prescribed for me) and partly bc we’re stuck bc I don’t fit my T’s model. (I refuse to change in order to do so – I have this bizarre and apparently delusional belief that therapeutic models should accurately describe the client instead of the client contorting hirself to fit a model.)

I am glad you took care of yourself by terminating therapy that was doing more harm than good. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The session went ok. We were both courteous. What could either of us say: my T has probably damaged my nervous system, perhaps permanently, and I’m not a multiple, despite his unyielding conviction to the contrary for the last 2 years? (Although, ironically, I’m closer to being a multiple since taking Haldol than before. I think that my dopaminergic system must affect this. So to the extent that I am multiple, I believe that it’s iatrogenic. Sometimes I think that the drugs and part of my therapy were unconscious ploys to make me a multiple so that my T would know how to help me. I wish we could have talked about it instead. I repeatedly tried.) Some good things happened: My T acknowledged (finally) that he felt guilty bc I shake a lot and sometimes become disoriented and confused as a result of the drugs he prescribed for me. My T acknowledged (finally) that he didn’t know how to help someone who dissociates a lot but who isn’t multiple. Imo, he should have acknowledged these things a long time ago so that we could deal with them openly.

I agree!  (I’d been raising the drug issues – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – since Feb and the multiple issue for over a year now.) Instead, we went through numerous iterations of projection and projective identification. (I’d repeatedly told him that, too.) By last week, things were so muddled that I don’t think either of us had much of a clue as to who was thinking or feeling what about anything. (I kept having visions of us trying to play The Five Seasons, which combines classical and jazz music. We kept becoming each other and trying to play each other’s part. My T would understand that on every odd iteration of our mutual projective identification – when he was me – but not on the even iterations – e.g., when he was himself but only as seen by me as seen (and projected) by him. In the end, each of us had played and been every instrument in the orchestra and were waiting eagerly to add our Gregorian chants and electric guitar solos. This is working through something?) Some bad things happened:  My T gave me the tired old line about hoping that I would continue therapy, he thought that it would help me, yadda, yadda, yadda. He said that he is basically a psychodynamic psychotherapist who has worked with a lot of traumatized (and dissoid) clients. That he basically works from a psychodynamic model but understands and uses the trauma model. That I probably need a therapist who works from a trauma model, but who has a good understanding of psychodynamics. And that most Ts probably wouldn’t be able to help me. (I’d already assumed that, although ime few, if any, will tell me so.) Why should I continue therapy? Why does he think it will help me? I’ve been in therapy for over 3 years and I’ve just gotten worse. I went to therapy to help with concentration problems. Now I have PTSD, dyskinesia, and probably dementia. (I seem to be doing ok today, although I’m taking extra drugs and I’ve been working on this post for a few days.) It’s much harder for me to trust ppl now, esp doctors and therapists (and I was very suspicious when I began therapy). I feel used up. My brain and body are broken. I’m a dead woman walking.

I’m sorry you feel this way. I was not that way when I started therapy. If I would have known how much damage therapy would cause, I’d never have started. I don’t think I can safely risk more therapy. My T told me that he thought that things would work out if I found the right therapist. But he also said that he thought that I was "a complex person with a complex problem." And that the way I dissociated was different than the way most ppl do. I’m not a multiple and I don’t have the "not quite DID" DDNOS. That he thought that the way I dissociated was more complex and difficult to work with than that.

Difficult to work with?  More likely outside of his experience.  I have worked with several therapists in a group for s*xual ab*se survivors who worked on dissociation issues that had nothing to do with having parts or alters.  There are therapists out there who do this type of work. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Bc I was puzzled (and not sure if my memory was accurate), I asked "Didn’t I tell you all that when we first started working together? That the DID model was wrong for me in many fundamental ways but that it was probably closer than any other model I knew about? And that what was going on was complicated?" He acknowledged that I had. So, given that in the very beginning I told him all the things that made my therapy unworkable, how am I supposed to find a therapist who can help me?  How am I supposed to trust any therapist to believe me/take me seriously, know hir own limitations, and be honest (with hirself and with me) about whether sie can help me? I don’t get it. I also don’t understand how I’m supposed to work in therapy when my brain is messed up from the drugs he’d prescribed. He acknowledged that I probably should deal with that first. At least he finally acknowledged that he didn’t know how to help me bc I didn’t fit the dissociative model. I’ve been feeling for a long time that he hoped that I had DID bc then he’d probably know how to help me. I felt pressured to become multiple if I wanted to get better. My T never said that but I felt it strongly. When I brought it up, he never directly acknowledged it, although he acknowledged that all the dissociative literature he knew about essentially treated dissociation as some type or level of multiplicity. And that he wasn’t sure how therapy should work if I wasn’t multiple. But that it should work anyway. (Neither of us said directly that it wasn’t working, although I often questioned whether it was.) This bothers me. A lot. Why should Ts pressure anyone into becoming anything just bc it fits their model? Why should I become multiple just bc the ppl who constructed the models saw trauma and dissociation through that lens? Maybe the model fits most ppl. But maybe one of the reasons some ppl question their dx (which is very common among dissoids) is bc the model is close but doesn’t really fit. Maybe they’re torn between struggling to fit the model, to view themselves and their reality through their therapist’s lens, and feeling like they are hopeless, they are isolated, and they are incomprehensible to one of the few ppl who have ever acknowledged their trauma and its importance to their lives. That they are somehow bad or resistant if they aren’t like their T sees them? That they aren’t pleasing a powerful, important person (like a parent) who means a lot to them? That if they just please this person maybe someone will finally help them deal with all this sh*t?

I am sorry you felt pressured to mold yourself to fit your therapist’s view of you.  I’m sorry you felt hopeless, misunderstood and isolated. I’m sorry you were led to believe that you were bad or resistant.  I’m sorry you felt that you couldn’t please someone as important to you as your therapist.  I’m sorry you didn’t get the help you deserved.  You deserved so much better than this. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I suspect that sometimes the clients are denying their multiplicity but that sometimes the therapists are denying their clients’ reality bc they just don’t get it and it’s easier to create a self-fufilling prophecy by unconsciously encouraging (often implicitly) their clients to view themselves as multiple (solely for the client’s benefit, of course, so that they can heal). Oh, and I just wanted to tell the ppl here who know me this bc it’s so funny. My T said that instead of creating alters, he thinks I dissociate and mentally/intellectually work all the way through a problem. Apparently the consultant we saw a few weeks ago told him this after working with me for an hour or two. ROTFL bc it’s so obvious and I’d been telling him that all along, esp the stuff re: the wormholes and alternate universes (one of my primary metaphors). I still don’t think he understands that if I can’t do that, I’m *completely* lost. And that the drugs have made it hard for me to do that. Not that what he understands matters at this point. I guess I’m done rambling for now. Any ideas on recovering from therapy? Visualize honest, empowering, beneficial therapy.    e

