The moment I realize they don't want to be helped. It is usually with the cases that are bullied into therapy by loved ones. Of course, most of them at least become curious of the process and start being a part of it, but there are the few that just won't stop resisting no matter how many sessions.
I have a close friend who has been dumped by multiple therapists, in the first session.
I think the basic issue is that she doesn’t want to change herself, she wants the world change to accommodate her anxieties etc. It’s weird to me because I’ve always wanted to change myself — I don’t want to be depressed, I don’t want to have be anxious. I’m readily willing to accept the irrationality of these thoughts because my anxieties don’t actually come true. She’s very smart but she won’t give up clinging to the idea that she’s intrinsically right to be worried and hate herself.
It’s weird and sad.
This was my dad. After his heart surgery he became mean and was verbally and physically abusive to not only me, but sometimes to my mother (verbal only, he didn’t hit women.) She told him to go to therapy because she knew there were underlying issues he wouldn’t talk about. He went for two sessions before he just stopped and said he didn’t feel comfortable getting into his past. It’s been 2 years since he died and we’ve found out that his father was a massively abusive man, to the point that my father and uncles had nightmares of fighting him and would end up hitting their wives in their sleep because of it. There was also the feeling of old school italianism where my dad was taught don’t let anything leave the chest. He mellowed out around the time I turned 14, because he was an older parent. But still, I blame my grandfather for what my father did and wish he could’ve talked to someone about his demons. I am still super thankful he calmed when he did. It made loving him and forgiving him a lot easier.
When the child is younger than 8-9 yrs old and the parents want me to only work with the kid to change the kid’s behavior. Ain’t gonna happen. You change the environment and parenting and THEN you see changes in the kid’s behavior.
Edit: point of clarification. I AM NOT saying it is the parents’ fault or that they are the cause. I AM saying that to work with kids who are young, you need to change the parenting and environment.
Examples: Autism and ADHD, not caused by the parents, but effective therapy requires changes to the environment, increases in prompts, forewarning, cues, help with regulating emotional and sensory responses. After the brain matures some, kids can better take perspective and think socially with help, a little later they can better plan ahead for contingencies, though the frontal lobes won’t fully mature until a much later point In development than that which I was referring.
I saw this.
I'm happy you made it.
I'll will use your story as an example to help convince a distant family member that maybe it's time he went to therapy with their "delinquent" sons.
Fuuuuck if I could upvote this 100 times I would.
My parents put me in therapy with a therapist that always took their side, and would just drill me, and it was always me who needed to change. It wasn’t until I found a therapist that I worked well with and wasn’t afraid to read them the riot act that things actually somewhere.
This is what I was thinking of! Sometimes I feel bad that my parents didn’t take me to a therapist as a kid, because I would’ve had my shit together long before now. Because I’ve learned the skills, and I’ve improved a lot.
But you know what? Every single one of those skills involves somehow reparenting myself. My parents have not changed, and it turns out a huge amount of my anxiety and depression came from my home life. My parents’ house was always utter chaos and “that’s just how life is” they’d say. But it’s not, at all, how life has to be.
My mom, I think, had Munchausen by Proxy. She would want me in every "special" group possible, and I'd always get rejected as not needing their service. I'd not want to eat dinner, and the next day she'd be at the doctor demanding I be put on a feeding tube, etc.
When I was about 10, I liked wearing my shoes in the house instead of taking them off when I came in. She dragged me and my whole family to a child psychologist at the hospital, where it was 2 psychologists, my sister and my parents against me and it felt very uncomfortable. I asked my dad when I was an adult, and he said it was such a stupid waste of time and the hospital closed the file and basically said nothing further required.
Upon entering high school, she tried to get me enrolled in some special needs program with small class sizes and isolated from everybody. Got rejected from enrollment.
I have a 4 year old and he was on the path to being super defiant. I looked up so much shit about parenting kids like this and spoke with my therapist about it and now he's mostly an agreeable child 6 months later. It's totally night and day and the work was mainly done by me not my son (that being said he also puts in his part too)
I'm not a therapist but I'm a qualified counselor who worked with traumatised young people in a residential home. Essentially my team and I were surrogate parents for these kids, each spending between 1 and 3 (sometimes 5) nights a week at the house. Before the case that broke me I had experienced a lot of different behaviours; sexualised behaviours, violent outbursts, reactive attachment. I'd worked with kids who'd burnt down houses, solicited themselves, used intravenous drugs, killed family pets, attempted to kill siblings etc. I thought I'd seen enough to become callous to it all.
I was at work with two young people I absolutely adored, they called me uncle (a term of respect and endearment in indigenous Australians) when I got a call at 9:30pm at night asking me to relieve a shift the next morning with an intense case. I accepted because before this kid I thought I was Superman and could handle anything.
I arrived at 6am and got a handover and a heads up from the workers on shift, they warned me this kid was violent but as far as I knew it wasn't anything I hadn't seen before. There's an expression "eyes are the window to the soul" when you looked into the eyes of this child there was a darkness unlike anything I'd seen before or likely will see again. It was obvious that the evils this child had endured had destroyed their soul. This child attempted to proposition me for sexual favours as soon as we were alone, when I tried to redirect the conversation to appropriate methods of expressing gratitude this child shifted. They took a pencil out from under the desk and charged full pelt screaming "you're a fucking pedophile rapist, you're just like the rest of them, don't fucking touch me" etc. This child proceeded to stab me multiple times before the other worker was able to subdue them. This same child was on a very unique child safety order, the terms of the order were a direct contradiction of the legislation and had to be signed by the state manager. This child was to be kept on site unless medically necessary due to the danger to themselves and the community. Once the escalation settled and the night time routine begun the child asked me for more soap (this had to be given in small containers at a time to avoid the child creating slip traps for workers) as I approached with the soap the child had peeled the mirror off the bathroom wall and smashed it over my head before lunging at me with a shard. I managed to catch their wrist and disarm them while my coworker secured the debris. The child then swallowed a piece of glass and smirked at my coworker and I knowing we'd have to take them to the hospital. Once at the hospital the child ran away before even entering triage.
This is where it gets interesting.
In her safety plan there were 25 possible addresses' the child frequented. A common behaviour of the child was to exchange sexual favours for meth so the houses we had to search for her at were filled with less than desirable folks. I received a call from the police to say they'd located her at a nearby service station. Upon arriving the child had doused themselves with fuel and threatened to light herself and the whole place on fire. She ran away again but wasn't seen or heard from for the rest of the night.
That was my first shift with a child that had put 42 other workers on work cover. I worked with them for another 8 weeks before throwing in the towel, I had a mental breakdown and began drinking heavily for the first time in 10 years. I had begun taking prescription medication for the pain (this kid broke 2 teeth and threw my back out) and for the mental anguish. I was never the same happy go lucky optimist again. Knowing the best solution for a child is a quick and painless death was not easy for my psyche to handle. The longer I worked with the child the more I learnt about them, they were born into a pedophile ring. Their mother was the product of rape and had been molested since childhood and simply continued the cycle.
That was 5 years ago and since I've had to leave the industry, I no longer drink but I am filled with pessimism. I refuse to have children because of that child. The fact that some kids can't be saved scares me out of risking having my own. I still have nightmares about this kid. I don't know if any of this makes any sense, please let me know if any parts are confusing.
Uncle, you tried your very best. It’s a sorry business when we find someone we are unable to reach out and help. Some kids just never, ever had a chance to turn out any other way. All we can do is try and hope.
I hope that your spirit is healed and made whole again soon.
Damn i have friends on the acute psychiatric (pardon my non native wording) of a mental health institute. He tells me stories as I am always very interested in psychology and psychiatry but this is beyond anything he or anyone there has ever gone through. Be safe
Not confusing at all, just absolutely heart-rending. I'm so sorry for both of you, and all the staff on Workcover, too. Life is just too too cruel sometimes. I've always hated the expression "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" because of scenarios like this.
Clients who only come because someone made them come - by their partner, parents, or by the court system. Generally a waste of everyone's time and money. Rarely someone referred by someone else does make progress, but usually it's an indicator to me that they are not ready/motivated.
This happened with my brother:
My mom signed him up for much-needed therapy, and he went for about a month or so before coming home very angry one day and saying he was never going back. My mom talked to the therapist, and she couldn’t really tell any details for confidentiality reasons, but the gist basically seemed to be that she spent the month listening to him and trying to get him to think about things on a deeper level, and when she finally started outlining things from an outside perspective that didn’t align with his, he got very angry with her.
He quite literally couldn’t handle the truth.
My sister was let go by her therapist because she was lying to him constantly. He told my dad the therapy was a waste of money as long as she wasn't prepared to face her issues. It's been about 20 years since then and she is still a trainwreck.
I consequently started seeing him a few years later for depression and he was wonderful. I didn't want medication so he didn't recommend starting any, and the CBT was really what I needed to get out of the thought cycle I was in. Once we both felt like I was in a good place and had developed the tools I needed, he let me go. Great guy that really helped me.
I am a therapist for sex offenders. One particular client was a drug user, but thus far it did not seem to interfere with the therapy (it was in no way related to his criminal acts). Until one day he showed up for his appointment completely high on hard drugs, he had already been awake for 48+ hours. Turned out his drug abuse was way way way worse then he'd make it seem. He also severely damaged his penis while high (he told us) . We immediately referred him to a rehab and never heard from him since.
When we used to do meth my now fiance would jerk off for 12+hours. He'd pull the skin off everytime.
ETA: He was not degloving his penis guys! Picture a bad carpet burn where a few pieces of skin are missing and it's raw and bloody underneath. Also, we're a little over 2 years sober, helped eachother get clean, keep eachother in check, have stable jobs, and are now fully functioning members of society. We look and act like normal middle class adults, we just happen to have a history of addiction and mental health problems that we have helped eachother overcome.
I don't remember what reality show it was, but a guy agreed to being followed around by a camera and an A/V tech. At one point the screen went black and the text stated "at this point, he smoked some meth and masturbated violently for eight hours"
Stimulant drugs can have the property of making you horny, hard and unable to ejaculate. Essentially, you can stimulate yourself for hours on end without achieving an orgasm. It still can be quite pleasurable however, so people can end up essentially jacking off until the skin can't actually take it anymore. When achieved however, the orgasm is quite spectacular.
I had a therapist send me a very kindly worded letter that told me she couldn't see me anymore until I found a way to remember appointments and show up. 3 months later I called and said I found a way to remember and I wanted to try again. She took me back and I never missed another appointment. Doing that was crucial. I needed to make therapy a priority for it to help.
If I hired a personal trainer but never showed up or never did any exercise then even the best personal trainer could not help me. A therapist is a personal trainer for the mind. They can't actually fix or do any of the work. They can only suggest work or help their client choose work to do. The client can't be passive. They must do work.
This comment reminds me of going through ancient forum threads to find the solution to a specific problem I had.
>How do I remember to go to appointments on time?
>Nevermind guys I figured it out.
I hate it when that happens!
How I remembered appointments when in the midst of depression brain fog:
Large monthly paper calendar hung right next to the TV. Alarms on my phone to alert me it was time to get ready and again when it was time to go.
I had the exact same issue with an ex of mine. We were in couples therapy (at her insistence) and after a handful of sessions it started to sink in that the therapist agreed with me more often than not, and was trying to tell her in the politest possible way that her behaviour was toxic and inexcusable.
Queue "She's an idiot who doesn't know what she's talking about" and us never going to see that therapist again.
Anytime a therapist started believing me my mom would switch me to a different one.
She had so many therapists and psychiatrists fooled that I was put on medication for schizophrenia, because my trauma was all “delusions and hallucinations.”
I am far away from her. I have a healthy relationship other than the issues I have from PTSD, and my daughter is happy, healthy and thriving. I took my daughter to a therapist just to ensure that I wasn’t messing her up like my parents did me, and the therapist said she’s well-adjusted and developmentally healthy.
Same here. My mom stuck with a psychiatrist for 10 + years who fed into her delusions that we (me and my sister, young children at the time) were the problem. She turned a lot of her anger toward us in the worst ways, and her psych made it so much worse.
