More about kicking my therapist to the curb

Some of my comments in an email discussion with my support group about the letter I wrote to the therapist I'd decided wasn't working for me:

As for the way the preparatory phase kept dragging on and on without us ever actually doing EMDR...I would have been totally ok with that part if she had said, "Whoa, girl! It's going to take longer with you because we need to do a, b, and c to get you ready" -- and if we had actually done those things. Or if she would have said, "Since your dissociating is such a big problem, here's how we are going to address that." Instead, each time I asked her for specifics about preparing me, she would sidestep the issue with one of her little speeches that would never answer the question. But it usually worked to distract me. Then I'd get home and talk to my husband and he would point out that she still had never answered my questions, so I'd ask them the next time, only to get distracted by her non-answers...Now that my brain works better, it's easier to see through that shit.

I just realized something else. My husband read my letter and one of his comments was that June didn't realize that I'm not the typical client. None of us are or we wouldn't be part of this group. We don't just show up for our sessions; we read stuff; we discuss amongst ourselves; we grill speakers and authors with questions; etc. What I realized is that her speechifying and lecturing probably impresses the snot out of a lot of other people, but I was all, "Yeah, yeah, I know that already." When I would tell her a polite version of that, or ask her to recommend stuff for me to read so we could make more efficient use of our sessions, I think it really put her off her game. Also, I wasn't impressed with her knowledge because my attitude was, "Well, duh, I expect someone who claims to be an EMDR expert to actually know stuff!" So, instead, I was all, "What? Why is she is so clueless about how to treat people like me? She really thinks it's ok to touch me?"

 

Kicking EMDR Therapist to the curb

As the weeks went by, I grew increasingly more frustrated with June. I vented to Sheldon, discussed it at length with him, with some close friends and with my support group. Finally I decided I had given her far more chances than I should have. I wrote her this letter:

October 9, 2012

Dear June,

After a great deal of careful thought and introspection, followed by several discussions with my husband and with trusted friends, as well as additional reading about EMDR, I have come to the conclusion that it would be best to discontinue therapy with you. My husband suggested writing “an articulate letter” expressing my concerns. This is my attempt at such a letter, although I’m not sure how well I will manage the “articulate”.

[I wrote a paragraph, which I'm not including, explaining and describing my support group.]

Our combined experiences and study have taught us quite a bit about what makes therapy effective for us. We need our therapists to communicate in a way that inspires our trust and confidence in them. Obviously, safety is a big issue for all sexual trauma survivors. In order to feel safe, we need the assurance that not only do our therapists possess the necessary expertise, but that they also treat us with sensitivity and compassion. We recognize that what we require is no simple or easy thing. In fact, it is unfortunately far easier for even the most well-meaning therapists to inadvertently do the opposite, causing us to lose what confidence we may have had in them. I’m afraid that is what has happened with you and me.

The first troubling incident was when you touched my knee. I was shocked that a therapist would touch a sexual trauma survivor without warning or permission. Some of my friends considered this a “major red flag”. What we have all grown to expect is being asked something along the lines of, “Is it OK if I touch your knee? It might help calm and ground you.” Instead, what happened felt like a violation of my personal boundaries. Your response to my reaction -- both then and each time you have mentioned it since -- has been unsettling to say the least. You have given no indication of understanding how inappropriate your actions were.

Somewhat less troubling, but still a cause for concern, was the way in which you disagreed with my decision not to press charges against my rapists. I question the purpose of lecturing me thirty years after the fact, and I see no therapeutic value in what came across as an attempt to undermine my confidence in a decision I have never once regretted. What made it worse is that you know extremely little about the circumstances of my rape or my life at the time, yet you felt no qualms telling me what I should have done.

Then there was the issue of eye contact during therapy. The first time you mentioned this, I was both baffled and amused. Frankly, I was tempted to respond, “Duh! I’m a rape and incest survivor!” or to tell you about my friend who stared at her therapist’s shoes every session for an entire year...or my friend who studies the carpet intently...or the other friend who rarely faces her therapist...I was also tempted to mention what several PTSD experts advise therapists regarding this very issue, but surely you already know this far better than I do. Yet you seemed to find it remarkable that I do not feel comfortable maintaining constant eye contact with you. I simply do not understand.

