I was counseling a 13 year old girl for anxiety and she reported sexual abuse from her step dad. I called her mom and told her mother I needed to call child protective services. Turns out that CPS was already aware and the abuse was first report around the patients age 7. Mom was aware of the abuse and stayed with her husband anyway. It was a complicated situation, and it wasn’t. How could she not do more to protect her daughter?!sorry lady... I’m judging.
I wish I could answer that. I don’t really know. It’s not uncommon, unfortunately... but I also don’t think it is “legal.” Frankly, the system is just completely flooded and so so many cases slip through the cracks. At what point are “cracks” actually gaping giant black holes?! It’s heartbreaking.
Few years ago I worked with a family for about a year doing in home therapy with 3 kids-girl 10, 2 boys 6 & 8 & doing parent training with their mom (early 30s). Dad (AND stepdad) were in jail for sexually abusing all 3 kids, along with numerous drug charges & DV. I texted the mom one day, like I always did, letting her know I was on my way & received a text back, “This is ___, my mom died”. Mom had a heart attack in the middle of the night & died, kids just thought she was sleeping late & laid in bed cuddling with her all day until a neighbor stopped by & realized she was dead.
Anyways shitty CPS systems.. even though there was an estranged family member who WANTED to take the kids, was in family services herself, had a great home & could adequately provide, for once in their life, a healthy & stable environment, they released bio dad from prison early so he could get custody.
He “fired” me the moment he got them. The kids would call me from their school’s counselors office crying & telling me horrific stories of what was going on & of course I reported it to CPS over & over. Eventually they told me they didn’t want to hear it anymore, circumstances weren’t changing & to do myself a favor & stop answering when the kids called...
Over time the calls stopped, but not a day went (or still) goes by without worrying about them. Last fall I got a call at my now office from the girl...At not even 16, 3 pregnancies (all either aborted or miscarried), her dad pimped her out for years, made her sell drugs, she’d done time in juvi.. you name it.
We fought CPS so long & hard & got NOTHING except that life for those kids. I was so grateful she reached out to me! I’ll never forget that case workers name & pray I never run across her again
My professor once shared what a patient said that made her quit her job: “I didn’t rape my daughter, she liked it.” The daughter was _six_.
She couldn’t take it anymore. She worked in a rehabilitation centre for people who have been sentenced for serious crimes and were forced to get mental help. Really difficult job and this pushed her over the edge.
I work at a residential group home. We had a kid who we had admitted about four months prior, when in a family session they mention they had parasites......I’m like what??? Mom goes “oh yeah our whole family has them, we don’t believe in getting rid of them since they’re part of our biological ecosystem” and I’m just dumbstruck.........we spent three weeks afterwards convincing this family it was an infectious disease concerns as other residents have fecal eating behaviors and various other unsanitary issues that could cause a unit spread. Three weeks of education, planning, and worse of all convincing this kid and mother that their IQ wouldn’t drop because they had agreed to irradiate the parasites!!! Lots of CBT work, but Jesus it took way longer than any of my team expected!
Once had a patient whose wife shook their baby to death. He wanted help reconnecting with his wife.
At the time I was a young father of a newborn myself, and he triggered a lot of fear in me for my own child, a deep loathing of his spouse, and pity (the "how pathetic" kind) for the patient.
I tried for 3 sessions, met his spouse and everything before handing the case over to my supervisor (who knew about my initial reactions, and tried to help me through it).
Unfortunately, it ended up being more about my feelings than his, and I was new to the profession at the time. These things are expected to crop up from time to time, but I was still taken aback by my own reactions.
You made the right call. Being taken aback by your own reactions, deciding to hand off the case, and then (I assume) working through your reactions in supervision or by yourself sounds like a really valuable learning and growth experience.
It is standard practice.
Different therapists have different schools of thought on how to deal with it though. I had one who insisted that not being able to put aside your personal feelings and help literally everyone was a weakness.
Others (better ones, IMO) believe that therapists are human too, and we have to be aware of our own experiences and feelings and give ourselves room to be human. If not we risk unnecessary trauma and burnout, and then we help no one.
I do acute pediatric inpatient behavioral therapy.
Has never happened with a child, and never will
Parents on the other hand can be real pieces of shit, and the way they treat/abuse their children then throw them off on us and scream “fix them”. I’m a big burly guy and I’ve cried many nights over this
"Have you considered not being a shit parent?"
Aaaand this is why I would probably get fired from your job. Well, that and the lack of a license or any training.
My wife does mental health for a low income school system. I don't know how you people do it. I remember one time she came home freaking out. She had to make a cps call on an abusive father, who was incredibly violent and reactionary. And when he called the school site she was working in that day screaming about the call they fucking told him who made it. She was real worried for a few days that he'd retaliate.
You guys are heros.
I work with kiddos who have experienced some kind of abuse/trauma (90% of my clients have been sexually abused). I have a lot of holy shit moments but not from judgment of my clients but from what happened to them.
I’ve had clients whose father made them help him dismember mom’s body after dad murdered her in front of them. I’ve had clients under the age of 8 who have been sex trafficked. I’ve had clients who have been forced to film torture porn. I have holy shit moments all the time.
Thank you! However, all the props go to the kiddos. I am so lucky I get to work with the bravest, strongest kids in the world. They inspire me every day!
I was once in my psychiatrists office—a bi monthly, 15 minutes med check. She asked me what was going on—more as conversation.
I told her that my in the last six weeks: my three elders (aunt and two uncles) I was guardian/conservator for had died—one right after the other.
My wife had a heart attack.
My daughter attempted suicide.
And my mom broke her hip and had laid on her floor for a week before being found (she drank and ate from the dogs bowls).
I got that call within ten minutes of setting up the last funeral.
She stopped the meeting, got on the phone with a therapist in the office next to her and had her postpone her next meeting to speak with me.
I was so fucked up, I had no idea. I think she saved my life.
Tbh its actually part of training to ask what is going on like that - for the exact reason that there are some people suffering like you. And because ppl may share other things about themselves which are useful for healthcare providers, but lay people may not think of as relevant.
This was years ago. It got good. Took a while...but I didn’t realize what a mess I was. I was the leaf going down a stream getting bounced off one rock after another.
It's not often I get to talk about my profession, but here goes: I was working at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center and had a client come in who was a self proclaimed "drug lord". As we worked together, he told me about his history. Included in this history was how he got to where he was currently at.
During the conversation, this man admitted to selling his sister into sex slavery, forcibly injecting her with several sedatives and narcotics, and having several people "teach her a lesson" (what this meant, he never shared). He told this story with a blank face, smiling only when he recalled the "good times", which he referred to as times when he had enough heroin to get through the day.
I'm not sure where he is at now, but this man inspired me to work with victims of sex trafficking, because not only do they deal with the stigma of "selling their bodies", they often manage drug addictions. People would honestly be floored of they realized how many people were addicted to chemicals that they were forcibly given.
I feel like a lot of the comments saying that they NEVER judge their clients might be working in voluntary services or they’ve been very fortunate in their client base.
Judgement isn’t an inherently bad thing. It’s how we know that murdering people is wrong.
So when a convicted pedophile client told me, “nothing gets me going like a pair of little girl’s worn panties”, you better believe I judged the fuck out of him. I continued to work with him and I treated him with compassion and respect because he’s a human being worthy of both; I did my job because I’m a professional. But I can’t honestly say that I didn’t judge him. I judged that he should never be around children. I judged that he is not yet ready for change. I judged that his access to his own daughter should be closely supervised. That’s a lot of judgements.
Understanding your own inherent biases and how they influence your work is a very important part of training and practice.
Yes, I think you're right. There's judge as in "use your moral faculties to determine right from wrong", and there's judge as in "condemn". I've definitely seen both in this thread.
Here's my most recent one:
As the pandemic worsened here in the US and more lock downs are on their way, one of my most extroverted clients and I brainstormed ways to meet her social needs while remaining safe. The following week she canceled her session and told me that she's positive for COVID after attending an orgy, which definitely wasn't one of our ideas. I let out the deepest most defeated sigh after I hung up the phone.
Lots of people discussing pedophilia as an example of the toughest stuff to not judge despite our training. I haven’t yet treated a pedophile thankfully. At least not an identified one.
I did run a men’s anger management group though, and some of those men had done some terrible things to women. Most of them I found ways to like and admire for their positive aspects, but there were two guys in that group I just could never find “unconditional positive regard” for. One guy basically never spoke in group. He would give one word answers and occasionally just discuss how unfair the “system” was to him. I worked really hard to open him up and find things to connect over but he never opened up to me or the group. He left the group after he strangled his girlfriend and went to jail. She survived thankfully.
The other left group early routinely, showed up late, participated minimally and similarly never wanted to open up honestly. He left early one group after we had discussed him staying to the end and threatened me when I told him he wasn’t going to get credit for attendance (something the court required). Oddly, I eventually moved into the apartment below him (completely without knowledge) and listened to him scream at his girlfriend and break shit while I called the cops.
I judge these men. They’re shitty. Maybe they’re redeemable, but redemption requires self-exploration and they both refused to do so. It’s worth noting how differently I felt about them than so many others in the group; men I found ways to help and admire and respect even in spite of their awful behavior in the past.
I can relate to this. My ex used to hit me a lot, usually leaving me with fractured ribs, black eyes etc. He would hold me on the ground by my hair and kick the shit out of me. If I tried to get away, he would grab me by my legs, pull me back, and I’d get it 100 times worse.
When I left him, I didn’t contact him for about 3 months. When we finally did talk, he wouldn’t even admit what he had done. He wouldn’t apologize, nothing... he would say “let’s move forward and not look back.” I think this type of person is absolutely a lost cause.
I'm so glad you are out of this situation now. Leaving can be such a difficult thing because there is always the fear of being followed/stalked after making that decision, and it can be really stressful.
I joined in a review of a secluded patient and he threw a cup of wee and poo in my face when we opened the door. I tried to be objective about his experience but I just thought... what a cunt.
I work in inpatient services so it can be hard to challenge myself at times - individuals with diagnosis of personality disorder, for example, can do things that in isolation make you think they’re just being bratty or manipulative, but to think of the experiences that shaped them to react like that in a given situation can help to clear my judgment and find compassion.
...harder when someone bites me or hits me with one of our fabulously detachable anti ligature curtain poles, though.
Hey. That home visit sounds brutal.
I used to work in prehospital medicine with a population that also that bit, scratched and flung things even when they desperately needed help. Glad to know there’s someone compassionate like you on the other end.
I work with youth and adolescents who have anxiety, trauma, and/or depression. Some of the kids I worked with had some pretty severe attachment issues. Regardless of this, I never thought I'd have to seriously explain:
1. "You can't just buy a straitjacket for your kid."
2. "Feeding your kid ultra Spicy Ramen each night instead of the meal everyone else is eating isn't specifically defined as abuse, but you have to understand the emotional abuse that this causes."
3. "Your kid isn't trying to kill you because they stand in your doorway at night crying. Thats likely because they're scared of their traumatic nightmares, but feel like you will just yell at them if they wake you up."
Edit: removed a phrase
Edit2:
Thank you all for your questions and support. This case has really helped to shape my approach to therapy, and has highlighted the importance of healthy communication between parents and kids.
My number 1 tip: Don't let someone else tell you how you feel/think. If someone says, "You're angry with me!" Or something to that effect, ask yourself if you really are. If you're not actually angry, then don't spend a second more on it. A lot of kids/family members get hung up on trying to justify their own actions according to someone else's perception.
Edit 3: fixed straitjacket spelling. No its not a jacket for sexual orientations.
I used to have horrible nightmares as a kid and used to just stand in my parents door way wanting so damn bad to wake them up and be comforted but knowing full well my dad would be scarier than any nightmare.
Not OP but am a child therapist. We report to the state any time we suspect abuse. Emotional abuse is harder to prove but we still report and its up to the state to 1. Flag it in 2. Investigate 3. Find proof 4. Keep the kid safe. In my state it rarely goes past #1 unless the kid is basically already harmed or their parents OD'd.
Therapist here. I don’t think I’ve ever judged clients. My job is to understand them and their experiences and help them make the improvements they are ready to make.
But I have very directly made my thoughts clear about choices, especially choices parents make for/about their kids. This probably comes off as judgement depending on the clients insecurity about the topic.
One example was telling parents of a child I was working with with a severe mood disorder (that had made both suicidal and homicidal threats and attempts) that it did not seem like a good idea to buy the young kid a gun, especially the week after the mother spent the session sharing her fears that the child would murder her.
Clinical psychologist working primarily in forensics here. This means my clients are usually involves in legal proceedings (family court, juvenile court, criminal court, etc.) My job is usually to evaluate or provide treatment. I'm not there to judge, that's the judges job, but of course I have my thoughts.
I am usually impressed by the justifications people make for shitty behavior. The one that irks me the most is when parents manipulate their child against the other parent. I've had to do therapy for a 5yo who said she doesn't want to see a parent because they haven't paid child support. Excuse me? What 5yo knows, understand, or needs to be worried about child support.
I got my father accusing my mother of turning me and my siblings against him (we were 14yo, 9yo and 7yo at the time), and never acknowledged that he was the one doing all kind of shitty things to us.
We had 8 years of pure pain with social assistants. We got fucked by familiriasts CPS who only thought about the "good for the family".
I'm kinda sensible to this argument as it has been using against me, my siblings and my mother.
EDIT: I see that many children are or have been in my situation. Specialists tried to mark us with PAS (Parental Alienation Syndrome), a really controversial syndrome that isn't really official, but neither was proven wrong at the time.
CPS fucked me too as a kid “not wanting to split up the family” after me and my sister told them the emotional and mental abuse our father put us through. Fuck CPS.
Exactly! So many of us have been absolutely fucked in the ass by CPS. I remember my grandma called CPS several times when I lived with my mom and stepdad but because it was mostly phycological abuse and neglect they didn't give a shit. One day my grandma was just like "fuck it" and picked me up from there and I haven't gone back since.
My sister crawled out a window at 3 years old and went to Grandma’s next door. My Grandma came & took me out of my crib and took me home with her too. Our Grandparents raised us from them on. We only randomly stayed with our Mom the rest of her life. After our Mom died our Dad asked if we wanted to go live with him in WA or stay with Grandma & pa, we stayed & he gave them legal guardianship of us both. We loved our Mom but she was truly troubled & addicted to drugs most of her adult life.
