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I don't know what to do with my therapist

SabF

My therapist is AuDHD, and I understand that sometimes she forgot things. 

 She was supposed to give me the PDF with my test results and diagnosis by the end of July, yet I’m still waiting. We had arranged to move a session up to September 11th—that was the last time she replied to me, and the session never happened. This Monday we had to have an online session and she didn't show up and didn't answered my texts.I don’t know what to do; I truly understand that she might be overwhelmed or going through a difficult time, but I see her posting Instagram stories and I feel sad, anxious, and desperate.

Has anyone else been through a situation like this? I need some advice on what to do; I even thought about drafting an email—thinking that maybe WhatsApp messages might be causing her anxiety—to ask if she’s okay and tell her that if she needs time, that’s fine, but she should let me know so I can adjust my expectations.

Thank you 

Parents

  • You should not be in a position of having to worry about the state of mind of your therapist, if she's part of an organisation then I suggest you contact them and ask for someone else, if she's independent then seek another therapist.

  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    Thanks for your reply. You're right, but I don't know if I'm ready to start looking for another therapist; I'll keep it in mind. Meeting a new professional really drains a lot of my energy; it makes me feel exposed, and I become dysregulated in every session. For the moment, I think that would be even more exhausting than where I am right now.

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  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    Thanks for your reply. You're right, but I don't know if I'm ready to start looking for another therapist; I'll keep it in mind. Meeting a new professional really drains a lot of my energy; it makes me feel exposed, and I become dysregulated in every session. For the moment, I think that would be even more exhausting than where I am right now.

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  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    Thanks for your reply. I’m not sure if I’d go back to an NT therapist—I hadn’t really considered it, though perhaps I would with someone who doesn't have ADHD. I need to think about it; I had many NT therapists who made me feel terrible for a long time. Even though they didn't specialize in neurodivergence, I feel like they would never truly understand me. Maybe I should be more open-minded and consider that possibility. I don't know. As for becoming dysregulated, I don't think I view it as a negative thing per se; rather, I wouldn't want a new therapist simply because of the effort involved in telling my story all over again. I don't feel like I'm in the right headspace to revisit the past and get sad reliving everything.

  • in reply to SabF

    Its OK not to feel ready to look for a new therapist, take some time and sort out why you've been put in this position of feeling that you need to look after your existing therapist.

    Does everyone need a therapist who's ND? Personally I'm not sure, I think I'd rather have a good NT one than a mediocre ND one. Obviously they need to be able to work effectively with ND people and understand that our minds work a bit differently, but some of the things we may want to take to therapy will be common to NT's and ND's and I think being reminded of the universality of some issues is a good thing.

    Another thing I want to say to you personally, is about you getting dysregulated because you feel exposed, this is normal and it's not "dysregulating", its showing a legitimate emotion caused by a difficult and upsetting circumstance. A good therapist will know that they're asking you to put a great deal of trust in a stranger, when trust is often an issue, they shouldn't ty and make you stop feeling what you're feeling, you are there to be allowed to feel what you need to feel and explore it. I really do believe that "dysregulating" is a horrible word that would never be used on someone who was NT, its a word that attempts to invalidate and delegitimise our feelings and we need to refuse to let others define us this way, it seems to be used like "hysteria" was a century ago.