To wonder why nobody, not even a therapist, can love me at all

[YearningHeartache]

I'm not just talking about romance. I'd honestly love some good friends right now, who wanted to spend time with me, who sometimes contacted me first rather than it always being me approaching them. I don't know what is so wrong with me.

I had a therapist until recently, and we had a great connection. We got very close and started to say 'I love you' (sort of like a maternal thing, my own mother has no time for me) and I thought that for once someone did really love me. She showed me so much love, letting me call her whenever I needed to and always having time for me.

But recently she has been disinterested and a bit frosty as well. So whatever I do that puts people off, she finally saw it as well. But I have no idea what it is that I do that's so horrible I'm so bewildered and sad, I don't know what to do anymore. I tried to get help, and really put my trust in this therapist, but I feel like I can't trust her anymore. Although I do sometimes exhibit borderline personality disorder behaviour (you wouldn't know, I am a very private person so I control it, but I do sometimes self harm and feel so worthless and depressed) so it could be bpd making me not trust her. I just don't know.

You have said about realising important people leave you, I often have to deal with patients emotions at the end of therapy but I do this in a proper professional manner, taking into account how painful this can be for some. What she's doing to you is neither proper or professional and indeed is dangerous.

I'm very torn about thinking of reporting? She has helped me a lot in some ways, I hardly ever self harm anymore and am a lot wiser in terms of not letting dickhead men into my life. So it seems like stabbing her in the back to report her because she has helped me so much? I am so grateful to her for the good she has done.

At the same time, part of me resents her for becoming too emotionally involved (it seems like that at times, anyway) and for the position I'm in now, where I love her and am really confused why she doesn't. And I think what if she does that to other vulnerable people in future? Do I owe it to others to report her? I don't know.

Do I owe it to others to report her?

yes

It has to be your decision, but she could be very damaging to other people.

God I'm so angry here, not at you yearning but at your therapist, what she's done is wrong on do many levels. It looks lime she has realised this or it has emerged in her clinical supervision. Either way what she's done is wrong but equally how she is handling it is wrong to.

Like not lime!

What if her pulling back from me is her trying to do the right thing though? If she realised it was wrong and now is trying to make it boundaried and ethical again?

I still don't think I can stay with her because it hurts too much to try and go back to that after having what we had before. But surely everyone deserves another chance and she might not do this again with another client?

Essentially, I mean if I'm the collateral damage from her learning a sharp lesson in why not to relax boundaries (especially for those of us with bpd) should I not take it in good faith that she won't do this again. I don't want to hurt her, I want to be able to take the good bits I have learned and try and not end in a bitter row.

Yes the I love you part. But also allowing you to contact her at any time, seeing you for free and allowing what is called the therapeutic alliance to become muddied, in the way that she did not recognise that you where experiencing what is called transference. The mother child relationship was being played out in a way that was becoming difficult for you and seems she encouraged this.

Sometimes transference is ok if done in a way that boundaries are very clear. A therapist may plan in a session such as if you could tell your mum something what would it be etc. but it would be very clear that the therapist was not taking the role of your mum, but is mearly a sounding board.

It could also be that a client may have had a difficult conversation with someone and comes to therapy and takes out frustration on the therapist, but the therapist would help the client look at the interaction and again in no way play the role of the other person.

She has allowed you to become over reliant and has treated you like a friend rather than maintaing a professional relationship. This is very important for a therapist because a client misplacing feelings and not understanding the relation is very damaging as it inevitable lay results in you feeling exactly as you do and could trigger a massive set back.

I think closure is important, but not with this therapist she isn't capable of delivering this closure, it's possibly important to get closure with another therapist who can help you work through this set back she has created and help you resolve your feelings for her.

How should she have handled it, ideally? What would be the proper way to deal with it?

Yearning - have you discussed with her in therapy what's been going on with her, ie the getting close then her pulling away. She should really be discussing it with you if she has learned from it and wants to make it right. If you haven't, and things are still frosty, then sounds like she really can't handle it and potentially should be reported.

Yes, we talked about transference very early on. I said I recognised it was happening and was wary of it and becoming over dependant and attached and she said attachment was healthy and normal. But somewhere along the way it went pear shaped and suddenly my attachment wasn't ok anymore.

That is also a very good point about perhaps she won't be able to deliver closure. I think that's what makes me uneasy.