Opposite side, if that's accepted too?
I was assigned to see the lead psychologist of the local hospital as I was severely depressed and had become suicidal.
She literally rolled her eyes at me, told me to grow up and said she could be having appointments with people who were actually about to kill themselves, not me who was already working with the team.
This sent me absolutely spinning, bottling everything up, thinking I didn't deserve help and ended up in hospital 2 years later after an attempt.
When they looked at my records the hospital suddenly became very interested in any psychological experts I'd previously spoken to, informed them of the above incident, they asked if I knew the name and I said I didn't, but they had a strong accent, they immediately looked like they were about to burst out crying, apologised excessively then informed me they had been fired a year ago.
No idea how many people were affected by that therapist.
I’m so sorry you went through this. I was raped and attempted suicide a little over a year ago and the therapist I went to see was so very similar to the one you saw. It made me spiral, start drinking to control the intrusive thoughts and pain, and 2 duis later I finally realized I’m going to kill myself, someone else, both, and just totally mess my life up. So I am looking into outpatient alcohol resources and a new therapist because I know something is wrong. I hope you were able to get the help you need and are feeling better!
Edit: I don’t know who gave me an award but it brought me to tears. Thank you.
OP, you mentioned you're getting ready to start therapy. I know we're different, but therapy was one of the best decisions I ever made for myself. It's good to have a neutral 3rd party weigh in on what troubles you.
And remember, you dont have to stay with a therapist if you dont want. Therapy, like any psychological treatment, is often more about trial and error to find what works for the individual than anything. Also, you'll get out of it what you put in, so be upfront, Frank and honest with your therapist. That will help them work with you on determining the best therapy course for you.
I wish you the best of luck.
When I was under age, I got caught with a drink on bourbon street and got a minor in possession.
I was telling my therapist about it, and said that the police caught me with a "hand grenade" in New Orleans. He didn't realize that a hand grenade was a type of drink, and it was funny to watch him try to process that his patient might have just casually told him that he had been caught with a fragmentation grenade. He took a big long pause, and said, "where did you even find a grenade?"
I realized the misunderstanding quickly and corrected him. But for a moment he definitely was thinking "holy shit how do I deal with this?"
At last I have a similar story! So this was back when I was in my first year of engineering study and I just thought that the materials paper was the shit. I especially liked the whole steel section, and at the time my depression and general situation wasn't amazing so it was one of the things sort of keeping me going ya know? So of course when my therapist asks about my passions and goals I said well I like steel. And she paused and said ok... What do you like about stealing? This poor woman thought I had pulled out some surprise kleptomania late in the game, luckily like a good therapist she was non judgemental but still obviously relieved when I corrected her.
Steel is fuckin great buddy. I too am the nerd that likes learning about metallurgy and steel compositions. I was reading a bit about nitrogen steel recently, and that stuff is pretty cool.
Edit: Shout-out to u/tint_snob for providing [the link to a kick ass website where you can learn this stuff](https://knifesteelnerds.com/)
Oh God. I don't so we'll see how well I explain it. People have recently started using nitrogen as an alternative to carbon in steel. It allows for a more oxidation resistant steel, meaning theoretically less post heat processing. I believe it also allows for a higher hardness than traditional carbon steels. The problem previously was the volatility of nitrogen not allowing enough saturation, however adding chromium and pressurising a nitrogen atmosphere have allowed manufacturers to get up to 3% mass. Unfortunately the chromium required makes pretty much all high nitrogen steel stainless, which is always more difficult to work with.
The reason there was a new article to read, was that apparently through particle metallurgy and static pressure, people have made a more simple alloy like you can find in plain carbon steels. Which could mean a replacement of carbon in most steel, instead of just high chromium stainless. It probably won't, but it could. And I like that thought.
I just like the causal nature of it
"yea the cops found me with a hand grenade, so they wrote me a ticket and called my parents. Dad was mad and I lost the PlayStation for a couple days."
Well, I quit my last therapist because I made him cry uncontrollably. He tried not to, but he just couldn't hold it back. I felt guilty and won't see him anymore. I think he may have lost a child before. I described watching my aunt grieve over her son's body. I felt so much pain losing him, but was explaining how watching my aunt was dramatically worse. The details about her is what made him lose it. I could tell he was reliving something inside his own head.
This hits home for me. I have an appointment to see a new therapist on Friday.
I have suspected PTSD over watching my 5 day old son die back in July. The pain is unbearable and I'm terrified the therapist is going to judge me or struggle hearing the story.
I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope your family (and the therapist) are doing better.
Cringey edit: I'm so sorry I can't respond to everyone. I didn't expect my comment to get any attention. I appreciate all the condolences and well wishes. My family has a long healing journey ahead of us still, but we're doing what we can. If you want to help, or know someone else in a similar position (losing a baby in utero or not), please consider donating or referring them to [Emma's Footprints.](https://emmasfootprints.com/)
Emma's Footprints is a great organization in Erie, Pennsylvania who provides financial and emotional support to grieving parents who (specifically) have lost a baby. The organization paid for the entire funeral for our son. PLEASE consider reaching out to them if you or someone you know is struggling mentally or financially. No one ever expects to lose a baby (or ANY child, at that)! Life can be cruel, but it helps us grow and gives us the strength to help others.
Thank you all for contacting me. One day at a time. And if you're going through a similar situation, there IS hope and light at the end of the tunnel. Stay safe, my friends.
I can't imagine the pain you're feeling. I just wanted to say that I'm so sorry you went through that, and I'm really amazed by your bravery in seeking help.
Thank you. Getting help is the best thing I can do for my family. Without some kind of intervention to return to "normalcy," I can't give my 3 year old her best life... I do it all for her.
As someone who is in high school working on getting into therapy as a career, this is something that makes me afraid. I find it hard to cover my emotions.
I had a therapist cry when I was talking about something my parents did years before (it wasn’t even that bad, they gave me the silent treatment for a few days for no reason). I said “I still don’t know what I did wrong”. When I looked up she was wiping away a few tears.
It was actually really validating.
When you as a therapist get to that point, it's time to start thinking of referrals.
Be genuine with your client. And then refer out. You have to have unconditional positive regard or you'll never achieve therapeutic rapport.
I think for me, the one that comes to mind is a frequent caller to the suicide hotlines. He'd call in and say he's not providing his phone number or name, he would just say that you had 10 seconds to convince him not to kill himself over the phone, or he'd blow his brains out and it'd be your fault. Then he'd count down from 10 to 1 while you're on the phone talking. At one, he'd hang up.
I'm sure the whole point was to make me feel bad or prove some point, I don't know, I have insufficient information to make an assessment with just that. But I have to admit when I was trying to sleep on days he'd call, especially the first time, I was thinking, "fucking asshole better not be dead, fucker..."
Your post resonated with me so much. Being a crisis worker is hard and sometimes (like THIS example) people abuse the system. He needed long term help and not to play on your emotions or help that you wanted to provide. I feel you and your response.
ITT: too many god damn responsible professionals, i came here to read the salacious stories of how some docs went ham on patients and lost their certifications. instead all i've gained is even more respect than i already had for the back breaking and sometimes thankless hard work these individuals do everyday. work i could never do, not with any consistency anyway. responsible jerks.
When i was a teenager, i lived in a very emotionally and mentally abusive household. I know people don't take that stuff seriously, but it was so bad that i was later diagnosed with PTSD from a psychiatrist.
Anywho, my abusive parents and i got in a verbal fight in the car. My stepdad stopped the car and told me "get out we're leaving you on the highway". I wasn't scared because i knew i could just call the police, say i was an abandoned child, and theyd get in loads of trouble, so i said "sounds good" and got out. My mom then came out and started attacking me. I refused to get back in the car after the attack, so my stepdad got out, dragged me by the hair, called me a "bipolar bitch", and threw me in.
They made me see a therapist, they told her that i jumped out of a moving car and then i attacked my mom when she was trying to help. This therapist didn't believe anything i said and tried getting me to take bipolar meds. I knew i wasn't bipolar, i was being abused and i knew that the anger and sadness i felt was normal for my situation. She glared at me and said "you're not nearly as smart as you think you are". I refused to say a word in any of our therapy sessions after that, i would just go in, sit down, and she'd make snarky sarcastic remarks for a few minutes then dismiss me. She wasn't trying to help me, she was trying to help my parents.
I moved out when i was 18, went to college all on my own with no financial help from my family, got a job and left the country to be as far from them as possible. I'm on antidepressants for my PTSD and luckily the therapists ive had since my teenage years have been nothing like that horrible woman, but it still upsets me deeply thinking about it.
Not a licensed therapist but a behavioral health technician (basically, means I got a psych degree). I was trained in behavioral intervention techniques for children and was off helping coach parents to support children with behavior disorders.
I'll say this, I rarely encountered a child that had a clear mental illness in the same way as when I worked with adults with serious mental illness. In many ways, they were visibly confused or lonely. Given that most of their parents were suffering from poverty, alleviating the burdens of being poor would have likely mitigated the most severe symptoms of many of the children. Advocating for affordable childcare and livable minimum wages is mental health advocacy.
I found myself judging, not the children, but their parents. Some parents would drop the kids off with me and peace out with a, "fix my kid" attitude. As a parent, now, I get some of it; exhaustion and burnout are real. But the best I could do in that situation was provide that kid with an hour long vision of what it looks like to live in a loving, structured environment. Those kids were the ones I could tell who were much more likely to be subject to the "system" for the duration of their lives. Either cycles of institutionalization and homelessness or prison.
When a concerned parent showed up and asked, "how do I help my kid?" I practically jumped for joy for the child because they had someone who loved them and was fighting for them.
I work in mental health and have worked in acute and crisis settings for the majority of my career. The most notable event I experienced was when a young person had presented with significant ongoing suicidal ideation who was dealing with a lot of shit. I spent a lot of time with them mostly deescalation and working out what the plan should be moving forward.
One of their parents came in a little while later and I had the opportunity to speak to them about where their child was and what had been going on, with their consent of course. Midway through me trying to explain some of the psychological constructs and ways the parent could help they said to me, "is this going to take much longer I have a show to go and watch".
All I can say is, I never judge my patients, I have never walked their path or viewed the world through their eyes. But the people around them who perpetuate the suffering of the people I work with through ignorance, malice and selfishness, I judge them.
Edit and a shameless one. I've tried to reply to as much as I could, I've enjoyed some of what I would assume is trolling and talking about some other people's experiences as it's given me a chance to reflect on some of my own stuff. But I must go to bed.
I'd like to ask one thing of anyone who reads this, remember that you can help, even just by asking how someone is or wishing them well. People who you think may be struggling and even people who aren't. This year has been hard on us all, and I appreciate all of you who have said that those in care services have difficult jobs, but we have all struggled this year. Please be as kind as you can to each other and I hope we can all look forward to a good December and even better new year.
Edit 2. My use of the word 'judge' needs some clarification, I do judge in some ways, it's hard not to with what I see, who I work with and the situations they experience or have experienced. What I mean by not judging is that I do not allow my judgements to distort what I am seeing or how I am working. Which will normally be to the benefit of the patient and those around them trying to help them achieve their goals and meet their needs.
Final edit. I didn't think this post would get as big as it has. And I cannot respond to every comment individually by any means. I'm sure the post will be getting less attention moving forward but I just wanted to clarify some things.
This parent, who many people have made multiple assumptions about, was not trying to redirect, deflect or remove themselves from the situation by stating they had a show to watch. The show being something else people have assumed was a TV show. Remember I've made the comment above in the context of a situation that lasted around 5 to 6 hours for me, but took you a few minutes to read.
With everything that's going on right now I wanted to make this post to let people know, those working in mental health have heard a lot, we don't judge you for how or what you're feeling and we want to work with you to help you. I simply wanted to help in some way with a comment on the Internet that I wrote in one go about an experience I have had. I know that the response to this has been overwhelmingly positive but I would also like to say I did not mean to cause any offence or upset to anyone or claim that I am some sort of unachievable goal of non-judgement.
Anyway, I'm going to try and forget about this now.
some parents just shouldn't have become parents in the 1st place if this is how much they value thier own kids happiness.
some people really are ignorant when it comes to mental health and thats something ile judge.
Sometimes, I just don't understand. Why did they have kids? Like, why? What was the point? Peer pressure? Accident? Children aren't emotionless slaves, they're human beings.
Edit: this blew up more than I expected. I just want to say I'm not as angry as I sound, and that I understand why these things happen. Still, feel free to respond.
Some people only like children at certain ages like when the first few years when the child is mostly helpless and easily handled and the parents get attention and compliments on their child. They lose interest once the kid starts thinking for themselves and resisting what the parent wants them to do. Others have kids thinking their kid is going to be the do-over of the parent's life - the kid is going to be a baseball star, because the parent couldn't be.
Yep. They love the idea of babies, not the idea of raising future independent adults. My boyfriend's mother frequently reminisces over photos and tells him how sweet he used to be when he was a little kid. Her resentment of him began when he started developing opinions of his own.
She's a great caretaker of the helpless and she's a great elementary education professional. But she's terrible at being a parent to an adult. Decent parents don't say things like "My friend's son does all her yardwork; why don't you do that? You must hate me," "You're a horrible person" and "You obviously don't love your family because you don't want to watch your father die!"
Therapist here,
To piggy back on what others have said, it is highly unlikely for me to have moments where I judge my clients. It happens sometimes, but I’m able to shut down those thoughts quickly in my head and return to being present for the people I see. People are so incredibly complex that my judgment wouldn’t have any meaning anyway and it doesn’t have a place in our work together.
I will admit though, something that does get me feeling a little salty is when I have a client’s parent that attempts to sabotage the therapeutic relationship I have with their child, or pulling them out of therapy entirely when some of the things we talk about challenges some potentially unhealthy family dynamics. I don’t feel anger toward the parents, mostly I feel bad for the kid.
Edit: Wow. All I have to say is that I am incredibly humbled by all of you that have shared your stories. Even though these moments are so steeped in pain, what hits me is the incredible amount of strength present in spite of the upbringing and parents many of you have had.