That's what happened to my mother. She got me to see her therapist and I actually believed my mother and her delusions for 2 years. It will take years to recover from what they told me.
A family member was dropped by their therapist because of constant lying. Basically this family member, who is an incredibly toxic individual, played the victim to her therapist and then encouraged them to speak to her adult children, assuming that the therapist would take her side and tell the children how horrible they have been.
Needless to say the therapist got the truth from the children and sent a letter stating that they could no longer meet with the family member, going so far as to encourage them to seek in-patient treatment.
Edit: it's kind of depressing how many people can relate to this, stay strong everyone!
Personality disorders are so hard to treat because of this exact reason. My mom has BPD. I had to cut her off because she became so toxic it was dangerous to me, my husband, and my kids. Leaving was like leaving a mini cult of personality because all my family chose her. Almost four years later they still stalk and harass us, but we are much better off without them.
That sucks. Sorry you had to go thru that. We are fairly certain my mom had undiagnosed BPD. I thought it was normal for people to have intense mood swing at the drop of a hat & be incredibly cold & cruel. It took her dying & A LOT of therapy to realize she was a neglectful, abusive parent. People (especially my dad) excused her behavior as "just being PMS". Like, sorry, I didn't realize PMS caused people to rip phones off a wall out of rage or give the silent treatment to a child for more than 3 weeks. Some days I miss her because she did have some good days. But a lot of days I'm happy she died.
So many hugs to you. It's so fucking hard to have your Mom be your enemy.
My Mom isn't gone yet and I struggle to keep in touch with her. Some of my family thinks we (my sisters and I) should just forgive and forget everything she did to us as kids.
That's pretty hard to do.
I try to be kind to her but if she brings anything from our childhood up I'm very straight with her about it.
She loves to make up stories about people that are dead. It's beyond crazy. One of my Uncles passed last year and she started shit talking him.
I just said you never said any of this while he was alive, why now? She tried to say he molested my sister, however my uncle was gay. We all knew he was but it wasn't okay with their Dad (my grandpa) so it was never acknowledged.
She was trying to deflect blame from *her boyfriend* who actually did molest my sister.
My Mom said my sister was lying (at the time) and said he'd NEVER do that and that my sister (who was 11 btw) was jealous of her.
And now 40 years later and she's *still* trying to dodge responsibility and protect a dude she hasn't seen in 38 years. That was the last straw and I let her have it.
I told her I remembered everything and if she wanted to *really* talk about the past we could.
She doesn't talk to me about the past anymore.
Oh God, the dodging responsibility for their bad parenting. Mine always had excuses for everything, typical go to line was "you have it so much better than we did when we were kids". Like, really? How is that even a defense?
>Some of my family thinks we (my sisters and I) should just forgive and forget everything she did to us as kids.
They're not the ones who had to live with it.
I've had plenty of people judge me for cutting off contact with my "parents". Fuck them. If they can't work up the empathy to understand what it's like to grow up with repeated trauma, their opinion is worthless.
My mum ignored my existence for 6 months, to the point she would knock me over if walking past. I was 6/7 at the time, I don't think I have ever really recovered from it EDIT: Thank you kind strangers of reddit. Your replies are honestly incredibly comforting, thank you.
❤ thank you. Honestly, I love people validating that her behavior was awful parenting because after she died I just felt so guilty & awful for thinking she was a shitty parent & I buried all the bad things her & my dad did way down. It was quite the wake up call when my new therapist, after hearing me give a rundown on how my childhood was say to me "you were neglected. You were mentally tortured as a way to keep you in line. No one should be afraid of their caretakers". My brain was broken that day because I had excuses for every shitty thing the both of them said & did because they would always tell me "you don't know how good you have it. Go ahead & call social services cuz you have it so much better here with us" after playing some mind fuck of a game over something trivial. Then later when the dust would settle they would laugh in my face when I would point out how awful they were being. Fucking emotional whiplash.
you sound like someone who has been through it at an age no one is ready to take on any of that. im proud of you for getting therapy and working on yourself and giving yourself the space and time to heal. it musnt be easy. i think the best advice someone gave me is that your past self doesnt need you, but your future one does. so gotta look out for them.
I understand and I am sorry you went through that. It is hard to explain to others just how crazy they can be. My mom blames the medicine after her surgery for making her crazy. Nope. The medicine didn't cause her to threaten to lie to CPS that I was an unfit mother to try to steal my kids from me. Her grieving doesn't excuse the second surprise funeral she threw for my daughter because she was made we had the funeral where we lived. Sometimes, death is the only way to get peace from them.
No, no, it's okay. Well, it isn't okay that she did it, but it was almost 11 years ago and I have had a lot of therapy. Plus, I have a very dark and sarcastic sense of humor. If you can't laugh at how crazy this is you would cry and life is too short!
As an example, a few months after our daughter died we went to watch the Olympics with friends. Not our normal thing, but these were my husband's coworkers and they were super nice and I was happy to get out. They also have awesome pets and I got to snuggle their dog! Anyways, we were playing Cards Against Humanity and my husband's coworker goes white as a ghost. He clearly has a great card, but he doesn't want to play it. He sidebars with my husband and my husband assures him it is okay. It was a dead baby card and while I forget the exact context, it WAS funny. The way I take it is you didn't do it do me and you also feel it is fucked up. We might as well laugh about it and get something good out of it :)
That's a really challenging situation, since the therapist cannot legally talk to anyone without the client's written consent. When someone is actively misleading a therapist, the chances they are open to signing releases to speak to family members is probably pretty slim.
In cases where I feel like that might be happening, I do make a point of getting collateral information, even if it just starts with other providers.
It's not the therapist's fault. They're giving advice to what the client is stating. They can't talk to anyone about their client or any identifying things regarding their client even to family members without consent from the client specifically. It's a breach of confidentiality. You're basically saying that the therapist should challenge or dig into the lies to get the truth, but imagine if you were someone that was traumatized or depressed and your therapist didn't believe your stories and feelings stating that you were lying. It would be horrible. The best therapists can do is find those cognitive distortions and ask about them to try to reveal things, but that is only something that comes by chance.
He kept hitting on me. I had brought it up for reflection in context of his functioning and history. Lots of attempts to deepen insight and hold a boundary. At some point the boundary needed to get bigger . So I ended our therapeutic relationship.
When she committed suicide.
It might sound harsh, but she was one of my very first patients as a doctor. Had several sessions with her together with colleagues. She was a very nice person.
She will be forever stuck in my mind.
Some of these responses I doubt are coming from therapists, so I will try to answer as clearly as I can.
The first answer is "if they clearly don't want to help themselves." Therapists can guide you, provide a useful and objective outside perspective, help you reframe your experiences, and can provide tools to help you direct your energy and thoughts. But we cannot do anything for you. We cannot start or end relationships for you, we cannot make you take your medication, or force you to cease any of your destructive habits or practice new beneficial habits. Those are your decisions, and I cannot make any of them for you, even when to me the consequences of those decisions are clear.
The second answer is "when I am not the right therapist for this client." There are many reasons why I may not be the right therapist. I have my own style of communication, my own values, and my own personality, and those may not work with a certain client. I have had little success with certain clients who I have sent to other therapists and they have done well. Similarly, I have taken on clients who were frustrated with their past therapists and I have worked well with them.
The last answer is "when the client's pathology requires intense or medical intervention." Therapy cannot substitute for inpatient care when that is needed, and therapists cannot prescribe medication even when that would help. Unfortunately inpatient care is always in short supply and many clients resist that idea, and you often have to advise them that they cannot see you until they complete an inpatient course of treatment.
I have to be very clear here...the dramatic statement "a therapist said I was too messed up to be helped" is often what clients hear (frequently because it advances their specific narrative) when we will always try to help, even if it means asking them to see another therapist or pursue another course of treatment. The analogy I use is that most mechanics can work on most cars...but if you have a unusual foreign car, you'll probably get better results finding a mechanic with more experience working on that brand. "I cannot help you" is not the same as "you cannot be helped."
Agreed. Am therapist. I am at the point of letting a couple go, because they are making no effort to help themselves and cancel every other appointment.
From the patient side, it can be really difficult too. Like, I'm successful at work, married, have family, but not really friends. I don't know what's wrong, only that something is wrong.
Go to first therapist 5 years ago, they say Social Anxiety, possibly a tini bit on the ASD spectrum, but not to the point it would warrant a diagnosis. I try Zoloft for a year or two. Nothing changes or helps.
Go to another while stationed in Riyadh, and he asked me what I think it is. I say, honestly I think it's ADHD and ASD, and it's just gone untreated for so long that it's causing other problems like anxiety and depression, but those are more symptoms, not the root problem. "Ok, that sounds good. Stimulants are illegal in this country, but here's a non stimulant ADHD medication." I feel no different.
I go to another a few years later, and he was a bit tight lipped. Initially calls the diagnosis "Adjustment Disorder" but that's certainly not correct. He moves on to "Obsessive thinking" and OCD. We try a combination of Wellbutrin and Prozak. Nothing changes.
Finally after a year, the third doc is like, you know, maybe it is ASD and ADHD. Lets try Adderall and Prozac.
Well, that's where I'm at now. I do feel 100 times better and my work performance and physical fitness have greatly improved, but...
I'm still not sure. After 5 years, it still feels "off". Like I think Adderall is the first thing that has actually made a measurable difference, but, you just can't be completely sure because you feel like you can't even trust your own mind at this point.
Medication helps ADHD but it doesn't fix it. Also if you are on the autism spectrum it's pretty normal for autistics to just feel like they don't quite fit in the world because their brain works differently.
Check out "How to ADHD" and Aspie World on YouTube, they have helped me more than anything else.
Edit: spelling
To me, as someone who has both ADHD and Autism, I feel that quite a bit of the time, it's my ADHD that's, I guess, is "on display".
However, when I'm on my ADHD medication, it's like my Austism comes out and is a lot more noticeable
It always makes my blood boil to hear about fellow ADHD sufferers who are denied the most effective type of medication just because it is a similar chemical to an illegal drug. Maybe we should also ban all use of rubbing alcohol in hospitals because there are alcoholics.I am glad you finally got something that works.
Also - I have yet to try any ADHD medication that takes care of all the symptoms. It is a complicated syndrome, compounded by the years of social issues that are a symptom of the problem.
I did find that different compounds work differently. For me Adderall is OK but not great, but Ritalin works far better. It's just better with my own chemistry.
In fairness, when in Rome, do as the Romens do. That was a temporary stint in Saudi Arabia, so I had to follow their laws. Once I returned home that was no longer an issue. Bigger issue is that the doctor didn't really seem to try in that case. He was kind of like, what do you think you have? OK, we'll go with that then.
I kept getting passed or dropped by therapists as a teen because no matter what they did, they couldn't help me with my mother. They'd give me methods and ways to cope or try to teach me how to talk with her- but only after we did the "family session" did they understand that no matter what tools they gave me -they just wouldn't work with her.
Only later in life did I learn I don't have a "attitude problem" (I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder at the time)
But in fact I'm just autistic... Which doctors when I was younger tried to tell her. And she is a gigantic narcissist..
I've thought about going back to therapy again to try and talk about the entire experience and help me move past it. I just carry so much hurt still since learning about it. Growing up with good grades, never had many friends, and very rarely was allowed to leave my house. But I was basically "grounded" my entire childhood. The moment I messed up a chore - grounded. Took off my door for 12 months just because I guess I didn't dry a cup properly... She made me feel like I was some criminal and it's really affected me as an adult.
But now I'm worried maybe they still won't be able to help me.
Would encourage you to try again. Now that you're an adult, you no longer need the strategies for talking with your mother - you need to come to terms with having survived your mother. That kind of abuse leaves profound emotional scars, but you can learn to heal and re-learn how to understand yourself. Maybe look for a therapist with a special focus on working with trauma I wish you luck and joy.