You have also given the impression that you consider it at least somewhat unusual that I did not disclose the incest to my parents at the time that it was happening. You even stated that this should have received special comment in the report from the psychologist who recently tested me. Why would my non-disclosure be particularly significant when the majority of those incest victims who disclose do not do so until well into adulthood? Our reasons for remaining silent are so numerous and compelling that I am amazed at the courage of anyone who does speak up. I would expect a therapist who treats incest survivors to at least acknowledge this reality.

Your negative characterization of my therapeutic relationship with Randy struck me as unprofessional. What was especially offensive is that you made those remarks in the context of describing others’ perception of me and how I can be taken advantage of. I found this insulting to both Randy and me. I'm tempted to refute your statements, especially the one about him being “in over his head” with my trauma issues. However, this letter is already long enough. I know who I was three years ago; I know who I am now; I know how tremendously I benefitted from therapy. I also know that only an exceptional therapist could have gained my trust the way Randy has.

My biggest frustration about therapy in your office is that I cannot point to any positives that will outweigh or even balance out the negatives that concern me. I kept waiting to experience progress or benefit from our sessions. Instead, I have felt stuck in what seemed to be an increasingly longer preparatory phase that brought me no closer to actual treatment than when I first walked in your door.

It would seem to me that if my tendency to dissociate is so problematic, we should either have agreed that I am not a good candidate for EMDR, or our sessions should have focused directly on overcoming this barrier to treatment. Neither has been the case. Even if I did not have my other serious concerns, I would see no reason to waste your time and mine by continuing therapy together.

Sincerely,

Annie [mysterious last name that I'm not ready to disclose here]

cc: Randy [his last name]

 

Things are good!!

At the end of September 2012, I emailed my support group:

Whew, what a day!

It started with me oversleeping and having to race out of the house to get to my appointment with the psychiatrist. This was a follow-up appointment and it went really well. After a somewhat rocky start with nausea and two days in a row of migraines, I'm not only tolerating the zoloft well, but I'm beginning to reap the benefits of it, which are nothing short of amazing to me. The anxiety is pretty much gone; I've been sleeping better, without nightmares; I've felt much more optimistic; I seem better able to handle the emotional ups and downs of life. I know that I'm not yet experiencing the full effects but even now I feel so much more stable than I ever have.

On Monday, I started taking vyvanse, my new ADD med. It's been fairly amazing too. I knew I struggled a lot, but I had no idea how much. I went into the p-doc with a written list of all the improvements I'd noticed and he kept saying, "Your meds are working exactly the way they are supposed to." He started me on the lowest dose of vyvanse, so he upped it a little and also prescribed me a shorter acting med to take in the later afternoon right before the vyvanse starts wearing off.

I left feeling hugely encouraged.

Then I got home. My husband had taken the day off, and he and our two youngest boys were waiting for me, wanting to have a serious talk. Uh oh. Once I realized what they wanted to talk about, I actually felt somewhat relieved, because this conversation has been long overdue. I ended up explaining everything to them...that I had been raped in my early 20's...that I had PTSD and what that meant...why I have been seeing a therapist...that I had recently been tested and diagnosed with ADD...that I was on new meds...and then I let them ask any questions that they wanted to ask. We talked about all sorts of stuff, including my drinking (which has been way better, by the way...) The only thing I didn't tell them about is the incest. They had figured out some of the stuff on their own, just by living with me. (It's kinda obvious I have PTSD. Duh!) I apologized to both boys about not being more open with them, and we talked about my family's legacy of secrecy and how I am trying to overcome that. It was a great talk!! Randy would be so proud of us!

After that, we ate hamburgers and made all sorts of jokes about getting diagnosed with a variety of learning disorders and quirky syndromes so that we could have excuses for all our behaviors.