Just wanted to share my experience with you.  I went through 3 1/2 years of therapy with a therapist who specializes in dissociative disorders. I thought we were doing all the right things in therapy for me to get better.  I thought he was a good therapist.  He did make a major mistake in dismissing and barely working … read more »

Response:

Good for you, e; I’ve heard that line too, "oh you are complex…,: yea, right I have figured everything out for solicitudes over the internet in a couple of months. Those lines from therapists are total lack on the therapist’s part to refer you to someone who could benefit you or at least try to help you. by the way, I am assuming you have an internist, right? That’s all I have, an internist and the internet. I am doing better with this combination certainly. zondra the healer – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I dumped my T yesterday. I’m tired of therapy. I want to recover from its damage. I’m cynical and bitter. Spoilered bc I don’t like therapy and I bc I’m tired of having to fit in a mold of either being multiple (bc that’s the model) or "resistant" (bc I do not want to let someone else define me or my reality) or beyond hope. (Those of you who have issues wrt dissoid singletons vs. multiples should probably read this only if you’re up to it.) One splatted curse word.. Nothing graphic. 1 1 1 1 1 1 I dumped my T yesterday. It was our last session. I dumped him partly bc we’re stuck wrt the "Haldol" issues (I have some nasty side effects from drugs that my T prescribed for me) and partly bc we’re stuck bc I don’t fit my T’s model. (I refuse to change in order to do so – I have this bizarre and apparently delusional belief that therapeutic models should accurately describe the client instead of the client contorting hirself to fit a model.) The session went ok. We were both courteous. What could either of us say: my T has probably damaged my nervous system, perhaps permanently, and I’m not a multiple, despite his unyielding conviction to the contrary for the last 2 years? (Although, ironically, I’m closer to being a multiple since taking Haldol than before. I think that my dopaminergic system must affect this. So to the extent that I am multiple, I believe that it’s iatrogenic. Sometimes I think that the drugs and part of my therapy were unconscious ploys to make me a multiple so that my T would know how to help me. I wish we could have talked about it instead. I repeatedly tried.) Some good things happened: My T acknowledged (finally) that he felt guilty bc I shake a lot and sometimes become disoriented and confused as a result of the drugs he prescribed for me. My T acknowledged (finally) that he didn’t know how to help someone who dissociates a lot but who isn’t multiple. Imo, he should have acknowledged these things a long time ago so that we could deal with them openly. (I’d been raising the drug issues since Feb and the multiple issue for over a year now.) Instead, we went through numerous iterations of projection and projective identification. (I’d repeatedly told him that, too.) By last week, things were so muddled that I don’t think either of us had much of a clue as to who was thinking or feeling what about anything. (I kept having visions of us trying to play The Five Seasons, which combines classical and jazz music. We kept becoming each other and trying to play each other’s part. My T would understand that on every odd iteration of our mutual projective identification – when he was me – but not on the even iterations – e.g., when he was himself but only as seen by me as seen (and projected) by him. In the end, each of us had played and been every instrument in the orchestra and were waiting eagerly to add our Gregorian chants and electric guitar solos. This is working through something?) Some bad things happened:  My T gave me the tired old line about hoping that I would continue therapy, he thought that it would help me, yadda, yadda, yadda. He said that he is basically a psychodynamic psychotherapist who has worked with a lot of traumatized (and dissoid) clients. That he basically works from a psychodynamic model but understands and uses the trauma model. That I probably need a therapist who works from a trauma model, but who has a good understanding of psychodynamics. And that most Ts probably wouldn’t be able to help me. (I’d already assumed that, although ime few, if any, will tell me so.) Why should I continue therapy? Why does he think it will help me? I’ve been in therapy for over 3 years and I’ve just gotten worse. I went to therapy to help with concentration problems. Now I have PTSD, dyskinesia, and probably dementia. (I seem to be doing ok today, although I’m taking extra drugs and I’ve been working on this post for a few days.) It’s much harder for me to trust ppl now, esp doctors and therapists (and I was very suspicious when I began therapy). I feel used up. My brain and body are broken. I’m a dead woman walking. I was not that way when I started therapy. If I would have known how much damage therapy would cause, I’d never have started. I don’t think I can safely risk more therapy. My T told me that he thought that things would work out if I found the right therapist. But he also said that he thought that I was "a complex person with a complex problem." And that the way I dissociated was different than the way most ppl do. I’m not a multiple and I don’t have the "not quite DID" DDNOS. That he thought that the way I dissociated was more complex and difficult to work with than that. Bc I was puzzled (and not sure if my memory was accurate), I asked "Didn’t I tell you all that when we first started working together? That the DID model was wrong for me in many fundamental ways but that it was probably closer than any other model I knew about? And that what was going on was complicated?" He acknowledged that I had. So, given that in the very beginning I told him all the things that made my therapy unworkable, how am I supposed to find a therapist who can help me?  How am I supposed to trust any therapist to believe me/take me seriously, know hir own limitations, and be honest (with hirself and with me) about whether sie can help me? I don’t get it. I also don’t understand how I’m supposed to work in therapy when my brain is messed up from the drugs he’d prescribed. He acknowledged that I probably should deal with that first. At least he finally acknowledged that he didn’t know how to help me bc I didn’t fit the dissociative model. I’ve been feeling for a long time that he hoped that I had DID bc then he’d probably know how to help me. I felt pressured to become multiple if I wanted to get better. My T never said that but I felt it strongly. When I brought it up, he never directly acknowledged it, although he acknowledged that all the dissociative literature he knew about essentially treated dissociation as some type or level of multiplicity. And that he wasn’t sure how therapy should work if I wasn’t multiple. But that it should work anyway. (Neither of us said directly that it wasn’t working, although I often questioned whether it was.) This bothers me. A lot. Why should Ts pressure anyone into becoming anything just bc it fits their model? Why should I become multiple just bc the ppl who constructed the models saw trauma and dissociation through that lens? Maybe the model fits most ppl. But maybe one of the reasons some ppl question their dx (which is very common among dissoids) is bc the model is close but doesn’t really fit. Maybe they’re torn between struggling to fit the model, to view themselves and their reality through their therapist’s lens, and feeling like they are hopeless, they are isolated, and they are incomprehensible to one of the few ppl who have ever acknowledged their trauma and its importance to their lives. That they are somehow bad or resistant if they aren’t like their T sees them? That they aren’t pleasing a powerful, important person (like a parent) who means a lot to them? That if they just please this person maybe someone will finally help them deal with all this sh*t? I suspect that sometimes the clients are denying their multiplicity but that sometimes the therapists are denying their clients’ reality bc they just don’t get it and it’s easier to create a self-fufilling prophecy by unconsciously encouraging (often implicitly) their clients to view themselves as multiple (solely for the client’s benefit, of course, so that they can heal). Oh, and I just wanted to tell the ppl here who know me this bc it’s so funny. My T said that instead of creating alters, he thinks I dissociate and mentally/intellectually work all the way through a problem. Apparently the consultant we saw a few weeks ago told him this after working with me for an hour or two. ROTFL bc it’s so obvious and I’d been telling him that all along, esp the stuff re: the wormholes and alternate universes (one of my primary metaphors). I still don’t think he understands that if I can’t do that, I’m *completely* lost. And that the drugs have made it hard for me to do that. Not that what he understands matters at this point. I guess I’m done rambling for now. Any ideas on recovering from therapy?       Visualize honest, empowering, beneficial therapy.    e — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:

