Confused about situation with my therapist

[TerracottaWorrier]

It's long, but it's got paragraphs 😉

I have online therapy twice a week for trauma. Being abused and neglected as a child. Domestic violence. Cheerful stuff. I've been talking to my therapist since the summer and it's been really good for me. I've begun to trust him more and more and show more of myself to him without feeling scared.

This year has seen a lot of upheaval for me but I'm days away from moving to the other side of the world for work. I've spent most of my adult life doing this but this is the first one I'll do alone, since I'm now divorced. My therapist knows this, of course.

We usually have our sessions on Monday and Friday. Last Thursday evening he messaged me and asked if we could move our Friday session to Saturday. I suggested we just wait until Monday instead (because honestly I feel a bit gross about being so needy that my poor therapist would work weekends).

Previously when we rescheduled (generally moving our session a couple of hours backwards or forwards) he would refund the booked session and set it back up as a new one, which I expected to happen this time, as usual. But Friday came and the session wasn't cancelled or refunded and I was still getting reminders through the app that it was scheduled. I ignored this but it felt a bit odd.

All through Saturday I expected a message giving me a time for Monday (today) but I didn't receive one, and all through yesterday I felt very anxious anticipating it since it was so late. At 7 pm yesterday I contacted him on WhatsApp asking what time our session was and although he read the message, he didn't reply.

Finally, at midnight last night I messaged him again and said I assumed Monday's session wasn't going ahead and asked that he refund me for Friday's session which he had cancelled. He replied immediately and apologised and said he was just about to set up his bookings for the week. It's worth bearing in mind that we're on different parts of the planet so it was earlier in the day for him than it was for me.

But by this point I was actually furious. And distressed. I have a lot of little and probably somewhat inconsequential things I need to do before I leave, like get new nails and my eyebrows sorted. These kinds of things need booking and I wasn't able to get them done Friday because he cancelled too late for me to know I'd have the day free, and I wasn't able to book anything for today because I didn't know what time our session was going to be or if it was even going ahead.

My therapist seemed quite surprised that I was as upset as I was, and originally I didn't want to continue with him as my therapist because I felt really very hurt that he was being so casual with my time and also leaving me on read on WhatsApp when I tried to clarify. In the process of our WhatsApp discussion last night, he sent me a message which had been written by chatgpt and which had evidently been done in this manner because he accidentally pasted chatgpt's intro when he sent it to me. I was pissy and told him maybe me and chatgpt could just figure it out between us. He's not a native English speaker although he is fluent in English, but he said he was using chatgpt to guarantee his grammar.

Eventually I agreed to have today's session as normal.

We spoke about all this a bit in our session today, but I feel in some ways worse for doing so. I've had a lot of relationships with men who lie to me or gaslight me, who neglect my needs, who minimise their actions or their effect on me, and my therapist has been the person who has helped me see this pattern. I tend to stay in relationships with these men because I'm scared of being alone or think I'm being too hasty in cutting them off. But I feel like I'm now in a similar dynamic with my therapist. I do think his actions were unreasonable and unprofessional.

I felt anguish when he told me the reason he'd acted this way was because his elderly mother had had a fall, but I also felt quite sick because I feel like I don't want to carry any of his emotional burden. Previously, I have worked through quite extreme anxiety before telling him about sexual abuse I experienced as a child and most of my anxiety about telling him was not wanting to burden another human with the knowledge. I managed to do that by somewhat dehumanising him, I suppose. I was hoping at some point to talk through with him that one time I got anally raped in 2023, but I need him to not have feelings in order for me to do this. Now I feel like he has feelings and they are something I'm meant to be able to give space to. And I just cannot. I don't want to. I do not burden my students with my private life ever ever ever, because I want to be a safe space for them. I feel like he's not a safe space for me now he's a guy whose mum falls over and who uses chatgpt to reply to me and who leaves me on read and who stole my final two free days in the UK by not being reliable.

But I'm scared of moving into this new stage of my life without his support. But I feel deeply uncomfortable with how similar this feels to every other time I've been let down by a man and accepted it because I was scared of being without them or because I felt bad for them.

Of all the weeks that my therapist could have done this, this is probably the hardest for it to happen in. I feel like I've compromised my values in order to ensure his ongoing support of me. I thought by paying all this money to someone neutral I wouldn't end up feeling hurt or exploited, but I do. Am I being too sensitive?