Then we did work around the house. My husband and I even tackled a project that, before the vyvanse, would have so overwhelmed me that I would have had a terrible meltdown. Instead, I worked away with him as if I was an almost normal person in a good mood! It was so shockingly different than the old me that we couldn't help commenting on it.

I slept fairly well last night.

This morning I keep thinking about all the positive changes in my life lately. Our marriage still needs work, but it is the best it has ever been. It looks like I've found the right meds for my PTSD and my ADD. Our family is becoming more and more connected and open...and a lot of healing is taking place. Good, good stuff! God is really working.

At the same time, it's kinda scary. But, then again, everything is kinda scary to me!

 

Thoughts about my new diagnosis

Written in September 2013:

I've been mulling over what the diagnosis of ADD means to me, and why I have this huge jumble of emotions about it.

In a big way, it's a huge relief. It's something I would suspect, but then I would tell myself, "It's all in your imagination. Your real problem is that you are stupid, lazy, etc., etc."

Now I know a lot of that stuff was not my fault. And, it seems like I can make sense of things that have baffled and frustrated me since I was a kid.

In school, my teachers would say that I made "careless errors". This was so frustrating, because I felt as if I was being accused of not trying, of not caring, and the opposite was true. To this day, I can work very hard on writing something, proofread it a number of times, and it will still contain baffling typos and errors. It's become somewhat of a joke that almost anything I hand out to my students will contain at least one obvious error, unless someone else checks it. Usually I say upfront, "I'm sure there are mistakes, because I'm world's worst proofreader." Does this mean I don't care? Hardly. I hate those mistakes and typos.

When I would clean my room as a child, trying to do my very best with the hopes that my mother would finally, for once, be pleased at the result, she would immediately notice things like a shirt sleeve hanging out of the drawer, some toys in a corner, even a dirty sock in the middle of the floor. I could have sworn that I carefully inspected the room and found nothing amiss. How could I not have noticed these things? My mother would be so frustrated at me. She couldn't believe that I didn't do this sort of thing on purpose, just to annoy her. "Are you blind?" she would ask. "Why do you call me in to inspect your room when it's still a mess?"

I have always wondered why things that seem so easy to other people seemed so hard, almost impossible, to me. Am I stupid? Dense? Weird? People would say, "You must not be paying attention or this would be so easy for you!" but that only made things worse. I thought I was paying attention.

My husband has been forever frustrated and baffled as to why my life seems in a constant state of disorganized chaos, despite my best attempts over the years to correct this. I own numerous books about organizing, both personal and household, and I've tried -- and failed at -- numerous systems over the years. He has seen this as a lack of effort on my part, a lack of follow through. The truth is that I've tried and tried and tried, only to finally give up in despair, hoping that maybe the next book or the next system will work for me.

He has never understood why things will overwhelm me. A typical example: I decide to clean out the closet. He says, "Great idea! And, while we're at it, why don't we clean the entire bedroom and organize all our drawers?" He is an amazing super being and could actually tackle such a project. So he starts pulling everything out and then I'm fighting tears because, to me, he might as well say, "If you tried hard enough, you could organize every house in the neighborhood in one day!" I simply don't know where to start. The closet alone was already too overwhelming.

I feel like going back to every one of my teachers, from elementary school through high school, and saying, "I have ADD. So there. I wasn't bad, lazy, unmotivated, uncaring, or slow."

It makes me want to cry, thinking about it. I was trying. I was trying very hard. And when all those intense efforts never seemed to pay off, when I was accused of being sloppy or difficult or lazy, can anyone blame me for deciding not to push myself so hard? What is the use of trying if it's never good enough?

I think the biggest deal for me is knowing that I'm not stupid. Maybe I'll finally stop berating myself about that.

When I was a kid and my mother would be at wits' end with me, she would go on and on about how stupid I was. But, at report card time, I would get in trouble for my grades. If I was like one of my kids, I would have seen the irony in that and would have said, "Either I'm so terribly stupid, or I'm lazy for not getting straight A's. You can't have it both ways." But, instead, I grew up thinking that I was stupid and lazy.