– For more information about this service, send e-mail to:

Response:

(Snipped xcept for parts I am replying to.) I dumped my T yesterday. I’m tired of therapy. I want to recover from its damage. I’m cynical and bitter.

It’s funny(funny strange, not funny haha ) )that you mention recovering from  therepy, because often I feel like the whole system is created to keep money  in their pockets and that "real" recovery would mean a loss of clients and  money. I dumped my T yesterday. It was our last session. I dumped him partly bc we’re stuck wrt the "Haldol" issues (I have some nasty side effects from drugs that my T prescribed for me) and partly bc we’re stuck bc I don’t fit my T’s model.

It sure sounds to me like you did the right thing.  Especially since they were  giving you Haldol.  Haldol?  What in the world for?  Were you having any  psychotic episodes?  Even if you were, there are much better anti-psychotic  meds out there with much fewer side effects.  My husband, who is  schizophrenic, was given stelazine, which is pretty bad stuff too, and now he  has a permanent tic in his foot.  Even though it’s been years since he was on  the stuff. (I refuse to change in order to do so – I have this bizarre and apparently delusional belief that therapeutic models should accurately describe the client instead of the client contorting hirself to fit a model.)

Quite right I should say.  I think more people are made sicker that way.  They  prefer the client to conform to something they find "comfortable" treating  because they don’t wish to feel inadequate.  I don’t feel they do this on a  conscious level, I just think it’s partly an ego thing.  They feel like they  should know or you wont have confidence in them. I’m terribly sorry to hear you were on that dreadful medication.  I’ve heard  nothing but terrible things about it.  Risperdal seems much safer.  I was on  that for awhile because of what I used to think was a psychotic episode, but  was really just a little responding in a fearful way. I am slowly weaning myself off of therepy myself, because I can see the  eventual collapse of our mental health system in this area due to lack of  funds and I don’t don’t want to be kicking my Ativan cold turkey, so I just  had her reduce my dose and will continue to do so and I’m seeking out natural  remedies like aromatherepy, herbs, yoga, exercise and other forms of  self-help.  And besides, I’ve gotten more growth and help from this newsgroup  than any therepist I’ve ever had.  Most of them poo-poo the newsgroup and two  therepist have told me that internet "netizens" are a bunch of liars and  wolves in sheeps clothing.  I’m sure that’s true that they are out there, but  they always just seem to come and go and the old reliables stick around.    Hope you find a more hopeful path to recovery for yourself!! BFN, Chris "It comes down to two things:  Get busy livin’ or get busy dy*in’" —–Andy Dufrense

Response:

Hi Denise, You wrote in your post to e: I love my therapy sessions and gain a lot from them.

This comment of yours has me confused. I hope you don’t mind me butting in and  asking you about it. When I leave my t’py sessions I am usually exhausted and emotionally wasted. I  can’t imagine ever saying that I love my sessions. I know they are helping me,  and that eventually the hard work will pay off with some improved  functionality, outlook, etc. For now, they are not very pleasant. Sure, there  are times when there is a sense of accomplishment, but for the most part, it’s  just plain not fun. When you say you love your sessions, is that in the "big picture" sense, or is  it because you are at a point in your recovery where you are past the hard,  painful stuff? Sincerely, Cheryl et al (of Cequinnes) "If we had no broken places, how would our light shine out?"

Response:

 Hi Cheryl, I should have been more specific and no you are not butting in. Most days of T it is generally well known to those in my life who matter that those are non-days. I get up, I go, I come home. If I am productive I write or draw but mostly I sleep or at best try to veg. infront of the TV. |When I leave my t’py sessions I am usually exhausted and emotionally wasted. I | can’t imagine ever saying that I love my sessions. I know they are helping me, | and that eventually the hard work will pay off with some improved | functionality, outlook, etc. For now, they are not very pleasant. Sure, there | are times when there is a sense of accomplishment, but for the most part, it’s | just plain not fun.     I won’t go and repeat every word you said because it is so true. I just equate that this is what I have to go through to get to the other side. Given a choice I would choose the time machine that would jump me over all these years and dump me out in the future when I was all better …. lol. But, sense that is not going to happen I have to say I love my T appointments as you say below: |When you say you love your sessions, is that in the "big picture" sense, or is | it because you are at a point in your recovery where you are past the hard, | painful stuff? In the "big picture" I see so many mentally (for whatever disorder) unable to get the therapy and support they need to help them. They feel overwhelmed and helpless (or at least I should say that is how I would feel). So, instead of saying I love my T appointments I should say I am grateful I can have them. I am grateful I have a computer to get support from others like me and make new friends who "really" understand. I just feel happy that I have some advatages that others don’t have that does speed the recovery along. Or maybe just lets me know I am not doing this deal all by myself. I hope that says better what I meant to say. Blossom — Not asleep for fear of more painful and out of control stuff running around in my head again tonight.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi Cheryl, I should have been more specific and no you are not butting in. Most days of T it is generally well known to those in my life who matter that those are non-days. I get up, I go, I come home. If I am productive I write or draw but mostly I sleep or at best try to veg. infront of the TV. |When I leave my t’py sessions I am usually exhausted and emotionally wasted. I | can’t imagine ever saying that I love my sessions. I know they are helping me, | and that eventually the hard work will pay off with some improved | functionality, outlook, etc. For now, they are not very pleasant. Sure, there | are times when there is a sense of accomplishment, but for the most part, it’s | just plain not fun.    I won’t go and repeat every word you said because it is so true. I just equate that this is what I have to go through to get to the other side. Given a choice I would choose the time machine that would jump me over all these years and dump me out in the future when I was all better …. lol. But, sense that is not going to happen I have to say I love my T appointments as you say below: |When you say you love your sessions, is that in the "big picture" sense, or is | it because you are at a point in your recovery where you are past the hard, | painful stuff? In the "big picture" I see so many mentally (for whatever disorder) unable to get the therapy and support they need to help them. They feel overwhelmed and helpless (or at least I should say that is how I would feel). So, instead of saying I love my T appointments I should say I am grateful I can have them. I am grateful I have a computer to get support from others like me and make new friends who "really" understand. I just feel happy that I have some advatages that others don’t have that does speed the recovery along. Or maybe just lets me know I am not doing this deal all by myself. I hope that says better what I meant to say. Blossom — Not asleep for fear of more painful and out of control stuff running around in my head again tonight.

