New therapist

[walking on broken glass]

So, I took the plunge and booked my first session with a new therapist. It is talk therapy but she specializes in narcissistic abuse and cluster B disorders, and says she herself has suffered narcissistic abuse. I hope we will make a good connection and that she will be helpful! Fingers crossed

[bloomie]

Wishing you the best of experiences and much empowerment through this new opportunity!

[treesgrowslowly]

Good luck WOBG! A good therapist can be so helpful to us.

Trees

[Prototypian]

I hope that the therapist helps you a lot.   I would like to find someone like that in my region with a specialty in personality disorder abuse treatment.

Let us know if you learn any general things that you can share non confidentially here.

[walking on broken glass]

Of course Jsinjin, I would be happy to share any insights

Well, I had a very unfortunate start.
I had got in touch with a therapist a month ago to ask for an appointment (not the one I mentioned above). She has experience with narcissistic abuse and narcissistic family systems. Unfortunately, she had no space in her practice and she put me on a waiting list. The other day I decided I should be more proactive and look for another therapist to start immediately, so I found the one I mentioned above and booked a session with her. I was excited about all the stuff she mentioned on her profile, about how she specializes in narcissistic abuse and that she herself had been a victim and she gets it. However, after I booked the session I looked more closely at her personal website and I got really worried: she runs a project with someone elses about helping survivors of narcissistic abuse, and this other person calls himself a life coach but had no credentials about his studies. What was worse, all the videos uploaded on the website were AI, made with AI faces and voices, and repeating really generic and vague advice, with the type of marketing you find in scamming ('stay tuned to listen to 4 words that will shut up a narcissist' etc.). One video was entitled 'how god punishes narcissists'. I am not religious, but even if I was, I find this content ridiculous and offensive. I then found the therapist's profile on Linkedin, and it turns out she has worked as a event organizer, planner, teacher but she did not list any therapy work. She listed only one 'diploma' on Psychological Studies, with a 9 month duration, and no further training. I cancelled the session and got a partial refund. I got so annoyed and upset with myself for not doing more proper research before booking. I was taken in by her narrative. I even got in touch with the website where I found her profile to alert them (they are supposed to check the therapists' credentials).

Anyway, the therapist I had initially contacted got in touch with me yesterday (what are the odds?!) to say she has a space, so I will start with her next week. I did proper research on her and she looks legit. Fingers crossed things will go better this time!

As a side complaint: I had told a friend that I am starting therapy with a new therapist. Now this friend can be very supportive, she is an old friend and we are close, but she has a tendency to want to show that she is always right and that she knows best. When I told her about the new therapist, she said 'that's a big step, I hope it goes well'. She messaged me to ask how it went and I told her the whole story and how upset I was that I almost put my trust in someone who looks unqualified, and she said 'it sounds like you are in a very fragile emotional state right now'. Well, no shit Sherlock! What kind of a comment is that? And then she followed up with "I was actually surprised that you were so excited to start with a new therapist; I personally would be very cautious and stressed but I didn't want to say anything in case you got annoyed". I said, 'well I don't think there is anything wrong with being excited about the possibility of getting support. The problem was that this therapist was the wrong person, and what upset me was how easy it is to trust the wrong person for this'.

Am I overreacting? I thought her comments were really insensitive and she was more concerned to show that she had foresight instead of being empathetic. She actually made me feel worse. Yesterday was a difficult day because of all that

[Prototypian]

Wow!

First I'm glad your internal alarm went off and then you did deeper.   Probably saved yourself a lot of time, energy and frustration to notice the warning signs.   I bet the first wide scale uses of many types of AI include scamming and spamming as principal business models.

And glad that the therapist with deeper credentials and references has an opening in their office.

My thoughts on your friend are that they probably don't have a strong understanding of how hard you are working and how hard the journey has been and like many people today, they want to say something supportive and without thinking said the wrong thing.   But that is only my personal thoughts and not any type of actual analysis. 

And I understand one thing!   If someone promised me a roadmap out of what I live in and it appeared even halfway credentialed I would engage with that like a fragile geriatric with social security watching a tv preacher who promised "Jesus told me that if you send 100 dollars right now he has a certificate for you in heaved and I'll send it to you personally"

What I mean is that I could be very easily taken advantage of if I thought there was some non painful way out of how I feel.   So I do understand.

[walking on broken glass]

Thanks Jsinjin I know what you mean about how vulnerable we are.

[bloomie]

walking on broken glass - I hope you give yourself credit for researching and withdrawing! Because you did!!

It has to be disappointing and disconcerting for this to have happened and to have lost some funds in the mix is frustrating, too! I am sorry.  How fortuitous that the T you wanted is able to go forward with you!

I would imagine your friend seemed to miss you were already possibly feeling duped and discouraged. I also find messaging to be a uniquely challenging form of communication about important things because not only do we have no tone of voice or facial expressions to interpret what someone is meaning, the words are sitting there for us to return to and ponder over and can, for me any way, take on a whole life of their own if I am not careful.

I hope your day is better today!

[TimetoHeal]

WOBG,

Reading the whole thread, I am just like "Wow!", I am so proud of you through all of it. It takes courage to seek out a new T at all, and even more courage to heed your warning bells that something may be off and not go through with it, then even more courage to trust in yet another T!  Yay, you!