At the same time, I can understand why I drove my mother to such frustration.

I've taught a number of kids with ADHD. They tend to do well, maybe because I refuse to label them or treat them like their diagnosis. Some of them, along the way, make me want to rip my hair out at times. But I've always had a soft spot for the kid who is bouncing all over while thinking he's standing still, or for the dreamy kid who has to be brought back to earth every few minutes. I wasn't the bouncing off the wall type, but I can relate to thinking you're doing well at something only to get in trouble for failing. One of my students once said, "I focused really well today, didn't I?" and I didn't have the heart to tell him that, to everyone else, it seemed as if he had been inhabiting a different planet during class. Now I know why I relate so well to those kids. I'm one of them.

Maybe best of all, the next time I blast myself with, "What the hell is wrong with you? You are such a complete loser!!" I can remind myself that I now know what's wrong with me, and I'm not a loser.

 

Results from psychological testing

More from September 2012, an email I wrote to my support group:

I'm having another insomnia bout, so I'm not sure if the following will make sense.

My husband and I met with the psychologist on Tuesday so that he could explain the results of the extensive psychological testing I had done. There were no major surprises. I already knew I had PTSD, and I suspected mine was not the mildest case, and he confirmed that. In fact, he strongly suggested I pursue additional treatment, and he gave me the name of a psychiatrist that could determine whether or not I would benefit from other meds. I have an appointment with the psychiatrist on Monday.

The next diagnosis was something I'd suspected for years, but now it's official: I have ADD, the inattentive type. He didn't just base that on screening and personal history; it was very clear from the testing itself. I asked whether or not it could just be another symptom of PTSD and he said, in my case, the difference was obvious. The attention issues with PTSD tend to be as a result of being distracted because of hypervigilance or as a result of dissociation. My test results demonstrated that my main attention problems are significantly different, even though I may also experience PTSD-related attention issues.

There were a few small surprises. I thought I'd done horribly on the test where I had to listen to one-digit numbers being read, add them together, and say the answer. That had been the most stressful part of the test for me. Amazingly, he said I did fine.

Not so with the test where I sat in front of a computer screen and hit the spacebar whenever a letter appeared, unless it was the letter "X". Sometimes the letter would appear in rather quick succession, other times it would be at varying intervals of time. The program measures the types of errors made, how long it takes for the person to respond, etc. The test lasted a horrendously tedious 10 minutes. Apparently a person without any attention or focusing problems will get better as the test goes on. People with different types of ADHD/ADD, or other attention issues, will make distinctively different types of errors. Mine were apparently rather significant, to the extent that the psychologist recommended I consider meds for ADD as well. His only concern, which he knows the psychiatrist will take into consideration, is that stimulants may make my PTSD worse. He emphasized that treatment for PTSD needed to take precedence, because that was my more debilitating issue.

I think it was really good that my husband was there. He described some of the things that have baffled and frustrated him about me, and the psychologist said, "That's classic ADD." What I especially appreciated is that he emphasized to my husband the extreme effort it takes for me to stay focused on most tasks, and he explained why it's pretty much impossible for me to multi-task.

He also went over the results of my personality test and explained to my husband how I am "hardwired" certain ways and that these are unchangeable. Guess I'll never be one of those eternally cheerful, upbeat, life of the party types.

I'm glad I had the testing done. At least now, I can't tell myself that my ADD symptoms are all in my head and that my real problem is that I'm stupid, lazy, or a nutcase. The next time my mother asks, "Are you sure you aren't bipolar?" I can explain that I was extensively tested and no, I'm not. My husband now knows that I don't do certain things in order to annoy him or because I don't care about him. The next time I worry about being crazy, I can remind myself that my test results prove otherwise. So, over all, I think it was money well spent. So does my husband, and he was the one paying for it.

