my therapist lied to me.

[mopinko]

very frustrated now with the whole mental illness treatment deal. pdoc is being a world class asshole. not even really seeing this talker now, having been sort of encouraged to move along. but..

a while back hubby accompanied me to my lcsw. it didn't go too well. he asked for and reluctantly received 5 minutes alone with her at the end of the session. i didn't really pry with either of them about what was said, but in later sessions she repeated something about him that made me wonder what was said.
i finally asked him about it. what is annoying me is not that part, but that she did relay something that he "said". she claims that he told her that i was "the most fascinating woman he had ever met." i found it quite unbelievable at the time, as it was completely uncharacteristic. i asked him about it then, and he confirmed that he had said it. he had no answer for why he had never said anything like that to me, even tho i have asked him a million times what he meant when he said he loved me, and why he loved me.
so, i asked him about the first part here, and he now he tells me that he did not say anything even remotely like what she told me.
there were a couple other bits that were relayed that were equally opposite of what she portrayed.

on this i actually believe him, because her statements make no sense.
honestly, i know that being honest is probably the last thing these people want to be, ever. but to just flat out make up some nonsense? i feel like there is nowhere to hide.

[HereSince1628]

1. I'm hearing two things...

First, the lie she told continues to bother you. Second the notion that the sw lied is undermining the therapeutic relationship you have with her.

Getting tripped by things that are emotional can be important, but you ought not be plagued with suffering from something said by your therapist. Additionally, if this leads to mistrust of the therapist it could undermine future sessions.

It seems to me that the sw owes you a discussion of this so that you can get some relief.

[mopinko]

2. it was the stupidity of the lie.

plus a huge huge dose of frustration with the entire psycho industry.

yeah, i have had it with the whole talk therapy thing. the last one was a long running paid girlfriend rip off. i was in quite a state (thank you ambien) and when i asked her at the end of a session who had the best er, as i was really worried, said, well, lets talk about that next week. !!
i just figured out that is was a lie, as hubby didn't want to hurt my feelings. i did think it was a nice thing of him to say, so he didn't want to admit he didn't say it. but he also put together the pieces, too convoluted to explain, about the other things he said, and what she said about him/them. just made me realize that they can't be honest with you (i understand, sorta, but still, you'd think they could figure it out) but they get frustrated if can't be honest with them. even tho the whole damn enterprise is about the difficulty of being honest with/knowing yourself.

pdoc wants me to spend another month on a med that doesn't work, just so we will "know". like i care. the one i really should have been started on first, cymbalta, which is known to help people with fibro, somehow got put into my record as something that had already been tried. i accepted it in the office, but went home and thought :wtf:. tried to get a hold of the doc, left a message in plain english, saying i wanted to switch now, got a call back, didn't catch it, her message was that she didn't understand my message and that she would try again, which she never did.

ya know, i have been through so many different types of docs between me and my kids, including several shrinks, and they are just 50 years behind every one else. i am headed back to the sleep guys. that is the root of my problems, imho. shrink told me to see them. at least they are in my space time continuum.

[EFerrari]

4. Remember, mo, you are the world's expert on you.

And if you don't believe spending another month on a drug that isn't helping you is worth it, your opinion is the one that matters. :hug:

[EFerrari]

3. Asking for time alone with him is a red flag, imo.

What is wrong with the therapy, would be my question to her if I were her supervisor. :shrug:

[mopinko]

5. no no, he asked her. well, me.

i wanted him to go. it was the trade off that he could talk to her alone if he felt he had to. he went in ready to talk to her, tho.
i wanted to make sure he understood how bad it was. spent most of the hour insisting that he had noticed nothing. then took his 5 minutes to tell her is that he thought i was bp. :crazy:
he has no idea what mania means, really. he thinks that days when i get up and get something done is my manic phase. and not being suicidal all the time is obvious cycling.
sigh.

i kicked the meds i was on. fibro was on fire, pain at the point where it starts to squeeze is a sign that something is lighting it up. when you are taking something that isn't working, and the pain ratchets up, that is what it is doing instead.
right now i am testing them to see if anyone is paying attention to anything. cancelled my next appt, refused my scripts. waiting to see if anyone notices. if not, good. so sick of the whole go round that anyone with any letters after their name seems to always bring.

[EFerrari]

6. Well, you know she could have refused and invited him to talk

while you where in the room with them. It was her job to do that, imo. Allowing him to do it the other way is some kind of endorsement that you two can't talk or that you can't handle what he has to say or some damn thing.

But what do I know. Except, it is exhausting to work with people who aren't helping, no matter what their frickin' initials are.

