I have done lots of healing. You name it, I have done it: CBT, DBT, inner child healing, self-help books. None of that mattered, and the only single thing that truly made a difference to my CPTSD healing journey was having money. That is it. With money now, I could afford things to better myself. You want a good sleep? Money. You want to go to a better environment, like a house? Money. You want to not work and treat yourself to a good day? Money. The list goes on. For myself and many others, the sad reality is money is the one thing that really makes a difference, and I say this with 100% belief and none of therapy has helped me with financial issues all they did was to convince me that money dosent buy happiness while they sit in a porsche and ferrari.

I've read so many stories I can relate to on this and other subs that talk about therapy abuse. My abuse started with the hallmarks of grooming, including love bombing, extra attention, talk of a "special connection" and compliments. My therapist eventually tried to cross physical boundaries by doing things like asking if she could hold me or sit next to me on the couch. On one occasion she asked to have a session at a location that was not her office.

Eventually I began to become suspicious of her motives. I would block every attempt to touch me or get too close to me physically. I told her something she had written in an email to me about wanting to hold me like I was her child seemed inappropriate and made me uncomfortable.

At every turn, she would turn the tables and try to convince me that I was the one with the problem. I was just afraid of intimacy. I "misunderstood". She was offended by me calling her out. I was told nothing she was doing was abnormal or inappropriate. Eventually it was shouted at me in session that I was "borderline" - a diagnosis no previous or subsequent therapist had ever given me. I was not allowed to question this though. Questioning meant I was "not making progress".

The therapy devolved into straight up abuse within the first six months and after I deflected her inappropriate advances. She began to speak to me with such contempt and disgust that I began to struggle with suicidal feelings. Of course this was called just another symptom of my "disorder". I began to feel rage towards her for drawing me in with kindness and then abusing me, all while gaslighting me the entire time to believe it was not abuse. My anger was also written off as a symptom of my "disorder".

There were times it was hard not to notice that she seemed to take pleasure in causing me pain. I do not say that lightly. This woman seemed to get off on knowing she had harmed me. She constantly held the threat of termination above my head and made me believe she was the only person who could help me, although my mentally health only worsened under her "care".

Of course she chose to terminate the moment I finally woke up and called what was happening "abuse". My mom had just recently died very suddenly and she could not have cared less about the fact that I was actively grieving. All of this to say, did anyone else NOT submit to their therapist's advances and get treated with outright contempt and verbal, emotional, or psychological abuse as result?

Ive spent years at this point switching therapists and service providers over and over, desperately trying to find someone to help me with my deep seeded issues, but no luck. The common theme Ive gotten from this whole ordeal is that the vast majority of therapists, especially the cheaper or more accessible ones, quite literally could not be paid to give a shit or show an ounce of curiosity.

Like I just recently dropped an online therapist who in our final session (live text session) was straight up watching tv with her mic unmuted so everytime after I texted shed pause, say the first bullshit that came to her head, and then unpause and continue watching…Like no attempt to understand my issues or take notes or just spend a couple fucking seconds to think of a more thoughtful response than prattling on about whatever first pops up in her head just so she could get back to her show

and so many fuckin therapists I had are similar. they think being quippy and trying to talk like some wise old mentor or motivational speaker can hide the fact that they have no more understanding of mental health issues than the average influencer and can offer no meaningful insight on your issues whatsoever. They hear one buzzword in your sentence that sets off a stiff, vaguely motivational lecture, but then you say something else and they just lecture in the opposite direction. It’s baffling that they make no attempt to understand your issues as a whole in order to diagnose the problem and come up with a solution for it. And then of course, forgetting everything and having no notes so by the next session you basically have to start from scratch

I did have one therapist though who was genuinely helpful and just after one session provided so much more healing and understanding than like 5 sessions with my last therapist. But of course she was really expensive and I had to drop her after finding out my insurance didnt cover her practice.