As for the upcoming psychiatrist appointment...I'm a little bit nervous. I'm afraid of going through some awful trial and error in order to find the right meds. I'm scared of certain side effects. I don't want to become a chemical soup. At the same time, if I can be put on something that will alleviate some of my PTSD symptoms, that would be great. And being able to focus better would be...well, I have no idea what it would be like, because I've never experienced it!

In other news, my session with June, the EMDR therapist, also on Tuesday, went well. I brought in a thing I'd written detailing all my PTSD symptoms. I told her that I'd been frustrated by the screening thing she'd used and that I hadn't known how to answer the questions. She appreciated what I wrote, read it over, and asked me questions. For the first time, I felt that she was really listening to me and that she had a desire to get to know me as a person and not just as "EMDR client number whatever". And...she didn't do or say anything annoying the entire time!!!!

Next Tuesday morning I get to see Randy and fill him in on everything that's been going on. It seems like forever since I've seen with him.

For the most part, I feel hopeful that things are getting better. At the same time, I've been plagued by nightmares and sleep problems. Ugh.

 

Why I didn't report

From September 2012:

June, aka "EMDR Therapist", has asked me very little about the rape. One of the few things she did ask was whether I'd reported it. Then she launched into a little speech. It might have been less troubling to me if she had said, "I wish things were different so that more women would feel safe enough to report..." but her speech was more along the lines of, "You should have reported and here's why..."

It really bugged me. She knows nothing of the circumstances of my rape. Yeah, the cop (long story: cops were called after a gun was pulled on one of the rapists) wasn't a lawyer, but he'd already talked to the two guys, knew it was too much of a they said / she said situation, and he was way too familiar with the failings of the legal system in that time and place.

What evidence was there? The bruises and whatever else there might have been could have been easily explained away by "She's kinda kinky and likes rough sex" or "She was abused by one of her boyfriends". Neither of which was true, but how could I prove it?

I wouldn't have received the support I needed during the nightmarish legal ordeal. (I know of no rape survivor who does not describe their experience with the legal system as traumatic, even in the cases where their attacker ended up behind bars.) My family would have been adamantly opposed to my pressing charges. The only friend who might have stood by me - if I had let him - would have been Mark.

At that point in my life, whatever inner strength I may once have had was seriously depleted. I could barely make it through the day. I had nothing left over for pressing charges.

If - big if - it had been taken seriously to the point of going to trial, the older guy would have gained everyone's sympathies as a grieving widower and devoted father. All he needed to do was choke up and brush a tear or two away, and he would have instantly won over every woman there. No one would believe such a sweet, older man was capable of rape. He would have convinced them that all he wanted was to cook me a special dinner, his only motive being kindness and neighborly concern that I wasn't getting enough to eat.

On the other hand, I would have been presented as a wild child, a severely messed up drunken pot-head, eagerly experimenting with drugs and sex, a crazy and out of control little slut who had a constant stream of men in and out of her apartment, who probably had fucked half the men in the apartment building. Naturally, I'd flung myself at the poor lonely man and his nephew and, if they had made any mistake at all, it was giving in to me in a fleeting, regretted moment of alcohol-induced weakness and lapse in judgment. That's if they even admitted that there had been sex; they might just as well have insisted that they rebuffed my drunken advances (I mean, really, look at her...) and that's why I was falsely accusing them...after all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...

They could have woven this ridiculously false story convincingly by spinning the truthful testimony of any number of people. Who knows, maybe even my flaky boyfriend at the time would have testified against me: "Well, I have wondered if she ever cheated on me...I didn't know about the night she did cocaine but I saw her when she was still all messed up from the psychedelic mushrooms...yes, I've always thought she liked sex way too much...as far as I know, everything they said about her is true..."

If it had gone to trial, which I doubt it would have, the whole thing would have destroyed me. I'm not being overly dramatic in thinking that I would not have survived. Nothing good would have come of pressing charges. I knew that then and I am even more convinced of it now. It's probably one of the few sensible decisions I made during that time.