Now we’re on the same wavelength! The reason I asked you for clarification is  because, believe it or not, there ~are~ people out there who ~do~ enjoy their  t’py. The reason that they love it is because they have a T who gives them  warm, fuzzy support and sympathy, but never challenges them to take risks or  leave their comfort zones. They stay stuck in their dysfunction, all the while  commending themselves that they are dealing with their problem because of the  time and money they are throwing at it. Usually if these people ever end up with a T who will challenge them, they  can’t handle it and eventually run back to their warm-fuzzy T with sob stories  about the mean old shrink who made them uncomfortable. ***This has been a public service announcement for the benefit of all asd  members.*** But seriously. I spent 4 1/2 years and countless dollars with such a person,  and I thank G*d that I have a T now  who I both hate and love for what she  puts me through. Cheryl, with significant input from Hilary (of Cequinnes) "If we had no broken places, how would our light shine out?"

Response:

I dumped my T yesterday. It was our last session. I dumped him partly

bc we’re stuck wrt the "Haldol" issues (I have some nasty side effects from drugs that my T prescribed for me) and partly bc we’re stuck bc I don’t fit my T’s model. (I refuse to change in order to do so – I have this bizarre and apparently delusional belief that therapeutic models should accurately describe the client instead of the client contorting hirself to fit a model.) The session went ok. We were both courteous. What could either of us say: my T has probably damaged my nervous system, perhaps permanently, and I’m not a multiple, despite his unyielding conviction to the contrary for the last 2 years? (Although, ironically, I’m closer to being a multiple since taking Haldol than before. I think that my dopaminergic system must affect this. So to the extent that I am multiple, I believe that it’s iatrogenic. Sometimes I think that the drugs and part of my therapy were unconscious ploys to make me a multiple so that my T would know how to help me. I wish we could have talked about it instead. I repeatedly tried.) Some good things happened: My T acknowledged (finally) that he felt guilty bc I shake a lot and sometimes become disoriented and confused as a result of the drugs he prescribed for me. My T acknowledged (finally) that he didn’t know how to help someone who dissociates a lot but who isn’t multiple. Imo, he should have acknowledged these things a long time ago so that we could deal with them openly. (I’d been raising the drug issues since Feb and the multiple issue for over a year now.) Instead, we went through numerous iterations of projection and projective identification. (I’d repeatedly told him that, too.) By last week, things were so muddled that I don’t think either of us had much of a clue as to who was thinking or feeling what about anything. (I kept having visions of us trying to play The Five Seasons, which combines classical and jazz music. We kept becoming each other and trying to play each other’s part. My T would understand that on every odd iteration of our mutual projective identification – when he was me – but not on the even iterations – e.g., when he was himself but only as seen by me as seen (and projected) by him. In the end, each of us had played and been every instrument in the orchestra and were waiting eagerly to add our Gregorian chants and electric guitar solos. This is working through something?) Some bad things happened:  My T gave me the tired old line about hoping that I would continue therapy, he thought that it would help me, yadda, yadda, yadda. He said that he is basically a psychodynamic psychotherapist who has worked with a lot of traumatized (and dissoid) clients. That he basically works from a psychodynamic model but understands and uses the trauma model. That I probably need a therapist who works from a trauma model, but who has a good understanding of psychodynamics. And that most Ts probably wouldn’t be able to help me. (I’d already assumed that, although ime few, if any, will tell me so.) Why should I continue therapy? Why does he think it will help me? I’ve been in therapy for over 3 years and I’ve just gotten worse. I went to therapy to help with concentration problems. Now I have PTSD, dyskinesia, and probably dementia. (I seem to be doing ok today, although I’m taking extra drugs and I’ve been working on this post for a few days.) It’s much harder for me to trust ppl now, esp doctors and therapists (and I was very suspicious when I began therapy). I feel used up. My brain and body are broken. I’m a dead woman walking. I was not that way when I started therapy. If I would have known how much damage therapy would cause, I’d never have started. I don’t think I can safely risk more therapy. My T told me that he thought that things would work out if I found the right therapist. But he also said that he thought that I was "a complex person with a complex problem." And that the way I dissociated was different than the way most ppl do. I’m not a multiple and I don’t have the "not quite DID" DDNOS. That he thought that the way I dissociated was more complex and difficult to work with than that. Bc I was puzzled (and not sure if my memory was accurate), I asked "Didn’t I tell you all that when we first started working together? That the DID model was wrong for me in many fundamental ways but that it was probably closer than any other model I knew about? And that what was going on was complicated?" He acknowledged that I had. So, given that in the very beginning I told him all the things that made my therapy unworkable, how am I supposed to find a therapist who can help me?  How am I supposed to trust any therapist to believe me/take me seriously, know hir own limitations, and be honest (with hirself and with me) about whether sie can help me? I don’t get it. I also don’t understand how I’m supposed to work in therapy when my brain is messed up from the drugs he’d prescribed. He acknowledged that I probably should deal with that first. At least he finally acknowledged that he didn’t know how to help me bc I didn’t fit the dissociative model. I’ve been feeling for a long time that he hoped that I had DID bc then he’d probably know how to help me. I felt pressured to become multiple if I wanted to get better. My T never said that but I felt it strongly. When I brought it up, he never directly acknowledged it, although he acknowledged that all the dissociative literature he knew about essentially treated dissociation as some type or level of multiplicity. And that he wasn’t sure how therapy should work if I wasn’t multiple. But that it should work anyway. (Neither of us said directly that it wasn’t working, although I often questioned whether it was.) This bothers me. A lot. Why should Ts pressure anyone into becoming anything just bc it fits their model? Why should I become multiple just bc the ppl who constructed the models saw trauma and dissociation through that lens? Maybe the model fits most ppl. But maybe one of the reasons some ppl question their dx (which is very common among dissoids) is bc the model is close but doesn’t really fit. Maybe they’re torn between struggling to fit the model, to view themselves and their reality through their therapist’s lens, and feeling like they are hopeless, they are isolated, and they are incomprehensible to one of the few ppl who have ever acknowledged their trauma and its importance to their lives. That they are somehow bad or resistant if they aren’t like their T sees them? That they aren’t pleasing a powerful, important person (like a parent) who means a lot to them? That if they just please this person maybe someone will finally help them deal with all this sh*t? I suspect that sometimes the clients are denying their multiplicity but that sometimes the therapists are denying their clients’ reality bc they just don’t get it and it’s easier to create a self-fufilling prophecy by unconsciously encouraging (often implicitly) their clients to view themselves as multiple (solely for the client’s benefit, of course, so that they can heal). Oh, and I just wanted to tell the ppl here who know me this bc it’s so funny. My T said that instead of creating alters, he thinks I dissociate and mentally/intellectually work all the way through a problem. Apparently the consultant we saw a few weeks ago told him this after working with me for an hour or two. ROTFL bc it’s so obvious and I’d been telling him that all along, esp the stuff re: the wormholes and alternate universes (one of my primary metaphors). I still don’t think he understands that if I can’t do that, I’m *completely* lost. And that the drugs have made it hard for me to do that. Not that what he understands matters at this point. I guess I’m done rambling for now. Any ideas on recovering from therapy?       Visualize honest, empowering, beneficial therapy.    e << I’ll start from the end (I tend to do that.. read newspapers backwards,  whatever..) I read a book just before I dumped my last t’pst (a year and a half ago) called  A Shining Affliction by Annie Rogers that is abt a t’pst in training who is in  t’py and has a bad situation arise from which her t’pst dumps her… and she  is told by a psychiatrist in no uncertain terms *not* to seek t’py again. To  avoid it.  She plods along trying to get her life back together and eventually  decides to return to t’py, and finds a "honest, empowering, beneficial  therapy."  I don’t know if reading it would be helpful or too triggering for  you (she describes herself in parts, but never shares this w the t’pst, yet he  deals w her as a trauma survivor who dissociates.. mentions "little Annie’s"  but never seems to do "DID" work w her… at least not that I recall. I found  it  a really helpful book in allowing me to work out my feelings abt being  misunderstood/misheard by a t’pst who didnt know much abt dissociation, who  was trying to use psychodynamic techniques with me. My second comment is that, altho this person you just dumped seemed to want to  put u in a DID box, putting you on haldol says to me that he didnt actually  know much of anything abt DID. Everything *I’ve* ever read abt using  antipsychotics on DID ppl is that it makes everything much worse. Haldol is an  antipsychotic, and it isnt even one of the better ones. It is misprescribed  for folks w everything from Autism to Phobias, and it is a nasty surprise cuz  it does cause Tarkive Dyskenesia. (Sp?) Was he the person who prescribed it?  IF so, and he claimed it was for use w DID, then I would say you probably  havent had an experience of working w someone familiar w DID. Some folks  familiar w DID are probably able to be open to the variety of ways  Dissociation presents itself and can adapt to us without trying to stuff folks  in boxes.  That doesnt mean you should go ahead and try and find someone new,  just that perhaps what

