Forgotten session

Salutations fellow mind dwellers. I'm new to this community and hopeful to be along like minded individuals.

My T forgot about our session today, via video due to covid of course. It's not a constantly consistent issue, but this isn't the first time it's happened. The few times it's happened I get ahold of T and it's sorted out, but I had no energy to do so today. I logged off after waiting between 10 to 15 minutes and went about my day. T has not reached out. I don't know if T's online service informs her that I was on or not, and right now I really don't care. I feel weirdly hurt. I don't know if I am really angry or more so just feeling forgotten and abandoned. It's triggering and I posted this only to vent since I probably won't say anything to my T due to the fact that confrontation terrifies me. We have another session already scheduled for later this week. I guess I'll see what happens.

Hello Witchycreature: I see this is your first post here on PC. Welcome to Psych Central. I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

I’m sorry that this happened to you.

Today my T was 30 min late for our online appt- apparently she mixed up times. It’s happened before, but last time it was only 15 min. I’m learning that one of her flaws is that she can be very forgetful on things like this- but it really threw me off, and she ended up showing up eventually and being apologetic.

I honesty felt hurt and forgotten by that, so I can imagine how much worse it felt for you. I’m sorry that happened for you today.

That is awful, I'm sorry that happened. Have you been with them long? My friend was seeing a T and she frequently cancelled or just didn't show up last minute. It had a really negative affect on him, made him feel unimportant and he struggles to trust therapists at all now. I don't think it's professional at all, and it makes me doubt their ability to help us when they can't even show up.

I can understand the fear of confrontation. At the same time, your time and your health and recovery are important. If this has become a pattern then clearly it's something that needs to be addressed. Maybe it's not the therapist's fault (i.e. being forgetful). Maybe it is the scheduling system. If that's the case then the clinic needs to fix it, especially because it's probably happening to other people as well. We depend on our therapists and we need to know we can count on them.

It can be hard, but I would encourage you to try to bring it up in session. Even if you don't feel comfortable "confronting" the therapist, you can still approach it. "I wanted to ask something. There have been a couple of sessions now that haven't happened. I'm not sure if it's a computer thing or something else, but it has been difficult on those days when we were scheduled and couldn't meet. Do you think there's anything we could do together to make sure that sessions happen when they're scheduled? Do you think we could do e-mail reminders or something else? I really love my work with you and I find it helpful. I want to make sure we meet when we have scheduled sessions."

Nothing weird about that... What T did *was* hurtful.

Not only does this say a lot about her lack of organisational skills but she clearly lacks professionalism.

I don't usually like telling people what to do but I would ask you to consider bringing this up with her. Why? This is not the first time it happened, yet she keeps doing it. And two, her actions reinforce your belief that you are not important and easily forgotten etc.

So, letting it slide will only reinforce your feelings of abandonment and not mattering. These are what therapy is supposed to deal with. Keeping silent will not be helping *you*.

If she keeps doing it, I would seriously consider switching Ts.

Are you able to text her if she’s late?

I'm so sorry this happened to you. It is hurtful. Whether or not it was intentional, or whether or not it was within the therapist's control, it is hurtful. I hope you can find a voice to speak up and say y'know when you forgot about me on this day I felt like x, y, z. It might be terribly scary but it might be terribly important.

I'm sorry this happened. I too hope you can find a voice to tell the therapist. I agree this was hurtful.