People who try to blame me for not stopping a serial rapist and his apprentice nephew are hopelessly naive and misinformed. The only way I could have stopped them from raping other women is if I or someone else would have killed them both. Over the years since then, there have been some dark moments when I've regretted not seeing them dead, but I've never regretted that I didn't press charges. Never.

Way back when, Randy and I talked about why I didn't report, but he certainly didn't second guess me or give me a "why women should report" speech. He completely understood.

Another time, we were talking about a situation where I was tempted to "force" another survivor to do something "for his own good". Randy said gently, "He already had his choices taken away from him. Why would anyone want to do that again? You need to empower him to decide for himself." That was huge to me, and it was something I hadn't thought of.

But I've realized that's one of Randy's guiding principles in therapy, and it's a big reason why he's not the sort who has one method, one approach, one modality of treatment. As he has said to me, "I'm not your typical therapist."

Yeah, I've been angry at him more than once. Furious even. I've been ticked that he wasn't one of these take charge, let's get with the program type of therapists. Now that I'm experiencing the other end of the spectrum, I'm realizing how right his over all approach has been for me. June -- if I'd seen her at the beginning instead of Randy -- would have driven me crazy. I had this intense need to get my story out after bottling it up for so many years. I was desperate and it seemed that the only thing that helped was exposing my secrets one at a time. If Randy had been all "Wait...you don't need to tell it all...why re-traumatize yourself?" I would have been out the door. I couldn't wait. It was like a dam was about to bust. Sticking a finger or cork in its weakest point wasn't going to work.

I think he sized me up from the beginning, perhaps by my huffy, snotty, little brat response when he suggested journaling. (Then I went home and filled page after page like a madwoman.) If he had suggested "finding a safe places" or "the container exercise" to me, I would have bolted. Poor guy, I was so cynical. Every time he acted remotely caring, I would accuse him of just using some fake therapeutic technique...and then there was my tizzy fit over his mere mention of "the empty chair exercise".

He just about fell over in shock when I did the non-dominant handwriting thing. He'd been afraid to suggest it. He wondered why I jumped all over someone else's mention of it while sneering at anything "therapish" he came up with. "That's because that other dude is not my therapist," I said. "So I listen to him."

My husband said to approach EMDR as more of a medical procedure instead of therapy. I just wish the prep work didn't take so much time.

 

Frustrated with New Therapist

More from August 2012:

Today has been one of those days. Apparently I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning and, since then, almost everything seems to irritate me.

Or maybe New Therapist is just irritating.

The first irritating thing is that I forgot to bring a check or money to pay her, and this is after forgetting to pay her last week as well. I brought it up in the beginning, after she made some sort of comment about picking up that I had a "pensive energy". Then she wanted to know my feelings about forgetting something...why I was being so hard on myself...blah blah blah. Somehow that led to her asking what I was teased about by other kids in school. I saw no reason to go there. I tossed in a deflecting story that Randy would have seen right through but she didn't seem to.

Then she fussed at me for not making eye contact. I laughed and said, "Yeah, I'm not really good at that." But I was thinking that I was doing really well at it...for me. What does she want? That I sit there and gaze into her eyes the entire session? Good grief, I'm sitting there like an adult. I have no idea what she would think if I assumed my therapy position, and huddled behind my knees and arms. Am I the only trauma client she's had that avoided eye contact?

Next annoying thing: she smelled smoke on me and asked if I smoke. I'd 'fessed up to my mini-cigar habit during our first session when she'd asked about tobacco usage. I felt like I was being fussed at again, especially when she made some comments about dopamine levels. "I used to smoke so I know what that's all about," she said. Oh, great. One of those obnoxious ex-smokers. She then tried to convince me that my 1-2 mini-cigars every week or two could suddenly turn me into a chain smoker. After all, she used to smoke so she knows all about overnight addiction. Whatever.

Then we finally finished the screening thing we started a couple weeks ago. So now she knows all about my dissociating ways. She then launched into a lecture about PTSD. I dropped hints about having read some stuff, but she ignored them and acted as if I was hearing about PTSD for the very first time. It was annoying.