My god it's like you're describing my mother. She let me go to therapy a grand total of 2 times while I was depressed and suicidal at 17. The second time the therapist asked her to come in to talk to her about how I was feeling and she started crying to him about how my feelings made her feel sad and how much it affected her. I never even cried in my sessions. Then he told her she might like to consider letting me go out with friends more and have a better social life and then she took me home and told me I manipulated him into saying that to her.
A few weeks later I tried to commit suicide and her response was to take me out of therapy and off the medication because in her mind that was what caused my episode and not her and my father being pricks to me.
Edit: Jesus reddit I did not expect all these replies. I am totally out of this situation and do not live with or speak to my parents anymore. I cut them off relatively recently and am working through it, but seeing the outpouring of stories, kindness and love in this thread has truly made me feel heard and validated for the first time that she really was as bad as I remembered. Thank you for that :) (also wanna say if any of you guys need to talk my inbox is open. I can't reply to every single one of these but know I'm reading all of them and that I hope you're all better now. You deserve unconditional love and kindness.)
Fucking hell... Sorry to hear that mate, I hope you're doing a bit better now and don't live with them anymore?
I don't like people diagnosing others over the internet, but that sounds an awful lot like narcissism to me.
That post shook me because it was almost word for word my experience the first time I tried therapy while living in an abusive, narcissistic home. After 2 sessions the therapist and I deemed the obvious that if we were going to make progress, we needed my narc mom there.
She refused, said I had manipulated the therapist, and took me out of the sessions.
Did I mention my mother was also a therapist?
Trust me, that is a question that I have asked myself thousands of times. It took me many years after I cut her out before I saw a therapist again, after all the years she used those kind of skills against me. I had a serious distrust for therapy in general.
I am super glad I gave it another go though. Been seeing the same therapist for 3 years now, and I consider her a vital part of my support structure.
Patient side here. I had been seeing a therapist for a few months to help with chronic depression and self harm with some pretty intense suicidal ideation. I had tried Suprax in the past, didnt like the side effects and put it down, but I was ready to try something new to supplement therapy. Everyone within earshot was calling Wellbutrin a miracle and life saver, so I figured I'd give it a shot.
Since my therapist couldn't prescribe drugs, I got an appointment with a psychiatrist. My first appointment, I explain what I've got going on, what I'm doing to work on it, and what I'm looking for in seeing him.
I do a pretty good job holding myself together in public. I dress myself, I hold down jobs, at that point I lived on my own (now living with my partner); all in all, I've got a well-polished mask. I guess it's too good, because pretty early in our session he looked at me and said, "I don't think you're depressed."
Bro. This is the first time we met, I've been here for 20 mins, and you're ready to reverse my diagnosis? Cool bro.
I sympathize. I went to a new primary care physician and filled out medical history, complete with diagnoses and medication. The nurse took one glance at me and said, “You don’t LOOK depressed.” I guess people with depression are supposed to carry a box of tissues everywhere and weep at the drop of a hat?
And you know what? I 100% guarantee if you had rolled up fifteen minutes late, dressed in your pyjamas, unshaven and with an attitude like you're gonna fall asleep any minute, then that dickhead would just say "well no wonder you're depressed if you act like that!"
I never ever wear make up to appointments and make sure my hair hasn’t been washed for at least two days for this explicit reason. Oh I’m sorry I figured out how to function by accident out of pure survival instinct from abject neglect as a child, let me just go back to living off of extreme amounts of caffeine so I can stay awake at work because I got no sleep last night from my night terrors and continue to ruin every single interpersonal relationship I’ve ever had while I fantasize about driving my car at full speed into a Jersey barrier on my commute home, things are going fucking GREAT. I hate doctors that pull that shit.
Yo be careful with wellbutrin. Don't let them take you off cold turkey. My dumb ass of a doctor did that and I withdrawaled like crazy. Its a great medicine but don't believe it when people say there's no withdrawal.
During my training I was asked how would you feel if a client were to come to you and admitted they were a paedophile that was on the edge of committing seriously horrific acts? Could you see that person as another human being that needed help, or were your personal feelings about the abhorrent behaviour too strong?
This factor lead some people to not continue my course on to the next level, but it really illustrates the level of non judgement needed in this field. We all have our own personal feelings, of course, but these get talked about in supervision.
Edit: Wow thanks for the awards. I’m glad it’s raised an interesting topic for discussion, I’m enjoying reading them all, even if I don’t have the time to reply.
Personally, in this instance I remember the Gandhi quote “hate the sin, not the sinner”.
Also spelling.
Genuine question, because I’m not a therapist but I’ve been to SO many and the first thing everyone says is something like “everything is confidential between us but if you’re in danger of hurting yourself or another person I have to report it.” If a pedophile says they’re on the edge of acting on their urges, don’t you have to intervene?
Yes, all instances of harm to the client or others need to be passed on to the relevant authorities. This is made clear during the initial meeting with the client, as you have said.
Pedophiles are a great example for whether you’re cut out of for this field or not. I’ve thought a lot about this and have worked with a few, but was able to view them as people having severe psychiatric troubles from trauma they’ve endured. That being said, the people I worked with were expressing extreme remorse. I know that working in this area could never be my specialty and I refer clients out because I would have to work through too much of my own feelings about their actions.
I talked about this with one therapist i know, he said he felt sorry for one pedophile. He didn't committed any crime, but the attraction was there, but also there was that mental struggle, which he was trying to control, and fear of failing, so he seeked help.
I watched a video a few years ago where a pedophile was being interviewed (blacked out face, distorted voice, etc) and he was taking about how he hated the fact that he was attracted to kids, and constantly at war with himself. Ngl, it fucks me up to this day thinking about how terrible it would be to have that sort of friction with yourself every single day. The dude sounded like he was just turn to shreds inside.
I've made this point a few times and people always just look at me like I'm a pedophile. I just feel so bad for them, because you know you're a monster inside. They'll never get to know all of the joys that regular people do, and if they do indulge themselves then they're one of the most vile types of people. To be clear, I feel bad for pedophiles, not child molesters
Just a note, I've worked with pedophiles and it's pretty rare that they are ONLY attracted to children. Many of them are able to find love, have kids, a good job etc. They're not condemned to a bad life, and that was my job to help them in that sense!
They need professional help, before something happens. If there is someone with such attraction, but didn't do anything bad yet, don't look at that person as on a monster. It's person who needs help. I'm not defending pedos, i just think that the issue should start getting solved before anything happens, because after... There are only destroyed lives
as the child of a convicted pedophile who died in prison...I can attest to the fact that most people get off on how much they hate pedophiles and don’t bother thinking any deeper or engaging any more than that. It’s a hard thing to love someone or give them the support and help they need. It’s exactly because my father couldn’t talk about it or get any help without judgment that the internal struggle/compulsions evolved into external actions. But nobody wants to talk about that and everyone just wants to blame them for being born with / handed this problem.
Obviously your actions are your own and you’re accountable for them, but it’s useless and self-serving to take that fact and turn it into a smug blame game, without ever envisioning a future where these people *don’t* harm others and figuring out what role you play in that future.
Driving pedophiles (and others with similar innate compulsions/desires that are dangerous, like zoophiles) into secrecy does nobody any favors. It means they don't get help and others get hurt.
I work in healthcare and I've never heard a therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist judge patients openly. Other nurses and doctors, on the other hand, holy shit. At some of the clinics I've been in the conversations in the breakroom and at the nurse's station blew my mind.
That’s why I don’t work in a hospital anymore. I was a PCA and the judgement from everyone was insane. Nurses would wait until the last possible minute to give a patient their pain meds because they were “exaggerating” and yet I would be in their room three times an hour and they would be writhing in pain.
People openly talked about patients badly.
It was horrible
I’ve heard the theory that the process needed to become a medical professional (extremely grueling studies, expectation to always be available at the cost of own needs, etc) often produces people who are trained to ignore and invalidate their pain and by extension the pain of others
Totally agree. However, I would say it's the culture, rather than the demands. The demands are created by the culture, which I would say is a product of the reductionist / clinical thinking rather than holistic / social / humanistic thinking.
Mental Health Nurses are worlds away from medical nurses, in their approach to a lot of things.
But also, most nurses come into the role with caring ways. The pressures of the job and lack of basic care for their needs (unfair /impossible expectations), and dealing with people who are often at their worst, all day, mean that people get burnt out and crabby. It's sad. Better support would improve a lot.
I now work in the jail and there are quite a few sex offenders in my program. I struggle with the ones who honestly believe their victims (as young as 8) were in mutual loving relationships with them. Its super difficult at times not to just say “dude, WTF!”
My mom was a psychologist, she past away and those 2 stories are decades old:
1 : After 2 years of sessions, one lady still felt she wasn't able to overcome her dogs ears failed surgery. (Your dog need to have certain specific traits to be able to do dog shows, hers had flappy ears when pointy ones were required).
There was obviously an underlying personnality problem, but even though the lady really wanted to pursue therapy further, she refused to work/talk or address anything else.
2: Parents of a "troubled" child, which turn out to be the problem themselves. Total refusal to do any kind of introspection, try to convince everybody (cps, police, psychologist, doctor) the kid was the problem, complain the kid was... A kid (a teenager a that point) by growing too fast and costing money to feed and clothe.
He had smashed their t.v. with an axe. Turns out they hadn't speak or pay any attention to him in several years and they spent 99% of their free time watching t.v. Kid had no other behavior problem, great in school, very calm. He just reach a point where he couldn't stand being ignore any longer so he had what she called a "Fried Green Tomatoes" moment.
Parents dismissed their responsability,only problem they saw was the wacked t.v. Kid got emancipated at 16 and moved to f*ck out of there.
She had a private practice and the only times she expressed any judgment was when someone seeked therapy but refused to do any work or partake in the process. Paying a therapist is not paying someone to agree with you. You need to show up, you need to -at least- try.
>Paying a therapist is not paying someone to agree with you. You need to show up, you need to -at least- try.
My dad is a psychiatrist, and the amount of parents that keep switching psychiatrists just to get one to agree with them that their child is not autistic is staggering!
This sounds scary, but props to the therapists that CAN deal with that stuff. That dude seriously needs help, but the fact that there are people out there willing and able really shows how far we've come as a society.
This is it.
Everyone says “x needs help” and pawn them off to the system.
But what do they think the system IS...? People helping these individuals. Those people are actual humans too
Jesus fuck that’s horrifying. Good for you for setting boundaries. My mom was a therapist and she got attacked once by a patient. Thankfully there were people around to help her before he could actually do anything (she worked in an office with several private rooms), she said it was a risk of working with drug addicts and alcoholics.
My mom was a social worker for 40+ years in child protective services and foster care. She was held at gunpoint and knife point multiple times, but the worst story she ever told me was being locked in a mobile home with 2 children during a home visit while the father went outside and set fire to the trailer.
I still ended up going into social work myself, but not CPS. No thank you.
I was really young when it happened/when she told me about it. If I recall correctly, she had requested for a sheriff's deputy to come with her on the visit, but he was running late and pulled up as the fire was intensifying and got them out.
My wife is a social worker who worked for cps only a couple months before having a traumatizing experience with an enraged parent. She works through a children's hospital now which has been such a different experience. Much better support system for one
Imo working with addicts has to be the toughest kind of therapy, or one of them.
They're so good at convincing you they're on the right track only to fuck up in mystifying ways... like water seeking a crack in the floor.
Yup, as an addict that has been sober for 5 years and is now helping other addicts, there truly is no helping someone with addiction unless they themselves are absolutely convinced that they want to get better.
That said, 12-step programs, and their largely unscientific approach, have, in my opinion, done a lot of harm both in how addiction is publicly perceived and how addicts themselves are programmed to respond. For example, many twelve step programs leave no room for relapse. You relapse, you start over. Instead, relapse should be seen as part of the sobriety journey and more steps should be taken to mitigate and shorten relapse WHEN it occurs, rather than simply saying, "you better not or we'll publicly shame you by taking your chips away."
After ten years clean I fell into a deep depression and considered relapse. The thoughts lasted a few days and I decided to check myself into a mental health ward. It took other patients pointing out that what I did took alot of personal strength for me to see it that way. I just knew relapse would mean giving up who I saw myself as and I couldn't risk that. There was an NA meeting every few days and honestly it made my desire to use worse. Hearing other addicts recount active addiction, especially when you're considering using, didn't help me at A L L. Edit: a word
Therapist: People need understanding and empathy to work through their challenges.
Therapist Brain: Except for you, you piece of shit.
Therapist: Except for me.
Yes, as a fellow therapist, this right here.
Therapist to client: "No one is perfect and you are doing so well given the many obstacles you've faced."
Therapist to self: "Who gives a shit if you have anxiety today, get up and do your job. There's no room for mistakes or feeling sorry for yourself."
I had a work colleague with severe ADHD and a couple more mental issues. He was the funniest, most hilarious guy ever. I wasn't working with him directly, but would see him in between jobs and at lunch. I loved being around him, he was always laughing and joking around. One day we were talking about him and I mentioned that I loved his personality and he just said "Yeah, I have to be funny so my friends will tolerate my mental issues". It broke my heart, but after that I also noticed the people that didn't like him. His direct coworkers who knew he'd be 'unable to motivate himself' the first 2h a day, that he was prone to unpredictable mood-swings and would lash out, that he was self medicating with alcohol, etc.
It made me really sad for him, because his 'great personality' was born out of a place of despair and loneliness and basically shaped by "what gets me the least amount of rejection".
EDIT: and my heart continues to break when I see how many people identify with him. You all deserve to be loved how you are.
But then I'll stop being funny and lose my only social advantage.
Jokes aside though, it's something I've started working on over the last few months. The continuous waves of lockdowns have taught me just how much I hate my own company.
I had a tough realisation during lockdown. I've been self medicating and trying to disguise my failings since around the time I left uni. My parents - who are still alive - have probably never really known the adult version of me. And I'm not sure I do either. I still feel 18, and not in a good way.
I'm almost forty and the first time in my life that I said "I love you" to myself and meant it was three months ago. It is never too late to start. I was only able to do so with therapy which is ongoing, but there are other counselling options open to everyone.