I am sorry your friend didn't have the right words to say to help you through it.  Not having any other information about her, of course I would want to give her the benefit of the doubt and hope that she is a good friend who just didn't have the right words for this situation.  She may be very worried/cautious about saying the wrong thing, and then that caused her to actually say the wrong thing!  Hopefully that was a one-off.

Anyway, again, I'm proud of you for seeking help for yourself!

[TimetoHeal]

And I understand one thing!  If someone promised me a roadmap out of what I live in and it appeared even halfway credentialed I would engage with that like a fragile geriatric with social security watching a tv preacher who promised "Jesus told me that if you send 100 dollars right now he has a certificate for you in heaved and I'll send it to you personally"

Okay, jsinjin, this one had me rolling on the floor! 

[walking on broken glass]

Thank you Time to heal! This is very encouraging as my thoughts were 'how stupid was I'? You have a much more caring perspective!

Yeah the friend is not mean but a bit of a know-it-all which can be annoying sometimes.

[walking on broken glass]

I have only had 3 sessions so far but I like the new therapist. I find that I have lots to think about and digest after each session. For instance, she prompted me to think about anger, and how I don't seem to get angry when other people transgress my boundaries, even though cognitively I know that I am not helpless. She also remarked that I use a lot of 'should' language and asked where this comes from and what it means; that I am preoccupied about doing 'the right thing', even though, when prompted, I realize there is no wrong and right decision here (as to the level of contact with my mum). She asked if any part of me regrets keeping in touch with my sister, even in a superficial way, over all these years, and whether I wish I had cut off contact sooner. I said that I do wish I had got there sooner, which made me think more deeply about what is going on just now with my mum (even though it is a different relationship). Also, her questions about my relationship with my mum made me realize that our relationship had always been superficial; that I did try to change that in various ways but my mum did not respond well to my overtures; and that I deep down felt guilty for not having a better relationship with her, that somehow this was my fault for not trying hard enough. So, in a way, the content of our conversations has not changed much. But, whereas before I thought that she respected me as a person, even though she did not fully understand me, her attack on me shattered this illusion. So, I guess it was ok for me to maintain a superficial relationship when I (falsely) felt there was acceptance and affection, a sort of mutual understanding. But now that this is lacking, how can I go on? How can I disconnect from my emotions and just be there for her, because she is ill? And is this healthy to do? Can one be caring and compassionate to someone who has devalued them so much? When I talk to my mum and she seems normal with me (i.e. not making jabs or being hostile) I get in touch with my soft, caring side, and then I remind myself how much she is capable of hurting me and alarm bells ring in my head, and I feel sad and confused. I find this hard to navigate.

[Rebel13]

Wow, it sounds like you are surfacing a lot of important stuff! Your comment about feeling like it's your fault for not trying hard enough to have a better relationship with your mom -- wow, I can relate to that. I felt that way for YEARS -- that the lack of connection was because of me not keeping up contact better, moving far away, not visiting enough, etc. -- even though, clearly, I had moved away FOR A REASON and any of my family members could have contacted me at any time! It took quite a while to give up that belief.

Wishing you lots of luck and self-compassion as you navigate all of this. I'm so glad you have support.

[walking on broken glass]

Thank you Rebel 😊
Ever since I started therapy, I find that I think about the family situation much more often than before; thinking of the past as well, as much as the present and future. It's painful. I have been entertaining thoughts of never going back to the family home because I don't think I can bear it. And then I think if the domino that will follow such decision. The personal losses, the people I might not see anymore, like my father's sister and her husband, whom I love so much but are unfortunately also enmeshed. They know nothing about my current troubles, I haven't dared talk to them. They look after my mum and do so much for her, while my mum constantly finds fault with them. And then there are places that were once so loved and familiar and now feel out of bounds. Since my dad died, I own the middle floor in a three-level summer house, where I used to spend my summers ever since I was 12. While my dad was still alive I would go there with my partner for a couple of weeks over the summer. It was peaceful. Last summer was the first summer without my dad and what a difference it made! My mum barely spoke to us, and it felt like we were lodgers and not family. I thought she was in mourning but now I know better. I don't see how I could continue to go to the house, if I cut off contact with mum. It all just feels too much. I just find very little at present to give me some cause of optimism for the future, and so much to pain and distress me. I wonder if this will ever change, if I will ever be able to breathe easy and find some inner peace.

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi Walking,

I wish that more therapists were willing to tell us that actually, it can be challenging for us, for a while, when we find good therapy, before it gets easier.

What you describe, sounds like you are reframing your past experiences, so that you see them through new eyes. Now that you know more about your mom. And you are grieving your dad, which is something we're meant to do, but it is a painful process to grieve for someone who cared for us. I think that over the years, one of the things I have learned is that those of us with PD parents, realize that we'll never have the stuff that we thought we'd have, like safe visits with family members or easy visits to childhood homes. And we live in a world where most people that we try to talk to, do not know what we are talking about. Not really.

So I think that things do get easier eventually, and our therapists can help us by being with us during this part of the process.

Trees