Posted 2/23/2015 7:31 PM (GMT 0)
Hey everyone,
So basically I've always been an anxious person. Type A, that kind of thing. I've struggled most of my life with anxiety and a chronic illness. I was in therapy from 13-16 years old and honestly I don't remember much of it. I'm 29 now, and have been working with a Social Worker/therapist for about a year or so after I had a traumatic experience related to my health.
The thing is, I feel like recently I've gotten worse than ever and I'm angry at my therapist because on some level I feel like she's the cause. When we first started seeing each other, I was very guarded, and she had said some stuff to me that made me question whether or not she was a good therapist or a bad one (I had brought in notebook with stuff I wanted to talk about and she told me to put it away because I guess that's not how she does things). She was also very quick to make assumptions, and give the odd medical advice from time to time. I tried to leave a few times but I kept thinking that maybe the problem was with me and that therapy wasn't supposed to be rainbows and sunshine all the time. So I kept going. I made some progress, although sometimes I still felt like there were some mind games/power plays going on. But I *was* progressing, and last year was one of the best years of my life, up until October-current. Things started to go way downhill when she suggested that I needed a disability aide, probably because I've had difficulty holding down a steady job for a few years now after the health situation. I was upset that she would suggest that because I've always been capable of taking care of myself and even though I don't have a steady income, my husband has supported us just fine. She's also been very pushy about medication and I am very anti-medication. She's known this from the start. Our last session I got the impression that she was just giving up on me because I would not go on medication. She made a comment about talking to my husband about power of attorney "incase one of us has a decline in physical or mental health" (subtle).
The thing is, yeah, I've always had anxiety but honestly I feel like that has greatly escalated with her. Her voice has become so powerful in my life that I don't really hear mine anymore and it's scary. I feel manipulated. But it's hard to tell if it's actually *me* or if I have legitimate worries about what she's doing to me. She's got me feeling guilty for not taking the medication and afraid of my future. Isn't therapy supposed to make you feel good?
What do you guys think?