To answer your question how she should have handled it - well I am in therapy atm and any thing that happens between me and the therapist will immediately get recognised and discussed, eg if I seem annoyed with him he will bring that in to the open in a non judging way and say let's look at what happened here, that type of thing.

So have you discussed it since it went pear shaped? or is it the elephant in the room?

I have said it. I have said it feels different and she has told me I'm projecting. But I don't think I am, entirely. Because she is not as warm or welcoming or available to me, and says things that are inadvertantly quite hurtful - such as before, she would say to call anytime at all, and she would call me back when she could if she could not answer - that it was never that she didn't want to speak to me. That has all changed to quite curt remarks that she works between 9 and 5 and not at the weekends. That sounds petty, but it's just such a shift in dynamic, even being reminded I'm her work stings when before it was so, so different.

I feel like such a mug. What bewilders me is why she did it, why she made me feel special?? Just to amuse herself when she was bored? I don't know. It's frustrating because when I initially went I had no expectations of any special treatment or of being able to call her in between or being treated like anything but a client.

Basically this therapist has stepped right into the dynamic that is played out in your relationships, that is causing you pain and that you came into therapy to try and resolve. She needs to be outside the dynamic, not playing it out.
I think if you report her, it may feel bad to do this, but it will help her in the long run as she will be forced to address her own professional shortcomings.

Maggie is spot on, anything that happens in the relationship between patient and therapist should be discussed, it can't always be repaired but she will know the risk to your emotional health she has caused.

She could have handled it firstly by trying to avoid such a situation by having clear time boundaries, physical boundaries and made clear to you that she does not love you and isn't your friend but the value of your relationship is either what goals have been been set or for the therapeutic benefit of what ever you were seeing her for, she should have been considering any difficult boundaries with clients in her supervision and exploring useful ways of maintaing or reseat liaising the relationship before it had become so difficult for you. I'm not a therapist so I'm not sure what training or techniques are used in certain types of counselling, for instance psychodynamic may have very different solutions to this as CBT for instance. It may have been the type of counselling wasn't appropriate for you. But most importantly she should be adequately trained to recognise and deal with this as it is not uncommon for a client to claim to be in love with their therapist and at times feel let down when boundaries are established.

By the way the therapy I am currently having is called CAT and is really useful for this type of thing, as you map your relational patterns (called reciprocal roles) and then whenever you step into one of your roles either outside therapy or with the therapist it is immediately identified as you have the map right there in front of you. Somehow, bringing it into consciousness gives you control and choice over it. So if the problem that brought you into therapy concerns the patterns you commonly form with other people (eg getting too close and then the other withdrawing) this can be a very powerful therapy. Maybe check it out?

I think it might be best to get your closure through writing her a letter. After writing it, you can choose whether to keep it, burn it, send it or show it to your next therapist. It might be helpful for you to get the words down about what precisely happened there ... I have my own ideas about what happened, like others above, but your own evaluation is what matters most.

Funnily enough, I was thinking this morning about the therapist I saw for longest - just over two years, and just over £2,000. He was crap! He only taught me one useful thing, and that was something you can get off any self-help webpage But I was very, very broken at the time and needed someone holding me in positive regard. I used to phone him sometimes, too, and email him. I don't feel he was malicious in any way, just peddling everyday affection & listening as something more impressive. He's very qualified, but basically a weak character who overestimates his skills.

It really does hurt to have someone show you love and then withdraw. This isn't something wrong with you - it's perfectly normal to feel awful when it happens. Your therapist behaved wrongly: she failed to set safe boundaries round the relationship, which is a primary requirement, and then mis-handled it again when she realised what she'd done. There are things to be learned from it though, as from everything, and in fact I'm sure you have grown through the experience :) Keep talking to the nice people here while you regain your balance and find another therapist. Much love (the non-judgemental, friendly kind!) x

Reset liaising* sorry that should be re-establishing

We work using psychodynamic thinking, and also treat patients with BPD with mentalisation based therapy, which is a research and evidenced based treatment for BPD.

fuck this off right now

she has abused her position of power and should be reported. you are not a mug, it's her wrong doing. YOU ARE NOT A MUG.

This is very wrong.

What would you think if a GP, or social worker, or dentist or midwife or whatever said they loved you? It's not OK!

She has been trained in this, you have not.

Please contact the BACP

BACP: here

And that's on the NHS yearning, you could visit your GP to see what's available in your area. Please font key this stop you receiving proper help.

Oh this stupid phone, I meant don't let!