You know, I thought of your kid over the weekend, watching a BookTV segment on Olmstead, the guy who designed Central Park in NYC & a bunch of other public spaces. His biographer said, he wasn't qualified to DX him but thought BP might be involved. And then, he went on to point out how different the status quo was in that time: how Olmstead could go out to Saratoga for a "come apart" and his boss was totally behind him. He would plan that Olmstead would be back, rejuvenated, and work really intensely on his projects. It was a cycle that worked because he wasn't written off as he would be today.

It isn't up yet but when it is, it will be here:

http://www.booktv.org/Program/12659/Genius+of+Place+The+Life+of+Frederick+Law+Olmstead+Abolitionist+Conservationist+and+Designer+of+Central+Park.aspx

[mopinko]

7. yeah, i think often of the day when i would just be

labeled as someone with a "melancholy personality" and that would be it.

geniuses are crazy. period. not normal. by definition. wish that was just accepted.

[Broderick]

8. I gather he is not allowed to voice his feelings

And he obviously can't share them with you, in so much, that he does with her and you make it an event that you punish yourself and your well being by being defensive. Anyway, you read between the lines to fit the script to what you want to hear that makes you the victim in all this. That is not fair to him, or is it to your therapist.

[EFerrari]

9. It's okay to stop taking care of everyone long enough to have your own viewpont. n/t

[mopinko]

10. so it's ok for a therapist to just make shit up?

she should not have spoken to him alone at all. if i was fine with it, ok. but i was upset and said no. then she did. i did relent, and i fled the office, over my shoulder, but come on. clearly i was not ok with it.
then she covered her own ass by lying. there were ways out of that that did not involve make up something that was extremely ridiculous.

he voices his feelings after i drag them out of him. that was why he was there. and throughout the session he said the opposite of what he said when the door closed. this was important, and she did nothing to help me figure out how to get to where he and i could have shared what he told her.

i should be fair to a therapist that made a major ethical breach?

[mopinko]

11. she also had a therapuetic responsibility to one of us.

what she should have done, since this shit is about the truth, was spill what he said. period. especially since he was lying.

[postatomic]

12. She may have just made a general observation

... on what was said to her and her impressions of what your hubby said (if anything) when you were present. Especially if you are dealing with self-worth issues.

That said.... she should have never never ever ever spoken with him without you being present. Never.

My spouse has pushed the panic button a few times and called my therapist. My therapist has always made it clear to her that she can't discuss anything I've said to her. However, she has met my spouse a few times. That, and the panic phone calls, has led her to paint a picture of my spouse for me. She has expressed her general observation of my spouse so I can better understand a few things AND she uses it when we discuss the moral aspects of suicide. One example; I asked her once "what is wrong with suicide?". She brought up my spouse (along with a few other things)... what it would do to her, etc etc.

Ignore the comments made in #8. I'm amazed how people that are totally unaware of all the information (as I am) can make such an insensitive conclusion.

My comments are just a guess. Nothing more. I'm sorry you had this crap laid on you. It does little to further the healing process.

[mopinko]

13. there was some useful info gained from the whole thing

but honestly i was not that thrilled with her, anyway. she sort of shook me off shortly after, and i was happy to leave.
she pretty completely ignored what i had wanted to happen in the session, and pushed what she thought i wanted.
at least we have hashed things out enough since then that i think we have gained. he is working hard to get it.

although i have to have my knee jerk shot back, i realize that the other poster doesn't really get what the transgression was.

[HereSince1628]

14. Have you gotten any relief via the 'sleep guys'?

You wrote about going that direction a couple of weeks ago. You suggested that perhaps there was an underlying issue that seeing them might address.

I was just wondering if you had a chance to follow-up on that.

[mopinko]

15. i just got off the phone w/ the cpap people

a classic example of why the act of asking for help from people with letters after their names sets my teeth on edge from the get go.
turns out they reset my machine to the original setting, which did nothing for me. not that they tell me that stuff. have had a really awful couple weeks since then. shot off a nastygram to the sleep doc this am.
honestly, i am convinced that this is the heart of my troubles. i have a combination of central apnea and obstructive apnea that particularly disrupts my rem sleep. i can tell by my dreams how i am sleeping, and i can tell you they are screaming at me right now.

i have been taking ambien for a long time, and i found it very helpful, but i think it was the cause of the uptick in depression that i am going through, so i quit it. so, i am having other troubles, insomnia being the biggest. but really, when i am exhausted and when i am upset/depressed, it feels exactly, exactly the same. i rarely get bent early in the day. and by night time i am always getting blue. and all my big depressions were at times when my sleep was disrupted. like by babies. or living by alarm clocks.
i have to wonder how many of the people who do not respond to psyche drugs really have sleep problems.

[HereSince1628]

16. For me bad dreams are a fast road to somatization of many problems

I hope that you get back to restful sleeping.

[mopinko]

17. apnea dreams are of a particular sort.

i always know why i am having them, they are about trying to get your breath, and that metaphor is quite rich.
i have been waking up in the middle of dreams. obviously not a good thing.

so, how are you these days?