… read more »

Response:

My heart goes out to you.   Please bear with the following – it is meant to offer hope, not just to tell our story and praise our T:

Thanks for sharing your story, Todoe. (:  It was a very generous thing to do.  (: In 1983, I (we) had what we call the "breakdown".  A result of therapy.   Resistant was his favorite word.

):  He actually said that? I inferred it. Not directly from my T, either, except that he seemed to be frustrated. (I based my inference on stuff I read in the literature and heard in my T friends’ discussions. It is a little known fact that the reason all Ts seem to "think" alike is bc they all share one brain. Is true! It also explains their dumb mistakes. Think about it. It’s worse than the undercapacity at aol. He was ab*sive, but who knew?  It didn’t seem any different than what we were used to.

): He was confrontive about every single thing we said and did.  Challenged our motives, our perceptions.  He was into gestalt and he ripped us apart emotionally without offering ANY emotional support or substitute for what he took away.

He sounds like a very bad T. Finally we heard what we called the "voice" that said "Go get the kn*fe" and urged, enticed, chanted hypnotically for us to end it all. After that could barely function for years, intensely su*cidal for many years.   Never dreamed life could be that utterly bleak and grueling.  

It sounds awful. I’m sorry you went through such a long period of distress. ): Well, it turned out that what we called the breakdown was the point at which 2 alters split off because of his therapy.  And the "voice" was one of them we found out.   Lived in terror of that voice.  Gave ourselves more PTSD we now laugh a little.

It sounds awful. ):  I’m glad that you can laugh a little now.  (:  I wish you had more benign things to laugh about. The th*rapist was awful.  He also told us he was a pretty good phys*cal spec*men etc.

Yuck! He really was an awful T! Pull his license quick! Before he practices "therapy" again. We didn’t see a therapist for 7 years.  Did tons of journaling etc, but just too scared to see another th*rapist.

I’m glad that you took care of yourselves. (: After a su*ic*de attempt in 1991,

): we met our current T in the hospital.  

(: Worked with her in group.  Liked her, trusted nobody.  (The attempt was the result of a doctor we had trusted betraying us).   But called the hospital after we got out and got her name and saved it and saw her in group 2 years later for a while, when one of the younger alters was out. Then a few years ago started seeing her individually. When we hit a stalemate in the therapy last year or year and a half – we were too scared to deal with any other issues because we felt so vulnerable with her so we had to just stop and deal with that.  She was SO patient and validating of our fears.  And in time we began to trust her just a little bit, and then a little bit more.  Slow like molasses.

I’m glad. My t was very patient, too. I liked that. Now she said she thought that the reason a lot of th*rapy didn’t "take" was our trust issues, but she has learned from us to be more open to other possibilities (like being multiple in our case – we totally fit the dx).

Trust is a big issue for me, too. I think it is for almost everyone here. Imagine that!  And we think she stands head and shoulders above ANY other th*rapist we’ve ever known.  Both in terms of insight, compassion, feeling safe, and being strong enough to say and do stuff we might not like but for our own good. At one time we looked for support groups for people damaged by th*rapy, wrote an article called "Is Th*rapy Tearing Down the Walls We Build to Survive?" and tried briefly to market it to magazines before overload.

