Sorry in advance for the length of this. I tried to make it as brief as possible.
I'm 22. I went to see my GP about a year ago with anxiety problems and was referred to the IAPT counselling service. The lady I spoke to there was lovely, but after we spoke she said she would like to refer me to clinical psychology because they would be more able to deal with my problems and I would be able to have an indefinite number of sessions rather than just 6. I'd written on the form they gave me that I had problems with intimacy due to bad experiences as a child, and we talked about this and it was one of the things she wrote on the referral to the psychologist. I also told her that I was having problems with domestic violence and she wrote that as well and told me she would get a local organisation to call me and help me with that (which she did).
Fast forward 6 months or so and my psychology referral has come through. I don't know what I was expecting, but my first impressions were that the woman I saw never smiled at me. Not when she introduced herself, or when she was asking me questions. There was no introduction or "this is what we'll be doing" sort of thing, she got started asking me things very quickly. She asked me "So you were sexually abused by your father, how quickly did that become penetrative?", I said it didn't and she seemed surprised. She wanted to know how old I was, how often it was, when it stopped and why, why didn't I tell anyone. I understand that these are things I need to discuss but I wasn't prepared for that at an initial "evaluation". She asked them very bluntly, and then sat in silence for a few seconds after while she wrote stuff down or just stared into the distance. It was very difficult for me not to just get up and walk out. I couldn't look her in the eyes. I really felt like I was being somehow judged or evaluated. She also asked about my teenage boyfriend and whether I had sex. I said yes once but I didn't want to, and she said "So you are able to be penetrated. Do you have sex with your current partner?" I said no and she said "Well how do you relieve him?" I said I don't really, I wanted to escape out of the open window at this point, and she said some comment along the lines of "Three and a half years, that's a long time [to be with someone without having sex]". She also said "Oh I forgot to ask, do you masturbate?" in the way you'd ask "Do you watch Eastenders" or something. No "I know this is a difficult subject" or "I'm sorry I have to ask this" or even a smile to make me feel comfortable.
One of the things she suggested was that I go to a "sex workshop" for "getting to know your body" and said that this might sort out the relationship problems. She said "You're a very closed off person, you won't let him in both physically and emotionally... in a way I can't really blame him [for being violent]... when we see cases of domestic abuse we have to also look at the woman and what she might be doing".
I read this as "he's doing this to you because you're not giving him sex, if you sort that out then it will stop". Maybe that's wrong, but it's the impression I got, and it's confused me because the IAPT counsellor I saw, and the other service she referred me to, were both very much "it's never your fault, there's no excuse, he is the one to blame entirely". But this woman is a consultant psychologist, she must know what she's talking about?
I left feeling awful, guilty and stupid. I couldn't focus on anything or sleep properly last night because I was worrying about what she'd said. I really, really don't want to go back but I don't want to give up now after waiting so long to get to this point. They say it has to get worse before it gets better, but am I right to feel so upset, or is this all part of the process of getting better?