I see so many people who experienced worse than you and still hold their head up high

The above quote is - as literal as I can translate it - one of the things my therapist said yesterday.

I had been waiting for 5 weeks since the previous appointment. Just when you think the downward spiral might be stopped, you always find somebody who pushes you that wee bit deeper ...

I’m sorry your T said that to you. Frankly, I feel angry on your behalf.

That therapist is being dismissive of you, your experiences and your feelings. If they do not understand each person is wired differently and reacts differently to negative and positive experiences, I don’t know how I could trust anything else they have to say.

If we could all just ‘buck up’ and be ‘stronger’ we would likely put psychotherapists out of business. But that’s not how it works. It flabbergasts me that a T could graduate school with your T’s level of incompetence.

I can’t even express how angry I am on your behalf. For her to minimize and essentially compare your troubles to those of others is reprehensible.

Do you have other options? Can you seek out a new therapist?

In my opinion, there’s no way back from a comment like this — it makes you not only doubt the severity of your issues, but it might make you hold back from sharing in the future. She’s not trustworthy, at this point.

I am so very sorry for her lack of judgment and sensitivity.

There are so many things wrong with that statement I'm actually lost for words.

Definitely seek out another therapist if possible - and even if it isn't, I honestly think no therapist would be better than this therapist.

That is a horrible response- no attunement,lacking empathy,judgemental, not ,listening

This would really bother me as well. I will sometimes be the one to say something like your T did about myself, like, "People had much worse childhoods than me, I feel like I shouldn't be as affected by it as I am." My T has said that everyone is different in how they're made up. How two people can deal very differently with the same set of circumstances and have quite different effects from them. He worded it better than that. But it felt validating. Basically that it's not helpful to compare my experiences and reactions to those of others, to think I should be doing better than I am. While your T is saying exactly the opposite.


Do you have other T's available to you?

Bull-f*ing-*****.

Your pain is valid. No matter what.
Comparison has no place in therapy.

Pain is pain. If I break my wrist does it hurt less because someone else may break both legs? You are worth being helped and healed. Ditch this person.

I see you are in a different country and I am unsure what your options are. Comparing pain is useless and really an ill-equipped statement coming from a therapist. If you have the option and ability to change to a different therapist, I hope you will consider doing so.

Therapists can be terrible. I hope you can find another one and fire this one.

That's not a very empathetic, helpful or even realistic, response.

If everyone thought like that, first no one on earth would be sad, depressed or struggling with anything as hey, there is always worse! Secondly, therapists would be out of a job.

All that to say, what a sh*tty therapist response

Thats B*** S***, no one should ever say that especially a therapist. If you can i would fire her and get another therapist. That would make me very angry to hear that, so sorry. That therapist needs to be reported too. Hugs

When I read this title, I thought to myself, "Dear god, don't let someone's therapist have said that ..." I hope you can manage the fall-out from such a crass statement.

that is horrible. I can't imagine any context that it would be even remotely appropriate

For a therapist to say this is inexcusable. They should know that people cannot always " Just get over it ". If it was that easy EVERYONE would do it. There is no comparison in therapy. Things affect different individuals differently. It's not you , it's the therapist.

You deserve a better T.

Pain at the end of the day is pain.

Some more background ... she claims I cling to my trauma. It is not so in my experience: being forced into the wrong education (true, other people regret their choice too), dealing with 20+ years of extreme verbal abuse by my mother (true, other people even get beaten although I must say there were times when I was longing for a smack in the head if only the shouting would stop) and the constatation that these events have guide my life in a direction from which I don't seem to be able to escape left me with a lot of triggers. Even trying to build up a new future is in itself a trigger that causes me to re-live the discussions/fights I had over engineering with my parents. I have had similar remarks before (the 'other people' remark) and - at one point - a psychiatrist who stated that maybe my parents' choice for me was right after I had been seeing him for almost three years. Thus therapy has become a trigger through which I start te re-live things too.
On the other hand, I must admit that I am beginning to see myself as only my mental ailment and nothing more.


As for my current situatin: my current crisis started mid-January. Up to then, I had a therapist in a government-subsidized centre. They were obliged to end al long running trajectories due to budget cuts. All therapists within a reasonable distance were overflooded. I came last in the row because I was trying to finish a second degree. I have been searching for a therapist for almost six months, while my GP suggested that I should have been hospitalized. In July, there was another blow: my partner of 10 years - and looking back, nobody has ever stood up so fiercely for me - decided she wanted to divorce. It's been 'a long way down' ever since. Every day seems like my new all-time low. Due to a mixup I have been without therapy for 5 weeks and it was worse than hell. My GP inisted on starting medication - I suppose he kind of freaked out - although I have repeatedly pointed out that up to now I've mostly experienced side-effects. I am now on 30 mg fluoxetine a day, which makes me more restless than ever (it started some two days after I took my first half dosis), made me lose my appetite and makes me nauseaous. He insists this will wear off and asked me to switch to 30 mg anyway. I really have the feeling this guy means well and in a way I feel for him and I suppose this I why I budged.

Going back to the psychologist does not seem like a good idea, not boing neither is an option. The main difference with previous depressive episodes is that in the past, I've always had a reason to get up on my feet again: at 23 I believed at that age, there was still some future ahead of me, at 28, after a nasty breakup, my niece was born, at 37 I had just started a relationship whith somebody who was really trying to pull me through. Now, at 46, I have no kids, no perspective for a job that I won't loathe, I'm not sure whether I will have a roof over my head in two weeks, ... I really feel as if the old punk-adagio that there's "no future" was written for me. We have touched upon this for a few times, but she appears to ignore the impact of having no perspective: my therapist claims that even the smallest setback leaves me beaten down (although the perspective of becoming homeless does not seem like a minor setback to me) but in my experience, I've spent so much energy fighting this beast over the last 25 years that I just don't seem to have any ideas left. And even if I come up with something, I severely doubt the idea I have will help me. Being a behavioural therapist, she believes I should enter a job that will kill me emotionally and use it as some kind of starting point ... doing something - anything - should miraculously cure me.


Honestly, it's not all bad news either. I have started painting classes and have experienced a few hours of inner peace and freedom there. In addition, a friend of mine asked me whether I would like to move in with him and run an organic farm that he is starting up together. It seems like a nice thing to do but moving to the other side of even a country as small as Belgium would cut me loose from my last remaining friends (apart from the one guy) and render it impossible to keep painting in class (and I still really need my teacher to get me started on something). Moreover, given my current medical situation, it seems like an enormous risk. I know my friend is very outgoing, that he will introduce me into his social circle. I know he's one of those people who is able to brush things off and keep going. He seems like the kind of guy who could assist me to get back on my feet. But I feel I would be too much of a burden and I would pull him down too. After all, I've only brought sorrow to those who tried to help me (including my ex-wife) and have no happiness to show for it myself ...

Dunno why, but somehow, your remark even made me smile.

Your therapist was out of line to say that. You can't compare pain. Pain is pain. You deserve better care, better treatment, more empathy. HUGS Kit

Jesus

That comment is totally uncalled for, regardless of the situation. You have every right to be feeling upset.