More threads by allmadeofstars

i just want some opinions.

i have several issues...severe depression, anxiety, insomnia, eating disorders, and body dysmorphic disorder.
i saw a therapist twice a week for about three years.
i had therapists previous to this, since i was a child, but never opened up to them. i opened up to this certain therapist after a while...and ended up trusting her. i told her everything. and i mean...everything...
i have severe trust issues. very severe...i do not even trust my own thinking. but i trusted her.
i grew to depend on her...and she was wonderful, always there for me - i could always reach her nomatter what. she gave me her cell number, home number, along with another office number if the first one didnt work. everytime i was in the hospital she was there. everytime i had a breakdown of any kind she was there. everytime i came back broken from visits with family, she was there. she helped me get out of agoraphobia, anxiety, and certain dabilitating fears.
during this time, i was on ssi, and did not have enough money to pay for her sessions. i could have seen all the free county therapists i wanted, but when i did they left me feeling empty like all the others before. i stuck with this private therapist because she worked. when i left her office i felt different, and almost every time. my mother saw that this therapist was really helping me, so she agreed to help me keep seeing her, and she would pay for it. the therapist was kind enough to cut the fee for her sessions almost in half. when my mom started slacking on the bill, the therapist understood and was patient. when my mom got very behind, the therapist worked out a payment plan with her. when my mom didnt follow through, the therapist waived a portion of the bill to make it easier. i still dont know why she was so kind. this situation with me trying to get my mom to pay on time really caused a lot of strain, but we got through it. i felt horrible about it, but she assured me she wanted to help me, see it through...and most importantly, she told me that since everyone else in my life had given up on me at some point, she would be the one to break the chain. i believed her.
about 6-8 mos after therapy with her began, she told me she was pregnant, and would be going on leave. it was very hard being without her support for those few months, but when she came back she was better than ever and we resumed healing. this was before the bill situation began.
about a couple years later she became pregnant again. she went on leave again, just like before. shortly before she came back i was put in hospital for severe depression. she would only contact me through a third party to let me know she knew where i was.
when she came back, her body was the same, but the person was gone.
she was cold, very very cold...no smile or other facial expressions could be found anywhere. very unusual. she told me my therapy with her was over. she said unless my mom was willing to pay the rest of the bill, she would not see me. she was well aware that getting my mom to do anything she didnt feel like doing at the time was almost impossible, but she would not budge. i pleaded...maybe i could get my mom to pay parts of it at a time, she said no. i told her it was the worse time for this...i was incredibly suicidal and she was the only person i could trust.
but the therapist i grew to care so much for was already gone.
a few months later i called her...in an act of desperation, to thank her for all she had done to help me, and to tell her that she was the only one here on the earth that ever got to know me, she should be the last one to hear from me. she was freezing cold again...just like before. she said she didnt have time for such things and would not hear what i had to say. she said she knew i was on my cell phone and she was calling someone else. her flat and emotionless voice made me finally realise that dr lara was gone forever... the only human being that knew everything about me had given up on me wholly and completely.
i had not eaten for 4 days. i was not even getting up to get dressed, my body was so wrecked i could not touch anything because my nerves were shot. i barely made it to the bathroom. i had come to the end, and i know that only those of you who have been there will understand.
i laid down in the grass in a park near my house, took an overdose of meds, and waited. the arrangements were made, the fully signed will, the house in order, the body would be where my mom would not find it.
needless to say, it didnt work, the therapist called the police. i laid near trees so that no passers by could see, but a cop on a bike found me.
all the usual things happened when you fail at such a task...i was locked up in hopsital for quite a while, lost my home, lost my friends. and the therapist was nowhere to be found.
what happened?
-post partem depression?
-my fault for not forcing my mom to pay (even if i could)?
-freak event leading to complete change of personality in this woman?
-no signifigant event leading to complete change of personality in this woman?
-or did she simply gave up on me?

its been a year and a half. i have been diagnosed with ptsd from this experience. i obsess every day...what happened what happened what happened what happened...
i am paranoid everytime i leave my house...i just moved and her office is now down the street from me. i see it almost everyday. i worry constantly if i am going to run into her in public...it is one of my worst fears ever. i scan cars that look like hers...and then i always realise that people change and get new cars frequently, and i move into super paranoia mode...afraid of everyone and every car that passes me on the street, afraid it might be her. she told me i would get to meet her children some day...i watched them grow in her body. now i dread the possibility, seeing the people she gave up on me for. seeing the ones that were more important that all those reassurances she gave me saying she wasnt going to abandon me. i understand motherhood changes everything. but why give up on a suicidal individual you supposedly care so much for at such a crucial time, for money?
babies cost money, i am aware. therapy costs money, i am aware. human lives cost money...i am now aware.
i just dont know what really happened. i can only speculate.
i never got to say goodbye...i was dumbfounded during this last session, and could only plead...until i couldnt speak anymore and could only sob. she told me time was up...she bid me good luck. she saw me sobbing in the lobby. she told me i had to leave so she could lock up. she saw me sobbing outside on the cement ground. she looked right at me...and walked away.
was it my fault? or hers? do i have any right to confront her and ask her to give me a reason for her decision, or does she have the right to abandon her promise and seek money from me that i literally do not have?
i understand this is tricky....money...or a persons' recovery.
but what are peoples honest opinions? who did wrong? i need to know, i cant seem to go on anymore, it haunts me...quite literally. i refused any more therapists for quite some time, then agreed...but they were just like before dr lara...robots, full of old worn out cliches, pretending to pay attention and pretending to care, and becoming angry at me when i become angry. i gave up, i dont see anyone anymore.
i have not heard from her since a little over a year ago, since that last phone call.
but one time...during this year sometime, i dared to walk all the way up to the front of her office...to see her name still clearly displayed on the wall outside...dr lara xxxxxxxxx, psy. d.
she is still practicing.