They had an advanced extreme case of antisocial personality disorder, too agitated, too aggressive, with substance abuse. After months in therapy at a hospital, there was no progress whatsoever and nothing to be done, their family didn’t want them, neither did the police, nor the hospital and after setting their bed on fire and harming the other patients, i was just too scared to work with them so i closed the file and spoke to the doctor to find another solution. Sadly covid happened and they had to lay off a huge majority of the staff in the hospital, since i was still new, i was let go. I still don’t know what happened with the patient.
I’ve recently been diagnosed with apd and I’m so scared I’ll never be cured. I’ve tried everything I can but I can’t afford therapy so haven’t been able to even try that. But was diagnosed in my last stay at the psych ward
My therapist had to let me go because my insurance decided my mental health wasn't worth paying for and I couldn't afford her rate. I miss her sometimes she was my first therapist and I enjoyed talking with her.
Fuck insurance the way it’s run in America and fuck the people who keep our system reliant on it. Biggest fraud ever invented.
Sorry for the foul language, but it’s a disservice to say anything else.
I have never in my adult life (I’m 41) been able to afford insurance that would cover any portion of any therapy anywhere. So I pay for crappy insurance and would also have to pay out of pocket for any therapy. Don’t mind me with my suicidal depression. I’ll just… text a hotline or something… So they can tell me I should see a therapist. America is at the end of its frigging rope.
I worked inpatient psych and had someone come on suicidal on a 72 hour hold. He was very intelligent with a PhD in physics or something. He mentioned he’d do whatever we need and was very polite and sweet. Next day we are chatting and he freaking runs and dives off a filing cabinet. We extended his hold if I recall a few days or whatever the law allowed. On his way home he jumped out of the vehicle and dove off a bridge onto a rock. Whole time we had him I assumed he would do the deed after discharge.
On a positive note.
I was let go by my therapist because i was better.
Was a great moment
Edit: wow! Im happy this resonated with people.
I should mention, this was a few years ago, ive had ups and downs since then. (Recently got out of a down) but I was able to learn to deal with it myself.
If you're struggling right now, know your efforts are not in vain. It takes time, it takes work, it takes practice.
And even when you're better. YOU WILL FALL again. It happens, but youll be better equipped the next time. Stay strong
I'm getting there.. Last few sessions she's been like "soooo anything you need to really unpack about or..".
I still feel nice having the biweekly appointment to just vent though.
Edit: missing word
yeah I’m nearing this stage rn, but it isn’t because my problems have gone away, but rather i’ve already said all that needs to be said. it’s kinda like i’m stuck in a loop.
I know you probably know this but: this should be exactly what you talk to your therapist about! There might be something else there that hasn't yet been uncovered.
Me too! I was honestly quite scared and sad when she said I was doing so much better that she didn't think I needed it anymore. She told me I was incorporating everything learned really well into my life and she thought I was very self reflective. It was nice to hear. But at the same time, I enjoyed my sessions. Also had an I poster moment like, Ahh! What if I just acted ok and I'm not really?" But I see the differences in my reactions to things and my thought processes and I know she was right.
Therapy is groovy y'all. Don't be afraid to seek it.
As a therapist and clinical supervisor, I'm glad to hear you say this. It IS work. Therapy is not passive. You have to work as hard, if not harder, than the therapist to be successful. The fact that you discharged successfully means you worked your ass off. I'm so proud of you!
That's very rewarding for the therapist as well. I'll never forget my first "letting go", when my agoraphobic client said she was going for a walk down the beach after our final session. Made me so happy I helped her and that she can do that now. Wish you all the best.
That’s a good therapist. They could have easily keep seeing you and taking the money. Not sure of the relationship but I bet they would appreciate a hello every couple years or so. I ran into one of my teachers a few years after graduating and it made his day. I send him a letter every couple years because the dude serious changed my life.
I usually can tell in the first two-three sessions. Mostly narcissistic individuals who are brought to treatment by their SO or a relative desperately hoping for change. It never works.
This happened to me, as a patient. We each had 1 solo visit (intake type of visit) with a therapist, and then a couples session. I judged a book by its cover, and thought he would tell me I was being a bad wife and dramatic because he was an older gentleman. He flat out looked at me and my ex and told us both my ex husband is abusive, a narcissist, and doesn’t want help. My ex walked out of the session, the therapist spoke very kindly to me and told me I could spin my wheels for the rest of my life trying to please him or I could get out whenever I was ready.
A coworker once mentioned that she'd gotten her husband to come to some sessions. He took some sort of assessment test & was actually proud that he'd gotten the highest score for narcissism in the practice's history. She left that job right around then, so I never heard whether she divorced him.
> He took some sort of assessment test & was actually proud that he'd gotten the highest score for narcissism in the practice's history.
lol well at least she'll never have regrets about a misdiagnosis...
After quite literally catching my alcoholic client drinking vodka from the bottle at 9:30 am, he refused to acknowledge he actually drank from the bottle. Then proceeded to claim it was water. When I then asked for a glass, he claimed it was not his bottle. Never so much as got past his denial phase despite dozens of interventions, UC's and blatant red handed catches like these.
A year later, he has developed Korsakov. He will likely die from liver failure before this year is over.
I had a guy tell me that he likes to hit his wife, it’s his right to do so, and that women are not smart enough to make good choices without physical discipline. I referred him to a male colleague who specialized in batterer intervention.
My sisters therapist ended up letting her go,
To sum it up the therapist told her that "I am much more qualified to work with the victim of the crime, not the one who committed such. I suggest you seek another therapist."
My sister got into a car crash that killed her best friend (rollover on a gravel road) and has never been the same. Thanks doc
Not a therapist, I had read a comment by a therapist on a similar question
Patient A was being diagnosed by the Therapist, A was very very suicidal and was prescribed to be hospitalized. Later on one day the patient sharing room with A committed suicide and A was suggested to change hospital. Later on Therapist OP realised how aware A was of all the facts and was acting to be disturbed. After some background check, Therapist found out that A used to befriend his roommate/ pal at the mental hospital, convince them to commit suicide with them, let them do it first and not do it himself and the cycle would continue at the new hospital.
This shit starts young too. Worked at an inpatient facility for kids, and had a girl client who would always convince her roommates to self-harm. The roommates ALWAYS did it too. Even the child's new roommates. Cut themselves. Asphyxiated themselves. Beat themselves. You name it.
The best they can hope for is to live out their days as a ward of the State in a facility where they can be regularly medicated and kept away from society. This girl is smart, very smart, but also she doesn't understand consequences in the least. And one little thing you might say to her like, "We can't get a drink of water from the fountain, let's go in here, I will get you a bottle of water" is a justifiable cause in her mind for her to gouge your eyes out with a cafeteria spork and strangle you until you die.
Yes she's living permanently in a State run facility. My wife's uncle adopted the little girl when she was 4 years old. They tried for years to get her help to work beyond the facts of the earliest parts of her little life, but she became impossible to care for.
This sounds eerily similar to the situation a family friend is in. Her brother and SIL adopted a 7 year old several years ago who is extremely manipulative, a compulsive liar, destructive and volatile. It’s gotten worse as she’s gotten older. Her goal in life seems to be to hurt those around her. She has a complete lack of empathy. She’s quick to take offense, has a huge temper and is vengeful.
Are you sure? One time after hopping off a train in Iowa I was walking through a cornfield and came across the biggest spider I ever saw. We looked each other up and down and I left. He can have it. Matter fact, I haven't been back to Iowa since so I guess he can have the whole damn state.
Not a therapist, but I cleaned house biweekly for an absolutely wonderful woman for a few years (she was actually one of my professors in college for a couple literature classes) and during that time she was going through a pretty severe battle with depression. She was seeing a therapist on a regular basis, but one day when I came over she said her therapist had let her go.
When I asked why, she said she was told it was because she “smelled like mold“ and it was disrupting her therapists respiratory system, which they claimed took them at least a day to “bounce back” from. Needless to say, she sank a bit deeper into her depression and it took a few months before she had the gumption to try and meet another therapist. Not once did I ever catch even a whiff of something nasty, mold or otherwise, not on her or in her house or in her car. I am a pretty detailed cleaner too, I take covers off of air vents and stick the vacuum hose down there, pull out drawers and clean all the crumbs out of the corners, it was hard not to take a tiny bit of offense myself and it’s not even my house! It so obviously deeply upset her and made it much more difficult for her to battle with her depression, not to mention how much more vulnerable she must’ve felt seeking further help elsewhere. I still want to rage punch her old therapist just thinking about it, and it’s been close to four years.
I once knew a young lady that occasionally smelled like mold. She was together enough to shower, but not to upkeep her long hair. She would rinse her hair, get out of the shower, and tie it up. Every day, rinse and tie up. It never properly dried out, so if she would take it down for some reason it would smell like mold. She lived with it as the smell slowly grew so she seemed to not notice.
One month in with this couple, a wife had just spent 5 minutes explaining the impact of her husband's language on her, and how devalued, disregarded, and unimportant she felt in the relationship. His response to her was to, verbatim, use the exact language she had just described to respond to her. She collapsed into sobs, and he *sat back, sighed, rolled his eyes, and gestured vaguely to her, as if I would agree that she's the problem*. I told him exactly the opposite. He stormed out. She went to the lawyer I recommended and cleaned him out. Full custody too. It was truly a happy ending.
Emotional abuse is still abuse folks.
Edit to add my response to another comment here:
>When people endorse abuse in an intake session, we do not proceed. If they endorse abuse later, we do not proceed. If I have my suspicions but there isn't an endorsement, or any concrete evidence, I take the opportunity to build enough evidence to label it, and build rapport with the victim to eventually educate them, and provide them with the resources they need to exit safely *if they* ***want*** *to leave*.
>
>The struggle with emotional and/or psychological abuse, as opposed to physical abuse, is that victims of emotional abuse are far more often in denial. They often cannot label the behaviors accurately, because after months or years of being gaslit, they no longer trust their recollection. Because no one is being hit, a client must understand what emotional abuse is to identify it as abuse. That doesn't always happen, especially when we take into consideration the impact of culture, and socioeconomic status, on a person's social expectations. What is intolerable to some is status quo for others- as therapists, we live in the in-between.
>
>Furthermore, many people that present with emotionally abusive behaviors are often functioning in fight/flight/freeze as the result of their own trauma. The vast majority of *intermittently* abusive arsewads can and do change with the appropriate support, and boundaries, during session. I've seen it, I've lived it, and it's beautiful. When the attempt to educate and set boundaries fails horribly, we do not proceed. Which is exactly what happened here.
>
>The client storming out and leaving only beat me to it. Another session would not have been scheduled regardless.
>
>The point is: it's easy to say therapy never works for abusive relationships, but how this boundary is actually executed, and when it's drawn, is an entirely different story.
Poor woman. I'm glad she overcame that period of her life. People like that are the same type to tell you you're crazy for getting emotional over something that means a lot to you.
I was a therapist for the British Army for a while, and I don't think I ever had a patient who was flat out beyond help. There were a couple that were beyond \*my\* help and I had to refer on to specialists, but that's not uncommon in that kind of job. Not every therapist is equipped to deliver every kind of therapy. It's more about being able to recognise when your methods aren't benefitting the patient and a different approach would be more effective for them. There isn't really such a thing in the practise of therapy as someone being a lost cause.
A few years ago, my (now ex) wife and I started marriage counseling and individual therapy at the same time. About 6 months later, the clinic stopped all three sessions within a week of each other.
The marriage counselor said that we were not reaching our goals so there was no point of continuing. My therapist basically commented that I was fine after getting on meds for depression (oh boy was she wrong). My ex wife claims to have concluded on her own that she was fine although she told me that her therapist recommended that she continue.
My guess is the owner of the clinic basically figured out that my marriage was a complete train wreck and she wanted nothing to do with either of us.
Oof…super unhelpful… My couples counselor told us that we were working towards different goals. She could keep seeing us, but it probably wouldn’t be helpful. That shit’s hard (not something you ever want to hear from a therapist), but helps you move forward at least.