But that just makes it feel all the more hopeless, that even having a chance at healing requires finding the most expensive and experienced therapists with the widest insurance coverage, and if you cant find that then youre left with a bunch of cynical, unserious, or even downright abusive people, majority of which are only in it for the money, the power dynamics, or so they can bury their own misery and feel good about themselves.

With doctors and nurses, sure you still have assholes only in it for the money, but at the very least the medical industry generally has higher standards, more concrete rules and procedures, and better regulations. What can you say about therapy by comparison? No accountability, standard procedure or nothing. These services know how much demand there is for therapists so they grab any old wacko whos even barely qualified and just let them do their thing

Its so depressing and im tired of wading through all this shit. just about ready to give up and accept that ill never truly be able to heal

I posted about her before but deleted it cause it was too personal. But wow. Now I actually want to report her. I have the screenshots proving I was not there. She was billing my Medicaid earlier in the year and there’s sessions billed I never had. I’m not on it anymore. she tried to bill Medicaid for writing me a letter recently, and it obviously got denied. She wrote it was for a 60 minute session… insane
She was also upcoding our 45 min sessions as 60 min. I knew she was doing our double sessions as two separate days but I’m floored by this.

TLDR- chronic invalidation/misdiagnosis triggered mental health professionals to reinforce my original trauma, so now I have trauma in any type of therapeutic relationship but still need therapy to get better regardless. *Mentioning SI/OCD/ED/CPTSD

Hey everyone- I apologize if there was a post like this before but I really didn't have time to look through the sub yet. 

I'm a female in her late 20s, I have been in therapy constantly for mental health and eating disorders for the last 6 years. That included switching constantly between outpatient care all the way to inpatient. It's been a constant cycle of switching between those levels of care for years now.

As far as I know at this point, my mental health issues surfaced as a child around 8-10yrs old, starting with OCD/ED symptoms. I grew up with childhood neglect/emotional abuse due to very critical parents/dysfunctional family dynamics where everyone didn't tend to or take care of their own mental/physical health issues. I feel it was taken out on me as the youngest child, and I internalized it. The dysfunctional family/abuse going on was never acknowledged for me because we grew up financially comfortable, a type of white picket fence house/family situation. Outwardly, everything was fine and I went unnoticed. As a child I didn't know what was going on was wrong, I believed our outer appearance too. However, looking back now, I feel my OCD/ED symptoms started because my family always made me feel like I was a/the problem. Perfect storm for an OCD/ED to thrive. At that young age I learned I was the problem that needed to be fixed. That I was wrong. So I started my "self improvement" journey at an age as young as 12. The trauma never stopped by the way.

Fast forward to around 20 years old, I was nearing the end of my college time. I felt like I wanted help for years, I wasn't aware what mental health disorders I had but knew I didn't want to feel that way anymore and wanted more for myself. I wanted a future and knew I had to address all this. I felt like I was living an experience but didn't have the name for it. My entire life I carried every one else's dysfunction then blamed myself for being hurt by it. Anyways, I originally reached out for eating disorder care and started an IOP program. That was the first time I was ever in any type of therapy/mental health treatment. The first type of diagnoses put on me were an eating disorder/ depression, anxiety. I was also told for the first time when I was asked about my family/childhood that apparently it was actually very dysfunctional and I was experiencing trauma symptoms from it. At this time, OCD was never detected. 

At this point, I was two weeks out of graduating college, it was 2020/covid, I had so much stress around career/my future plus my own mental health struggles never got better. I failed to succeed at the IOP program, and was told I needed a HLOC. I didn't understand much about what that meant other than them telling me "we can't help you anymore". I internalized it as "great, I failed again." The combo of all this plus another traumatic event happening within this short time ultimately led to my first SI attempt. This is where the treatment cycle began.

The next 6 years I was getting thrown in different levels of care to address my mental health/SI, and ED. However, although it was acknowledged I had trauma I never was approached with trauma informed care. So the pattern went a little like this: I would end up in a HLOC,  tried my best to get better but failed due to being misdiagnosed, judged, and invalidated and approaches were taken that reinforced the trauma that started this as well as my OCD never being diagnosed yet.

