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Re: my first experience with therapy » Anna Laura

Posted by johnX2 on March 13, 2002, at 8:17:55

In reply to my first experience with therapy, posted by Anna Laura on March 13, 2002, at 6:57:54


Wow,

It's so nice to know that we are not alone.
So sorry you got screwed for so long!
And to be treated in such a deaming way.
Oh my God! Three cheers to you for surviving that!!!

Quick questions: when you walked out that door,
how did you feel? Betrayed, depressed, a little
empathetic towards her, that she was pathetic,
relieved?

I felt some sick pleasure when I left my 1st pdoc.

Honestly after a while I had figured out exactly what was going on with my doctor. When I was young I lived with a very manipulative father. When he made that statement I quoted as I left, I practically had flashbacks to statement my mother made when my parents got divorced. Apparently I had picked up on my father's little skills of psychological manipulation.

My story with your therapist has some parallells.
This guy who was treating me had no business in therapy. I would often want to talk about painful things that happened to my family growing up just to get past it. I did have some good counseling in the past, so after a while I new he was full of baloney. Anytime I brought something up he would remark something like "I know what you are saying". Always a canned answer. Seemed like things never were going anywhere. When I brought up medicines, he would always say "Its just a pill". And make me think I was crazy. I became nearly psychotic on many antidepressants and he never diagnosed me as bipolar. At group therapy he scoffed that "Everyone is bipolar these days." I also complained about a chronic facial neuralgia and headache (which bipolar medicine is a cure for) and he had a phd in neuralogy. When I asked about it he said "Well, you can go to an expensive headache clinic". Making me sound like I'm crazy.

So whenever I would talk to him about problems and he would say something like "I hear what you are saying". I would calmy say something like "I know you sitting three feet from me." If he had no more insight to my comments beyond his canned staments, I would always come back with a simple canned response.

It blew up on daylight savings, I was really depressed over the weekend and forget to set forward my clock. When I got to his office I saw that I was really early and he got me into his office early (they forgot to change the clocks on their wall too). I told my pdoc "Wow, you actually got me in a few minutes early for a change". He blew up for me telling me I was 50 minutes late. I said I didn't know the time changed and they didn't even change they're own clocks. Jerk.

He really goofed up other peoples lifes too from
what I was told. Its too bad.

I hope to do therapy again. I don't see any harm.
I know if to quit given my experience.

Thanks for sharing your story. Sorry I am
rumbling on.

How are you doing these days?

Do you think a lot of people waste too much
time doing therapy before getting medicine?

Do you think a lot of time waste getting medicine
who really need therapy?

-John

> >
> > Sorry, I made it a cliff-hanger (how rude).
> >
> > This is an anecdote about my relationship with
> > my first psychiatrist. He was really big into
> > therapy. I was really looking more for medicines,
> > but he felt that I should do therapy. I felt that
> > if we did therapy, drudging up painful memories may destabilize
> > me more and worsen my depression. This prompted
> > the 1st quote from him.....
> >
> > "Don't worry this is a safe setting. No harm
> > can be done to you through therapy."
> > -Psychiatrist
> >
> > After many months of therapy (and failed
> > medication) due to a bad diagnosis, I started to
> > become angry at my doctor. I was still doing the
> > therapy and was able to leave during my work hours.
> > So I started to get angry with him and I have a
> > tendency to react in a passive aggressive manner.
> > I never yelled, acted angry, raised my voice, etc.
> > I just used passive comments to get under his skin.
> > I don't know what kind of psychological warefare
> > I was involved in, and frankly I wasn't even aware
> > I was doing it.
> >
> > Anyways, eventually he decided that maybe he
> > didn't want to treat me (He was visibly unprofessional,
> > angry, and upset this day).
> >
> > Dissolution of Relationship
> > "No one in my life has made me feel more worthless and ineffectual."
> > -xxxx=Psychiatrist (comment he made to me in my final therapy session).
> >
> > Irony?
> >
> > PS, I'm not proud of this whole ugly story.
> >
> > Thanks for lending your ears.
>
>
>
> My first therapist told me something similar to "don't worry this is a safe place"
> "the worst it's over, now you're safe with me" she added.
> After a year and a half, i was getting worse since i had been misdiagnosed thus taking the wrong meds. I got worse month after month (no wonders: untreated major depression) and this lady would give me odd interpretations of my situation like: "You're committing a psichic suicide since you're rejecting my interpretations, don't you realize it?"
> It wasn't a "resistance" reaction, i just felt she didn't have a clue about me, no wonders her interpretations didn't fit my case at all.
> Sometimes she was really pathetic, using naive therapeutic tools. An anecdote:
> She had fixed a therapeutic session at lunch time 'cause she was too busy that day;obviously i had to skip my meal to get there on time.
> Towards the end of the session i came out with this phrase: "Oh god, i'm really hungry, i wish i had something to eat !". She stared at me in a quite mysterious way (notice: i really felt her actions were like "artificial" and deliberate, like there were part of the setting sort of) she walked away from the room and came back within minutes holding a glass of milk and a dish full of cookies.
> She put them on the floor and told me: "Go ahead and eat: you need to nourish the baby"
> "What baby? I don't need to feed no baby: i'm not pregnant ! " i told her, (i was quite alarmed at that point, wasn't hungry anymore: in fact i wanted to run away thinking she was crazy).
> "You fool ! " she told me, glancing at me with an artificial motherly smile "I'm talking about your child within: your inner child is starving: you need to nourish her, and i'm going to help you to do that, as you can see".
> After months of evident attempts of manipulation from her side, i decided i've had enough.(she was switching back and forth from sweet, corny attitudes and pathetic and fake attempts to be the "good mother" up to deliberate threats and sadist seemingly purposeless psichic rituals and threats ). That was the worst thing she could do as she was behaving just like my abusive mother did!
> I got fed up with those attitudes at one point and decided to fight back with her "weapons": interpretations. I began to interpret her words and her behaviour: I remember talking for half an hour, staring at her library, catching a view of books titles in order to have more clues about her personality. Moreover i felt intimidated by her and not staring at her made me feel more comfortable sort of.
> At one point i heard a sobbing sound: she was crying. I asked her what was the matter with her.
> "You didn't show me any respect whatsoever!"
> she cried.
> "Well, you didn't show me any respect to begin with, so you shouldn't expect any respect in return" i told her.
> "O.K.: i'm getting the hell out of this place!" i added. I walked away and went to the dressing room to grab my coat. She came after me, saying: "Don't leave, Anna! Wait a minute: i've gotta show you something"
> She came back holding a small child by the hand. "You see, i'm a mother: i'm a sensitive person: i'm not the monster you're depicting in your descriptions". At that point i realized she was a very disturbed person and felt sorry for her.
> That was the last time i saw her, and was my last trial with psychoanalisis for years to come.


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poster:johnX2 thread:19548
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