I can understand why. I’m glad that you had so much faith in yourselves. (: Anyway, I know how tough it can be and how hard (if not impossible) it is to trust after such sh*t.

It is hard. Not just trusting other ppl but trusting myself. I knew from reading the professional literature that there was probably very little out there for me. I should have relied on my cognitive assessment instead of hoping that things might work out anyway. Was my fault. Was stupid, stupid, stupid to think that things might work out. I want to say that you can look for another T if you want to, and you don’t have to trust right away.  I would even say Don’t trust right away.  Let them earn your trust, wait till you feel safe.  Their willingness to do that and to be open to YOUR reality and to set aside their egos and preconceptions are good benchmarks for assessing them, IMHO.

I think the T I chose was more open to my reality than most Ts, even most good ones. I just don’t think he ever understood. He couldn’t discard his preconception that everyone has at least one real self. I don’t think that’s true. But it underlies many of our cultural assumptions as well as most (all?) therapy models. I think that’s a hard assumption to discard. I think it’s very threatening and disorienting to most ppl, including (esp?) most Ts. I think that accepting multiple selves is much easier for most ppl (including most therapists) than accepting no self. FWIW, I never felt safe with my T. He understood that and never pushed it or did anything to make me feel bad for not trusting him. I worked hard. I think he worked hard. It just didn’t work out. Hard to believe there are any like that probably.  But there are.  Few and far between, but well worth looking for.

I believe that there are Ts like that. I believe that there are Ts out there who could help me. I just don’t trust my ability to evaluate that and I don’t trust them to accurately evaluate that or to decline to work with me (near the beginning of therapy) if they don’t think that they can help me significantly. Don’t suppose you know and trust anybody who might recommend somebody?  Maybe if you say what area you live in somebody here can recommend someone.

My t recommended someone. I think the person he recommended is a good t. I think that he might have been able to help me if I would have gone to him when my brain still sorta worked. My own experience is that the masters level people are generally less ego involved and more helpful than the MD or PHD types.  But of course it helps for them to have experience with heavy duty type stuff.

That may be. My one experience with an MFCC (marriage counseling) wasn’t good (she seemed to miss a lot of important stuff) but maybe other masters-level Ts would be more helpful. I think that it would be harder for me to trust that they knew what they were doing. (I had issues related to my Ts’ verbal and analytic abilities, esp. with my first T. I think my issues were partly realistic and partly my projecting my feeling dumb on to them and (sometimes) their identifying with it.) But if they were really good, I’m sure that I could learn to trust them. Just know they aren’t all like your former one.  As totally impossible as I once thought it would be to trust a th*rapist, I do now to an extent that is unbelievable and it has been such a positive experience.  Like healing a lot of the pain of other messed up medical/T type relationships.

I’m glad that you found a good T. (:  How has it helped you? There is hope.  You may not be ready to act now.  May need a break, may need to regroup.  But just want you to know there IS hope.

Thanks, Todoe. (:  (BTW. when I first started working with my T, I told him that hope was the most insidious, pernicious plague released by Pandora. Everything else would have been tolerable if ppl didn’t hope for something better. Best wishes!!

Thanks, Todoe. It helps to know that other ppl have recovered from bad therapy experiences. Yours sounds awful! I’m glad that you found your current T. (:  It is good to know that others have struggled to find something that works for them. It’s even better to know that they’re succeeding.  (:    Best,    e — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:

Response:

Thank you for being so supportive. I appreciate all the posts and emails. I esp appreciate ppl sharing their experiences, good or bad. It helps to know about both. (:  I appreciate ppl reading even if they haven’t replied.    e — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:

Response:

Hi e, Good hearing from you. My heart goes out to you.   Please bear with the following – it is meant to offer hope, not just to tell our story and praise our T: Thanks for sharing your story, Todoe. (:  It was a very generous thing to do.  (:

You’re welcome and thanks! In 1983, I (we) had what we call the "breakdown".  A result of therapy.   Resistant was his favorite word. ):  He actually said that? I inferred it. Not directly from my T, either, except that he seemed to be frustrated. (I based my inference on stuff I read in the literature and heard in my T friends’ discussions. It is a little known fact that the reason all Ts seem to "think" alike is bc they all share one brain. Is true! It also explains their dumb mistakes. Think about it. It’s worse than the undercapacity at aol.

Teehee  .  Funny.  But yes he actually said resistant and/or avoidance over and over and over.  If he had some theory about why we did stuff, and we disagreed, no matter how off the wall his theory was he called us resistant.    r if we didn’t want to do stuff he wanted us to. He was ab*sive, but who knew?  It didn’t seem any different than what we were used to. ): He was confrontive about every single thing we said and did.  Challenged our motives, our perceptions.  He was into gestalt and he ripped us apart emotionally without offering ANY emotional support or substitute for what he took away. He sounds like a very bad T.

Indeed.  If there is evil in human form , he be it.  I’ve met others – a doctor who got involved with him, a therapist who gave up Gestalt because of him, a partner of his who had shared a home with him .  They all ended up really messed up as a result of interactions with him – two in therapy cause of him. Finally we heard what we called the "voice" that said "Go get the kn*fe" and urged, enticed, chanted hypnotically for us to end it all. After that could barely function for years, intensely su*cidal for many years.   Never dreamed life could be that utterly bleak and grueling.   It sounds awful. I’m sorry you went through such a long period of distress. ):

Thanks.  Was so awful, awful, awful.  Anniversary of that time is Nov 8 – scary. Well, it turned out that what we called the breakdown was the point at which 2 alters split off because of his therapy.  And the "voice" was one of them we found out.   Lived in terror of that voice.  Gave ourselves more PTSD we now laugh a little. It sounds awful. ):  I’m glad that you can laugh a little now.  (:  I wish you had more benign things to laugh about.

I do, but the "host" personality of our system was "One Who Laughs" and so we like to laugh as much as we can – helped/helps us to survive. The th*rapist was awful.  He also told us he was a pretty good phys*cal spec*men etc. Yuck! He really was an awful T! Pull his license quick! Before he practices "therapy" again.

That was 1983 and we did file a complaint.  Went all the way to the Board asking if we wanted to proceed with a formal hearing.  Very depressed had to say no – couldn’t take the stress. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – We didn’t see a therapist for 7 years.  Did tons of journaling etc, but just too scared to see another th*rapist. I’m glad that you took care of yourselves. (: After a su*ic*de attempt in 1991, ): we met our current T in the hospital.   (: Worked with her in group.  Liked her, trusted nobody.  (The attempt was the result of a doctor we had trusted betraying us).   But called the hospital after we got out and got her name and saved it and saw her in group 2 years later for a while, when one of the younger alters was out. Then a few years ago started seeing her individually. When we hit a stalemate in the therapy last year or year and a half – we were too scared to deal with any other issues because we felt so vulnerable with her so we had to just stop and deal with that.  She was SO patient and validating of our fears.  And in time we began to trust her just a little bit, and then a little bit more.  Slow like molasses. I’m glad. My t was very patient, too. I liked that.