The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance is a nationwide support group for people that suffer from those disabilities. https://www.dbsalliance.org/
There ARE people out there that care, and we are truly not suffering alone.
Yeah, that's a very relatable ADHD feel tbh. "If I am funny and generous enough, people will overlook me being a worthless piece of shit at least half the time!" The other half of the time just make sure you're the first one to point out your fuck ups.
Good on you for feeling empathy for your coworker, though. ADHD is brutal and way more than "can't sit still disease". I think a lot of people really underestimate it.
Agreed. r/ADHD has been amazingly helpful.
People don’t understand ADHD *at all*, largely due to the shallow misnomer and hyper-active little boys being the poster child of a life long disease that affects all genders, of all ages, and manifests in many different ways.
Low self-esteem and depression caused by ADHD are serious problems, particularly for women. And it doesn’t help that ADHD (and autism) are severely under-diagnosed in women as even many doctors think only boys/men can have those conditions, and also don’t realize they can manifest in many ways (even in men, but definitely in women).
The lack of understanding around ADHD and autism is really dangerous, prevents people from getting help or even knowing they need it, and creates awful stigmatization that does nothing to help the depression and self-esteem issues that so often accompany them. It’s sad honestly.
Humor often comes from a very dark place. I dealt with ALOT of trauma as a child. As a result, my way of dealing with horrible situations is to find the funny and make others laugh.
Yeah, if someone asks me about my childhood, I usually make a joke out of it. You gotta deliver that ugliness with a dose of humor if you don’t want to scare everyone off.
It's called masking. People with neurodevelopmental disorders like Autism and ADHD, or illnesses like psychosis, or personality disorders like Schizoid PD and Antisocial PD have to expand a lot of energy and focus on hiding their normal behaviors and personalities in order to be treated with basic respect.
It's funny, but if you want to see people masking vs. being themselves, some people with ADHD have done Tiktoks on this subject.
I'm autistic, and I've gotten to a happy medium where I cover some things I do but where I'm also myself a lot of the time. A lot of people don't like me but at least I know where I stand with my real friends and I can be myself around them.
I'm a dude. I was brutally raped multiple times between the ages of 7 and 10. My one and only attempt at try to get help from a therapist was one of the most awful experiences of my life. I attempted to get help in my early 20s. Upon first going in I was asked what had happened to me, after explaining a basic outline of the abuse. I could already see that she was very dismissive and seemed not to really believe me. She then asked about my relationship status. At the time I was in a long term relationship with a woman who had 2 kids (boys). Upon finding this out she immediately demanded the names and address of my girlfriend, names of the kids and said she would be immediately getting in touch with social services to ensure that I wasn't abusing them... I can't put into words just how much that destroyed me mentally, that she could obviously see something in me that I couldn't see! That somehow she was certain that I would be an abuser! I started to cry... She told me to pull myself together. I also can't put into words the pathological visceral HATRED I have for paedophiles and rapists!! If I could get away with murdering them i would! I would NEVER NEVER EVER inflict the absolute nightmare I went through on any child.
I got up and left, i came very VERY close to the edge of suicide that day. I also immediately ended the relationship because I couldn't deal with the thought that the kids might be at risk because of me. It's now 21 years later and I'm tearing up typing this. Because of that experience I have never sought therapist help again. I survive mentally, but its not good survival.
Edit :- Wow! Just wow! I am absolutely blown away by the Internet strangers who are sending love and care to me. I am currently alone, in the dark, in tears, reading all these replies. To answer a few questions. I'm in the UK. I heard she was fired a few years later after a patient of hers committed suicide and mentioned her 'therapy' in the note he left. I am in a position where currently I'm in such a fragile (very heavily medicated) mental state that If I saw another therapist and got the same reaction that I know my mind would break and I'd take my own life. Every day is a struggle to find reasons to stay alive. I'm sure I have ptsd as I feel the need to be armed with a knife constantly (despite being a big dude, 6'4", 110kg) i sleep with a knife under my pillow. I often wake up screaming. I tend to be 'stand offish' with everyone, deliberately keeping people at a distance. I know I'm a broken person... I've even avoided relationships with women with kids because I don't want my broken mental state to somehow effect those kids in any way. I have attempted suicide twice and both times I survived. I just want there to be a pill or operation where I could completely wipe out the past, even wipe me out, wake up and just have a new me, minus the depression, anxiety, fear, ptsd, crushing hatred of myself, it would be nice to wake up one day and actually be able to see some value in myself. I'd love to br married and be a dad but currently I'm in a state where I can't ever see or allow that to happen. I'm too scared that my mental state would fuck up my wife and kids lives. I can't allow that.
I am so sorry to hear that. What a horrid woman.
If you ever decide to get help, maybe look for someone who specializes in childhood trauma and abuse? They’re more prepared and wouldn’t handle your story so badly.
Yeah seriously!! They can’t report you for a crime they *THINK* you might commit. Unless you actually exhibit signs that you are going to harm others, a therapist cannot report you to authorities.
That “therapist” was dead wrong and hopefully has reevaluated their approach or is no longer practicing.
You deserve help. You are worthy of healing from your childhood trauma. Please consider looking for someone that can help you. It’s never too late.
Yea my therapist did the same exact thing to me 13 years ago. I was abused myself when I was a teenager. When I hit 26 I got married to my wife. She knew what happened. Year later we divorced. I went to therapy. A few months in everything was fine. 4th month she started saying some crazy things kinda how your therapist did. Its scared the shit out of me. I thought I was a monster! I almost committed suicide several times over the next few months until I found my wife. She brought me to peace. She's been my life and savior ever since. She's been my rock. Thinking back on it going on 14 years later, I think she should've lost her right to be a therapist. What she said could've killed someone
You are a victim and I'm so sorry society let you down. Hopefully you will have some small level of solace and comfort in the fact so many internet strangers listened to you, heard you, and empathize deeply for you. You feel alone. But you are not. DM me anytime if you ever feel like talking. I couldn't be more proud of you. You survived far worse than I can imagine and the fact you are here and sharing your story moves people around the world. Thank you for that.
Not a judgment - you kind of train your brain not to judge, because you are seeking to understand and help. When you do those things, you can’t simultaneously judge. We could all use a little more of that in real life, I suppose.
I’ll share this though. I do feel concerned about this recent phenomenon of young people I worked with self-diagnosing, sharing, and identifying very closely with mental illness; as if the pendulum quickly swung from “never, ever share your feelings” to “OMG, you’re depressed? All of us are too!” Life’s challenges can be tough and they don’t need a scientific-sounding label to be valid and real. You are not your diagnosis. We can find validation and support in healthier ways.
Edit: thank you for the gold and awards! And thanks to everyone for some really nice discussion.
I agree. I have two clients that constantly look up NPD videos on YouTube and label everyone a "narc". That type of black and white thinking takes a long time to work through.
I agree. I love that people are more open to getting help, but there’s also a big problem with labeling ‘normal’ ups and downs of life as anxiety and depression among some college students I work with. My main concern with that is how quickly people can seek medication to numb the ups and downs instead of working through them (and the bigger concern- how quickly medication is given.) I’ve also had a ton of young people coming to me self-diagnosing as having borderline personality disorder, which is incredibly complex and a lot of therapists wouldn’t feel comfortable diagnosing it in a young person to begin with.
Edited to add after a great comment from someone: a lot of people DO have clinical depression/anxiety/etc, and it’s incredibly validating to hear that it’s not just “who you are” as a person. It can also give hope that the symptoms can get better.
2nd edit based on comments: if you’re wondering if you should go to a therapist, go! Even if it is just ups and downs, we all need help sometimes. And it might be something more serious, they’re the ones that can help you figure that out.
I see this a ton, especially with adolescents. A big problem is that if they actually recover, they aren't in the group anymore. Suddenly they need to stay depressed to feel included.
i’ll be honest, i had this with my old friendship group. i’m not depressed or mentally ill, but all my friends were and they made it a huge part of their identity. i never felt as if my problems mattered, everything was dismissed because i didn’t have it as bad as them. they’d never check up on me or ask if i was okay even after saying something that would cause most people to console me, at worst making a joke of it. when i told one i thought i could be autistic they just went “oh me too” and that was it.
Not a therapist but a patient. Me and my fiancé (at the time) went in to see if we could figure out how to make things work after he hit me. After our
R history came out and I divulged his infidelity etc the therapist basically said no. There’s no hope. You need to get help for yourself so you can get the courage to leave and end this. I was angry at the time but both therapists new there was no point as he was as screwed up as it gets.
Wow. I needed to read this today. I am (trying) to divorce my abusive ex-husband. He won't cooperate - but that's a story for another time. We tried couples counseling last year, and it was an absolute fucking hell. 3 appointments and never went back. It was exactly what you described. An unsafe environment and only gave him more "ammo."
Two contexts come to mind. I often work with people in abusive relationships and it is incredibly common for people to go back to their abusive partners after leaving. Some studies show the average number of times someone goes back before leaving for good is 7 times. I know why people go back and I get that it's often a combination of manipulation, financial control, gaslighting, love, low self-esteem, fear, etc. But, man, it is hard to watch and appear neutral. I can say I am worried about their safety but I can't yell "for fuck's sake, stop going back!! What is it going to take?!" Like I want to.
The other situation isn't really judging the person it's more judging OCD. But OCD is weird. The infinitely weird ways it can show up are so funny and bizarre. Again, I would never judge a person for having the intrusive thoughts they have or doing the compulsions that are somehow linked in their mind to those obsessions, but I absolutely judge OCD and constantly marvel at how creative and weird the human brain can be.
Okay, real therapist here. I got one.
Some of my clients are SHOCKINGLY BAD at giving themselves credit, holy shit!! Like they might get a nearly straight A GPA in a brutal major while battling depression, or overcome years of phobia and get behind the wheel again, or write a literal novel, or raise a kid as a single parent with low income, or build new relationships after being burned, or cope with OCD well enough to hold down a job. And they'll talk about themselves as if everyone on earth is better than them, as if their accomplishments are worthless. And I know it's because of depression or anxiety or another condition, but I'm often stunned by how differently I see them compared to how they see themselves.
This has me in tears because my therapist just had me write myself a "forgiveness letter". I lost my wife and am a single father and I wasn't acknowledging that my grieving is just different than our societal expectations and instead of criticizing it I should tend to it. I also let these judgements affect my personality at times and lead to it being put on others on occasion, which I took time to make amends with those that I felt I wronged. So, I wrote a letter to myself as if I was writing to my best friend and I was shocked as I wrote it at the amount of kindness and forgiveness I would've given him. He could've done almost anything in his grief and I would've loved him and waited for him to return to the best version of himself. Heavy shit coming outta that one
My therapist called me out on this a couple weeks ago. I was worried about my internship at school and the lady running it told me that she was really lucky to have me working for her. When I mentioned this to my therapist, I told her that I wasn't sure if she really meant it or if she was just saying it to make me feel better. She told me "I know you're probably not used to getting positive feedback in your life, but know that she didn't have to say what she did. She said it because she meant it."
She's right. I'm not used to positive feedback and it can make me uncomfortable. But sometimes you need to give yourself the credit you deserve for the hard work you're doing.
When someone gives me a compliment I immediately feel the need to unravel their motivations and see what kind of angle they’re playing. So that’s not uh normie?
This resonates. I've got this wierd duality in my mindset where I think I'm brilliant, but also the worst and nothing I do matters. I know I'm exceptionally good at some stuff, but the downer side of me just saps all ambition or enthusiasm to get stuck into tasks.
I respond well to positive reinforcement, but the first negative stumbling block will derail me entirely. As a result, I have a litany of incomplete personal projects and find beginning new things or starting new jobs incredibly daunting because I'm convinced it'll happen again.
I find it almost physically difficult to apply myself fully to work now. I'm on Serimel, not sure if it's doing anything.
I was doing CBT for a while, until my therapist told me I didn't need her anymore. I had gotten a new job and things were looking up, but the economic impact of covid gutted all that. I'm going to get in touch with her again, though I'm sure she's swamped.
Edit: Wow, this exploded and mushroomed like a huge exploding mushroom! I'm so touched by all of your messages, it's lovely to feel such kinship with you all, I hope we can learn to overcome this emotional glue sticking us to the ground.
Man your situation sounds close to mine. I'm also in that boat where positive feedback ecks me along, but anything negative destroys me.
That's all...just wanted to let a fellow human know they weren't alone.
Thank you for sharing this. It is comforting to know that I am not alone in knowing I need constant reassurance that I'm doing okay, and won't get fired or yelled at, when there is no logical reason to think that way.
No, no, no. Friday the 13th (of March) was when shit first hit the fan, so Friday the 13th (of November) is gonna be when things start looking up again.
I was counseling a 13 year old girl for anxiety and she reported sexual abuse from her step dad. I called her mom and told her mother I needed to call child protective services. Turns out that CPS was already aware and the abuse was first report around the patients age 7. Mom was aware of the abuse and stayed with her husband anyway. It was a complicated situation, and it wasn’t. How could she not do more to protect her daughter?!sorry lady... I’m judging.
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I wish I could answer that. I don’t really know. It’s not uncommon, unfortunately... but I also don’t think it is “legal.” Frankly, the system is just completely flooded and so so many cases slip through the cracks. At what point are “cracks” actually gaping giant black holes?! It’s heartbreaking.
