BPDRecovery.com: Forums

Hi okwoman! Can you explain a little bit more of what you need advice for? Do you want advice on how to keep your T? If that's what you desire, I would say that the best thing to do is speak openly and honestly with him and tell him exactly how you feel. If he is professional, he will not take into account any gossip another patient tells him about you.

Why is your T at his wit's end with you? Are you playing games with him? Not telling him the truth? Why do you feel you need to quit therapy? It seems something is missing here that you're not telling us. Again, I would suggest being honest with him and tell him exactly how you feel and what's going on. Another patient should not have any impact on the direction of your therapy or your relationship with your therapist.

Hi okwoman -- I just wanted to let you know I moved your topic into a different forum. We try to use Conversation Corner mostly for one-on-one's and for conflict resolution, and On the Border gets a lot more traffic so more people will see your post. Things are a little slow around here at the moment (must be the spring weather -- everybody's outside) but hopefully you'll get some responses.

First off, congratulations on being sober and not SI'ing for such a long time -- that's great! If you can manage that, you can do anything!

I'm not sure what to tell you about your therapist. Are you saying that he is threatening to "fire" you? If that's the case, I think you need to have a very straightforward discussion with him, to figure out exactly what it is that you've done wrong and how you might fix it. If he has a problem with you sending him a lot of e-mails and he doesn't like that, he needs to make that clear to you so you know what to expect. Does he not want *any* contact from you during the week (or however long between your sessions)? Would he accept one or two, just not a bunch every day? (Obviously I don't know how often you e-mail him, or what you're telling/asking him when you do, so I'm just throwing out ideas.)

My T doesn't use e-mail, so that's never been an issue for me. Back when I first started with her, and for the first few years or so, I called her on occasion, but I was always so concerned that she would get mad, and I knew she only had 10-15 minutes between sessions and couldn't deal with a lot of stuff in that short a time, so I really tried not to get too used to doing that. It was hard, though.

If you are e-mailing him to ask him therapy-oriented questions, maybe you can make a list of the problems you're having during the week and then take it with you to your session and show it to him, and then pick whatever issue seems to be the most important and start with that. T's aren't usually going to be able to help us with every single problem that we're having. You have to prioritize. I know that's difficult, especially in the beginning. Other things you might do between sessions is journal about what's going on with you, or hang out here and read about how other people are handling some of the same kinds of things that you're dealing with. Be sure to check out our "Tools" (in the box on the left) -- they've helped so many of us.

As for your fear of being found out, that's probably pretty unlikely to happen. Just don't use any names -- most of us just use initials -- or anything that would identify you. And be sure to log out and clear your history if other people use the computer you use to come here. The only problem we've really ever seen here is the occasional spouse who will show up and create an issue, but that's really rare. Hopefully if you have an SO, he already knows what you're struggling with and would be supportive of your coming here for support.

I hope things look up for you soon!

Hi Okwoman. I just saw this post and decided to reply.

I understand about emails. I responded to a different thread you had started about that, but most T's are professional enough to not listen to other client's stuff about other clients. if they say anything, that would be a break of confidentiality.

I had a friend and she was fired from her therapist. well then I was fired from mine and was dumped onto this other therapist. it ended up being that I was dumped onto my friend's former t. at the time, I was having tons of issues with this friend but I felt awkward because this T saw my friend for years. anyway, i guess what I am getting at is that I respected my friend and never used names. even though I knew the T knew who I was talking about, she never disclosed stuff and I tried not to disclose stuff that I knew. and I never went back to my friend with therapy stuff. because we both have eating disorders, we both had the same providers for many things. when I was at my sickest mentally, she was too and it was not good.

i think that if this other client goes and tells your T stuff about you, you need to find a way to set boundaries with the other client as far as what you say and don't say. I know its their session and they can say what they want, but as a respectful person, I would have a really hard time disclosing exact stuff about another client to my T. now when my T did DBT groups that I was in, I would have issues with what a client brought to me, but I never said names. of course my T was smart enough to figure it out but if there is concern, please bring it up. otherwise it is going to interfere with your treatment. been there and done that.

I hope you feel welcome here. I choose to come to the board once in a while now but there are a lot of great people here. as long as you don't use things to identify yourself and use your personal computer or clear the history and don't keep passwords on the computer, you should be safe. also, just don't share with others about this site. my feeling about it for me was that I found this site, not my friends! so I want to keep that for me and not feel like my friends are following me and it creates competition for us. so this is where I keep this board to myself (except for my T who knows).

good luck and I hope you can get a lot of feedback that you are looking for here. Just remember to try to stay in the moment and breathe.

have a great day!

Roo-D-Bear

Thanks Roo. I feel welcome here. I am going to bring it up with my T at my next session about the other client. I feel that my T will only say that its my illness and that I am trying to reel this other client into my life. That is not true at all. All I am interested in is getting well so I can go on and pursue my career. I keep cookies and temp internet files deleted. Thanks for the advice

I wonder if to be honest if you are actually imgaining that your t is bout to sack you,
maybe you are just getting attached as we need to do in therapy for it to work and so you are so scared of abandonment that you are fully imaginin its going to happen to you, and about to act out to cause him to get rid of you,so he hasnt a chance to get rid of you
just a thought

Did your T ever say specifically WHY he wants to send you to another T? Is it because you e-mail him too much? Or does he not have enough experience with treating people with BPD?

Okwoman, I can't e-mail my T anymore either. It's just the way it is. I have to get used to it. I have no choice, do I? That's when I use Radical Acceptance.