Yea, they gotta be or it doesn’t really work. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Now she said she thought that the reason a lot of th*rapy didn’t "take" was our trust issues, but she has learned from us to be more open to other possibilities (like being multiple in our case – we totally fit the dx). Trust is a big issue for me, too. I think it is for almost everyone here. Imagine that!  And we think she stands head and shoulders above ANY other th*rapist we’ve ever known.  Both in terms of insight, compassion, feeling safe, and being strong enough to say and do stuff we might not like but for our own good. At one time we looked for support groups for people damaged by th*rapy, wrote an article called "Is Th*rapy Tearing Down the Walls We Build to Survive?" and tried briefly to market it to magazines before overload. I can understand why. I’m glad that you had so much faith in yourselves. (: Anyway, I know how tough it can be and how hard (if not impossible) it is to trust after such sh*t. It is hard. Not just trusting other ppl but trusting myself. I knew from reading the professional literature that there was probably very little out there for me. I should have relied on my cognitive assessment instead of hoping that things might work out anyway. Was my fault. Was stupid, stupid, stupid to think that things might work out.

Yea, I get not trusting yourself.  These awful experiences made me/us doubt ourselves as much as we doubted other people.  It seems that learning to trust ourselves was the biggest thing – not that it’s a done deal.   – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I want to say that you can look for another T if you want to, and you don’t have to trust right away.  I would even say Don’t trust right away.  Let them earn your trust, wait till you feel safe.  Their willingness to do that and to be open to YOUR reality and to set aside their egos and preconceptions are good benchmarks for assessing them, IMHO. I think the T I chose was more open to my reality than most Ts, even most good ones. I just don’t think he ever understood. He couldn’t discard his preconception that everyone has at least one real self. I don’t think that’s true. But it underlies many of our cultural assumptions as well as most (all?) therapy models. I think that’s a hard assumption to discard. I think it’s very threatening and disorienting to most ppl, including (esp?) most Ts. I think that accepting multiple selves is much easier for most ppl (including most therapists) than accepting no self.

I’m not sure what it means to have no "self".  I’ve read that multiples actually don’t have lots of personalities but really don’t have one at all.   Sounds like that. FWIW, I never felt safe with my T. He understood that and never pushed it or did anything to make me feel bad for not trusting him. I worked hard. I think he worked hard. It just didn’t work out. Hard to believe there are any like that probably.  But there are.  Few and far between, but well worth looking for. I believe that there are Ts like that. I believe that there are Ts out there who could help me. I just don’t trust my ability to evaluate that and I don’t trust them to accurately evaluate that or to decline to work with me (near the beginning of therapy) if they don’t think that they can help me significantly.

I can sure understand that.   Don’t suppose you know and trust anybody who might recommend somebody?   Maybe if you say what area you live in somebody here can recommend someone. My t recommended someone. I think the person he recommended is a good t. I think that he might have been able to help me if I would have gone to him when my brain still sorta worked.

Sorry you feel so bad. My own experience is that the masters level people are generally less ego involved and more helpful than the MD or PHD types.  But of course it helps for them to have experience with heavy duty type stuff. That may be. My one experience with an MFCC (marriage counseling) wasn’t good (she seemed to miss a lot of important stuff) but maybe other masters-level Ts would be more helpful. I think that it would be harder for me to trust that they knew what they were doing. (I had issues related to my Ts’ verbal and analytic abilities, esp. with my first T. I think my issues were partly realistic and partly my projecting my feeling dumb on to them and (sometimes) their identifying with it.) But if they were really good, I’m sure that I could learn to trust them.

I’m not saying all masters level people are good, far from it.  I’m just saying that the 2 best ones I’ve run into were masters level.  The worst was PhD.   Lots of whacko MD’s. Maybe look at it this way:  A lot of women have gone the masters route maybe later in life since Phd’s and MD’s didn’t used to be so common for females.  So my guess is there are some extremely competent intelligent folks at masters level who in  a different time/place probably would have gone further educationally. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Just know they aren’t all like your former one.  As totally impossible as I once thought it would be to trust a th*rapist, I do now to an extent that is unbelievable and it has been such a positive experience.  Like healing a lot of the pain of other messed up medical/T type relationships. I’m glad that you

… read more »

Response:

 I don’t have to spoiler this. I want to say to e that I am happy for you to have lost this T who assumes patients as models of "what ever" disorder??? I have never heard of such a thing as fitting into a mold such as discribed in a book. I have heard terms such as "classic case of PTSD" but not in a way that one "classic" would be even close to the next "classic". What you discrib sounds so in human. I have been in therapy consistently for over 6 years and in different groups and workshops. Some helped and some didn’t. My T will sometimes say something like, "I read in ______ that you ever felt that way? (or) Do you think that is true? Have you ever heard one of your Dis. friends say they felt like that?". I think the professionals I have been involved with so far don’t really believe what they see or read in professional journals, books or such. They may believe that it is true for that one person but not everyone as a mold. I am sorry you had this experience. It is sad that professionals would rather fit you into some type of research someone else has done to give you a lable rather than to listen to you as an individual and know that each person’s experience is different. I think that is lazy on the part of the professional. I love my therapy sessions and gain a lot from them. Maybe I have always leaned toward a T who hasn’t had much experience in my particular disorder but who is willing to say when we meet, "But, I would be happy to learn more about it if you feel comfortable with knowing that we will grow in knowledge together with this." Something to that effect anyway. Ditto to Domino’s post. You do sound releived. Denise |I dumped my T yesterday. I’m tired of therapy. I want to recover from |its damage. I’m cynical and bitter. | |Spoilered bc I don’t like therapy and I bc I’m tired of having to fit |in a mold of either being multiple (bc that’s the model) or |"resistant" (bc I do not want to let someone else define me or my |reality) or beyond hope. (Those of you who have issues wrt dissoid |singletons vs. multiples should probably read this only if you’re up |to it.) One splatted curse word. Nothing graphic. |1 |1 |1 |1 |1 |1 | |I dumped my T yesterday. It was our last session. I dumped him partly |bc we’re stuck wrt the "Haldol" issues (I have some nasty side effects |from drugs that my T prescribed for me) and partly bc we’re stuck bc I |don’t fit my T’s model. (I refuse to change in order to do so – I have |this bizarre and apparently delusional belief that therapeutic models |should accurately describe the client instead of the client contorting |hirself to fit a model.) | |The session went ok. We were both courteous. What could either of us |say: my T has probably damaged my nervous system, perhaps permanently, |and I’m not a multiple, despite his unyielding conviction to the |contrary for the last 2 years? | |(Although, ironically, I’m closer to being a multiple since taking |Haldol than before. I think that my dopaminergic system must affect |this. So to the extent that I am multiple, I believe that it’s |iatrogenic. Sometimes I think that the drugs and part of my therapy |were unconscious ploys to make me a multiple so that my T would know |how to help me. I wish we could have talked about it instead. I |repeatedly tried.) | |Some good things happened: My T acknowledged (finally) that he felt |guilty bc I shake a lot and sometimes become disoriented and confused |as a result of the drugs he prescribed for me. My T acknowledged |(finally) that he didn’t know how to help someone who dissociates a |lot but who isn’t multiple. | |Imo, he should have acknowledged these things a long time ago so that |we could deal with them openly. (I’d been raising the drug issues |since Feb and the multiple issue for over a year now.) Instead, we |went through numerous iterations of projection and projective |identification. (I’d repeatedly told him that, too.) | |By last week, things were so muddled that I don’t think either of us |had much of a clue as to who was thinking or feeling what about |anything. (I kept having visions of us trying to play The Five |Seasons, which combines classical and jazz music. We kept becoming |each other and trying to play each other’s part. My T would understand |that on every odd iteration of our mutual projective identification – |when he was me – but not on the even iterations – e.g., when he was |himself but only as seen by me as seen (and projected) by him. In the |end, each of us had played and been every instrument in the orchestra |and were waiting eagerly to add our Gregorian chants and electric |guitar solos. This is working through something?) | |Some bad things happened:  My T gave me the tired old line about |hoping that I would continue therapy, he thought that it would help |me, yadda, yadda, yadda. He said that he is basically a psychodynamic |psychotherapist who has worked with a lot of traumatized (and dissoid) |clients. That he basically works from a psychodynamic model but |understands and uses the trauma model. That I probably need a |therapist who works from a trauma model, but who has a good |understanding of psychodynamics. And that most Ts probably wouldn’t be |able to help me. (I’d already assumed that, although ime few, if any, |will tell me so.) | |Why should I continue therapy? Why does he think it will help me? I’ve |been in therapy for over 3 years and I’ve just gotten worse. I went to |therapy to help with concentration problems. Now I have PTSD, |dyskinesia, and probably dementia. (I seem to be doing ok today, |although I’m taking extra drugs and I’ve been working on this post for |a few days.) | |It’s much harder for me to trust ppl now, esp doctors and therapists |(and I was very suspicious when I began therapy). I feel used up. My |brain and body are broken. I’m a dead woman walking. | |I was not that way when I started therapy. If I would have known how |much damage therapy would cause, I’d never have started. I don’t think |I can safely risk more therapy. | |My T told me that he thought that things would work out if I found the |right therapist. But he also said that he thought that I was "a |complex person with a complex problem." And that the way I dissociated |was different than the way most ppl do. I’m not a multiple and I don’t |have the "not quite DID" DDNOS. That he thought that the way I |dissociated was more complex and difficult to work with than that. | |Bc I was puzzled (and not sure if my memory was accurate), I asked |"Didn’t I tell you all that when we first started working together? |That the DID model was wrong for me in many fundamental ways but that |it was probably closer than any other model I knew about? And that |what was going on was complicated?" He acknowledged that I had. | |So, given that in the very beginning I told him all the things that |made my therapy unworkable, how am I supposed to find a therapist who |can help me?  How am I supposed to trust any therapist to believe |me/take me seriously, know hir own limitations, and be honest (with |hirself and with me) about whether sie can help me? I don’t get it. | |I also don’t understand how I’m supposed to work in therapy when my |brain is messed up from the drugs he’d prescribed. He acknowledged |that I probably should deal with that first. | |At least he finally acknowledged that he didn’t know how to help me bc |I didn’t fit the dissociative model. I’ve been feeling for a long time |that he hoped that I had DID bc then he’d probably know how to help |me. I felt pressured to become multiple if I wanted to get better. | |My T never said that but I felt it strongly. When I brought it up, he |never directly acknowledged it, although he acknowledged that all the |dissociative literature he knew about essentially treated dissociation |as some type or level of multiplicity. And that he wasn’t sure how |therapy should work if I wasn’t multiple. But that it should work |anyway. (Neither of us said directly that it wasn’t working, although |I often questioned whether it was.) | |This bothers me. A lot. Why should Ts pressure anyone into becoming |anything just bc it fits their model? Why should I become multiple |just bc the ppl who constructed the models saw trauma and dissociation |through that lens? | |Maybe the model fits most ppl. But maybe one of the reasons some ppl |question their dx (which is very common among dissoids) is bc the |model is close but doesn’t really fit. Maybe they’re torn between |struggling to fit the model, to view themselves and their reality |through their therapist’s lens, and feeling like they are hopeless, |they are isolated, and they are incomprehensible to one of the few ppl |who have ever acknowledged their trauma and its importance to their |lives. That they are somehow bad or resistant if they aren’t like |their T sees them? That they aren’t pleasing a powerful, important |person (like a parent) who means a lot to them? That if they just |please this person maybe someone will finally help them deal with all |this sh*t? | |I suspect that sometimes the clients are denying their multiplicity |but that sometimes the therapists are denying their clients’ reality |bc they just don’t get it and it’s easier to create a self-fufilling |prophecy by unconsciously encouraging (often implicitly) their clients |to view themselves as multiple (solely for the client’s benefit, of |course, so that they can heal). | |Oh, and I just wanted to tell the ppl here who know me this bc it’s so |funny. My T said that instead of creating alters, he thinks I |dissociate and mentally/intellectually work all the way through a |problem. Apparently the consultant we saw a few weeks ago told him |this after working with me for an hour or two. ROTFL bc it’s so |obvious and I’d been telling him that all along, esp the stuff re: the |wormholes and … read more »

Response:

Related Posts

• 29 Day Yoga Book
• OT: My Kind of Religion
• Falling out of love...
• Question from a seeker...
• Execises for paralyzed people
• pain and multiple sclerosis
• Running and Depression
• 10 best things to say if you get caught sleeping
• RV insurance
• I ain't got no bling-bling.