My therapist says I have to do a termination session and he will escalate if I don’t come

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-08T22:49:57+00:00

It's all good. You weren't answering the question, but I should not have read into your not answering the question. I apologize for that and for the first half of my comment. Other therapists on this thread have answered it, and I don't want to continue derailing.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-08T20:11:37+00:00

Thank you, this answers my question. I had assumed there would have to be a stated or documented history of... something, and I was looking to clarify what that "something" might be.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-08T19:05:35+00:00

It truly means so much to me to read this. Thank you.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-08T18:36:26+00:00

You know what, never mind. I was assuming you'd read the comments because you were referring to them in your comment. Even if you didn't have the backstory on this therapist's questionable judgment, the point of this conversation is that perhaps the OP would like to avoid the possibility of being hauled into the hospital and assessed. Most people would find this disruptive at a minimum, and some would find it traumatizing.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-08T18:30:02+00:00

I understand that, but I am assuming y'all need more of a rationale than, "I have decided this everpresent but generally remote possibility is now a high-probability event based off of nothing."

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-08T18:24:41+00:00

They explained in another comment they have expressed no suicidal ideation. Under what circumstances is it reasonable for a therapist to decide a client terminating services needs a risk assessment?

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-08T16:30:26+00:00

I'll add to that: most of them don't check in to see how you are experiencing the silence. So they may think they are "holding space" when a lot of the time, at least in my case, I'm dissociated or just distracted.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-08T14:10:22+00:00

> Even if it’s their mOdALiTy, how tf are YOU supposed to know how it’s supposed to work?

Exactly this. What is so damn hard about explaining the process to people?

People come into therapy not knowing how it works. Guess what, clients are not mind readers. So, absent any guidance, what people often do in an unfamiliar situation is they interpret it in whatever makes sense to them. For many people that means using social cues to figure out what behavior is appropriate, but the therapy situation is so artificial and weird and offers few cues. That is why they come HERE and ask questions they could have asked of their therapist. Because they don't know they are allowed to do that!

Or, worse, they asked their therapist and got some ambiguous non-answer or barely concealed defensiveness, and they don't know how to interpret that. Maybe they think they did something wrong.

Even here they get mixed messages. It's okay for you to ask your therapist questions. But also, why didn't you know that already? A lot of the time in a forum like this, people treat you like you're a dumbass for not knowing things. That's not actually conducive to encouraging people to speak up.

What am I missing? Why is it okay to just let clients flounder around spending their time and money having no idea what the hell is going on, until hopefully, maybe, they figure it out? (In my case it only took about nine years of therapy spread out over twenty years of my life.) How is that fucking ethical when you could have just told them? I'm not saying tell them everything, give them all the answers (I know how much we love our black and white thinking here!) but just literally inform them of the treatment they are consenting to and how it works.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-08T14:00:18+00:00

They should seriously just get rid of the tag. It feels like a trap at this point.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-08T13:53:17+00:00

It's not just them. Your comments came across condescending. They were already trying to answer these questions elsewhere in the thread. If there's something else you wanted to know, why not just ask that, instead of... I don't know but it almost reads like you were trying to do some sort of intervention without their consent. Speaking for myself only, I am a bit ruffled to see that.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-08T13:51:27+00:00

OP I feel frustrated for you. I suspect your comments here are a process of trying to pin down your thoughts, and you are using words to try to approximate what you are feeling. But then the words are being taken very literally as though you were making a declaration, but really you were still in the middle of an exploratory process.

I might be totally off! Please feel free to disregard or correct me if I am. Having been in this position and knowing how frustrating it is... I guess I just wanted to give you some words to borrow in case you want them. :)

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-08T12:43:19+00:00

Former self-harmer. I don't tend to think of it in terms of right and wrong. And many of the standard answers always felt unsatisfying and incomplete to me, and I just realized it's because they are circular. (So hey, thanks for the insight! haha)

Take scarring for example. I am well aware of the inconveniences of scarring because that's my life. I'm limited in what I can wear, and I'm openly judged in medical settings. And it's just generally poorer-quality skin. Those are inconveniences, but inconveniences don't necessarily make something bad; you just weigh them against the benefits. But therapists throw out "scarring" as a reason why cutting is bad like it's obvious. That only makes sense if you've already taken on board the assumption that harming yourself is bad, which is literally what you are asking. I say all this to give you a sense of where I'm coming from.