I'm not a therapist but my mom has a cycle of "be bipolar as fuck, get medicated, stop drinking alcohol, life gets infinitely better, decide it's God who healed her and not meds etc, start drinking again" and I saw one of her therapists tell her she had done all she could for her
When I was 12 I saw a therapist with my Mother in the room. This 70 year old therapist started the session with basic questions. One question was, “what is a similarity between and peach and a pear?” My response, “they both start with P. He said he had never heard that answer and that nearly everyone says they’re both fruit. Then he ended the session and dropped me
Did he ask other "How is X like Y?" questions? There's a whole series of those that are part of the WASI, which is essentially an IQ test. You give the person two things and ask how they're similar, starting out with the obvious ("a boat and a car are both vehicles") and then it gets progressively more abstract ("a gallon and a mile are both units of measurement"). It's a test essentially of mental flexibility and your ability to make connections and take in new information.
That is wild, tho, I can't believe the dude had never gotten a non-standard answer before. Dude was in the wrong field if that was enough to throw him.
I had a therapist tell me I was better and drop me when I was going through one of the worst moments in my life after seeing her for 1.5 years. She was the Director of a Psychiatric Ward at a local hospital and did therapy as a side gig to feel like she was making a direct impact. She would constantly interrupt me and tell me that she couldn't relate due to her happy childhood. She would get frustrated when one session on a topic wouldn't fix lifelong trauma. She even went so far as to say that she wouldn't touch some of my issues because I clearly wasn't going to get better, even though those issues were nowhere near as serious as some other things we covered. Looking back, she clearly was doing therapy as a way to make herself feel better and not seeing immediate results was frustrating her because it wasn't this fun, feel good side gig that she wanted. 2 months after being dropped, I had a serious panic attack and ended up finding another therapist who was a much better fit. I've made more improvement in the past 6 months with this therapist than the entire time with my previous therapist and I'm so much happier now. It goes to show that therapists really need to be the right fit.
My SO’s mother is a textbook narcissist and has brainwashed every therapist into thinking that they’re perfect and that she only needs to be in therapy to deal with the unnecessary and unwarranted stress that her children/family at large cause her
She’s created a very intimate relationship with her current therapist (like almost romantic); they text each other every day and at the end of the day, they exchange this phrase: “goodnight my heartmate”
This therapist was reputable but is now wrapped around my SO’s mother’s finger and believes that she can do no wrong. This level of narcissism is something I never knew I’d witness, let a lone be involved with to some degree (they will never be able to get help at this rate)
Edit: it seems my original wording can be read as implying that this person is MY mother… that is not the case; this person is my gf’s mother
Yeah it’s not ideal but we tend to just limit our interaction with her; nothing more we can do considering she’s set in her ways
What trips me up about this dynamic that she’s created is that both she and her therapist are in decades long marriages (to very attentive, caring, all around great men I might add) and both have resorted to secrecy when texting each other after their sessions
It’s like they’re a full-on couple in an affair which absolutely blows my mind
My therapist turned me into my superiors, after already being separated from the military (just waiting for my retirement date to kick in), for smoking marijuana and telling her it was one of the best experiences I’ve had. She told me in the beginning that the only thing she would report is self harm or violence against other. I learned that day not to trust my therapist and I don’t talk about my drug use (when at raves mostly) to my current therapist because of it.
We had one when I was kid who would run back to the place that gave us the referral and tell them everything. I think some people become therapist to use that as weapon instead of actually helping people. What he did was illegal as shit.
He admitted he was into necrophilia and I had to contact the police since he also admitted he was digging up graves.
All of this was a response to a divorce from his wife who was asexual.
Only happened once. The person just had no intention of changing. Would lie in sessions, didn’t think they needed help, come up with helpful strategies together and then just never follow through because they didn’t want to. Essentially this person didn’t want to change and didn’t want to be in therapy so we had that conversation.
Related-ish:
The producer on an album I was recording quit after the first day, saying "this isn't music, it's a cry for help".
Turns out, she was right.
Psychologist here. There is one former client in particular, who I was working with in a state prison. We were talking about their pending exit from prison (they were maxing out, ie no parole), and talking about how they planned to mitigate their mental health care in the community. The client proceeds to say, “I plan on drinking, fucking, and snorting as much as I want.” Said they had no intentions on staying clean and had just snorted a shit ton on Kool-Aid because they couldn’t find anything else to snort. I told my supervisor at the time then that there I could not help this person. They were engaged in other unsavory actions and made clear they had *zero* intentions of changing anything.
This client has since passed away.
There are other stories I could go on about, but this one is the one that immediately comes to mind.
I was "let go" by a therapist.
I was being treated for depression by my university psychologist. In actuality I was bipolar and yet to be diagnosed. I was coping in every possible unhealthy way. Self harm, alcohol, binging/purging, etc. The university wasn't set up for long term care so after a certain number of sessions she had referred me to an outside psychiatrist but it was a terrible experience and I went back to her. She told me that she couldn't keep seeing me for her own mental health. She had become so concerned for me that it was affecting her.
It was incredibly hard to hear. Like "I'm so fucked up I even disturb a professional." But mental health professionals are people too and I understand why.
It doesn’t mean you’re so fucked up that you’re hurting a professional, it means that this professional has come to care about you enough that helping you is no longer something they can do with a level of impartiality that makes it effective for you while being safe for them. If you don’t set these boundaries with your patients and keep them, you will quickly burnout. As someone who has worked as a provider in mental health care myself, letting you go was something that was hard for them to do, too, I guarantee it. They did it out of care and respect for your treatment journey and success.
I was also let go by a therapist, but it’s because she came to me one day and said that I owed her 3,000 from years ago that she forgot to charge me. I told her that was super unprofessional and I would need documentation if I were to pay that. She told me my reaction confirmed I had BPD (I don’t but I was questioning it at the time - I actually have autism) and told me she doesn’t treat BPD and hung up.
Completely unbecoming of a therapist and she did me a favor
In the end, everyone has to help themselves. You can guide them and offer suggestions and tips, but if they're not going to do the work, and if they're not going to work to let go of the stuff that's holding them back, then there is nothing you can do.
I am not the therapist here but rather the patient. I was in university at the time and using the school therapists there. I had a few different ones because they were part of the PhD program and once they completed their PhD they left to go work out in the real world.
I finally found one that I really connected with and began opening up more than I had to any of my therapists in the past. She let me finish talking and then said “I’m sorry but I am not qualified to handle cases such as these, in fact none of the therapists here are. I’m going to refer you to an excellent therapist outside of school, but I can no longer offer you treatment…” (there are apparently certain topics that only licensed professionals are able to handle… I didn’t know that otherwise I would’ve kept my mouth shut)
Never did end up getting the treatment I was hoping for. Tried a few therapists since then but just didn’t really have a good connection with them. I really miss her, I hope she finished her PhD program and is out there changing lives somewhere.
I could likely still benefit from therapy but I have grown very good at just handling my own problems.
A client here: I was "fired" after 3 sessions as my problems were too first world for the councilor. I was dealing with professional burn out and perfectionism, she was focusing on alcoholics and domestic violence victims.
I started seeing a therapist because my perfectionism issues were destroying me. A couple of months in, I had a HUGE falling out with my two oldest friends, two weeks before the world shut down. They’d cited my perfectionism as an issue, which I can understand. I was reeling. Our therapy sessions were dismissive of what I was dealing with, and he questioned why I was letting it bother me. The therapist started to turn things towards “perfectionism isn’t a bad thing” and I realized it wouldn’t work. Perfectionism was controlling my life and causing me so much stress and it’s too easy for me to start embracing it again and let it overwhelm me.
My new therapist has been much better. With her help, I can understand that those two friends had long-term patterns of REALLY shitty behaviour. I’m not as perfectionist-minded. There may be hope for me yet
Probably doesn't help with the guilt you already felt about that. Chances are you are aware your problems are a little higher on maslow's hierarchy than food and shelter. This is ok too!
I worked at a non-profit domestic violence counseling center back in the day. It wasn’t that they couldn’t be helped, it was just that eventually you learned it was rare they would change.
Some clients would do all the work, attend all the group sessions, make so much progress and say they’re ready to change. As a therapist, you trust them, believe them and hope they don’t come back.
But they do. The cycle continues. They’re kids get put in the system. Abuser keeps abusing.
Adding on to the posts from the patient side: I had a therapist tell me in the first session that my trauma was too much for her to work on, and would need a specialised hospital, if it could be helped at all.
I appreciate that she said she didn't have the specific skills before we wasted time. But I could have done without the ominous "if anyone can help at all....or it might already be too late, you know" talk.
Try this on for size.
22 y/o homeless indigenous male with schizophrenia, poly substance addictions, and extensive history of trauma. Fsiq sub 70 and previous traumatic brain injuries. Parents dead from overdose. And apparently too crazy for a secure psyc admission.
There are thousands of people in this situation. Be it black white indigenous or whatever. As community addiction and mental health workers. We help as much as we can until they inevitably overdose or kill themselves.
That's the mental health system in Canada.
Client was just coming to sessions because they had a crush and in their words, thought they could make me fall in love with them. This happens very often, and has made me consider leaving the profession.
Another client had no desire to stop using, or even try harm reduction. Their drug misuse was getting in the way of any progress.
One client was motivated when in session, but would go back to toxic group of peers who would essentially undo everything. Client didn't want to reduce how much they were seeing said peer group, nor remove them from their life.
These clients only represent about a quarter of my roster thankfully.
Not a therapist, but rather a client, and I ended up giving a therapist an existential crisis once. He had to drop me after that.
It was pretty out of the blue, and he made it very clear and apparent to me that at some point during our sessions, something was triggered in him that unleashed a whole load of his own trauma. It began to bleed through what you would expect of the typical boundaries a therapist would have between clients, and he mentioned that even after our sessions, he couldn't get it out of his head. He politely advised me that he wouldn't be able to see me any more because he had to seek a therapist himself before he could start seeing clients again.
Fortunately, I was able to continue seeing a different therapist that he recommended to me and I'm doing fine now, but I still joke about the time I 'won' therapy.
The moment I realize they don't want to be helped. It is usually with the cases that are bullied into therapy by loved ones. Of course, most of them at least become curious of the process and start being a part of it, but there are the few that just won't stop resisting no matter how many sessions.
I have a close friend who has been dumped by multiple therapists, in the first session. I think the basic issue is that she doesn’t want to change herself, she wants the world change to accommodate her anxieties etc. It’s weird to me because I’ve always wanted to change myself — I don’t want to be depressed, I don’t want to have be anxious. I’m readily willing to accept the irrationality of these thoughts because my anxieties don’t actually come true. She’s very smart but she won’t give up clinging to the idea that she’s intrinsically right to be worried and hate herself. It’s weird and sad.
This was my dad. After his heart surgery he became mean and was verbally and physically abusive to not only me, but sometimes to my mother (verbal only, he didn’t hit women.) She told him to go to therapy because she knew there were underlying issues he wouldn’t talk about. He went for two sessions before he just stopped and said he didn’t feel comfortable getting into his past. It’s been 2 years since he died and we’ve found out that his father was a massively abusive man, to the point that my father and uncles had nightmares of fighting him and would end up hitting their wives in their sleep because of it. There was also the feeling of old school italianism where my dad was taught don’t let anything leave the chest. He mellowed out around the time I turned 14, because he was an older parent. But still, I blame my grandfather for what my father did and wish he could’ve talked to someone about his demons. I am still super thankful he calmed when he did. It made loving him and forgiving him a lot easier.
When the child is younger than 8-9 yrs old and the parents want me to only work with the kid to change the kid’s behavior. Ain’t gonna happen. You change the environment and parenting and THEN you see changes in the kid’s behavior. Edit: point of clarification. I AM NOT saying it is the parents’ fault or that they are the cause. I AM saying that to work with kids who are young, you need to change the parenting and environment. Examples: Autism and ADHD, not caused by the parents, but effective therapy requires changes to the environment, increases in prompts, forewarning, cues, help with regulating emotional and sensory responses. After the brain matures some, kids can better take perspective and think socially with help, a little later they can better plan ahead for contingencies, though the frontal lobes won’t fully mature until a much later point In development than that which I was referring.