the only thing left of 3 yrs of intense therapy...is a little stone.
she gave it to me during my agoraphobic period, to help me cope with being outside. she told me..."when you are afraid...hold this stone in your hand, and you will be safe again, just like you are when you are in this room with me."

sometimes i want to throw the little stone into the sea. sometimes i want to take it back to her office and put it with her mail. sometimes i want to take a hammer and attempt to crush it into a million pieces. sometimes i want to hold it and feel safe again.
 

Peanut

Member
but what are peoples honest opinions?

My honest opinion is that it sounds like your therapist was as generous as she felt she could be but that eventually she had to draw the line somewhere. She can't allow your money problems to become her money problems, and while therapy is a very meaningful experience, I think often for both the patient and the therapist, it usually is the therapist's livelihood. Perhaps the fact that she now has two children meant that she felt she had to look out for their best interests first, before hers, and maybe that meant that she could no longer afford to spend the time or money helping someone who ordinarly she would really have liked to stick around and help.

It sounds like you know what happened, and you don't have to like it, but you do eventually have to accept it. I also hope that amidst the unfortunate end of therapy you are able to remember that she was very generous with you for a long time and obviously did care about you a lot. She probably still does.
 

David Baxter PhD

Late Founder
Not really. She could be a millionaire. But it isn't all about money.

At a certain point with any client-therapist combination, it is simply time to move on. Sometimes, the client has simply exhausted all that a particular therapist can offer and needs to move on to someone with a different perspective or orientation.

It's also true that, while many of us do provide pro bono services, we also have families and operating expenses to cover, etc., so there is a limit as to how long one can continue to do that and how many such clients one can afford to see at any given time.
 

David Baxter PhD

Late Founder
No. Please re-read my post. What I said was it is NOT all about money. Indeed, money may have had nothing to do with it.

If you managed to trust one person, you can use that experience to learn to trust someone else.
 
but if money had nothing to do with it...that must mean she gave up? ive never seen anyones personality so drastically change like that...maybe she was being cold so she could pretend it wasnt affecting her or me? my latest nightmare about her consisted of me sitting in the back seat of her car while she drove around talking with other passengers about where they could get rid of me...we drove around and around until she gave up and dropped me off where i had no idea where i was, and there was no one around to help me. she seemed desperate to get rid of a pain in the ass burden she had been dealing with.
i know this is how i feel about it but i dont know how she views the whole thing because she refuses contact.
i just feel like maybe, just maybe....i deserve an explanation...or maybe some time to just say goodbye, or just say anything. it was so abrupt.
ive been saving up the past year and a half and am going to give her what i have. maybe she will let me say goodbye.
is that really that horrible? is it really that unreasonable of me to want closure? am i really a spoiled little selfish brat...for just wanting closure from a THERAPIST? everyone else has always told me i deserved this and she should at least explain to me why she handled it that way. but now i am really thinking it was all my fault, maybe i could have prevented losing my ONLY support if i had done something more drastic. but i had no idea either...one of the issues i spoke of with her quite often was my fear of losing her support. after a while, and much assuring from her, and even a promise to not give up, i got more comfortable and forgot about it. then she was gone.
am i the only one who thinks this is maybe, just maybe...just a little...tiny little bit....completely fxxxxx up?
it appears so. my judgement is all wrong and i am the selfish piece of shit spoiled brat that i have always been afraid of being.
this is so hard for me to deal with right now. and theres no one i can tell all this to. no more support.
i know people are reading this and thinking "my god what a pathetic little baby...get over it!"
i dont care. this is anonymous.
 

ThatLady

Member
Speaking for myself, I don't find myself thinking anything negative about you, hon. I can understand your frustration, and why you feel abandoned. Thing is, however things may have ended, this therapist gave you a great deal of herself for quite a period of time. She taught you to trust. Now, you need to take that lesson and move on with it on your own, or with another therapist. Dwelling on what's happened, or what hasn't happened, isn't going to get you where you want to go.

You're grieving a loss...the loss of your therapist. With grief comes anger and remorse. Those are normal feelings. You just need to work your way through them and begin again. We, as human beings, cannot depend completely on another person to solve our problems, or to always be there for us. Lives change. People change. We need to make the best of what we've learned and reach out to learn more. There's lots to read on these forums that will help you grow past this, hon. Just remember, what you're feeling is normal grief. Everyone feels these things when they lose something, or someone, important to them.
 

David Baxter PhD

Late Founder
No, allmadeofstars... I'm not suggesting that it was your fault or that you're "a selfish spoiled brat" or any of those things. I don't know exactly what happened or why or how. I'm merely suggesting that your therapist may simply have felt you had become overly dependent on her and that she needed to cut you loose because therapy with her was no longer helping you - it might conceivably have been having a negative effect on your growth and progress.
 
Replying is not possible. This forum is only available as an archive.
Top