Does anyone else feel like they don't deserve their therapist?

I feel like I'm wasting my therapist's time and that I don't deserve her. There are people who are so much worse off than me, and here I am, seeing her weekly and calling her all the time. I'm so needy when I shouldn't be. I have no reason to be needy.

Ever since Friday last week, I've been having thoughts of wanting to die, but surely she must have clients right now who are actually suicidal and a danger to themselves, and thus need to see/talk to her more than I do, especially since I am not a danger to myself. (I mostly just have thoughts of wanting to die.) That's why I haven't called her.

I also think she has patients with PTSD, severe depression, severe anxiety, severe OCD, etc. who actually need her help. I mean, I do make progress in therapy and we talk about a lot of stuff, but I call her about the stupidest things, like when I'm hearing voices or having paranoia (e.g., believing someone is hired to kill me). I should know by now that they're false beliefs/experiences, but evidently I don't. It's like I never learn, which is also why I think I'm wasting her time and why I think I don't deserve her.

It's not a competition, you don't have to "earn" therapy or "deserve" it. And anyway, therapy isn't a finite resource. Your getting therapy doesn't mean that somebody else doesn't get it.

There are people starving to death in this world and that sucks. But me skipping dinner won't help them.

It sounds like you have very low self-worth, you don't feel like you matter? All the more reason to be in therapy- to start to value yourself more through the eyes of someone else and then hopefully yourself. As said above, just because others are in therapy doesn't mean you shouldn't be. It is okay to have needs yourself and to find a way to try and help yourself. In fact, that is a very brave thing to do.

I used to feel that way with my former T but I talked to her about how I was feeling and she reassured me that she didn't think of it like that. She saw me as a person in need of help and she could offer that help. There's always going to be someone worse off than you, but there are always going to be people better off than you too. You just get to be you, and that's enough. HUGS Kit

Hugs you do deserve therapy and worthy of help. I struggle all the time with the thoughts of people needing the help more then me. Hugs

No - I never felt like I didn't deserve the ones I hired. I don't think it is a matter of deserving or not. They are paid and clients are their job.

I got this line of thought out my system when I was in rehab and didn't think I deserved their time and attention. Until I heard others stories then heard my own and realised hurt and trauma are free to any takers.
I sometimes feel unbelievably lucky how things worked out and I got such a knowledgeable therapist.

My money is as good as anyone else's, so I don't really worry about this. Sometimes if I'm rude I think I don't deserve her to be as understanding and patient with me as she usually is, but that feeling is limited to specific interactions not in general. While I don't think I'm a very good person, I also think people tend to be a pretty mediocre lot anyway. It has never occurred to me that some good and deserving person is likely to be denied access to therapy just because I also have access. There is not a shortage of therapists in my area.

Deserving of therapy or therapist? Hmmm......I think people come in and out of our lives for a reason. Either they are cause pain or are a salve for you soul. You are there to learn something from them or they are learning something from you.

Awww that is a crock of cocky...

I think it's natural whrn you've come from am abusive past where no one stepped into save you ie acknowledge your abuse that whrlen someone suddenly tells you it's OK, what happened to you wasnt OK. That someone suddenly listens to you. You would find that you're undeserving if this attention.
It feels so different to anything you've ever experienced.
Plus your life of abuse was ask you knew. How can that be deserving of this understanding.
Its like being raised in a dark room. Suddenly someone let's you out into the light. But the lights to bright. Everyone else is just walking around in it because it's always been like thst f I r them.but we can't trust it. Think it's a trick? Feel this that have always had it must be more superior /deserving because what else explains our experience.

This is what it's like for some.
They haven't got to luxury of deciding a T is someone where Judy an exchange of money is concerned.
I think some on here are only filling in a few bored moments. Practising their essaying writing.
They've not been in that dark room or else they'd know for some, life isn't as rational as some freely type about.

"it's just an exchange of money. A service you're buying" Ffs.
What a privileged position. 😂

Yes. I still feel this way- like he's too good for me and I don't deserve his kindness.

In my very second session I actually brought him a box of tissues, to replace the ones I had used because I wasn't even worth those.

I don’t have the feelings exactly as you describe them, but I do feel like an impostor sometimes. I have a lot of good things in my life and I have not experienced any big trauma, but of course I’ve had a few difficult experiences as everyone has. I wonder sometimes if he wonders why I keep showing up every week because perhaps my issues aren’t therapy worthy.

I think for me it was being told what I should feel.
I should feel grateful.
You'll were lucky you weren't in the condition your bother was in (adopted together)
You should, you should.
It's hard to know what you're entitled to feel and what you're not.

I kind of felt that way most of the time - part of me did, anyway. Another part was wondering if (yet again) I don't try to give my trust to someone who doesn't deserve it. Both these parts are ashamed of each other. In the end, I had to be the one to say that the relationship was not going to work. And this might be the part of the breaking up that's the most difficult to come to terms with. It looks like progress, to have made the decision that maybe I deserve better, but ... I think I wasn't anywhere near the point where I could safely make it. Still struggling with the implications.

Similar in my case, although I never thought my issues were not therapy worthy... I had a severe addiction, for example, which could have killed me.

I don't recall really feeling that I don't deserve something that is offered to me, especially if I provide something as compensation. What can happen is that I feel I keep receiving attention and engage in potentially beneficial endeavors, but I don't contribute well enough (in terms of time or quality of effort). This was very much the conclusion of my therapy - I think I did not use it nearly as well as I could have, as actual therapy. But is has nothing to do with deserving or feeling that I am wasting someone else's time or take time away from others that would need it... more that what's the point, and all the good will, of I don't use it constructively. This pattern can show up in various areas of my life, so I definitely thought about it quite a lot. I think it has to do with the amount and quality of effort and discipline I invest into things, which can fluctuate, and sometimes I am quite dissatisfied with it, but don't do enough to feel more aligned with the potential I see in things.

It is also a totally internal thing, occasional issues with my own standards as well... and perhaps, in part, that I have been in quite high expectation - high achieving environments in my whole life (which I generally like a lot). But I have very rarely been told I should do this or that, it's more implicit standards and primarily my own. Sometimes I can be fed up though and just want to escape and not do anything, distract myself (I believe this is also how I developed the addiction in the past). Then I can actually feel I don't deserve all the good things because I don't do enough for them. So yeah, maybe.