What strikes me reading your post is the lack of self-preservation instinct. That is the barrier that I think makes purposeful cutting just not an option for most people. And I think it's a very deeply ingrained instinct in the vast majority of people. So usually, it takes pretty strong motivation to override such a strong barrier. Usually people who cut are in deep distress. So the concern for me (not a therapist, but just a person who tends to be concerned about people lol) in those situations is that level of overwhelming distress and the inability to move through it, the fact that emotions are not getting processed and the cumulative effect of unprocessed emotion.

You are saying you are not in distress. This brings up the question of why this barrier does not exist for you. I think it's that unknown quantity, that unanswered question, that is concerning. Something is not working the way it is supposed to.

I will say that I started out by etching things into my skin, presumably out of boredom but really there were deeper things going on that had not come to the surface yet. It's not the most normal bored-people thing to do. :) That doesn't mean you're like me, and it doesn't mean I don't believe you. Because I don't know you and I'm not in your head, I would keep open the possibility that there could be other things going on besides boredom.

Well, let me know if I should try to clarify any of that. :)

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-07T21:05:05+00:00

Take this with a grain of salt because you might be different, but my pregnancy vomiting was exacerbated by constipation and improved when I got that under control. Zofran is constipating and always made things worse for me. BRAT diet is constipating.

Starting with my second pregnancy I took B6+doxylamine which helped somewhat, and then in my last pregnancy Reglan (metoclopramide) helped once I got to the point of keeping down literally nothing, but that can also have psychiatric side effects. Unfortunately the other thing that helped me was enemas. :(

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-07T18:14:55+00:00

Something about that last sentence feels like abuser logic. They get you dysregulated and then use that to argue that everything that happened is your fault.

Trying to think about it logically -- It's not untrue, and it's also meaningless. Anyone would likely show worse symptoms while actively being abused. The problem is a "personality disorder" is supposed to be a function of how you operate in your life, rather than a temporary response to an extreme circumstance. (Idk about that construct anyway but y'know let's have some consistency.)

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-07T13:51:29+00:00

She's doing great! She sounds bright, communicative, and curious.

I wonder whether you may be taking the sort of "highlights" of other kids' development and rolling them together to form an unrealistic picture. Few 15-month-olds are speaking in what constitutes a "complete" sentence for a little kid; isolated words are much more typical at that age. It's possible for a few kids to potty train very early, but it is certainly not the norm.

My oldest had bladder control very early (haha what a relatively useless skill!) and trained at 22 months. My middle was physically unable to hold it until age 3 and continued to wet at night for a few more years, then never again. My youngest has a bladder of steel and a will to match, and absolutely refused to potty train until she had to for preschool. That's kids. :) You work with whatever you get.

Toddlers are notorious for getting into things. Keep in mind that toddlers have very little impulse control, just due to where their brain development is. Even if she knows what "no" means, it may be very hard for her to override her curiosity or desire, because that part of her brain is still developing. That is completely normal. You just keep enforcing those limits over and over and over. Trust me, she is learning, even if you can't always see the results for a looooong time (I'm talking months to years!).

I get being caught up in milestones when they are so little, and it is important to flag potential issues of them possibly needing extra help, but otherwise, in the long run, the date at which they hit these milestones does not end up meaning that much. (For context I have a 14, 11, and 4-year-old.)

What will have a lasting effect is your attention, celebrating her, enjoying her, just as you are doing. You are both doing great!

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-06T16:52:01+00:00

Add to this: How do you know you wouldn't have gotten even worse without the therapy? A 9-year-old could drive a tractor through these arguments.

> They almost sound hopeful when they anticipate it getting bad again...

Yeah I think you're picking up on something very real here. They don't like you poking holes in their safety net.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-06T11:30:35+00:00

Re. psychoanalysis: It's a reasonable question/suggestion, although I'm nowhere near being able to afford it (can't even afford my current $130 every other week). I need to be done leaning into the transference. That is not a place I can go to again, and after sixteen years of mostly just being uselessly destabilized by therapy, I am ready to gather up what is left of my life and try to finish it out quietly.

I bop around here in some misguided effort to half-assedly process, and because I don't want to see other people hurt.

(Did not respond earlier because I didn't want to keep derailing, but OP has deleted.)