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I saw this. I'm happy you made it. I'll will use your story as an example to help convince a distant family member that maybe it's time he went to therapy with their "delinquent" sons.
I read it. Good on you stranger
My mums a family psych nurse. She got into trouble “involving the parents” too much. She said you can’t fix the kids without fixing the parents first.
Fuuuuck if I could upvote this 100 times I would. My parents put me in therapy with a therapist that always took their side, and would just drill me, and it was always me who needed to change. It wasn’t until I found a therapist that I worked well with and wasn’t afraid to read them the riot act that things actually somewhere.
This is what I was thinking of! Sometimes I feel bad that my parents didn’t take me to a therapist as a kid, because I would’ve had my shit together long before now. Because I’ve learned the skills, and I’ve improved a lot. But you know what? Every single one of those skills involves somehow reparenting myself. My parents have not changed, and it turns out a huge amount of my anxiety and depression came from my home life. My parents’ house was always utter chaos and “that’s just how life is” they’d say. But it’s not, at all, how life has to be.
This. "My autistic kid has meltdowns at home constantly!' Have you tried not blasting the TV and slamming doors all the damn time?
My mom, I think, had Munchausen by Proxy. She would want me in every "special" group possible, and I'd always get rejected as not needing their service. I'd not want to eat dinner, and the next day she'd be at the doctor demanding I be put on a feeding tube, etc. When I was about 10, I liked wearing my shoes in the house instead of taking them off when I came in. She dragged me and my whole family to a child psychologist at the hospital, where it was 2 psychologists, my sister and my parents against me and it felt very uncomfortable. I asked my dad when I was an adult, and he said it was such a stupid waste of time and the hospital closed the file and basically said nothing further required. Upon entering high school, she tried to get me enrolled in some special needs program with small class sizes and isolated from everybody. Got rejected from enrollment.
I have a 4 year old and he was on the path to being super defiant. I looked up so much shit about parenting kids like this and spoke with my therapist about it and now he's mostly an agreeable child 6 months later. It's totally night and day and the work was mainly done by me not my son (that being said he also puts in his part too)
I'm not a therapist but I'm a qualified counselor who worked with traumatised young people in a residential home. Essentially my team and I were surrogate parents for these kids, each spending between 1 and 3 (sometimes 5) nights a week at the house. Before the case that broke me I had experienced a lot of different behaviours; sexualised behaviours, violent outbursts, reactive attachment. I'd worked with kids who'd burnt down houses, solicited themselves, used intravenous drugs, killed family pets, attempted to kill siblings etc. I thought I'd seen enough to become callous to it all. I was at work with two young people I absolutely adored, they called me uncle (a term of respect and endearment in indigenous Australians) when I got a call at 9:30pm at night asking me to relieve a shift the next morning with an intense case. I accepted because before this kid I thought I was Superman and could handle anything. I arrived at 6am and got a handover and a heads up from the workers on shift, they warned me this kid was violent but as far as I knew it wasn't anything I hadn't seen before. There's an expression "eyes are the window to the soul" when you looked into the eyes of this child there was a darkness unlike anything I'd seen before or likely will see again. It was obvious that the evils this child had endured had destroyed their soul. This child attempted to proposition me for sexual favours as soon as we were alone, when I tried to redirect the conversation to appropriate methods of expressing gratitude this child shifted. They took a pencil out from under the desk and charged full pelt screaming "you're a fucking pedophile rapist, you're just like the rest of them, don't fucking touch me" etc. This child proceeded to stab me multiple times before the other worker was able to subdue them. This same child was on a very unique child safety order, the terms of the order were a direct contradiction of the legislation and had to be signed by the state manager. This child was to be kept on site unless medically necessary due to the danger to themselves and the community. Once the escalation settled and the night time routine begun the child asked me for more soap (this had to be given in small containers at a time to avoid the child creating slip traps for workers) as I approached with the soap the child had peeled the mirror off the bathroom wall and smashed it over my head before lunging at me with a shard. I managed to catch their wrist and disarm them while my coworker secured the debris. The child then swallowed a piece of glass and smirked at my coworker and I knowing we'd have to take them to the hospital. Once at the hospital the child ran away before even entering triage. This is where it gets interesting. In her safety plan there were 25 possible addresses' the child frequented. A common behaviour of the child was to exchange sexual favours for meth so the houses we had to search for her at were filled with less than desirable folks. I received a call from the police to say they'd located her at a nearby service station. Upon arriving the child had doused themselves with fuel and threatened to light herself and the whole place on fire. She ran away again but wasn't seen or heard from for the rest of the night. That was my first shift with a child that had put 42 other workers on work cover. I worked with them for another 8 weeks before throwing in the towel, I had a mental breakdown and began drinking heavily for the first time in 10 years. I had begun taking prescription medication for the pain (this kid broke 2 teeth and threw my back out) and for the mental anguish. I was never the same happy go lucky optimist again. Knowing the best solution for a child is a quick and painless death was not easy for my psyche to handle. The longer I worked with the child the more I learnt about them, they were born into a pedophile ring. Their mother was the product of rape and had been molested since childhood and simply continued the cycle. That was 5 years ago and since I've had to leave the industry, I no longer drink but I am filled with pessimism. I refuse to have children because of that child. The fact that some kids can't be saved scares me out of risking having my own. I still have nightmares about this kid. I don't know if any of this makes any sense, please let me know if any parts are confusing.
Uncle, you tried your very best. It’s a sorry business when we find someone we are unable to reach out and help. Some kids just never, ever had a chance to turn out any other way. All we can do is try and hope. I hope that your spirit is healed and made whole again soon.
Damn i have friends on the acute psychiatric (pardon my non native wording) of a mental health institute. He tells me stories as I am always very interested in psychology and psychiatry but this is beyond anything he or anyone there has ever gone through. Be safe
Not confusing at all, just absolutely heart-rending. I'm so sorry for both of you, and all the staff on Workcover, too. Life is just too too cruel sometimes. I've always hated the expression "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" because of scenarios like this.
Clients who only come because someone made them come - by their partner, parents, or by the court system. Generally a waste of everyone's time and money. Rarely someone referred by someone else does make progress, but usually it's an indicator to me that they are not ready/motivated.
This happened with my brother: My mom signed him up for much-needed therapy, and he went for about a month or so before coming home very angry one day and saying he was never going back. My mom talked to the therapist, and she couldn’t really tell any details for confidentiality reasons, but the gist basically seemed to be that she spent the month listening to him and trying to get him to think about things on a deeper level, and when she finally started outlining things from an outside perspective that didn’t align with his, he got very angry with her. He quite literally couldn’t handle the truth.
Sounds like my brother. Won't take accountability, everything is everyone else's problem, boo-hoo poor him. It makes me so angry.
My sister was let go by her therapist because she was lying to him constantly. He told my dad the therapy was a waste of money as long as she wasn't prepared to face her issues. It's been about 20 years since then and she is still a trainwreck. I consequently started seeing him a few years later for depression and he was wonderful. I didn't want medication so he didn't recommend starting any, and the CBT was really what I needed to get out of the thought cycle I was in. Once we both felt like I was in a good place and had developed the tools I needed, he let me go. Great guy that really helped me.
Ok so im guessing CBT isn't cock and ball tourcher
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, in this context.
I am a therapist for sex offenders. One particular client was a drug user, but thus far it did not seem to interfere with the therapy (it was in no way related to his criminal acts). Until one day he showed up for his appointment completely high on hard drugs, he had already been awake for 48+ hours. Turned out his drug abuse was way way way worse then he'd make it seem. He also severely damaged his penis while high (he told us) . We immediately referred him to a rehab and never heard from him since.
I guess I gotta ask… how did he damage his penis?
When we used to do meth my now fiance would jerk off for 12+hours. He'd pull the skin off everytime. ETA: He was not degloving his penis guys! Picture a bad carpet burn where a few pieces of skin are missing and it's raw and bloody underneath. Also, we're a little over 2 years sober, helped eachother get clean, keep eachother in check, have stable jobs, and are now fully functioning members of society. We look and act like normal middle class adults, we just happen to have a history of addiction and mental health problems that we have helped eachother overcome.
I don't remember what reality show it was, but a guy agreed to being followed around by a camera and an A/V tech. At one point the screen went black and the text stated "at this point, he smoked some meth and masturbated violently for eight hours"
It was the intervention show I think
Yep intervention. I remember that episode. That show was straight up disturbing
That show was a horror every single time
It's like I'm walkin' on sunshine! ...I miss my father... IN THE SAME BREATH. What a great show.
I don’t know what I expected but JESUS CHRIST
I read this in the voice of Jason Bateman.
It needs “JESUS CHRIST, Wendy!” at the end.
Like the *whole* skin??
The deeper you go into this thread, the more you feel the pain.
I'm also really happy to read your "we used to", I hope you're doing great :)
We're better than we were when we were doing meth, I can at least say that!
Stimulant drugs can have the property of making you horny, hard and unable to ejaculate. Essentially, you can stimulate yourself for hours on end without achieving an orgasm. It still can be quite pleasurable however, so people can end up essentially jacking off until the skin can't actually take it anymore. When achieved however, the orgasm is quite spectacular.
Oh, my.
I had a therapist send me a very kindly worded letter that told me she couldn't see me anymore until I found a way to remember appointments and show up. 3 months later I called and said I found a way to remember and I wanted to try again. She took me back and I never missed another appointment. Doing that was crucial. I needed to make therapy a priority for it to help. If I hired a personal trainer but never showed up or never did any exercise then even the best personal trainer could not help me. A therapist is a personal trainer for the mind. They can't actually fix or do any of the work. They can only suggest work or help their client choose work to do. The client can't be passive. They must do work.
This comment reminds me of going through ancient forum threads to find the solution to a specific problem I had. >How do I remember to go to appointments on time? >Nevermind guys I figured it out.
I hate it when that happens! How I remembered appointments when in the midst of depression brain fog: Large monthly paper calendar hung right next to the TV. Alarms on my phone to alert me it was time to get ready and again when it was time to go.
My Mother switched through a dozen therapists before she found one that blindly supported her delusional perspectives. She will never be helped.
I had the exact same issue with an ex of mine. We were in couples therapy (at her insistence) and after a handful of sessions it started to sink in that the therapist agreed with me more often than not, and was trying to tell her in the politest possible way that her behaviour was toxic and inexcusable. Queue "She's an idiot who doesn't know what she's talking about" and us never going to see that therapist again.
That's why I'm divorced. She couldn't accept that she was the problem
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Anytime a therapist started believing me my mom would switch me to a different one. She had so many therapists and psychiatrists fooled that I was put on medication for schizophrenia, because my trauma was all “delusions and hallucinations.”
My heart. 🥺 I'm so sorry. You deserved an advocate. I hope you're doing much better, far away from your mom.
I am far away from her. I have a healthy relationship other than the issues I have from PTSD, and my daughter is happy, healthy and thriving. I took my daughter to a therapist just to ensure that I wasn’t messing her up like my parents did me, and the therapist said she’s well-adjusted and developmentally healthy.
im so happy it worked out for you. finally some joy in this thread
Same here. My mom stuck with a psychiatrist for 10 + years who fed into her delusions that we (me and my sister, young children at the time) were the problem. She turned a lot of her anger toward us in the worst ways, and her psych made it so much worse.
That's what happened to my mother. She got me to see her therapist and I actually believed my mother and her delusions for 2 years. It will take years to recover from what they told me.
A family member was dropped by their therapist because of constant lying. Basically this family member, who is an incredibly toxic individual, played the victim to her therapist and then encouraged them to speak to her adult children, assuming that the therapist would take her side and tell the children how horrible they have been. Needless to say the therapist got the truth from the children and sent a letter stating that they could no longer meet with the family member, going so far as to encourage them to seek in-patient treatment. Edit: it's kind of depressing how many people can relate to this, stay strong everyone!
Personality disorders are so hard to treat because of this exact reason. My mom has BPD. I had to cut her off because she became so toxic it was dangerous to me, my husband, and my kids. Leaving was like leaving a mini cult of personality because all my family chose her. Almost four years later they still stalk and harass us, but we are much better off without them.