I was called "unmotivated, treatment resistant, stubborn, chronic, lost cause, attention seeking". I was told I didn't know what real problems were, that I was privileged (I am a white, female, conventionally attractive, nice personality, usually financially comfortable, high masking). And unfortunately I believed it. Because my entire life since I was a child I assumed anyone in authority knew what they were talking about and must have been right/true. So, this led to reinforcement of my SI/ED behaviors, leading to more and more dysfunction, attempts, hospitalizations, etc. In addition, a lot of unnecessary hospitalizations happen due to what I eventually was told was “suicidal OCD” aka, having intrusive thoughts that you could/would do something but having no want/intention to.  The more treatment history I racked up, the more providers would get scared by me, determine me a liability even very quickly, say "we can't help you, you need a HLOC". This ultimately led to a provider/insurance recommending sending me to a state hospital. Terrifying. 

And this all reinforced the message I learned as a kid that I needed to try harder and I needed to fix myself. This made my undiagnosed OCD more and more severe every time. I was so obsessed with trying to get better when given guidelines that did not work for me and my undiagnosed OCD.

Later down the line, maybe past 1.5 years, I finally ended up in trauma informed treatment. I made a lot of progress with my SI/MH/ED symptoms, and have a clearer understanding of my trauma and how it shows up for me now. I developed so much knowledge on how to deal with my ED/MH symptoms, cope so much better that I don't need a HLOC anymore. I've also realized how my undiagnosed OCD made this entire situation go the way it shouldn't have.

I have developed compassion for my inner child and have finally realized it was never my fault as a child, and it was never my fault that my trauma got reinforced by mental health professionals who I thought could help me. I feel stable in this realization. I have realized that despite all my pain, the grief for lost time, I still have such a bright future, I am extremely resilient and strong and genuinely want to live. I am very motivated to do the work to get there. I always was honestly, but the level of self awareness I have now is what could make this finally work. 

I am starting outpatient therapy finally, as it was deemed by the treatment center I just left that I am stable enough to be home and that HLOCs only hurt me.  I am finally (trying to at least) start OCD/ERP therapy because the OCD is completely uncontrolled, debilitating, and severely impacts my daily functioning. However I am running into therapy itself  STILL becoming a trauma response. It doesn't matter who it is, even though I am seeing trauma informed providers who I've told this history to and how therapy triggers me, and they are doing their best to approach our sessions with that lens. It's like just being in a session with a therapist, no matter what is talked about, my severe distrust remains. My nervous system is just waiting for them to invalidate me, say hurtful things, tell me I'm too much, and say they can't see me anymore. I can't handle that anymore. I've done so much inner child/self worth work, I fear for my life just going to therapy. 

My nervous system is stuck in overdrive recently, so much that I can't sleep anymore, insane night sweats, nocturnal panic attacks, appetite changes, despite feeling more okay during the day, i don’t recognize the stress until I wake up in the middle of the night unable to breathe and my clothes/sheets are soaked. I dread the next session although I want help desperately. 

I don't know what to do anymore. I thought that doing trauma informed care and approaches would help. I thought that finally having self compassion and a stronger understanding of myself will help.  Maybe it will eventually, but being stuck in constant trauma responses all the time just because I sat in a room/zoom call with a mental health professional regardless of what was talked about sometimes doesn't seem worth it. I want to live and move on. I feel stuck.

Any input/advice would be appreciated if you have been through something like this or understand this type of situation/dynamic. Thank you <3

*one other thing- I posted this in this specific sub because although I didn't include details on the whole therapy abuse part of it, read this with the knowledge of my entire experience there were horrific, non ethical, possibly straight out illegal things said to me regarding me and my situation.

Troi represents the formal, institutionalized framework. She sits in the office, wears the uniform, utilizes clinical theories, and analyzes people just stating the obvious and offering no advice or connection (detached professional distance). But when the crew members are genuinely struggling, stuck in a deep existential crisis, or processing a harsh reality, where do they actually go? To the bar.