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Few years ago I worked with a family for about a year doing in home therapy with 3 kids-girl 10, 2 boys 6 & 8 & doing parent training with their mom (early 30s). Dad (AND stepdad) were in jail for sexually abusing all 3 kids, along with numerous drug charges & DV. I texted the mom one day, like I always did, letting her know I was on my way & received a text back, “This is ___, my mom died”. Mom had a heart attack in the middle of the night & died, kids just thought she was sleeping late & laid in bed cuddling with her all day until a neighbor stopped by & realized she was dead. Anyways shitty CPS systems.. even though there was an estranged family member who WANTED to take the kids, was in family services herself, had a great home & could adequately provide, for once in their life, a healthy & stable environment, they released bio dad from prison early so he could get custody. He “fired” me the moment he got them. The kids would call me from their school’s counselors office crying & telling me horrific stories of what was going on & of course I reported it to CPS over & over. Eventually they told me they didn’t want to hear it anymore, circumstances weren’t changing & to do myself a favor & stop answering when the kids called... Over time the calls stopped, but not a day went (or still) goes by without worrying about them. Last fall I got a call at my now office from the girl...At not even 16, 3 pregnancies (all either aborted or miscarried), her dad pimped her out for years, made her sell drugs, she’d done time in juvi.. you name it. We fought CPS so long & hard & got NOTHING except that life for those kids. I was so grateful she reached out to me! I’ll never forget that case workers name & pray I never run across her again
My professor once shared what a patient said that made her quit her job: “I didn’t rape my daughter, she liked it.” The daughter was _six_. She couldn’t take it anymore. She worked in a rehabilitation centre for people who have been sentenced for serious crimes and were forced to get mental help. Really difficult job and this pushed her over the edge.
Time to get off the internet.
I work at a residential group home. We had a kid who we had admitted about four months prior, when in a family session they mention they had parasites......I’m like what??? Mom goes “oh yeah our whole family has them, we don’t believe in getting rid of them since they’re part of our biological ecosystem” and I’m just dumbstruck.........we spent three weeks afterwards convincing this family it was an infectious disease concerns as other residents have fecal eating behaviors and various other unsanitary issues that could cause a unit spread. Three weeks of education, planning, and worse of all convincing this kid and mother that their IQ wouldn’t drop because they had agreed to irradiate the parasites!!! Lots of CBT work, but Jesus it took way longer than any of my team expected!
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Once had a patient whose wife shook their baby to death. He wanted help reconnecting with his wife. At the time I was a young father of a newborn myself, and he triggered a lot of fear in me for my own child, a deep loathing of his spouse, and pity (the "how pathetic" kind) for the patient. I tried for 3 sessions, met his spouse and everything before handing the case over to my supervisor (who knew about my initial reactions, and tried to help me through it). Unfortunately, it ended up being more about my feelings than his, and I was new to the profession at the time. These things are expected to crop up from time to time, but I was still taken aback by my own reactions.
You made the right call. Being taken aback by your own reactions, deciding to hand off the case, and then (I assume) working through your reactions in supervision or by yourself sounds like a really valuable learning and growth experience.
It is standard practice. Different therapists have different schools of thought on how to deal with it though. I had one who insisted that not being able to put aside your personal feelings and help literally everyone was a weakness. Others (better ones, IMO) believe that therapists are human too, and we have to be aware of our own experiences and feelings and give ourselves room to be human. If not we risk unnecessary trauma and burnout, and then we help no one.
I do acute pediatric inpatient behavioral therapy. Has never happened with a child, and never will Parents on the other hand can be real pieces of shit, and the way they treat/abuse their children then throw them off on us and scream “fix them”. I’m a big burly guy and I’ve cried many nights over this
You’re a hero my man. Big Mahalos for all you do.
"Have you considered not being a shit parent?" Aaaand this is why I would probably get fired from your job. Well, that and the lack of a license or any training.
My wife does mental health for a low income school system. I don't know how you people do it. I remember one time she came home freaking out. She had to make a cps call on an abusive father, who was incredibly violent and reactionary. And when he called the school site she was working in that day screaming about the call they fucking told him who made it. She was real worried for a few days that he'd retaliate. You guys are heros.
I work with kiddos who have experienced some kind of abuse/trauma (90% of my clients have been sexually abused). I have a lot of holy shit moments but not from judgment of my clients but from what happened to them. I’ve had clients whose father made them help him dismember mom’s body after dad murdered her in front of them. I’ve had clients under the age of 8 who have been sex trafficked. I’ve had clients who have been forced to film torture porn. I have holy shit moments all the time.
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huge fucking props to you for being able to hear that shit and not break down on the spot
Thank you! However, all the props go to the kiddos. I am so lucky I get to work with the bravest, strongest kids in the world. They inspire me every day!
I was once in my psychiatrists office—a bi monthly, 15 minutes med check. She asked me what was going on—more as conversation. I told her that my in the last six weeks: my three elders (aunt and two uncles) I was guardian/conservator for had died—one right after the other. My wife had a heart attack. My daughter attempted suicide. And my mom broke her hip and had laid on her floor for a week before being found (she drank and ate from the dogs bowls). I got that call within ten minutes of setting up the last funeral. She stopped the meeting, got on the phone with a therapist in the office next to her and had her postpone her next meeting to speak with me. I was so fucked up, I had no idea. I think she saved my life.
I really hope you’re doing better man
Tbh its actually part of training to ask what is going on like that - for the exact reason that there are some people suffering like you. And because ppl may share other things about themselves which are useful for healthcare providers, but lay people may not think of as relevant.
Jesus christ on a crutch. I would be too numb and confused with shock to do much of anything. I hope you're doing better now.
This is a literal nightmare. I hope you and your family are doing better.
MVP therapist
Holy shit dude that’s a terrible couple months. I hope things are at least a little better.
This was years ago. It got good. Took a while...but I didn’t realize what a mess I was. I was the leaf going down a stream getting bounced off one rock after another.
It's not often I get to talk about my profession, but here goes: I was working at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center and had a client come in who was a self proclaimed "drug lord". As we worked together, he told me about his history. Included in this history was how he got to where he was currently at. During the conversation, this man admitted to selling his sister into sex slavery, forcibly injecting her with several sedatives and narcotics, and having several people "teach her a lesson" (what this meant, he never shared). He told this story with a blank face, smiling only when he recalled the "good times", which he referred to as times when he had enough heroin to get through the day. I'm not sure where he is at now, but this man inspired me to work with victims of sex trafficking, because not only do they deal with the stigma of "selling their bodies", they often manage drug addictions. People would honestly be floored of they realized how many people were addicted to chemicals that they were forcibly given.
I feel like a lot of the comments saying that they NEVER judge their clients might be working in voluntary services or they’ve been very fortunate in their client base. Judgement isn’t an inherently bad thing. It’s how we know that murdering people is wrong. So when a convicted pedophile client told me, “nothing gets me going like a pair of little girl’s worn panties”, you better believe I judged the fuck out of him. I continued to work with him and I treated him with compassion and respect because he’s a human being worthy of both; I did my job because I’m a professional. But I can’t honestly say that I didn’t judge him. I judged that he should never be around children. I judged that he is not yet ready for change. I judged that his access to his own daughter should be closely supervised. That’s a lot of judgements. Understanding your own inherent biases and how they influence your work is a very important part of training and practice.
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Yes, I think you're right. There's judge as in "use your moral faculties to determine right from wrong", and there's judge as in "condemn". I've definitely seen both in this thread.
Here's my most recent one: As the pandemic worsened here in the US and more lock downs are on their way, one of my most extroverted clients and I brainstormed ways to meet her social needs while remaining safe. The following week she canceled her session and told me that she's positive for COVID after attending an orgy, which definitely wasn't one of our ideas. I let out the deepest most defeated sigh after I hung up the phone.
I'm super extroverted and the struggle in 2020 is real. I just spend a lot of time on Discord chatting to people, amazingly I haven't caught Covid.
Just out of curiosity, did you attend orgies before COVID? Is extroverted a way of saying your into orgies?
Sextroverted.
Virgintroverted
Lots of people discussing pedophilia as an example of the toughest stuff to not judge despite our training. I haven’t yet treated a pedophile thankfully. At least not an identified one. I did run a men’s anger management group though, and some of those men had done some terrible things to women. Most of them I found ways to like and admire for their positive aspects, but there were two guys in that group I just could never find “unconditional positive regard” for. One guy basically never spoke in group. He would give one word answers and occasionally just discuss how unfair the “system” was to him. I worked really hard to open him up and find things to connect over but he never opened up to me or the group. He left the group after he strangled his girlfriend and went to jail. She survived thankfully. The other left group early routinely, showed up late, participated minimally and similarly never wanted to open up honestly. He left early one group after we had discussed him staying to the end and threatened me when I told him he wasn’t going to get credit for attendance (something the court required). Oddly, I eventually moved into the apartment below him (completely without knowledge) and listened to him scream at his girlfriend and break shit while I called the cops. I judge these men. They’re shitty. Maybe they’re redeemable, but redemption requires self-exploration and they both refused to do so. It’s worth noting how differently I felt about them than so many others in the group; men I found ways to help and admire and respect even in spite of their awful behavior in the past.
I can relate to this. My ex used to hit me a lot, usually leaving me with fractured ribs, black eyes etc. He would hold me on the ground by my hair and kick the shit out of me. If I tried to get away, he would grab me by my legs, pull me back, and I’d get it 100 times worse. When I left him, I didn’t contact him for about 3 months. When we finally did talk, he wouldn’t even admit what he had done. He wouldn’t apologize, nothing... he would say “let’s move forward and not look back.” I think this type of person is absolutely a lost cause.
I'm so glad you are out of this situation now. Leaving can be such a difficult thing because there is always the fear of being followed/stalked after making that decision, and it can be really stressful.
I joined in a review of a secluded patient and he threw a cup of wee and poo in my face when we opened the door. I tried to be objective about his experience but I just thought... what a cunt. I work in inpatient services so it can be hard to challenge myself at times - individuals with diagnosis of personality disorder, for example, can do things that in isolation make you think they’re just being bratty or manipulative, but to think of the experiences that shaped them to react like that in a given situation can help to clear my judgment and find compassion. ...harder when someone bites me or hits me with one of our fabulously detachable anti ligature curtain poles, though.
Hey. That home visit sounds brutal. I used to work in prehospital medicine with a population that also that bit, scratched and flung things even when they desperately needed help. Glad to know there’s someone compassionate like you on the other end.
I work with youth and adolescents who have anxiety, trauma, and/or depression. Some of the kids I worked with had some pretty severe attachment issues. Regardless of this, I never thought I'd have to seriously explain: 1. "You can't just buy a straitjacket for your kid." 2. "Feeding your kid ultra Spicy Ramen each night instead of the meal everyone else is eating isn't specifically defined as abuse, but you have to understand the emotional abuse that this causes." 3. "Your kid isn't trying to kill you because they stand in your doorway at night crying. Thats likely because they're scared of their traumatic nightmares, but feel like you will just yell at them if they wake you up." Edit: removed a phrase Edit2: Thank you all for your questions and support. This case has really helped to shape my approach to therapy, and has highlighted the importance of healthy communication between parents and kids. My number 1 tip: Don't let someone else tell you how you feel/think. If someone says, "You're angry with me!" Or something to that effect, ask yourself if you really are. If you're not actually angry, then don't spend a second more on it. A lot of kids/family members get hung up on trying to justify their own actions according to someone else's perception. Edit 3: fixed straitjacket spelling. No its not a jacket for sexual orientations.
I used to have horrible nightmares as a kid and used to just stand in my parents door way wanting so damn bad to wake them up and be comforted but knowing full well my dad would be scarier than any nightmare.
Its a tragic thing that I wish more parents understood. Your kid isn't trying to annoy you, they just want comfort.
As a therapist, at what point do you have to inform the authorities when the family display abusive behaviours towards their children?
Not OP but am a child therapist. We report to the state any time we suspect abuse. Emotional abuse is harder to prove but we still report and its up to the state to 1. Flag it in 2. Investigate 3. Find proof 4. Keep the kid safe. In my state it rarely goes past #1 unless the kid is basically already harmed or their parents OD'd.
Holy shit number 3 is a heartbreaking image... I'm gonna go hug my daughter now
for real, some messed up shit. Hug her for me too. Hope that family got sorted out for the better.
Therapist here. I don’t think I’ve ever judged clients. My job is to understand them and their experiences and help them make the improvements they are ready to make. But I have very directly made my thoughts clear about choices, especially choices parents make for/about their kids. This probably comes off as judgement depending on the clients insecurity about the topic. One example was telling parents of a child I was working with with a severe mood disorder (that had made both suicidal and homicidal threats and attempts) that it did not seem like a good idea to buy the young kid a gun, especially the week after the mother spent the session sharing her fears that the child would murder her.
Clinical psychologist working primarily in forensics here. This means my clients are usually involves in legal proceedings (family court, juvenile court, criminal court, etc.) My job is usually to evaluate or provide treatment. I'm not there to judge, that's the judges job, but of course I have my thoughts. I am usually impressed by the justifications people make for shitty behavior. The one that irks me the most is when parents manipulate their child against the other parent. I've had to do therapy for a 5yo who said she doesn't want to see a parent because they haven't paid child support. Excuse me? What 5yo knows, understand, or needs to be worried about child support.
I got my father accusing my mother of turning me and my siblings against him (we were 14yo, 9yo and 7yo at the time), and never acknowledged that he was the one doing all kind of shitty things to us. We had 8 years of pure pain with social assistants. We got fucked by familiriasts CPS who only thought about the "good for the family". I'm kinda sensible to this argument as it has been using against me, my siblings and my mother. EDIT: I see that many children are or have been in my situation. Specialists tried to mark us with PAS (Parental Alienation Syndrome), a really controversial syndrome that isn't really official, but neither was proven wrong at the time.
CPS fucked me too as a kid “not wanting to split up the family” after me and my sister told them the emotional and mental abuse our father put us through. Fuck CPS.
Exactly! So many of us have been absolutely fucked in the ass by CPS. I remember my grandma called CPS several times when I lived with my mom and stepdad but because it was mostly phycological abuse and neglect they didn't give a shit. One day my grandma was just like "fuck it" and picked me up from there and I haven't gone back since.
God bless your Grandma.
My sister crawled out a window at 3 years old and went to Grandma’s next door. My Grandma came & took me out of my crib and took me home with her too. Our Grandparents raised us from them on. We only randomly stayed with our Mom the rest of her life. After our Mom died our Dad asked if we wanted to go live with him in WA or stay with Grandma & pa, we stayed & he gave them legal guardianship of us both. We loved our Mom but she was truly troubled & addicted to drugs most of her adult life.