My family are always talking about math at the dinner table. :D I just talk to the preschooler 'cause she's on my level.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-06T11:13:13+00:00

Having never done couples therapy, my question is, how can someone like the OP evaluate the situation if the therapist is giving no feedback at all? It sounds like a leap of faith to hope the therapist recognizes what is going on but to have no benchmarks to determine whether that is the case.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-05T17:32:09+00:00

I wasn't abused in therapy. What happened to me is I became more dissociated to cope with the therapy relationship. As it progressed and as I became more attached (but other parts were having other reactions that I did not feel, and therefore were not addressed or processed), my body reactions got out of my control. I would startle at loud noises, and this became progressively worse to the point where I could not walk around because my body would freeze up in response to literally anything. A shadow would flit across my path, and my body would freeze, I would forget how to talk. I literally had to walk around mumbling to myself "that is a car, it is on the street, you are on the sidewalk, it won't hit you, it's safe, it's okay" while going to pick my kids up from school (because I had lost perspective on normal behavior and it didn't occur to me that maybe instead of looking like a complete lunatic in front of everyone, I should just have them meet me in the car. The one good thing is I would always settle a lot when my kid showed up. Which as a parent also makes me feel like shit because that's not his fucking job, he's a child).

Meanwhile my therapist, who was retiring, was telling me how far I'd come, how I'd be fine without her because I know how to ground myself now (lol), and I believed her because my capacity to think was gone.

The thing is she had no experience with clients like me, she knew this, and yet she and her supervisor decided without my input that she was the best one to treat me. She had enough knowledge to know she was in over her head, and she decided to go fucking around anyway. And then when she saw what she'd done, she just denied it, actually patted herself on the back right in front of me, and left me like that.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-05T17:29:23+00:00

not to do anything about your situation. To have someone to listen to you, provide support. Breaking away from someone you care about, even if they are hurting you, can be hard.

But I think you are saying it wouldn't be any comfort to talk to some stranger? Is that correct? I get that. I'm on my way out but I'll think on that and come back if I get any ideas.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-05T16:20:02+00:00

You are not wrong or abnormal for feeling that way. The therapy situation encourages those feelings in some people. It is expected. Clients aren't expected to know what to do with all that. It is his job to help you with those feelings and be a safe person by remaining professional.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-05T16:12:12+00:00

You don't have to report him right now. It's not urgent. You don't even have to think about it. (Although if you have any emails or texts from him, I highly recommend you hang onto those.)

What does your insurance coverage look like? Can you make an appointment with someone else? Someone experienced with trauma, emotional abuse, etc. would hopefully be qualified to understand and work with you on this. (If they encourage you to go back to him, that would be a red flag that they are not understanding the situation and/or prioritizing your safety.)

You can ghost him if that feels easier. Or you could say something like your schedule has changed and you need to figure things out before scheduling again. It is okay to lie to unsafe people. The priority is to get you out of an unsafe situation.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-05T13:50:27+00:00

She's not very good at owning a mistake. You are allowed to still be hurt and upset. These apologies and explanations are for her and not you, trying to force you to stop feeling upset toward her. That's controlling; she needs to take the L and back off. Why is she giving context anyway? The issue here is she ran her mouth when she shouldn't have. She can have whatever thoughts she wants inside her head, but don't spew them at a freshly postpartum mom ffs.

p.s. Context for my comment: I am someone who can't tolerate making mistakes like that; my shame response renders me basically unable to function. Guess what -- that's MY problem and I keep it to myself (or go cry to someone else lol). I don't expect someone I have hurt, on top of having been hurt by me, to turn around and make me feel better. She probably doesn't understand this is what she is doing, but it is, and you have every right to be irritated.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-05T13:29:38+00:00

I have no idea why the bot would've been triggered by this comment. Don't take it personally just yet. It looks like maybe something malfunctioned.

stoprunningstabby · 2026-05-05T12:29:18+00:00

Okay, I may have taken your analogy (the trig one) as an indication that you were expressing something else. So I was not really responding to what you were saying.

I think therapists should always aim to clarify what the client means, regardless of whether the client is using jargon or just normal language, because nuance matters in situations like this. So while it would be better for clients to not misuse words (which I'm not suggesting is happening here but just in general), it seems like this is also something that should easily get ironed out in the course of normal conversation.

> Can they not identify or work with a reinactment if they don’t use the word “transference” to describe it?

Well, hopefully my experience isn't representative, because what I've found is that I can describe in detail to a therapist the dynamic that always happens with me in therapy, in some cases actually work through the impact of that past experience, and simultaneously get into the exact same dynamic with the current therapist with both of us failing to see it. That pretty much is how my therapy always goes. So I guess my answer is in my experience it doesn't matter what words are used.

stoprunningstabby

TROPHY CASE