Posted by Maria01 on July 22, 2007, at 20:35:53
Hey All-
Thought I would post an update. Things are going well with the new T; she seems to be on the ball, empathetic, and has her act together. As for my ex-T, well....It's been almost two months since she terminated me, and looking back, it's for the better. She was not very emotionally stable; her mood swings were worse than mine; she would alternate between being warm and empathetic, and cold and remote. I never knew what I would be walking in to. Her attitude seemed to be tied to what I had said or done, and I refused to play the People Pleaser game to try to get her to revert back to being empathetic. She would go thru periods of being snappy, abrupt, and coarse with no explanation, and would get defensive when I would question her about it. There were times when her eyes would go from kind and understanding to stone cold. Very strange. No one in my life had ever acted like that. She had also told me of two times when she hurt one of her sons a long time ago when they were young(she shook one of them when he spilled juice on a new shirt. He was about 2) and how she shook the family cat several years ago when it shed on some clean laundry. This is someone who has been in her own therapy for years!
She was an intern and very green. I let the fact the she was middle-aged(and therefore more mature than a younger intern) fool me into thinking she had her act together. After all, she had been in her own therapy for quite some time. I was so wrong.She said she would have the utmost patience with me; she lost patience. She said there was no hurry; there was indeeed a time table. She said she wasn't going anywhere. Of course not; I was the one tossed like dirty laundry. I thought I had a say in the situation but I didn't. (Cautionary note: If you are working with an intern, your say in the therapy is very limitied. You are nothing but a "case" to be discussed in supervision, and if the intern's supervisor says "jump", the intern asks "How high?" If a supervisor wants an intern's client gone, that client is gone...)
I can hold my head high, though. I was always very clear about what I wanted and needed, didn't hesitate to ask questions, didn't hesitate to be direct with her, always expressed appreciation for her(when we weren't at each other's throats) and did the best I could as a client. I go by my own timetable, no one else's.
My moods have been better than they have in a long time. Looking back, I was really unstable with this T; my moods would ricochet in response to hers. I felt worse about myself when I worked with her, as a rule.
The past few weeks with my new T have mostly focused on "de-toxing" from the old T, and processing the crappy termination I got. I can't wait until this is out of my system; there are others things in life I want to deal with, but can't do much about it until I completely process things I went thru with the old T. I'm just grateful the new T isn't an intern. I'm tired of being the mistake that people learn from.
Please wish me luck with my new T; I don't think I can handle another unstable one like my ex-T.
P.S. Do yourselves a huge favor and save yourselves a lot of heartache. If you are working with a T that seems to be emotionally unstable, unpredictable, overwhemled, or otherwise ill-equipped to be in the profession, get out and find a more suitable T.
poster:Maria01
thread:771223
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070714/msgs/771223.html