Posted by Klokka on August 15, 2004, at 23:15:15
In reply to Worst moments in therapy, posted by Dinah on August 15, 2004, at 0:11:42
I suppose it's a good sign that I can only think of two different occurences.
The first wasn't really "in" therapy, but did a lot of damage all the same. My pdoc had told me repeatedly to call him if anything came up, and I'd wanted to on several occasions, but felt like I'd be wasting his time, my problems weren't serious, and so never did. One week when I didn't see him, I had a very bad day. I wanted so badly to call him, but didn't. That night I was very upset over a test the next day (I was in no state to study, and so didn't understand a thing) and thought of nothing but death. I was so tired in the morning that I downed an entire pot of coffee, so by the time I got to school, I was depressed AND agitated. And for once I was in such bad shape that the shame of giving in and calling him didn't seem so bad anymore. I had the guidance counselor leave a message explaining what was going on and that it was urgent, since it was so bad I couldn't even be coherent for the minute or so it would take to call. I didn't go to class all day, and spent it instead sitting in an empty office in the guidance area with a book to distract me and my cell phone in easy reach. He meant to call back in the afternoon, but left the clinic without my phone number. Hence no phone call. I was a total wreck (well, more so than earlier) by the time I realized he wasn't going to call and left school. The counselor and nurse there looked so worried, urged me to call him back and remind him, and I just said "Well, if I can't trust him I may as well find out now" and proceeded to wander about the town in a daze for over an hour (and good thing the traffic wasn't bad!) That was Thursday - only on Monday did I begin to break out of that state. I wrote a horrible nine-page rambling letter that night, never gave it to him, and proceeded to tell him nothing about it at our next session. I know now that he knew it hurt, anyway, but it still does hurt and the loss of trust that occured there hasn't completely been fixed. I trust that he means to call back, but I will not call him in crisis now because I don't trust him to call back (though he's taken some measures to prevent that from happening again,) and because the anxiety over whether he would would just push me over the edge.
The second time was immediately after the first - lovely, eh? He returned from being away two weeks, I guess was at a conference or something, and those had been two very bad weeks for me. I had recently heard a very menacing voice in my head, and didn't think it was serious but was still quite shaken over it. In our first session after his return, he didn't seem concerned with anything but answering a long, seemingly pointless list of questions. I was so frustrated I answered readily - because I wanted the questions to be over so I could talk about what was really on my mind. Thankfully, this one was resolved (mentioned it in "Best moments"), but for a while I seriously considered going to get a referral to another pdoc.
Overall I guess I have nothing to complain about, except for the phone thing. Hopefully we can come up with another way of getting in touch when needed over the school year, though, because my schedule would make it almost impossible for me to receive calls when he tends to call back, anyway.
poster:Klokka
thread:377824
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040812/msgs/378090.html