ok so i am seeing a therapist. i went there because i wanted to work on a few things that make studying enough to get into med school kind of hard, like some serious depression, and perfectionism that leads to procrastination. “If i have to put effort into things, it means i’m terrible and worthless”, this kind of distorted thinking. And since while I don’t officially have an attention deficit disorder, i do have trouble with discipline and organization, I also wanted my therapist to help me with that. Ever since our second session - this thursday would be our seventh - she has been trying to convince me to do something else, saying that i only quote-unquote like medicine but whatever, i can like a lot of things! she specifically says i should look into psychology, even after i said i have no interest to follow that profession since i am not comfortable with dealing with people’s mental stuff at a professional level. she has pushed this pretty hard; there’s not one session since that doesn’t end with her saying that me wanting to keep trying medicine makes me immature, unable to grow up, an overgrown child who still wants to be babied because of my abandonment issues (a lot of my perfectionism and burnout came from an absent dad). That my refusal to pursue something I am not passionate about beyond the realm of a hobby means that I am still stuck as a child, refusing to be happy, and draining my mother’s finances because I want proof that she’s not going to abandon me even if I fail, sort of like a reverse-dad-situation. She’s treating me like my issues aren’t the ones I told her in our first session, she’s treating me like what’s wrong with me is that I want to be a medical doctor and not something else. I have pointed out that I have done something else that I liked - Digital Communications - and that it ended up with me dropping out of school after a year of panic attacks and hating the people i worked with and gaining almost 70 pounds, and also hating my hobbies-turned-tools-of-my-job so much that i spent three years without drawing or writing anything, and that i still have a hard time enjoying doing things that i enjoyed doing before i got into college and got them ruined for me. She also called this immaturity. She has implied very strongly that I should dump my husband because he’s ‘not giving me what i need’ because he’s going through a personal hard time. That our relationship is not loving or healthy, that it’s based on us just standing each other and not loving each other, despite the fact we’ve been together for twelve fucking years. That i’m a good-looking woman who can be and be with anyone i want and that i should look for people who would not “impoverish my life” by being homey and not liking to go out to clubs and drinking at night, or are generally socially active - and i have said that i have always been homey and never liked outdoor activities. I have talked about my husband for maybe fifteen minutes, because he’s not even remotely tangential to the issues I actually paid her to help me deal with. He has been nothing but helpful to me in my studies, with emotional support and practical actions like actually keeping an eye on my schedule. Yesterday, I wanted to talk both about my godmother being in hospice care and probably not lasting until February because of a terribly painful cancer, and the fact that my jerkbrain went full depression again while i was studying during the weekend and that I was putting off studying because I kept telling myself I wouldn’t be able to get into med school anyway so the effort would be wasted, because i am a terrible person who only pretends to be smart but is actually dumb trash that shouldn’t live, and who am i kidding when i say that i can make it into med school? She asked me why i kept bringing up other people’s issues to run away from my own, and called my jerkbrain thought process “progress towards choosing something else and achieving your full potential because you clearly don’t have what it takes to be a doctor because i am not the kind of person who likes studying and learning”. I am. not comfortable with either of those acessments. So. Should i dump her? Is she just telling me truths that I don’t want to face? I think she’s full of bullshit and even if my last therapist said things I didn’t like, I never felt she was full of bullshit. My friend says I should ditch her, and my husband pointed out I read encyclopedias for fun. Mom worries I’m just doing this because she said stuff I don’t like. I am really shaken and feeling like crap, and swinging between hating myself because my therapist is right and being furious that she is so full of such bullshit. what should i dooooooo????
run very fast from this therapist and get someone new bc i say again: what the actual Fuck @ your therapist o_o
Holy shit, no, that's not how therapy should be at all. Therapy is a partnership where you work together, and the best kind is client led. You're not her child or her inferior, what the fuck? I don't even have the spoons to list everything wrong with the shit she's told you. She's undermining your relationships and support system for God's sake, no no no. Dump her immediately.
My first therapist was an angel and she said a lot of things that I didn't want to hear, but I never felt I was talking to a wall and I never dreaded going to appointments besides the initial fear of going outside. I'm glad it's not me being oversensitive
I have frequently told people truths they didn't want to face, in a collaborative effort with them. If we succeed it still hurts a lot, but that shouldn't be the most notable thing. They should get something out of it. Something good and out of the ordinary. An epiphany or inspiration. Perspective or closure. Something that could make the experience an overall positive in their life. I don't think your therapist is actually telling any hard truths here. But even if she were, I would still not think it was a good idea to try to hear them from someone who tells them like that. It shouldn't leave you feeling lesser. I mean if she wants to talk about impoverishing someone's life. :P
Jesus christ, what is wrong with your therapist? You're definitely not just being oversensitive or anything like that; she's completely out-of-line. Like, practically any one of the problems you mentioned would be good reason to get the hell away from her in my view, let alone... all of that. I don't even know where to start on how fucked-up all of what she's doing is? "But what if I'm just uncomfortable because she's pushing me to face the tough stuff" is a really shitty feeling, especially when other people are pushing you to believe it's true. But it is definitely not true here. It doesn't sound like she's even pushing you to face anything, just ignoring the problems you came to her for help with in favor of making up her own narrative and actively attacking your life choices, relationships, and self-worth to convince you of it.
Agreed with everyone, she sounds terrible and harmful, not at all like she's just telling you hard truths
Ok so. I postponed our two last appointments and she's sent me a text asking if i want to quit therapy. I don't, technically; i just don't want to continue treatment with her. I was thinking about composing a message explaining the situation - could you guys read it and see if it's ok, after i do?
That's a thing we can do, yeah. And holy crap, I'm n'thing the "dump her and run away" suggestions. And adding a vote to report her to whoever's nominally in charge of her, because none of what you've described is 'telling you hard truths', it's actively ignoring what you're telling her, in favour of making up her own narrative while also apparently doing her damnedest to ruin the relationships you've got and burn your self-worth and confidence to the ground so that she can...idk, rebuild in her own image?? (Her fixation on pushing you into psychology, despite you being explicit about having no interest in it, is utterly bizarre and more than a bit worrying.) That's not good therapy. That's actively abusive, frankly.