Then, at the end, she said the good news is -- and she acted as if she was announcing something that would be profoundly new and life-changing for me -- "Your trauma is in the past. You are safe now."

I wanted to be a smart ass and say, "Really? I thought it was still going on right this very moment, even as we speak." Which is exactly what I would have done with Randy, and he would have laughed. Except he would never have said something so "Duh!" and condescending to me. It's not like I was freaking out and needed to be reminded of where I was and that I was safe. I was sitting there calm as a cucumber, well aware of the fact that the rape ended over 30 years ago, and the incest even before then.

It was the end of the session. She asked what my "takeaway" was. I said, "That my trauma is in the past". If she knew me better, she would have realized that I was being highly sarcastic.

I'm hoping every session isn't going to get progressively more annoying.

Here's what's really frustrating me...

I want to get the EMDR over and done with. Yeah, I know I need to do all this preparatory stuff but honestly, other than the screening thing for her benefit, I don't think I gained anything out of today. Before she launches into yet another lecture, I think I'll tell her to assign me something to read instead, because I feel like we're wasting my time and money during sessions.

I miss Randy. As angry as I got with him sometimes, as frustrated as I got, I'm realizing how good of a fit he was for me.

New Therapist's whole approach seems so artificial and contained and distancing to me. Actually, I can't blame her completely, because of my "I'm just here for EMDR" attitude. At the same time, I feel like she sees me more as "EMDR Client Number Whatever" than as me, a real person. I feel like she cares more about me as a "case" than as who I am. Yeah, this is only our fifth session together, but when I look back at the early weeks with Randy, I remember being suspicious of how caring he came across. I remember asking him why the hell he cared or if it was just some therapeutic technique he was using on me, and I remember him looking at me with surprise and bewilderment before he came up with a cautious answer. If I had been seeing New Therapist, I wouldn't have asked that question. In fact, I might have asked the opposite.

Today she brought up what she called "that thing that happened here in my office", referring to the time I got all anxious. To me, my reaction was not a big huge deal, but apparently it was to her. Which makes me wonder what sort of clients she typically sees. Ones without PTSD symptoms? In passing, as if to jog my memory, she mentioned touching my knee and that I said, "Don't touch me!" and she made it sound way more extreme than the way I said it. So did she think I completely overreacted? After all, as she told me then, most of her clients find a pat on the knee comforting, reassuring, and grounding. Good for them.

She said some other thing about the severity of my trauma. I mean, really? I could tell her way more severe trauma stories of people I know. Plus, she doesn't even know my story. It makes me wonder...if she thinks mine is so severe...has she actually treated more than a handful of rape survivors?

One of Randy's major guiding principles in treatment is empowering sexual abuse survivors. It's why he let me set my own pace much of the time, unless he had a good reason to push me or slow me down. It's why he structured our sessions the way he did. It's why he refused to tell me what healing "should" look like. New Therapist's approach is so different and it leaves me feeling less empowered. She's calling all the shots. She is setting the pace. She acts as if she knows my limitations and capabilities better than I know them. Maybe if I was new to therapy, I would appreciate this. But I feel like I've grown beyond the spoon feeding stage. I may be messed up, but I'm not a stupid little kid.

Funny thing...even though Randy has seen Teenage Me emerge on many an occassion, even though he and I have laughed together, in retrospect, over the times I got all bratty and rebellious with him, he always treated me like an adult. But June (not sure she deserves a name but I'm tired of typing "New Therapist") who has never seen Teenage Me and has only seen my adult side, treats me in a way that makes me think she sees me as a not-too-bright 13 year old.

I'm going to make an appointment to see Randy so I can dump several weeks of stuff and ask him to help me sort through it all.