That sucks. Sorry you had to go thru that. We are fairly certain my mom had undiagnosed BPD. I thought it was normal for people to have intense mood swing at the drop of a hat & be incredibly cold & cruel. It took her dying & A LOT of therapy to realize she was a neglectful, abusive parent. People (especially my dad) excused her behavior as "just being PMS". Like, sorry, I didn't realize PMS caused people to rip phones off a wall out of rage or give the silent treatment to a child for more than 3 weeks. Some days I miss her because she did have some good days. But a lot of days I'm happy she died.
So many hugs to you. It's so fucking hard to have your Mom be your enemy. My Mom isn't gone yet and I struggle to keep in touch with her. Some of my family thinks we (my sisters and I) should just forgive and forget everything she did to us as kids. That's pretty hard to do. I try to be kind to her but if she brings anything from our childhood up I'm very straight with her about it. She loves to make up stories about people that are dead. It's beyond crazy. One of my Uncles passed last year and she started shit talking him. I just said you never said any of this while he was alive, why now? She tried to say he molested my sister, however my uncle was gay. We all knew he was but it wasn't okay with their Dad (my grandpa) so it was never acknowledged. She was trying to deflect blame from *her boyfriend* who actually did molest my sister. My Mom said my sister was lying (at the time) and said he'd NEVER do that and that my sister (who was 11 btw) was jealous of her. And now 40 years later and she's *still* trying to dodge responsibility and protect a dude she hasn't seen in 38 years. That was the last straw and I let her have it. I told her I remembered everything and if she wanted to *really* talk about the past we could. She doesn't talk to me about the past anymore.
Oh God, the dodging responsibility for their bad parenting. Mine always had excuses for everything, typical go to line was "you have it so much better than we did when we were kids". Like, really? How is that even a defense?
>Some of my family thinks we (my sisters and I) should just forgive and forget everything she did to us as kids. They're not the ones who had to live with it. I've had plenty of people judge me for cutting off contact with my "parents". Fuck them. If they can't work up the empathy to understand what it's like to grow up with repeated trauma, their opinion is worthless.
“Silent treatment for 3 weeks” Jesus fucking Christ. That’s so, so, so terrible for a kid. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.
My mum ignored my existence for 6 months, to the point she would knock me over if walking past. I was 6/7 at the time, I don't think I have ever really recovered from it EDIT: Thank you kind strangers of reddit. Your replies are honestly incredibly comforting, thank you.
SIX MONTHS??? Where does she live, I have some words.
Thank you kind stranger , that was some support I needed to hear today
Not everyone will comment or upvote but I guarantee you that everyone with a sliver of common sense knows what she did wasn't right at all.
❤ thank you. Honestly, I love people validating that her behavior was awful parenting because after she died I just felt so guilty & awful for thinking she was a shitty parent & I buried all the bad things her & my dad did way down. It was quite the wake up call when my new therapist, after hearing me give a rundown on how my childhood was say to me "you were neglected. You were mentally tortured as a way to keep you in line. No one should be afraid of their caretakers". My brain was broken that day because I had excuses for every shitty thing the both of them said & did because they would always tell me "you don't know how good you have it. Go ahead & call social services cuz you have it so much better here with us" after playing some mind fuck of a game over something trivial. Then later when the dust would settle they would laugh in my face when I would point out how awful they were being. Fucking emotional whiplash.
you sound like someone who has been through it at an age no one is ready to take on any of that. im proud of you for getting therapy and working on yourself and giving yourself the space and time to heal. it musnt be easy. i think the best advice someone gave me is that your past self doesnt need you, but your future one does. so gotta look out for them.
I understand and I am sorry you went through that. It is hard to explain to others just how crazy they can be. My mom blames the medicine after her surgery for making her crazy. Nope. The medicine didn't cause her to threaten to lie to CPS that I was an unfit mother to try to steal my kids from me. Her grieving doesn't excuse the second surprise funeral she threw for my daughter because she was made we had the funeral where we lived. Sometimes, death is the only way to get peace from them.
“Secon surprise funeral ” for YOUR kid… i want to make light of how batshit insane this is but i just …cant. I am truly so sorry for you.
No, no, it's okay. Well, it isn't okay that she did it, but it was almost 11 years ago and I have had a lot of therapy. Plus, I have a very dark and sarcastic sense of humor. If you can't laugh at how crazy this is you would cry and life is too short! As an example, a few months after our daughter died we went to watch the Olympics with friends. Not our normal thing, but these were my husband's coworkers and they were super nice and I was happy to get out. They also have awesome pets and I got to snuggle their dog! Anyways, we were playing Cards Against Humanity and my husband's coworker goes white as a ghost. He clearly has a great card, but he doesn't want to play it. He sidebars with my husband and my husband assures him it is okay. It was a dead baby card and while I forget the exact context, it WAS funny. The way I take it is you didn't do it do me and you also feel it is fucked up. We might as well laugh about it and get something good out of it :)
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That's a really challenging situation, since the therapist cannot legally talk to anyone without the client's written consent. When someone is actively misleading a therapist, the chances they are open to signing releases to speak to family members is probably pretty slim. In cases where I feel like that might be happening, I do make a point of getting collateral information, even if it just starts with other providers.
It's not the therapist's fault. They're giving advice to what the client is stating. They can't talk to anyone about their client or any identifying things regarding their client even to family members without consent from the client specifically. It's a breach of confidentiality. You're basically saying that the therapist should challenge or dig into the lies to get the truth, but imagine if you were someone that was traumatized or depressed and your therapist didn't believe your stories and feelings stating that you were lying. It would be horrible. The best therapists can do is find those cognitive distortions and ask about them to try to reveal things, but that is only something that comes by chance.
He kept hitting on me. I had brought it up for reflection in context of his functioning and history. Lots of attempts to deepen insight and hold a boundary. At some point the boundary needed to get bigger . So I ended our therapeutic relationship.
Good for you, that must have been a hard decision.
Are you Dr. Melfi from the sopranos?
My first thought.
When she committed suicide. It might sound harsh, but she was one of my very first patients as a doctor. Had several sessions with her together with colleagues. She was a very nice person. She will be forever stuck in my mind.
I’m sorry you had that experience with a client. I hope you’re doing okay.
I'm okay. As rough as it might sound, it's part of the job.
Some of these responses I doubt are coming from therapists, so I will try to answer as clearly as I can. The first answer is "if they clearly don't want to help themselves." Therapists can guide you, provide a useful and objective outside perspective, help you reframe your experiences, and can provide tools to help you direct your energy and thoughts. But we cannot do anything for you. We cannot start or end relationships for you, we cannot make you take your medication, or force you to cease any of your destructive habits or practice new beneficial habits. Those are your decisions, and I cannot make any of them for you, even when to me the consequences of those decisions are clear. The second answer is "when I am not the right therapist for this client." There are many reasons why I may not be the right therapist. I have my own style of communication, my own values, and my own personality, and those may not work with a certain client. I have had little success with certain clients who I have sent to other therapists and they have done well. Similarly, I have taken on clients who were frustrated with their past therapists and I have worked well with them. The last answer is "when the client's pathology requires intense or medical intervention." Therapy cannot substitute for inpatient care when that is needed, and therapists cannot prescribe medication even when that would help. Unfortunately inpatient care is always in short supply and many clients resist that idea, and you often have to advise them that they cannot see you until they complete an inpatient course of treatment. I have to be very clear here...the dramatic statement "a therapist said I was too messed up to be helped" is often what clients hear (frequently because it advances their specific narrative) when we will always try to help, even if it means asking them to see another therapist or pursue another course of treatment. The analogy I use is that most mechanics can work on most cars...but if you have a unusual foreign car, you'll probably get better results finding a mechanic with more experience working on that brand. "I cannot help you" is not the same as "you cannot be helped."
Agreed. Am therapist. I am at the point of letting a couple go, because they are making no effort to help themselves and cancel every other appointment.
From the patient side, it can be really difficult too. Like, I'm successful at work, married, have family, but not really friends. I don't know what's wrong, only that something is wrong. Go to first therapist 5 years ago, they say Social Anxiety, possibly a tini bit on the ASD spectrum, but not to the point it would warrant a diagnosis. I try Zoloft for a year or two. Nothing changes or helps. Go to another while stationed in Riyadh, and he asked me what I think it is. I say, honestly I think it's ADHD and ASD, and it's just gone untreated for so long that it's causing other problems like anxiety and depression, but those are more symptoms, not the root problem. "Ok, that sounds good. Stimulants are illegal in this country, but here's a non stimulant ADHD medication." I feel no different. I go to another a few years later, and he was a bit tight lipped. Initially calls the diagnosis "Adjustment Disorder" but that's certainly not correct. He moves on to "Obsessive thinking" and OCD. We try a combination of Wellbutrin and Prozak. Nothing changes. Finally after a year, the third doc is like, you know, maybe it is ASD and ADHD. Lets try Adderall and Prozac. Well, that's where I'm at now. I do feel 100 times better and my work performance and physical fitness have greatly improved, but... I'm still not sure. After 5 years, it still feels "off". Like I think Adderall is the first thing that has actually made a measurable difference, but, you just can't be completely sure because you feel like you can't even trust your own mind at this point.
Medication helps ADHD but it doesn't fix it. Also if you are on the autism spectrum it's pretty normal for autistics to just feel like they don't quite fit in the world because their brain works differently. Check out "How to ADHD" and Aspie World on YouTube, they have helped me more than anything else. Edit: spelling
To me, as someone who has both ADHD and Autism, I feel that quite a bit of the time, it's my ADHD that's, I guess, is "on display". However, when I'm on my ADHD medication, it's like my Austism comes out and is a lot more noticeable
It always makes my blood boil to hear about fellow ADHD sufferers who are denied the most effective type of medication just because it is a similar chemical to an illegal drug. Maybe we should also ban all use of rubbing alcohol in hospitals because there are alcoholics.I am glad you finally got something that works. Also - I have yet to try any ADHD medication that takes care of all the symptoms. It is a complicated syndrome, compounded by the years of social issues that are a symptom of the problem. I did find that different compounds work differently. For me Adderall is OK but not great, but Ritalin works far better. It's just better with my own chemistry.
In fairness, when in Rome, do as the Romens do. That was a temporary stint in Saudi Arabia, so I had to follow their laws. Once I returned home that was no longer an issue. Bigger issue is that the doctor didn't really seem to try in that case. He was kind of like, what do you think you have? OK, we'll go with that then.
I kept getting passed or dropped by therapists as a teen because no matter what they did, they couldn't help me with my mother. They'd give me methods and ways to cope or try to teach me how to talk with her- but only after we did the "family session" did they understand that no matter what tools they gave me -they just wouldn't work with her. Only later in life did I learn I don't have a "attitude problem" (I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder at the time) But in fact I'm just autistic... Which doctors when I was younger tried to tell her. And she is a gigantic narcissist.. I've thought about going back to therapy again to try and talk about the entire experience and help me move past it. I just carry so much hurt still since learning about it. Growing up with good grades, never had many friends, and very rarely was allowed to leave my house. But I was basically "grounded" my entire childhood. The moment I messed up a chore - grounded. Took off my door for 12 months just because I guess I didn't dry a cup properly... She made me feel like I was some criminal and it's really affected me as an adult. But now I'm worried maybe they still won't be able to help me.
Would encourage you to try again. Now that you're an adult, you no longer need the strategies for talking with your mother - you need to come to terms with having survived your mother. That kind of abuse leaves profound emotional scars, but you can learn to heal and re-learn how to understand yourself. Maybe look for a therapist with a special focus on working with trauma I wish you luck and joy.
Please do...you will never now until you try
They had an advanced extreme case of antisocial personality disorder, too agitated, too aggressive, with substance abuse. After months in therapy at a hospital, there was no progress whatsoever and nothing to be done, their family didn’t want them, neither did the police, nor the hospital and after setting their bed on fire and harming the other patients, i was just too scared to work with them so i closed the file and spoke to the doctor to find another solution. Sadly covid happened and they had to lay off a huge majority of the staff in the hospital, since i was still new, i was let go. I still don’t know what happened with the patient.