For extra context, he is a very experienced and very very qualified therapist. I'm lucky to have such a fancy therapist. He is usually lovely and totally supports me in being me, and I have felt much stronger and more sure of myself since we started working together. But fuck. He feels like just another guy who got my trust and then shit on me at the moment.

Can I have some perspective, please?

Hang on in there, OP. It’s a chance to work on this stuff in real life, as it were. Take him up on his offer to tell him exactly how you feel and also what you think of him for letting you down.

After your reaction to him cancelling the session, why have you booked the next one for a time that you're almost certain to need to cancel? Seems like a strange decision on your part.

You are expecting your therapist to be perfect and superhuman. Therefore, when he does something that ‘falls short’ you feel let down and angry because ‘someone has let you down again’. In fact, he has not done anything other than be human and have a life outside your therapeutic relationship.

It is up to you whether you continue with this therapist or another or disengage with therapy completely. Your responsibility to make this choice, not their responsibility to be perfect. Your response to this situation may be indicative of the expectations you have of others, and maybe yourself too: if something goes wrong, it’s imperfect and therefore unwanted / should be discarded.

You could have gone ahead and booked your nails and eyebrow appointments and then, when he contacted you with an appointment, negotiated a time around this or cancelled the appointment altogether as it’s a busy time for you. It is not his fault. He’s not a mind reader. In future therapy (if you go down this route) look at the pattern of these expectations of others as maintaining them will mean you always feel let down and will sabotage your friendships and relationships.

You are willing to throw away what sounds like a good therapeutic relationship based on one miscommunication. Recognising this sits with you, not him, would be a valuable step forward.

Your relationship is professional, not personal, but the tone of your post makes it sound as though you are communicating with him in a very personal way, as you would a friend. Telling him off for using ChatGPT - did he really deserve that? Again, this sits with you and your expectations of others rather than anything he has actually done.

He’s a human being with all the flaws of every human being. As are you.

Speaking as someone who has been through a LOT of therapists over the years, I think you are massively (though understandably) overreacting. Your therapist isn't your personal property and undoubtedly has other clients/patients plus a life outside of being your therapist.

But only you can decide if this relationship is salvageable. Good luck with your move.

I think sticking with him is a golden opportunity of where your "work" lies. Trust/ boundaries/ what you can and should accept for yourself/ where you overreact.

Glad it helped.

And as it did, it’s worth shelving away for future. There’s a time and place for being accommodating, but in almost every circumstance you can still do that with a few boundaries that can make things a lot easier for you to accommodate.

Mayve doesn’t apply to a last minute opportunity for an audience with the Queen, but for scheduling stuff it’s useful and helps protect yourself a bit.

Good luck with the move!

I think if you read my explanation of how our appointments work, you'll see that I have very little input into the time they're scheduled for. I booked the appointment he sent me as an act of good faith, because our relationship is shaky and I wanted to show I'm still committed to the process. I know the whole thing is bloody stupid but he suggested we do it and I agreed because I didn't want to seem like I was still wanting to stop therapy.

I do get it. It’s great you could discuss with him openly after the fact. I hope also that you can acknowledge that sometimes things happen in other people’s life that they have to prioritize for a short time and it’s nothing personal to you (ie his mother’s fall).

I think you are overwhelmed with the move and possibly overreacting. You are his job, not his life. He is allowed to prioritise and attend to family matters. He is allowed to ignore work matters during his weekend.

He’s just a human who put a family member before his job. Something we’ve all done. 🤷‍♀️

@TerracottaWorrier Have you spoken to him about the way he schedules appointments? My psychiatrist used to be the same and we'd make the next appointment at the end of the previous one and it could be any day/time. I found this quite hard though so we spoke about it and he now reserves me the same slot every week. It does move from time to time if one of us is busy but I never get bumped for other clients and it's much more reassuring to have something booked in the diary and have that certainty. I think I'm the only person who he does it with but is happy to do it because he knows it helps me and has repaired some of the trust in our relationship after we had a shaky time.

@mynameiscalypso I haven't. Before this conversation I hadn't considered it was reasonable for me to find our current set up uncomfortable. Or, actually I am embarrassed to seem culturally imperialistic.