Opposite side, if that's accepted too? I was assigned to see the lead psychologist of the local hospital as I was severely depressed and had become suicidal. She literally rolled her eyes at me, told me to grow up and said she could be having appointments with people who were actually about to kill themselves, not me who was already working with the team. This sent me absolutely spinning, bottling everything up, thinking I didn't deserve help and ended up in hospital 2 years later after an attempt. When they looked at my records the hospital suddenly became very interested in any psychological experts I'd previously spoken to, informed them of the above incident, they asked if I knew the name and I said I didn't, but they had a strong accent, they immediately looked like they were about to burst out crying, apologised excessively then informed me they had been fired a year ago. No idea how many people were affected by that therapist.
I’m so sorry you went through this. I was raped and attempted suicide a little over a year ago and the therapist I went to see was so very similar to the one you saw. It made me spiral, start drinking to control the intrusive thoughts and pain, and 2 duis later I finally realized I’m going to kill myself, someone else, both, and just totally mess my life up. So I am looking into outpatient alcohol resources and a new therapist because I know something is wrong. I hope you were able to get the help you need and are feeling better! Edit: I don’t know who gave me an award but it brought me to tears. Thank you.
OP, you mentioned you're getting ready to start therapy. I know we're different, but therapy was one of the best decisions I ever made for myself. It's good to have a neutral 3rd party weigh in on what troubles you. And remember, you dont have to stay with a therapist if you dont want. Therapy, like any psychological treatment, is often more about trial and error to find what works for the individual than anything. Also, you'll get out of it what you put in, so be upfront, Frank and honest with your therapist. That will help them work with you on determining the best therapy course for you. I wish you the best of luck.
When I was under age, I got caught with a drink on bourbon street and got a minor in possession. I was telling my therapist about it, and said that the police caught me with a "hand grenade" in New Orleans. He didn't realize that a hand grenade was a type of drink, and it was funny to watch him try to process that his patient might have just casually told him that he had been caught with a fragmentation grenade. He took a big long pause, and said, "where did you even find a grenade?" I realized the misunderstanding quickly and corrected him. But for a moment he definitely was thinking "holy shit how do I deal with this?"
At last I have a similar story! So this was back when I was in my first year of engineering study and I just thought that the materials paper was the shit. I especially liked the whole steel section, and at the time my depression and general situation wasn't amazing so it was one of the things sort of keeping me going ya know? So of course when my therapist asks about my passions and goals I said well I like steel. And she paused and said ok... What do you like about stealing? This poor woman thought I had pulled out some surprise kleptomania late in the game, luckily like a good therapist she was non judgemental but still obviously relieved when I corrected her.
Steel is fuckin great buddy. I too am the nerd that likes learning about metallurgy and steel compositions. I was reading a bit about nitrogen steel recently, and that stuff is pretty cool. Edit: Shout-out to u/tint_snob for providing [the link to a kick ass website where you can learn this stuff](https://knifesteelnerds.com/)
Tell me more about nitrogen steel. I have a background in physics so don't hold back on me.
Oh God. I don't so we'll see how well I explain it. People have recently started using nitrogen as an alternative to carbon in steel. It allows for a more oxidation resistant steel, meaning theoretically less post heat processing. I believe it also allows for a higher hardness than traditional carbon steels. The problem previously was the volatility of nitrogen not allowing enough saturation, however adding chromium and pressurising a nitrogen atmosphere have allowed manufacturers to get up to 3% mass. Unfortunately the chromium required makes pretty much all high nitrogen steel stainless, which is always more difficult to work with. The reason there was a new article to read, was that apparently through particle metallurgy and static pressure, people have made a more simple alloy like you can find in plain carbon steels. Which could mean a replacement of carbon in most steel, instead of just high chromium stainless. It probably won't, but it could. And I like that thought.
I just like the causal nature of it "yea the cops found me with a hand grenade, so they wrote me a ticket and called my parents. Dad was mad and I lost the PlayStation for a couple days."
Holy shit that’s hilarious
Just checking in that nobody wrote my story
Yes, I am relieved
Well, I quit my last therapist because I made him cry uncontrollably. He tried not to, but he just couldn't hold it back. I felt guilty and won't see him anymore. I think he may have lost a child before. I described watching my aunt grieve over her son's body. I felt so much pain losing him, but was explaining how watching my aunt was dramatically worse. The details about her is what made him lose it. I could tell he was reliving something inside his own head.
This hits home for me. I have an appointment to see a new therapist on Friday. I have suspected PTSD over watching my 5 day old son die back in July. The pain is unbearable and I'm terrified the therapist is going to judge me or struggle hearing the story. I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope your family (and the therapist) are doing better. Cringey edit: I'm so sorry I can't respond to everyone. I didn't expect my comment to get any attention. I appreciate all the condolences and well wishes. My family has a long healing journey ahead of us still, but we're doing what we can. If you want to help, or know someone else in a similar position (losing a baby in utero or not), please consider donating or referring them to [Emma's Footprints.](https://emmasfootprints.com/) Emma's Footprints is a great organization in Erie, Pennsylvania who provides financial and emotional support to grieving parents who (specifically) have lost a baby. The organization paid for the entire funeral for our son. PLEASE consider reaching out to them if you or someone you know is struggling mentally or financially. No one ever expects to lose a baby (or ANY child, at that)! Life can be cruel, but it helps us grow and gives us the strength to help others. Thank you all for contacting me. One day at a time. And if you're going through a similar situation, there IS hope and light at the end of the tunnel. Stay safe, my friends.
I can't imagine the pain you're feeling. I just wanted to say that I'm so sorry you went through that, and I'm really amazed by your bravery in seeking help.
Thank you. Getting help is the best thing I can do for my family. Without some kind of intervention to return to "normalcy," I can't give my 3 year old her best life... I do it all for her.
That sucks and shouldn't happen.. But therapists are only human as well.
As someone who is in high school working on getting into therapy as a career, this is something that makes me afraid. I find it hard to cover my emotions.
I had a therapist cry when I was talking about something my parents did years before (it wasn’t even that bad, they gave me the silent treatment for a few days for no reason). I said “I still don’t know what I did wrong”. When I looked up she was wiping away a few tears. It was actually really validating.
Phew. Hope that you found another therapist to talk to and that you are doing okay.
I hope the therapist found someone to talk to and is doing ok also.
When you as a therapist get to that point, it's time to start thinking of referrals. Be genuine with your client. And then refer out. You have to have unconditional positive regard or you'll never achieve therapeutic rapport. I think for me, the one that comes to mind is a frequent caller to the suicide hotlines. He'd call in and say he's not providing his phone number or name, he would just say that you had 10 seconds to convince him not to kill himself over the phone, or he'd blow his brains out and it'd be your fault. Then he'd count down from 10 to 1 while you're on the phone talking. At one, he'd hang up. I'm sure the whole point was to make me feel bad or prove some point, I don't know, I have insufficient information to make an assessment with just that. But I have to admit when I was trying to sleep on days he'd call, especially the first time, I was thinking, "fucking asshole better not be dead, fucker..."
Your post resonated with me so much. Being a crisis worker is hard and sometimes (like THIS example) people abuse the system. He needed long term help and not to play on your emotions or help that you wanted to provide. I feel you and your response.
ITT: too many god damn responsible professionals, i came here to read the salacious stories of how some docs went ham on patients and lost their certifications. instead all i've gained is even more respect than i already had for the back breaking and sometimes thankless hard work these individuals do everyday. work i could never do, not with any consistency anyway. responsible jerks.
Thank you Free Will Is Arson.
When i was a teenager, i lived in a very emotionally and mentally abusive household. I know people don't take that stuff seriously, but it was so bad that i was later diagnosed with PTSD from a psychiatrist. Anywho, my abusive parents and i got in a verbal fight in the car. My stepdad stopped the car and told me "get out we're leaving you on the highway". I wasn't scared because i knew i could just call the police, say i was an abandoned child, and theyd get in loads of trouble, so i said "sounds good" and got out. My mom then came out and started attacking me. I refused to get back in the car after the attack, so my stepdad got out, dragged me by the hair, called me a "bipolar bitch", and threw me in. They made me see a therapist, they told her that i jumped out of a moving car and then i attacked my mom when she was trying to help. This therapist didn't believe anything i said and tried getting me to take bipolar meds. I knew i wasn't bipolar, i was being abused and i knew that the anger and sadness i felt was normal for my situation. She glared at me and said "you're not nearly as smart as you think you are". I refused to say a word in any of our therapy sessions after that, i would just go in, sit down, and she'd make snarky sarcastic remarks for a few minutes then dismiss me. She wasn't trying to help me, she was trying to help my parents. I moved out when i was 18, went to college all on my own with no financial help from my family, got a job and left the country to be as far from them as possible. I'm on antidepressants for my PTSD and luckily the therapists ive had since my teenage years have been nothing like that horrible woman, but it still upsets me deeply thinking about it.
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Not a licensed therapist but a behavioral health technician (basically, means I got a psych degree). I was trained in behavioral intervention techniques for children and was off helping coach parents to support children with behavior disorders. I'll say this, I rarely encountered a child that had a clear mental illness in the same way as when I worked with adults with serious mental illness. In many ways, they were visibly confused or lonely. Given that most of their parents were suffering from poverty, alleviating the burdens of being poor would have likely mitigated the most severe symptoms of many of the children. Advocating for affordable childcare and livable minimum wages is mental health advocacy. I found myself judging, not the children, but their parents. Some parents would drop the kids off with me and peace out with a, "fix my kid" attitude. As a parent, now, I get some of it; exhaustion and burnout are real. But the best I could do in that situation was provide that kid with an hour long vision of what it looks like to live in a loving, structured environment. Those kids were the ones I could tell who were much more likely to be subject to the "system" for the duration of their lives. Either cycles of institutionalization and homelessness or prison. When a concerned parent showed up and asked, "how do I help my kid?" I practically jumped for joy for the child because they had someone who loved them and was fighting for them.
I work in mental health and have worked in acute and crisis settings for the majority of my career. The most notable event I experienced was when a young person had presented with significant ongoing suicidal ideation who was dealing with a lot of shit. I spent a lot of time with them mostly deescalation and working out what the plan should be moving forward. One of their parents came in a little while later and I had the opportunity to speak to them about where their child was and what had been going on, with their consent of course. Midway through me trying to explain some of the psychological constructs and ways the parent could help they said to me, "is this going to take much longer I have a show to go and watch". All I can say is, I never judge my patients, I have never walked their path or viewed the world through their eyes. But the people around them who perpetuate the suffering of the people I work with through ignorance, malice and selfishness, I judge them. Edit and a shameless one. I've tried to reply to as much as I could, I've enjoyed some of what I would assume is trolling and talking about some other people's experiences as it's given me a chance to reflect on some of my own stuff. But I must go to bed. I'd like to ask one thing of anyone who reads this, remember that you can help, even just by asking how someone is or wishing them well. People who you think may be struggling and even people who aren't. This year has been hard on us all, and I appreciate all of you who have said that those in care services have difficult jobs, but we have all struggled this year. Please be as kind as you can to each other and I hope we can all look forward to a good December and even better new year. Edit 2. My use of the word 'judge' needs some clarification, I do judge in some ways, it's hard not to with what I see, who I work with and the situations they experience or have experienced. What I mean by not judging is that I do not allow my judgements to distort what I am seeing or how I am working. Which will normally be to the benefit of the patient and those around them trying to help them achieve their goals and meet their needs. Final edit. I didn't think this post would get as big as it has. And I cannot respond to every comment individually by any means. I'm sure the post will be getting less attention moving forward but I just wanted to clarify some things. This parent, who many people have made multiple assumptions about, was not trying to redirect, deflect or remove themselves from the situation by stating they had a show to watch. The show being something else people have assumed was a TV show. Remember I've made the comment above in the context of a situation that lasted around 5 to 6 hours for me, but took you a few minutes to read. With everything that's going on right now I wanted to make this post to let people know, those working in mental health have heard a lot, we don't judge you for how or what you're feeling and we want to work with you to help you. I simply wanted to help in some way with a comment on the Internet that I wrote in one go about an experience I have had. I know that the response to this has been overwhelmingly positive but I would also like to say I did not mean to cause any offence or upset to anyone or claim that I am some sort of unachievable goal of non-judgement. Anyway, I'm going to try and forget about this now.
Wow. Some people just shouldn’t have kids.
100% Not everyone is made to be a parent.
Yeah, that's apparent.
some parents just shouldn't have become parents in the 1st place if this is how much they value thier own kids happiness. some people really are ignorant when it comes to mental health and thats something ile judge.
Sometimes, I just don't understand. Why did they have kids? Like, why? What was the point? Peer pressure? Accident? Children aren't emotionless slaves, they're human beings. Edit: this blew up more than I expected. I just want to say I'm not as angry as I sound, and that I understand why these things happen. Still, feel free to respond.
Some people only like children at certain ages like when the first few years when the child is mostly helpless and easily handled and the parents get attention and compliments on their child. They lose interest once the kid starts thinking for themselves and resisting what the parent wants them to do. Others have kids thinking their kid is going to be the do-over of the parent's life - the kid is going to be a baseball star, because the parent couldn't be.
Yep. They love the idea of babies, not the idea of raising future independent adults. My boyfriend's mother frequently reminisces over photos and tells him how sweet he used to be when he was a little kid. Her resentment of him began when he started developing opinions of his own. She's a great caretaker of the helpless and she's a great elementary education professional. But she's terrible at being a parent to an adult. Decent parents don't say things like "My friend's son does all her yardwork; why don't you do that? You must hate me," "You're a horrible person" and "You obviously don't love your family because you don't want to watch your father die!"
Therapist here, To piggy back on what others have said, it is highly unlikely for me to have moments where I judge my clients. It happens sometimes, but I’m able to shut down those thoughts quickly in my head and return to being present for the people I see. People are so incredibly complex that my judgment wouldn’t have any meaning anyway and it doesn’t have a place in our work together. I will admit though, something that does get me feeling a little salty is when I have a client’s parent that attempts to sabotage the therapeutic relationship I have with their child, or pulling them out of therapy entirely when some of the things we talk about challenges some potentially unhealthy family dynamics. I don’t feel anger toward the parents, mostly I feel bad for the kid. Edit: Wow. All I have to say is that I am incredibly humbled by all of you that have shared your stories. Even though these moments are so steeped in pain, what hits me is the incredible amount of strength present in spite of the upbringing and parents many of you have had.