The above was an email I sent to my support group. The general consensus was that the touching was shockingly inappropriate. Between us, we have quite a bit of experience with therapists, good and bad, but no one else had ever been touched by one without permission. Someone asked if perhaps she was a brand new therapist? Someone else said, "Surely, if she has worked with enough trauma survivors she would know that many people don't make eye contact in therapy." I responded to the group:

The touching thing did freak me out, but my reaction was not as bad as the way she imitated me. Randy has never touched me without permission either. Once, early on, he tried to adjust my chair for me. Immediately i turned into a shaking mess, demanding hysterically, "What are you doing?" Now that was a way more extreme reaction! He felt so bad. He quickly learned all my weird quirks and triggers and he never said anything stupid like, "Most of my clients appreciate that I'm just being helpful when I try to adjust their chair for them."

Yeah, I don't expect June to figure all this out right now, but the touching issue seems like a no-brainer to me.

That whole thing, I realize now, bothered me much more than I thought at first. She made it worse yesterday by exaggerating how I'd responded. I'm left wondering if she thinks I'm weird and over the top for not wanting to be touched by a strange therapist when I'm upset and for not maintaining eye contact. Then I wonder if she's insensitive and I think how Randy apologized profusely the few times he thought he behaved insensitively or cluelessly.

I want to give her a good chance, and I really don't want to throw in the towel before we even get to EMDR.

The thing that gets me is that she's not some inexperienced newbie. She's been doing EMDR since 1983. She's got multiple certifications...trains other therapists in EMDR...she is supposedly a recognized expert in domestic violence & heads up a support/discussion group for therapists involved in domestic violence treatment and sexual trauma therapy. So I had high expectations for her.

I can't for the life of me figure out why she does and says things that make her seem so clueless.

After I ranted and raved to my poor husband last night, we both agreed that I needed to speak up. I think telling her, "This would be helpful to me", followed with a few specifics, would be a good start.

I suppose if I'd never read a word about EMDR, PTSD, trauma therapy, etc., I'd find her lectures helpful and informative. But I sit there thinking impatiently, "The clock is ticking, the meter is running, is this really worth my time and money?" My husband pointed out that she has no way of knowing what I know unless I tell her, so I think I'll drop the names of a few of the authors and books I've read and let her know, politely, that I didn't just fall off the turnip truck yesterday.

She does a lot of work with groups, and I wonder if she's better at that. It's not that she is mechanical. It's this subtle thing. A group is more like an audience. Most people tend to speak to and interact with a group diffrently. I don't know how to express it other than to say it's like they become "bigger" with a group. That's how she comes across to me sometimes. That's why her explanations feel like lectures, and why things feel impersonal and distant to me at times. The whiteboards on her wall just make things seem more classroomish to me.

There have been times that Randy has explained things to me. He will even make lists, diagrams, and charts on this notepad thingie of his. He always personalizes his explanations and makes them more conversational, so it never seems like a lecture. For example, when he talked to me about his understanding of the addiction cycle, I didn't end up with just general knowledge, I ended up with an understanding of how my specific behaviors fit this pattern, and how I could break the cycle.

I think she's excited and passionate about her work. But I also think that has made her, at least in my eyes, more committed to the process than to me as her individual client.

One of the other things that frustrated me is the screening thing she did with me, where I was supposed to come up with answers based on what percentage of the time I experienced certain things. The whole thing didn't make sense to me. It felt like a math problem where I didn't know most of the variables. How do you figure out what percentage of the time you have flashbacks? If I had one flashback per week and it lasted 5 minutes, do I figure out what percentage that is of all the hours I was awake that week? Do I figure out what percentage it was of all the times I was triggered but didn't have a flashback? I told her that I was having a hard time coming up with answers, but I don't think I explained why.

Anyway, I don't think that my answers gave an accurate picture of how/when/why I dissociate, have flashbacks, or the full range of PTSD symptoms I experience. So yesterday I copied a typical list describing PTSD and explained which symptoms I experience (pretty much all of them) and how I experience them, as well as which ones bother me the most. I really think that's going to give her a much more complete picture of what's going on with me and what brought me in to see her in the first place. I'm planning on bringing what I wrote with me on Tuesday. I also think her response to it will give me a better idea of whether she is willing or able to tailor things to fit me better.