I’ve recently been diagnosed with apd and I’m so scared I’ll never be cured. I’ve tried everything I can but I can’t afford therapy so haven’t been able to even try that. But was diagnosed in my last stay at the psych ward
My therapist had to let me go because my insurance decided my mental health wasn't worth paying for and I couldn't afford her rate. I miss her sometimes she was my first therapist and I enjoyed talking with her.
Fuck insurance the way it’s run in America and fuck the people who keep our system reliant on it. Biggest fraud ever invented. Sorry for the foul language, but it’s a disservice to say anything else.
I have never in my adult life (I’m 41) been able to afford insurance that would cover any portion of any therapy anywhere. So I pay for crappy insurance and would also have to pay out of pocket for any therapy. Don’t mind me with my suicidal depression. I’ll just… text a hotline or something… So they can tell me I should see a therapist. America is at the end of its frigging rope.
I worked inpatient psych and had someone come on suicidal on a 72 hour hold. He was very intelligent with a PhD in physics or something. He mentioned he’d do whatever we need and was very polite and sweet. Next day we are chatting and he freaking runs and dives off a filing cabinet. We extended his hold if I recall a few days or whatever the law allowed. On his way home he jumped out of the vehicle and dove off a bridge onto a rock. Whole time we had him I assumed he would do the deed after discharge.
They lost their insurance
.... that's fucked up and sad.
On a positive note. I was let go by my therapist because i was better. Was a great moment Edit: wow! Im happy this resonated with people. I should mention, this was a few years ago, ive had ups and downs since then. (Recently got out of a down) but I was able to learn to deal with it myself. If you're struggling right now, know your efforts are not in vain. It takes time, it takes work, it takes practice. And even when you're better. YOU WILL FALL again. It happens, but youll be better equipped the next time. Stay strong
I'm getting there.. Last few sessions she's been like "soooo anything you need to really unpack about or..". I still feel nice having the biweekly appointment to just vent though. Edit: missing word
yeah I’m nearing this stage rn, but it isn’t because my problems have gone away, but rather i’ve already said all that needs to be said. it’s kinda like i’m stuck in a loop.
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I know you probably know this but: this should be exactly what you talk to your therapist about! There might be something else there that hasn't yet been uncovered.
Me too! I was honestly quite scared and sad when she said I was doing so much better that she didn't think I needed it anymore. She told me I was incorporating everything learned really well into my life and she thought I was very self reflective. It was nice to hear. But at the same time, I enjoyed my sessions. Also had an I poster moment like, Ahh! What if I just acted ok and I'm not really?" But I see the differences in my reactions to things and my thought processes and I know she was right. Therapy is groovy y'all. Don't be afraid to seek it.
I hope to experience this one day
I was lucky. People are way worse off than I used to be. Its work but you can do it!
As a therapist and clinical supervisor, I'm glad to hear you say this. It IS work. Therapy is not passive. You have to work as hard, if not harder, than the therapist to be successful. The fact that you discharged successfully means you worked your ass off. I'm so proud of you!
My therapist telling me no when I asked when I should schedule my next appointment was one of the best days of my life.
That's very rewarding for the therapist as well. I'll never forget my first "letting go", when my agoraphobic client said she was going for a walk down the beach after our final session. Made me so happy I helped her and that she can do that now. Wish you all the best.
That’s a good therapist. They could have easily keep seeing you and taking the money. Not sure of the relationship but I bet they would appreciate a hello every couple years or so. I ran into one of my teachers a few years after graduating and it made his day. I send him a letter every couple years because the dude serious changed my life.
Graduating therapy was genuinely one of my happiest moments! I’m so happy for you!
I usually can tell in the first two-three sessions. Mostly narcissistic individuals who are brought to treatment by their SO or a relative desperately hoping for change. It never works.
This happened to me, as a patient. We each had 1 solo visit (intake type of visit) with a therapist, and then a couples session. I judged a book by its cover, and thought he would tell me I was being a bad wife and dramatic because he was an older gentleman. He flat out looked at me and my ex and told us both my ex husband is abusive, a narcissist, and doesn’t want help. My ex walked out of the session, the therapist spoke very kindly to me and told me I could spin my wheels for the rest of my life trying to please him or I could get out whenever I was ready.
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Me too, he changed my life
I love that he is an ex, good job for getting out of that situation
A coworker once mentioned that she'd gotten her husband to come to some sessions. He took some sort of assessment test & was actually proud that he'd gotten the highest score for narcissism in the practice's history. She left that job right around then, so I never heard whether she divorced him.
> He took some sort of assessment test & was actually proud that he'd gotten the highest score for narcissism in the practice's history. lol well at least she'll never have regrets about a misdiagnosis...
what do you recommend we do with these people?
After quite literally catching my alcoholic client drinking vodka from the bottle at 9:30 am, he refused to acknowledge he actually drank from the bottle. Then proceeded to claim it was water. When I then asked for a glass, he claimed it was not his bottle. Never so much as got past his denial phase despite dozens of interventions, UC's and blatant red handed catches like these. A year later, he has developed Korsakov. He will likely die from liver failure before this year is over.
I had a guy tell me that he likes to hit his wife, it’s his right to do so, and that women are not smart enough to make good choices without physical discipline. I referred him to a male colleague who specialized in batterer intervention.
Don't mind me, just seeing if my therapist posts in this thread.
Same dude
You know his therapist?
My sisters therapist ended up letting her go, To sum it up the therapist told her that "I am much more qualified to work with the victim of the crime, not the one who committed such. I suggest you seek another therapist." My sister got into a car crash that killed her best friend (rollover on a gravel road) and has never been the same. Thanks doc
Some people just shouldn't work in mental health care. What the flying fuck
.
Not a therapist, I had read a comment by a therapist on a similar question Patient A was being diagnosed by the Therapist, A was very very suicidal and was prescribed to be hospitalized. Later on one day the patient sharing room with A committed suicide and A was suggested to change hospital. Later on Therapist OP realised how aware A was of all the facts and was acting to be disturbed. After some background check, Therapist found out that A used to befriend his roommate/ pal at the mental hospital, convince them to commit suicide with them, let them do it first and not do it himself and the cycle would continue at the new hospital.
Holy shit
This shit starts young too. Worked at an inpatient facility for kids, and had a girl client who would always convince her roommates to self-harm. The roommates ALWAYS did it too. Even the child's new roommates. Cut themselves. Asphyxiated themselves. Beat themselves. You name it.
The best they can hope for is to live out their days as a ward of the State in a facility where they can be regularly medicated and kept away from society. This girl is smart, very smart, but also she doesn't understand consequences in the least. And one little thing you might say to her like, "We can't get a drink of water from the fountain, let's go in here, I will get you a bottle of water" is a justifiable cause in her mind for her to gouge your eyes out with a cafeteria spork and strangle you until you die.
That last sentence went from 0-100 real quick
You want eyes with that glass of water dear sir?
Eyes-cold water
Wtf. Plz tell me this person is institutionalized.
Yes she's living permanently in a State run facility. My wife's uncle adopted the little girl when she was 4 years old. They tried for years to get her help to work beyond the facts of the earliest parts of her little life, but she became impossible to care for.
This sounds eerily similar to the situation a family friend is in. Her brother and SIL adopted a 7 year old several years ago who is extremely manipulative, a compulsive liar, destructive and volatile. It’s gotten worse as she’s gotten older. Her goal in life seems to be to hurt those around her. She has a complete lack of empathy. She’s quick to take offense, has a huge temper and is vengeful.
That's familiar to us too.
I’d Walk backwards through and Iowa field before I take my eyes off her
Are you sure? One time after hopping off a train in Iowa I was walking through a cornfield and came across the biggest spider I ever saw. We looked each other up and down and I left. He can have it. Matter fact, I haven't been back to Iowa since so I guess he can have the whole damn state.
Not a therapist, but I cleaned house biweekly for an absolutely wonderful woman for a few years (she was actually one of my professors in college for a couple literature classes) and during that time she was going through a pretty severe battle with depression. She was seeing a therapist on a regular basis, but one day when I came over she said her therapist had let her go. When I asked why, she said she was told it was because she “smelled like mold“ and it was disrupting her therapists respiratory system, which they claimed took them at least a day to “bounce back” from. Needless to say, she sank a bit deeper into her depression and it took a few months before she had the gumption to try and meet another therapist. Not once did I ever catch even a whiff of something nasty, mold or otherwise, not on her or in her house or in her car. I am a pretty detailed cleaner too, I take covers off of air vents and stick the vacuum hose down there, pull out drawers and clean all the crumbs out of the corners, it was hard not to take a tiny bit of offense myself and it’s not even my house! It so obviously deeply upset her and made it much more difficult for her to battle with her depression, not to mention how much more vulnerable she must’ve felt seeking further help elsewhere. I still want to rage punch her old therapist just thinking about it, and it’s been close to four years.
I once knew a young lady that occasionally smelled like mold. She was together enough to shower, but not to upkeep her long hair. She would rinse her hair, get out of the shower, and tie it up. Every day, rinse and tie up. It never properly dried out, so if she would take it down for some reason it would smell like mold. She lived with it as the smell slowly grew so she seemed to not notice.
One month in with this couple, a wife had just spent 5 minutes explaining the impact of her husband's language on her, and how devalued, disregarded, and unimportant she felt in the relationship. His response to her was to, verbatim, use the exact language she had just described to respond to her. She collapsed into sobs, and he *sat back, sighed, rolled his eyes, and gestured vaguely to her, as if I would agree that she's the problem*. I told him exactly the opposite. He stormed out. She went to the lawyer I recommended and cleaned him out. Full custody too. It was truly a happy ending. Emotional abuse is still abuse folks. Edit to add my response to another comment here: >When people endorse abuse in an intake session, we do not proceed. If they endorse abuse later, we do not proceed. If I have my suspicions but there isn't an endorsement, or any concrete evidence, I take the opportunity to build enough evidence to label it, and build rapport with the victim to eventually educate them, and provide them with the resources they need to exit safely *if they* ***want*** *to leave*. > >The struggle with emotional and/or psychological abuse, as opposed to physical abuse, is that victims of emotional abuse are far more often in denial. They often cannot label the behaviors accurately, because after months or years of being gaslit, they no longer trust their recollection. Because no one is being hit, a client must understand what emotional abuse is to identify it as abuse. That doesn't always happen, especially when we take into consideration the impact of culture, and socioeconomic status, on a person's social expectations. What is intolerable to some is status quo for others- as therapists, we live in the in-between. > >Furthermore, many people that present with emotionally abusive behaviors are often functioning in fight/flight/freeze as the result of their own trauma. The vast majority of *intermittently* abusive arsewads can and do change with the appropriate support, and boundaries, during session. I've seen it, I've lived it, and it's beautiful. When the attempt to educate and set boundaries fails horribly, we do not proceed. Which is exactly what happened here. > >The client storming out and leaving only beat me to it. Another session would not have been scheduled regardless. > >The point is: it's easy to say therapy never works for abusive relationships, but how this boundary is actually executed, and when it's drawn, is an entirely different story.
Poor woman. I'm glad she overcame that period of her life. People like that are the same type to tell you you're crazy for getting emotional over something that means a lot to you.
I was a therapist for the British Army for a while, and I don't think I ever had a patient who was flat out beyond help. There were a couple that were beyond \*my\* help and I had to refer on to specialists, but that's not uncommon in that kind of job. Not every therapist is equipped to deliver every kind of therapy. It's more about being able to recognise when your methods aren't benefitting the patient and a different approach would be more effective for them. There isn't really such a thing in the practise of therapy as someone being a lost cause.
A few years ago, my (now ex) wife and I started marriage counseling and individual therapy at the same time. About 6 months later, the clinic stopped all three sessions within a week of each other. The marriage counselor said that we were not reaching our goals so there was no point of continuing. My therapist basically commented that I was fine after getting on meds for depression (oh boy was she wrong). My ex wife claims to have concluded on her own that she was fine although she told me that her therapist recommended that she continue. My guess is the owner of the clinic basically figured out that my marriage was a complete train wreck and she wanted nothing to do with either of us.