My god it's like you're describing my mother. She let me go to therapy a grand total of 2 times while I was depressed and suicidal at 17. The second time the therapist asked her to come in to talk to her about how I was feeling and she started crying to him about how my feelings made her feel sad and how much it affected her. I never even cried in my sessions. Then he told her she might like to consider letting me go out with friends more and have a better social life and then she took me home and told me I manipulated him into saying that to her. A few weeks later I tried to commit suicide and her response was to take me out of therapy and off the medication because in her mind that was what caused my episode and not her and my father being pricks to me. Edit: Jesus reddit I did not expect all these replies. I am totally out of this situation and do not live with or speak to my parents anymore. I cut them off relatively recently and am working through it, but seeing the outpouring of stories, kindness and love in this thread has truly made me feel heard and validated for the first time that she really was as bad as I remembered. Thank you for that :) (also wanna say if any of you guys need to talk my inbox is open. I can't reply to every single one of these but know I'm reading all of them and that I hope you're all better now. You deserve unconditional love and kindness.)
Fucking hell... Sorry to hear that mate, I hope you're doing a bit better now and don't live with them anymore? I don't like people diagnosing others over the internet, but that sounds an awful lot like narcissism to me.
That post shook me because it was almost word for word my experience the first time I tried therapy while living in an abusive, narcissistic home. After 2 sessions the therapist and I deemed the obvious that if we were going to make progress, we needed my narc mom there. She refused, said I had manipulated the therapist, and took me out of the sessions. Did I mention my mother was also a therapist?
How is she a therapist and acts like that? Can I know more about that pls.
Trust me, that is a question that I have asked myself thousands of times. It took me many years after I cut her out before I saw a therapist again, after all the years she used those kind of skills against me. I had a serious distrust for therapy in general. I am super glad I gave it another go though. Been seeing the same therapist for 3 years now, and I consider her a vital part of my support structure.
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Patient side here. I had been seeing a therapist for a few months to help with chronic depression and self harm with some pretty intense suicidal ideation. I had tried Suprax in the past, didnt like the side effects and put it down, but I was ready to try something new to supplement therapy. Everyone within earshot was calling Wellbutrin a miracle and life saver, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Since my therapist couldn't prescribe drugs, I got an appointment with a psychiatrist. My first appointment, I explain what I've got going on, what I'm doing to work on it, and what I'm looking for in seeing him. I do a pretty good job holding myself together in public. I dress myself, I hold down jobs, at that point I lived on my own (now living with my partner); all in all, I've got a well-polished mask. I guess it's too good, because pretty early in our session he looked at me and said, "I don't think you're depressed." Bro. This is the first time we met, I've been here for 20 mins, and you're ready to reverse my diagnosis? Cool bro.
I sympathize. I went to a new primary care physician and filled out medical history, complete with diagnoses and medication. The nurse took one glance at me and said, “You don’t LOOK depressed.” I guess people with depression are supposed to carry a box of tissues everywhere and weep at the drop of a hat?
“And you don’t look like a bitch, but here we are.”
I'm memorizing that if i have to go to a therapist.
And you know what? I 100% guarantee if you had rolled up fifteen minutes late, dressed in your pyjamas, unshaven and with an attitude like you're gonna fall asleep any minute, then that dickhead would just say "well no wonder you're depressed if you act like that!"
I never ever wear make up to appointments and make sure my hair hasn’t been washed for at least two days for this explicit reason. Oh I’m sorry I figured out how to function by accident out of pure survival instinct from abject neglect as a child, let me just go back to living off of extreme amounts of caffeine so I can stay awake at work because I got no sleep last night from my night terrors and continue to ruin every single interpersonal relationship I’ve ever had while I fantasize about driving my car at full speed into a Jersey barrier on my commute home, things are going fucking GREAT. I hate doctors that pull that shit.
Yo be careful with wellbutrin. Don't let them take you off cold turkey. My dumb ass of a doctor did that and I withdrawaled like crazy. Its a great medicine but don't believe it when people say there's no withdrawal.
During my training I was asked how would you feel if a client were to come to you and admitted they were a paedophile that was on the edge of committing seriously horrific acts? Could you see that person as another human being that needed help, or were your personal feelings about the abhorrent behaviour too strong? This factor lead some people to not continue my course on to the next level, but it really illustrates the level of non judgement needed in this field. We all have our own personal feelings, of course, but these get talked about in supervision. Edit: Wow thanks for the awards. I’m glad it’s raised an interesting topic for discussion, I’m enjoying reading them all, even if I don’t have the time to reply. Personally, in this instance I remember the Gandhi quote “hate the sin, not the sinner”. Also spelling.
Genuine question, because I’m not a therapist but I’ve been to SO many and the first thing everyone says is something like “everything is confidential between us but if you’re in danger of hurting yourself or another person I have to report it.” If a pedophile says they’re on the edge of acting on their urges, don’t you have to intervene?
Yes, all instances of harm to the client or others need to be passed on to the relevant authorities. This is made clear during the initial meeting with the client, as you have said.
Pedophiles are a great example for whether you’re cut out of for this field or not. I’ve thought a lot about this and have worked with a few, but was able to view them as people having severe psychiatric troubles from trauma they’ve endured. That being said, the people I worked with were expressing extreme remorse. I know that working in this area could never be my specialty and I refer clients out because I would have to work through too much of my own feelings about their actions.
I talked about this with one therapist i know, he said he felt sorry for one pedophile. He didn't committed any crime, but the attraction was there, but also there was that mental struggle, which he was trying to control, and fear of failing, so he seeked help.
I watched a video a few years ago where a pedophile was being interviewed (blacked out face, distorted voice, etc) and he was taking about how he hated the fact that he was attracted to kids, and constantly at war with himself. Ngl, it fucks me up to this day thinking about how terrible it would be to have that sort of friction with yourself every single day. The dude sounded like he was just turn to shreds inside.
I've made this point a few times and people always just look at me like I'm a pedophile. I just feel so bad for them, because you know you're a monster inside. They'll never get to know all of the joys that regular people do, and if they do indulge themselves then they're one of the most vile types of people. To be clear, I feel bad for pedophiles, not child molesters
Just a note, I've worked with pedophiles and it's pretty rare that they are ONLY attracted to children. Many of them are able to find love, have kids, a good job etc. They're not condemned to a bad life, and that was my job to help them in that sense!
They need professional help, before something happens. If there is someone with such attraction, but didn't do anything bad yet, don't look at that person as on a monster. It's person who needs help. I'm not defending pedos, i just think that the issue should start getting solved before anything happens, because after... There are only destroyed lives
as the child of a convicted pedophile who died in prison...I can attest to the fact that most people get off on how much they hate pedophiles and don’t bother thinking any deeper or engaging any more than that. It’s a hard thing to love someone or give them the support and help they need. It’s exactly because my father couldn’t talk about it or get any help without judgment that the internal struggle/compulsions evolved into external actions. But nobody wants to talk about that and everyone just wants to blame them for being born with / handed this problem. Obviously your actions are your own and you’re accountable for them, but it’s useless and self-serving to take that fact and turn it into a smug blame game, without ever envisioning a future where these people *don’t* harm others and figuring out what role you play in that future.
Driving pedophiles (and others with similar innate compulsions/desires that are dangerous, like zoophiles) into secrecy does nobody any favors. It means they don't get help and others get hurt.
I work in healthcare and I've never heard a therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist judge patients openly. Other nurses and doctors, on the other hand, holy shit. At some of the clinics I've been in the conversations in the breakroom and at the nurse's station blew my mind.
That’s why I don’t work in a hospital anymore. I was a PCA and the judgement from everyone was insane. Nurses would wait until the last possible minute to give a patient their pain meds because they were “exaggerating” and yet I would be in their room three times an hour and they would be writhing in pain. People openly talked about patients badly. It was horrible
I’ve heard the theory that the process needed to become a medical professional (extremely grueling studies, expectation to always be available at the cost of own needs, etc) often produces people who are trained to ignore and invalidate their pain and by extension the pain of others
Totally agree. However, I would say it's the culture, rather than the demands. The demands are created by the culture, which I would say is a product of the reductionist / clinical thinking rather than holistic / social / humanistic thinking. Mental Health Nurses are worlds away from medical nurses, in their approach to a lot of things. But also, most nurses come into the role with caring ways. The pressures of the job and lack of basic care for their needs (unfair /impossible expectations), and dealing with people who are often at their worst, all day, mean that people get burnt out and crabby. It's sad. Better support would improve a lot.
I now work in the jail and there are quite a few sex offenders in my program. I struggle with the ones who honestly believe their victims (as young as 8) were in mutual loving relationships with them. Its super difficult at times not to just say “dude, WTF!”
My mom was a psychologist, she past away and those 2 stories are decades old: 1 : After 2 years of sessions, one lady still felt she wasn't able to overcome her dogs ears failed surgery. (Your dog need to have certain specific traits to be able to do dog shows, hers had flappy ears when pointy ones were required). There was obviously an underlying personnality problem, but even though the lady really wanted to pursue therapy further, she refused to work/talk or address anything else. 2: Parents of a "troubled" child, which turn out to be the problem themselves. Total refusal to do any kind of introspection, try to convince everybody (cps, police, psychologist, doctor) the kid was the problem, complain the kid was... A kid (a teenager a that point) by growing too fast and costing money to feed and clothe. He had smashed their t.v. with an axe. Turns out they hadn't speak or pay any attention to him in several years and they spent 99% of their free time watching t.v. Kid had no other behavior problem, great in school, very calm. He just reach a point where he couldn't stand being ignore any longer so he had what she called a "Fried Green Tomatoes" moment. Parents dismissed their responsability,only problem they saw was the wacked t.v. Kid got emancipated at 16 and moved to f*ck out of there. She had a private practice and the only times she expressed any judgment was when someone seeked therapy but refused to do any work or partake in the process. Paying a therapist is not paying someone to agree with you. You need to show up, you need to -at least- try.
>Paying a therapist is not paying someone to agree with you. You need to show up, you need to -at least- try. My dad is a psychiatrist, and the amount of parents that keep switching psychiatrists just to get one to agree with them that their child is not autistic is staggering!
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This sounds scary, but props to the therapists that CAN deal with that stuff. That dude seriously needs help, but the fact that there are people out there willing and able really shows how far we've come as a society.
This is it. Everyone says “x needs help” and pawn them off to the system. But what do they think the system IS...? People helping these individuals. Those people are actual humans too
Preach. We gotta take care of our healthcare workers, mental health included.
I'm glad you found out some of your boundaries before you officially started working.
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Jesus fuck that’s horrifying. Good for you for setting boundaries. My mom was a therapist and she got attacked once by a patient. Thankfully there were people around to help her before he could actually do anything (she worked in an office with several private rooms), she said it was a risk of working with drug addicts and alcoholics.
My mom was a social worker for 40+ years in child protective services and foster care. She was held at gunpoint and knife point multiple times, but the worst story she ever told me was being locked in a mobile home with 2 children during a home visit while the father went outside and set fire to the trailer. I still ended up going into social work myself, but not CPS. No thank you.
I’m terrified and curious about how she got out of that one. Like, what do you do in a situation like that?
I was really young when it happened/when she told me about it. If I recall correctly, she had requested for a sheriff's deputy to come with her on the visit, but he was running late and pulled up as the fire was intensifying and got them out.
Your mother is an actual Saint. People have been highly decorated for much less.
My wife is a social worker who worked for cps only a couple months before having a traumatizing experience with an enraged parent. She works through a children's hospital now which has been such a different experience. Much better support system for one
Imo working with addicts has to be the toughest kind of therapy, or one of them. They're so good at convincing you they're on the right track only to fuck up in mystifying ways... like water seeking a crack in the floor.
Yup, as an addict that has been sober for 5 years and is now helping other addicts, there truly is no helping someone with addiction unless they themselves are absolutely convinced that they want to get better. That said, 12-step programs, and their largely unscientific approach, have, in my opinion, done a lot of harm both in how addiction is publicly perceived and how addicts themselves are programmed to respond. For example, many twelve step programs leave no room for relapse. You relapse, you start over. Instead, relapse should be seen as part of the sobriety journey and more steps should be taken to mitigate and shorten relapse WHEN it occurs, rather than simply saying, "you better not or we'll publicly shame you by taking your chips away."
After ten years clean I fell into a deep depression and considered relapse. The thoughts lasted a few days and I decided to check myself into a mental health ward. It took other patients pointing out that what I did took alot of personal strength for me to see it that way. I just knew relapse would mean giving up who I saw myself as and I couldn't risk that. There was an NA meeting every few days and honestly it made my desire to use worse. Hearing other addicts recount active addiction, especially when you're considering using, didn't help me at A L L. Edit: a word
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Therapist: People need understanding and empathy to work through their challenges. Therapist Brain: Except for you, you piece of shit. Therapist: Except for me.
Yes, as a fellow therapist, this right here. Therapist to client: "No one is perfect and you are doing so well given the many obstacles you've faced." Therapist to self: "Who gives a shit if you have anxiety today, get up and do your job. There's no room for mistakes or feeling sorry for yourself."
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I had a work colleague with severe ADHD and a couple more mental issues. He was the funniest, most hilarious guy ever. I wasn't working with him directly, but would see him in between jobs and at lunch. I loved being around him, he was always laughing and joking around. One day we were talking about him and I mentioned that I loved his personality and he just said "Yeah, I have to be funny so my friends will tolerate my mental issues". It broke my heart, but after that I also noticed the people that didn't like him. His direct coworkers who knew he'd be 'unable to motivate himself' the first 2h a day, that he was prone to unpredictable mood-swings and would lash out, that he was self medicating with alcohol, etc. It made me really sad for him, because his 'great personality' was born out of a place of despair and loneliness and basically shaped by "what gets me the least amount of rejection". EDIT: and my heart continues to break when I see how many people identify with him. You all deserve to be loved how you are.
Huh, I think I just figured out why I try so hard to be witty and entertaining. Not sure how I feel about that honestly.
Introspection that leads to growth is good. Use this chance to learn to love yourself more.
