I wanted to explain something here, but I need to first say this is about me and not about anyone else. Just me trying to find where I belong, because this place became very dangerous for me, and I want to try to resolve that, if I can. Nowhere is perfect, but this has been a good place for me to visit from time to time, and there are a lot of very supportive people here.
I was triggered really badly several days ago, and left the site, thinking I could never return. It took me until today, and I have read the whole of the thread concerned, to find out what others think, and whether I am really on my own in the way I see things. I found a mix of opinions, as you would expect, some seeing things one way, some another. But I was not alone.
The main trigger for me was that the person concerned described some behaviours and then claimed to be a mental health professional. Having read the thread I now find that was, to use parliamentary language, a 'terminological inexactitude'. This helps me a great deal. I said at the time that it was an issue of trust. That comment was not noticed, but this is an important issue to me.
I have had three counsellors over the years, as well as three psychotherapists and three psychiatrists, all at different times. Of these people, the first counsellor did me a lot of harm, which I have not begun to overcome. from the start he played power games. Later it got worse.
He would never fix appointments in advance, but had me call him over and over until he found time in his diary for me. If he had no time he told me to ring again the following week. Once he had to leave a session early to take his cat to the vet. The last session of all never happened. He just never got round to it.
He admitted more than once that he tried on purpose to make me cry; in fact the first time we talked, until he did that he thought he would not be able to help me. He cancelled sessions over and over for three weeks, when he knew I was very unwell, with the intention of making me knock on his door in desperation, demanding to see him. I did not do that. I waited and waited until the session finally came, and then arrived politely, without complaining. At that point he thought he could not help me. But then, when he (eventually) saw me cry, and admit that I had suffered during that three weeks so much that I had had to leave work and increase the a/ds I was taking, he said that he then thought he could help me. It took me four months to get back to work.
When I asked him what were the rules for counselling he said there were no rules. He meant that he wanted to make them up as he went along. And he did. At one point he told me that I needed to be admitted to hospital, because of something I did. I stood up to him on that one, and I think surprised him a lot. I told him straight that I was not going. When I spoke to my GP she agreed that it was not necessary.
He ultimately used me as his counsellor, telling me about his own childhood abuse in graphic detail, over several weeks when we never discussed me at all. The reason was that a relation had recently been found to be abusing his (my counsellor's) children, and this brought back repressed memories of his own childhood abuse. There is a lot more, but that gives the general picture. It would not be right for me to say more about someone else's situation.
Eventually, he decided I had developed an unhealty fixation for him, and decided the remedy was to dump me onto someone else - a friend of mine, not a counsellor. Meanwhile he told this person that I was in love with him, that I was mentally unstable and that I was headed for a breakdown. He also said the same thing to two other people that I know of. He used selective quotes from a letter I had sent him to prove his point.
Fortunately for me, I had already given my friend a copy of the full letter, so he knew the context, and that it was completely harmless; challenging Ms behaviour but innocent of what he accused me of. My friend told me that he did not believe that what M said was true, and that was what saved my sanity at that point, but it was a difficult time. Very difficult. My friend showed so much patience, so much understanding of what was happening to me. He said it was the worst possible scenario for me, to have a therapist who was himself at such a vulnerable point and used me in this way.
If this happened today I would know that it is not appropriate behaviour, and I would not stick around. But that was seven years ago, and I knew nothing. I then had a very good counsellor who I was only able to see for 12 sessions. Very good sessions for me; I don't want to be one sided.
Several years later, the second psychologist made me so ill that I was judged not fit to undergo further counselling for around six months after seeing him. For 14 weeks he denied that I have ptsd, in spite of a confirmed diagnosis from the UK Medical Research Council. He said he didn't know what was wrong. In the final session he said that what I have is 'trauma related.' He would not let me talk about trauma. Sorry. Enough about that one. Very difficult.
All of this - and more - has left me very afraid of any kind of therapy. Very. The power balance leaves people unprotected, and they don't even know what they need to be protected from.
With ptsd, there is nowhere else for me to go than back to find someone who can help me within the mental health field. I have read book after book, but I cannot do it on my own. This has become a nightmare. Fortunately at present I have a very good psychologist. But I am still very wary.
To me personally, morality, ethical behaviour, whatever you want to call it, is not something we can pick and choose, saying I will be moral with 99% of the population, but not with the person who hurt me, because they don't deserve it. Morality is about
us, not them. What makes us different from the Ns, is that we can empathise, and we can choose not to be the same. There can be no human being on earth who is exempt from moral law, imo.
If others have a different viewpoint, that is up to them, and I can accept that. As long as they are not therapists. Sorry if that seems illogical.
I can accept that therapists will have feet of clay, but, for preference, not clay all the way through.
So, that is part of my story. And none of it about what caused the ptsd in the first place. Lots about what has made it last so long, and be so resilient to treatment. And about why ethics and morality matter.
O.