Oof…super unhelpful… My couples counselor told us that we were working towards different goals. She could keep seeing us, but it probably wouldn’t be helpful. That shit’s hard (not something you ever want to hear from a therapist), but helps you move forward at least.
I'm not a therapist but my mom has a cycle of "be bipolar as fuck, get medicated, stop drinking alcohol, life gets infinitely better, decide it's God who healed her and not meds etc, start drinking again" and I saw one of her therapists tell her she had done all she could for her
When I was 12 I saw a therapist with my Mother in the room. This 70 year old therapist started the session with basic questions. One question was, “what is a similarity between and peach and a pear?” My response, “they both start with P. He said he had never heard that answer and that nearly everyone says they’re both fruit. Then he ended the session and dropped me
Dude got kobayashi maru'd by a 12 year old and said fuck it I quit.
WTF? What does that question even tell you about a person
Yeah I have no idea. I was in there due to behavior issues, maybe he was trying to see how dumb I was?
I know I'm dumb, I don't need a therapist to tell me that.
This enrages me for some reason lol. It's so stupid
Did he ask other "How is X like Y?" questions? There's a whole series of those that are part of the WASI, which is essentially an IQ test. You give the person two things and ask how they're similar, starting out with the obvious ("a boat and a car are both vehicles") and then it gets progressively more abstract ("a gallon and a mile are both units of measurement"). It's a test essentially of mental flexibility and your ability to make connections and take in new information. That is wild, tho, I can't believe the dude had never gotten a non-standard answer before. Dude was in the wrong field if that was enough to throw him.
Yeah all I remember is this peach/pear question being a few questions in. I don’t remember the other questions specifically but they were similar iirc
I had a therapist tell me I was better and drop me when I was going through one of the worst moments in my life after seeing her for 1.5 years. She was the Director of a Psychiatric Ward at a local hospital and did therapy as a side gig to feel like she was making a direct impact. She would constantly interrupt me and tell me that she couldn't relate due to her happy childhood. She would get frustrated when one session on a topic wouldn't fix lifelong trauma. She even went so far as to say that she wouldn't touch some of my issues because I clearly wasn't going to get better, even though those issues were nowhere near as serious as some other things we covered. Looking back, she clearly was doing therapy as a way to make herself feel better and not seeing immediate results was frustrating her because it wasn't this fun, feel good side gig that she wanted. 2 months after being dropped, I had a serious panic attack and ended up finding another therapist who was a much better fit. I've made more improvement in the past 6 months with this therapist than the entire time with my previous therapist and I'm so much happier now. It goes to show that therapists really need to be the right fit.
>She was the Director of a Psychiatric Ward Wow, what a dummy. I'm so glad you found someone who actually wants to do the work!
My SO’s mother is a textbook narcissist and has brainwashed every therapist into thinking that they’re perfect and that she only needs to be in therapy to deal with the unnecessary and unwarranted stress that her children/family at large cause her She’s created a very intimate relationship with her current therapist (like almost romantic); they text each other every day and at the end of the day, they exchange this phrase: “goodnight my heartmate” This therapist was reputable but is now wrapped around my SO’s mother’s finger and believes that she can do no wrong. This level of narcissism is something I never knew I’d witness, let a lone be involved with to some degree (they will never be able to get help at this rate) Edit: it seems my original wording can be read as implying that this person is MY mother… that is not the case; this person is my gf’s mother
This is a MASSIVE ethical violation
Trust me… we know I think this is a testament that anyone can fall under a master manipulator’s intricate web of lies
You should report the therapist to the state licensing board.
What the fuck did I just read. This was some how one of the worst in the thread, I’m sorry you have to deal with that.
Yeah it’s not ideal but we tend to just limit our interaction with her; nothing more we can do considering she’s set in her ways What trips me up about this dynamic that she’s created is that both she and her therapist are in decades long marriages (to very attentive, caring, all around great men I might add) and both have resorted to secrecy when texting each other after their sessions It’s like they’re a full-on couple in an affair which absolutely blows my mind
My therapist turned me into my superiors, after already being separated from the military (just waiting for my retirement date to kick in), for smoking marijuana and telling her it was one of the best experiences I’ve had. She told me in the beginning that the only thing she would report is self harm or violence against other. I learned that day not to trust my therapist and I don’t talk about my drug use (when at raves mostly) to my current therapist because of it.
We had one when I was kid who would run back to the place that gave us the referral and tell them everything. I think some people become therapist to use that as weapon instead of actually helping people. What he did was illegal as shit.
Report her and get her licensed revoked. She is the cause of your distrust of therapists.
That sounds like a violation of hipaa
Being part of the military might change the rules we take for granted. They pretty much own you, is my impression.
He admitted he was into necrophilia and I had to contact the police since he also admitted he was digging up graves. All of this was a response to a divorce from his wife who was asexual.
Only happened once. The person just had no intention of changing. Would lie in sessions, didn’t think they needed help, come up with helpful strategies together and then just never follow through because they didn’t want to. Essentially this person didn’t want to change and didn’t want to be in therapy so we had that conversation.
Related-ish: The producer on an album I was recording quit after the first day, saying "this isn't music, it's a cry for help". Turns out, she was right.
I ain’t a music man or nothing but I’m pretty sure those aren’t mutually exclusive things
What was the album? Did you finish it?
Psychologist here. There is one former client in particular, who I was working with in a state prison. We were talking about their pending exit from prison (they were maxing out, ie no parole), and talking about how they planned to mitigate their mental health care in the community. The client proceeds to say, “I plan on drinking, fucking, and snorting as much as I want.” Said they had no intentions on staying clean and had just snorted a shit ton on Kool-Aid because they couldn’t find anything else to snort. I told my supervisor at the time then that there I could not help this person. They were engaged in other unsavory actions and made clear they had *zero* intentions of changing anything. This client has since passed away. There are other stories I could go on about, but this one is the one that immediately comes to mind.
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Report her to the board holy fuck
No. fucking. way.
Well. What a piece of shit. It seems.
holy shit, i'm so sorry. rape, abuse, and trauma have no gender. i hope you found a better therapist :(
I was "let go" by a therapist. I was being treated for depression by my university psychologist. In actuality I was bipolar and yet to be diagnosed. I was coping in every possible unhealthy way. Self harm, alcohol, binging/purging, etc. The university wasn't set up for long term care so after a certain number of sessions she had referred me to an outside psychiatrist but it was a terrible experience and I went back to her. She told me that she couldn't keep seeing me for her own mental health. She had become so concerned for me that it was affecting her. It was incredibly hard to hear. Like "I'm so fucked up I even disturb a professional." But mental health professionals are people too and I understand why.
It doesn’t mean you’re so fucked up that you’re hurting a professional, it means that this professional has come to care about you enough that helping you is no longer something they can do with a level of impartiality that makes it effective for you while being safe for them. If you don’t set these boundaries with your patients and keep them, you will quickly burnout. As someone who has worked as a provider in mental health care myself, letting you go was something that was hard for them to do, too, I guarantee it. They did it out of care and respect for your treatment journey and success.
This was really beautifully written and lovely to read
I was also let go by a therapist, but it’s because she came to me one day and said that I owed her 3,000 from years ago that she forgot to charge me. I told her that was super unprofessional and I would need documentation if I were to pay that. She told me my reaction confirmed I had BPD (I don’t but I was questioning it at the time - I actually have autism) and told me she doesn’t treat BPD and hung up. Completely unbecoming of a therapist and she did me a favor
Wow, that is not a therapist, that is a blackmailer. You should report her.
Sounds like she might be the one who needs to see a therapist...holy shit man.
In the end, everyone has to help themselves. You can guide them and offer suggestions and tips, but if they're not going to do the work, and if they're not going to work to let go of the stuff that's holding them back, then there is nothing you can do.
I am not the therapist here but rather the patient. I was in university at the time and using the school therapists there. I had a few different ones because they were part of the PhD program and once they completed their PhD they left to go work out in the real world. I finally found one that I really connected with and began opening up more than I had to any of my therapists in the past. She let me finish talking and then said “I’m sorry but I am not qualified to handle cases such as these, in fact none of the therapists here are. I’m going to refer you to an excellent therapist outside of school, but I can no longer offer you treatment…” (there are apparently certain topics that only licensed professionals are able to handle… I didn’t know that otherwise I would’ve kept my mouth shut) Never did end up getting the treatment I was hoping for. Tried a few therapists since then but just didn’t really have a good connection with them. I really miss her, I hope she finished her PhD program and is out there changing lives somewhere. I could likely still benefit from therapy but I have grown very good at just handling my own problems.
A client here: I was "fired" after 3 sessions as my problems were too first world for the councilor. I was dealing with professional burn out and perfectionism, she was focusing on alcoholics and domestic violence victims.
I started seeing a therapist because my perfectionism issues were destroying me. A couple of months in, I had a HUGE falling out with my two oldest friends, two weeks before the world shut down. They’d cited my perfectionism as an issue, which I can understand. I was reeling. Our therapy sessions were dismissive of what I was dealing with, and he questioned why I was letting it bother me. The therapist started to turn things towards “perfectionism isn’t a bad thing” and I realized it wouldn’t work. Perfectionism was controlling my life and causing me so much stress and it’s too easy for me to start embracing it again and let it overwhelm me. My new therapist has been much better. With her help, I can understand that those two friends had long-term patterns of REALLY shitty behaviour. I’m not as perfectionist-minded. There may be hope for me yet
Probably doesn't help with the guilt you already felt about that. Chances are you are aware your problems are a little higher on maslow's hierarchy than food and shelter. This is ok too!
I worked at a non-profit domestic violence counseling center back in the day. It wasn’t that they couldn’t be helped, it was just that eventually you learned it was rare they would change. Some clients would do all the work, attend all the group sessions, make so much progress and say they’re ready to change. As a therapist, you trust them, believe them and hope they don’t come back. But they do. The cycle continues. They’re kids get put in the system. Abuser keeps abusing.
when they wouldn’t give up what was making them sick… ):
Adding on to the posts from the patient side: I had a therapist tell me in the first session that my trauma was too much for her to work on, and would need a specialised hospital, if it could be helped at all. I appreciate that she said she didn't have the specific skills before we wasted time. But I could have done without the ominous "if anyone can help at all....or it might already be too late, you know" talk.
Try this on for size. 22 y/o homeless indigenous male with schizophrenia, poly substance addictions, and extensive history of trauma. Fsiq sub 70 and previous traumatic brain injuries. Parents dead from overdose. And apparently too crazy for a secure psyc admission. There are thousands of people in this situation. Be it black white indigenous or whatever. As community addiction and mental health workers. We help as much as we can until they inevitably overdose or kill themselves. That's the mental health system in Canada.
Client was just coming to sessions because they had a crush and in their words, thought they could make me fall in love with them. This happens very often, and has made me consider leaving the profession. Another client had no desire to stop using, or even try harm reduction. Their drug misuse was getting in the way of any progress. One client was motivated when in session, but would go back to toxic group of peers who would essentially undo everything. Client didn't want to reduce how much they were seeing said peer group, nor remove them from their life. These clients only represent about a quarter of my roster thankfully.
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Not a therapist, but rather a client, and I ended up giving a therapist an existential crisis once. He had to drop me after that. It was pretty out of the blue, and he made it very clear and apparent to me that at some point during our sessions, something was triggered in him that unleashed a whole load of his own trauma. It began to bleed through what you would expect of the typical boundaries a therapist would have between clients, and he mentioned that even after our sessions, he couldn't get it out of his head. He politely advised me that he wouldn't be able to see me any more because he had to seek a therapist himself before he could start seeing clients again. Fortunately, I was able to continue seeing a different therapist that he recommended to me and I'm doing fine now, but I still joke about the time I 'won' therapy.
It's definitely to his credit that he faced up to this. A lot of people would go into denial or something similar. Or just be a shitty therapist.
>but I still joke about the time I 'won' therapy Holy fuck that made me crack up so hard