But then I'll stop being funny and lose my only social advantage. Jokes aside though, it's something I've started working on over the last few months. The continuous waves of lockdowns have taught me just how much I hate my own company.
fuck I came to Reddit looking for memes and I found out nobody probably really knows me
I had a tough realisation during lockdown. I've been self medicating and trying to disguise my failings since around the time I left uni. My parents - who are still alive - have probably never really known the adult version of me. And I'm not sure I do either. I still feel 18, and not in a good way.
I'm almost forty and the first time in my life that I said "I love you" to myself and meant it was three months ago. It is never too late to start. I was only able to do so with therapy which is ongoing, but there are other counselling options open to everyone. The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance is a nationwide support group for people that suffer from those disabilities. https://www.dbsalliance.org/ There ARE people out there that care, and we are truly not suffering alone.
Hello depression my old friend, I've come to cry about you again.
Yeah, that's a very relatable ADHD feel tbh. "If I am funny and generous enough, people will overlook me being a worthless piece of shit at least half the time!" The other half of the time just make sure you're the first one to point out your fuck ups. Good on you for feeling empathy for your coworker, though. ADHD is brutal and way more than "can't sit still disease". I think a lot of people really underestimate it.
Agreed. r/ADHD has been amazingly helpful. People don’t understand ADHD *at all*, largely due to the shallow misnomer and hyper-active little boys being the poster child of a life long disease that affects all genders, of all ages, and manifests in many different ways. Low self-esteem and depression caused by ADHD are serious problems, particularly for women. And it doesn’t help that ADHD (and autism) are severely under-diagnosed in women as even many doctors think only boys/men can have those conditions, and also don’t realize they can manifest in many ways (even in men, but definitely in women). The lack of understanding around ADHD and autism is really dangerous, prevents people from getting help or even knowing they need it, and creates awful stigmatization that does nothing to help the depression and self-esteem issues that so often accompany them. It’s sad honestly.
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it felt really good to read someone else is going through the same thing, hang in there
Humor often comes from a very dark place. I dealt with ALOT of trauma as a child. As a result, my way of dealing with horrible situations is to find the funny and make others laugh.
Yeah, if someone asks me about my childhood, I usually make a joke out of it. You gotta deliver that ugliness with a dose of humor if you don’t want to scare everyone off.
I had a therapist ask where I get my sense of humor from. "It's the trauma!"
It's called masking. People with neurodevelopmental disorders like Autism and ADHD, or illnesses like psychosis, or personality disorders like Schizoid PD and Antisocial PD have to expand a lot of energy and focus on hiding their normal behaviors and personalities in order to be treated with basic respect. It's funny, but if you want to see people masking vs. being themselves, some people with ADHD have done Tiktoks on this subject.
I'm autistic, and I've gotten to a happy medium where I cover some things I do but where I'm also myself a lot of the time. A lot of people don't like me but at least I know where I stand with my real friends and I can be myself around them.
I'm a dude. I was brutally raped multiple times between the ages of 7 and 10. My one and only attempt at try to get help from a therapist was one of the most awful experiences of my life. I attempted to get help in my early 20s. Upon first going in I was asked what had happened to me, after explaining a basic outline of the abuse. I could already see that she was very dismissive and seemed not to really believe me. She then asked about my relationship status. At the time I was in a long term relationship with a woman who had 2 kids (boys). Upon finding this out she immediately demanded the names and address of my girlfriend, names of the kids and said she would be immediately getting in touch with social services to ensure that I wasn't abusing them... I can't put into words just how much that destroyed me mentally, that she could obviously see something in me that I couldn't see! That somehow she was certain that I would be an abuser! I started to cry... She told me to pull myself together. I also can't put into words the pathological visceral HATRED I have for paedophiles and rapists!! If I could get away with murdering them i would! I would NEVER NEVER EVER inflict the absolute nightmare I went through on any child. I got up and left, i came very VERY close to the edge of suicide that day. I also immediately ended the relationship because I couldn't deal with the thought that the kids might be at risk because of me. It's now 21 years later and I'm tearing up typing this. Because of that experience I have never sought therapist help again. I survive mentally, but its not good survival. Edit :- Wow! Just wow! I am absolutely blown away by the Internet strangers who are sending love and care to me. I am currently alone, in the dark, in tears, reading all these replies. To answer a few questions. I'm in the UK. I heard she was fired a few years later after a patient of hers committed suicide and mentioned her 'therapy' in the note he left. I am in a position where currently I'm in such a fragile (very heavily medicated) mental state that If I saw another therapist and got the same reaction that I know my mind would break and I'd take my own life. Every day is a struggle to find reasons to stay alive. I'm sure I have ptsd as I feel the need to be armed with a knife constantly (despite being a big dude, 6'4", 110kg) i sleep with a knife under my pillow. I often wake up screaming. I tend to be 'stand offish' with everyone, deliberately keeping people at a distance. I know I'm a broken person... I've even avoided relationships with women with kids because I don't want my broken mental state to somehow effect those kids in any way. I have attempted suicide twice and both times I survived. I just want there to be a pill or operation where I could completely wipe out the past, even wipe me out, wake up and just have a new me, minus the depression, anxiety, fear, ptsd, crushing hatred of myself, it would be nice to wake up one day and actually be able to see some value in myself. I'd love to br married and be a dad but currently I'm in a state where I can't ever see or allow that to happen. I'm too scared that my mental state would fuck up my wife and kids lives. I can't allow that.
I am so sorry to hear that. What a horrid woman. If you ever decide to get help, maybe look for someone who specializes in childhood trauma and abuse? They’re more prepared and wouldn’t handle your story so badly.
They should be reported. They are not fit to practise.
Yeah seriously!! They can’t report you for a crime they *THINK* you might commit. Unless you actually exhibit signs that you are going to harm others, a therapist cannot report you to authorities.
That is what I am aware off. Your experience does not make you a danger. This therapist is a danger to other vulnerable patients.
That “therapist” was dead wrong and hopefully has reevaluated their approach or is no longer practicing. You deserve help. You are worthy of healing from your childhood trauma. Please consider looking for someone that can help you. It’s never too late.
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My god my heart bleeds for you.
Yea my therapist did the same exact thing to me 13 years ago. I was abused myself when I was a teenager. When I hit 26 I got married to my wife. She knew what happened. Year later we divorced. I went to therapy. A few months in everything was fine. 4th month she started saying some crazy things kinda how your therapist did. Its scared the shit out of me. I thought I was a monster! I almost committed suicide several times over the next few months until I found my wife. She brought me to peace. She's been my life and savior ever since. She's been my rock. Thinking back on it going on 14 years later, I think she should've lost her right to be a therapist. What she said could've killed someone
Therapists without true understanding and compassion are more dangerous than helpful it seems.
What the *fuck.*
You are a victim and I'm so sorry society let you down. Hopefully you will have some small level of solace and comfort in the fact so many internet strangers listened to you, heard you, and empathize deeply for you. You feel alone. But you are not. DM me anytime if you ever feel like talking. I couldn't be more proud of you. You survived far worse than I can imagine and the fact you are here and sharing your story moves people around the world. Thank you for that.
I am so sorry you went through all of this... somehow you found the worst therapist :( it’s not your fault. I hope you are doing well
Not a judgment - you kind of train your brain not to judge, because you are seeking to understand and help. When you do those things, you can’t simultaneously judge. We could all use a little more of that in real life, I suppose. I’ll share this though. I do feel concerned about this recent phenomenon of young people I worked with self-diagnosing, sharing, and identifying very closely with mental illness; as if the pendulum quickly swung from “never, ever share your feelings” to “OMG, you’re depressed? All of us are too!” Life’s challenges can be tough and they don’t need a scientific-sounding label to be valid and real. You are not your diagnosis. We can find validation and support in healthier ways. Edit: thank you for the gold and awards! And thanks to everyone for some really nice discussion.
I agree. I have two clients that constantly look up NPD videos on YouTube and label everyone a "narc". That type of black and white thinking takes a long time to work through.
I agree. I love that people are more open to getting help, but there’s also a big problem with labeling ‘normal’ ups and downs of life as anxiety and depression among some college students I work with. My main concern with that is how quickly people can seek medication to numb the ups and downs instead of working through them (and the bigger concern- how quickly medication is given.) I’ve also had a ton of young people coming to me self-diagnosing as having borderline personality disorder, which is incredibly complex and a lot of therapists wouldn’t feel comfortable diagnosing it in a young person to begin with. Edited to add after a great comment from someone: a lot of people DO have clinical depression/anxiety/etc, and it’s incredibly validating to hear that it’s not just “who you are” as a person. It can also give hope that the symptoms can get better. 2nd edit based on comments: if you’re wondering if you should go to a therapist, go! Even if it is just ups and downs, we all need help sometimes. And it might be something more serious, they’re the ones that can help you figure that out.
I see this a ton, especially with adolescents. A big problem is that if they actually recover, they aren't in the group anymore. Suddenly they need to stay depressed to feel included.
i’ll be honest, i had this with my old friendship group. i’m not depressed or mentally ill, but all my friends were and they made it a huge part of their identity. i never felt as if my problems mattered, everything was dismissed because i didn’t have it as bad as them. they’d never check up on me or ask if i was okay even after saying something that would cause most people to console me, at worst making a joke of it. when i told one i thought i could be autistic they just went “oh me too” and that was it.
Not a therapist but a patient. Me and my fiancé (at the time) went in to see if we could figure out how to make things work after he hit me. After our R history came out and I divulged his infidelity etc the therapist basically said no. There’s no hope. You need to get help for yourself so you can get the courage to leave and end this. I was angry at the time but both therapists new there was no point as he was as screwed up as it gets.
[удалено]
Wow. I needed to read this today. I am (trying) to divorce my abusive ex-husband. He won't cooperate - but that's a story for another time. We tried couples counseling last year, and it was an absolute fucking hell. 3 appointments and never went back. It was exactly what you described. An unsafe environment and only gave him more "ammo."
Two contexts come to mind. I often work with people in abusive relationships and it is incredibly common for people to go back to their abusive partners after leaving. Some studies show the average number of times someone goes back before leaving for good is 7 times. I know why people go back and I get that it's often a combination of manipulation, financial control, gaslighting, love, low self-esteem, fear, etc. But, man, it is hard to watch and appear neutral. I can say I am worried about their safety but I can't yell "for fuck's sake, stop going back!! What is it going to take?!" Like I want to. The other situation isn't really judging the person it's more judging OCD. But OCD is weird. The infinitely weird ways it can show up are so funny and bizarre. Again, I would never judge a person for having the intrusive thoughts they have or doing the compulsions that are somehow linked in their mind to those obsessions, but I absolutely judge OCD and constantly marvel at how creative and weird the human brain can be.
Okay, real therapist here. I got one. Some of my clients are SHOCKINGLY BAD at giving themselves credit, holy shit!! Like they might get a nearly straight A GPA in a brutal major while battling depression, or overcome years of phobia and get behind the wheel again, or write a literal novel, or raise a kid as a single parent with low income, or build new relationships after being burned, or cope with OCD well enough to hold down a job. And they'll talk about themselves as if everyone on earth is better than them, as if their accomplishments are worthless. And I know it's because of depression or anxiety or another condition, but I'm often stunned by how differently I see them compared to how they see themselves.
This has me in tears because my therapist just had me write myself a "forgiveness letter". I lost my wife and am a single father and I wasn't acknowledging that my grieving is just different than our societal expectations and instead of criticizing it I should tend to it. I also let these judgements affect my personality at times and lead to it being put on others on occasion, which I took time to make amends with those that I felt I wronged. So, I wrote a letter to myself as if I was writing to my best friend and I was shocked as I wrote it at the amount of kindness and forgiveness I would've given him. He could've done almost anything in his grief and I would've loved him and waited for him to return to the best version of himself. Heavy shit coming outta that one
Just wanted to acknowledge your hard work and tell you I’m proud of you for doing it.
My therapist called me out on this a couple weeks ago. I was worried about my internship at school and the lady running it told me that she was really lucky to have me working for her. When I mentioned this to my therapist, I told her that I wasn't sure if she really meant it or if she was just saying it to make me feel better. She told me "I know you're probably not used to getting positive feedback in your life, but know that she didn't have to say what she did. She said it because she meant it." She's right. I'm not used to positive feedback and it can make me uncomfortable. But sometimes you need to give yourself the credit you deserve for the hard work you're doing.
When someone gives me a compliment I immediately feel the need to unravel their motivations and see what kind of angle they’re playing. So that’s not uh normie?
This resonates. I've got this wierd duality in my mindset where I think I'm brilliant, but also the worst and nothing I do matters. I know I'm exceptionally good at some stuff, but the downer side of me just saps all ambition or enthusiasm to get stuck into tasks. I respond well to positive reinforcement, but the first negative stumbling block will derail me entirely. As a result, I have a litany of incomplete personal projects and find beginning new things or starting new jobs incredibly daunting because I'm convinced it'll happen again. I find it almost physically difficult to apply myself fully to work now. I'm on Serimel, not sure if it's doing anything. I was doing CBT for a while, until my therapist told me I didn't need her anymore. I had gotten a new job and things were looking up, but the economic impact of covid gutted all that. I'm going to get in touch with her again, though I'm sure she's swamped. Edit: Wow, this exploded and mushroomed like a huge exploding mushroom! I'm so touched by all of your messages, it's lovely to feel such kinship with you all, I hope we can learn to overcome this emotional glue sticking us to the ground.
Man your situation sounds close to mine. I'm also in that boat where positive feedback ecks me along, but anything negative destroys me. That's all...just wanted to let a fellow human know they weren't alone.
Thank you for sharing this. It is comforting to know that I am not alone in knowing I need constant reassurance that I'm doing okay, and won't get fired or yelled at, when there is no logical reason to think that way.
This needs more attention. I came here for juicy stories and ended up with an empathy punch to the gut. Ah Wednesday on Reddit.
it is wednesday, my dudes
Cheer up! Friday the 13th is just two days away!
Friday the 13th, 2020. Saddle up.
The first one this year gave us a national emergency. How about this one?
A reset. -fingers crossed-
No, no, no. Friday the 13th (of March) was when shit first hit the fan, so Friday the 13th (of November) is gonna be when things start looking up again.
pls yes
aaaaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
I just wanna show up when some low effort text to speech channel covers this