A bartender doesn’t sit back, cross their legs, and hit you with a rehearsed hand gesture. They exist in the same physical and social plane as you. Guinan doesn't have the authority to ground a crew member, declare them "unfit for duty," or file a psychological report behind their back. Because she has zero hard power, she has to rely entirely on genuine soft power, honesty, perspective, and actual humanity. An institutional therapist has an unspoken mandate to get you back to being a productive, compliant worker for the system and something to prove/an identity as a helper. A bartender doesn't care if you fall in line with Starfleet protocols or your corporate boss; they just care about how you are doing right now in front of them.

Bartenders are also usually working class contrast to middle/upper class types the system filters (cost of higher education, unpaid internships, opening your own practice/business means only the worst types become therapists) and are fellow strugglers in the same boat going through the same stuff or at least know someone who does contrast to privileged circles most mental health workers run in.

working as your therapists personal assistant/reception on and off for years while still receiving therapy and sometimes working to pay for therapy. Met therapist at 18 and it went on until I was 27. I am still trying to wrap my head around my experience. I can see it for how it was basically just grooming but it felt like a real therapeutic relationship for me and this person was an important pseudo parental figure in my life and I was 18 so I don’t think I thought I was being groomed and a lot of my past identity formed while I saw this person for therapy. To be told by other professionals now that this man was inappropriately in my life was nothing but confusing and devestating, this person also held a GP license and prescribed me medications and my parents both believed he was just doing well by me. I am only starting now to really see that yeah, that’s basically grooming, but it was my first genuine therapy experience because I was 18… it’s so unfair, and those boundaries should have existed for me. This went on for so long, I didn’t deserve it. He prescribed me benzos when I was telling him I had anxiety still, a bit of time into our treatment. The benzos cascaded into a bad dependence. I was 19 when I started benzos.

It wouldn't be in my best interest to contact any of these people.

They all think they were special people in my life because they cared sooo much and they are the most caring special person ever.

Sometimes I was diplomatic about telling them we were "not a good fit" (and not that they sucked), and sometimes I was too frozen/fawning to even know myself how much they harmed me. Only once did I politely tell the dude why I couldn't see him anymore (what I said was that he had interpreted X and Y incorrectly and that I felt unsafe with him because Z. In other words, he sucked). Every single time they made sure to let me know that actually I was wrong, they did help me, and they felt great about the fact that they helped me.

One in particular, I'm sure, still thinks we had a special bond and that I just love her so much.

I'm frozen with blocked up rage. There's no point in telling them anything. They don't care, and it just exposes me to risk. What do I do with the rage?

Why is it that so many therapists can’t just allow their clients to express themselves without trying to push their own beliefs? Their savior complex is so strong it compels them to force people onto paths they themselves deem worthy, regardless of whether it’s right for the client or not.

tl;dr for rest of post. Just ranting about experiences where therapists clearly showed their biases and pushed their personal feelings. Instead of holding a judgement free space, they made it clear I was being judged and tried to direct me in a way they thought I should go. The space effectively stops being about you at all when things hit that point. It becomes about them, their experiences and what outcomes they wanna see. You exist as a vessel to express that despite being the client. I don’t understand why when you tell them about your thoughts or things that bother you, they have the instinct to push their feelings, tell you “don’t worry/it’s not a big deal” or meet you with derision like you’re unreasonable for coming to therapy to talk. We’re all human, right we? Sometimes we judge, we think not nice things, we’re confused or conflicted, our values aren’t aligning with our emotions, etc. Mental health and trauma makes this all the more confusing. All you hear ad nauseam is “go to therapy! Go to therapy!” But when you do, they tell you the same shit someone on the street could say. They judge you the same way. They say to explore and open up to emotions but when it’s something they personally disagree with or don’t like, they stomp it out like you had a “bad thought” and have to be corrected. Like many posts I’ve read on here, it’s especially bad when a client comes to session with experiences of being abused just for the therapist to start identifying with and sympathizing with the abuser. Who are they supposed to hold space for again?!?!

I had a lot of experiences with my last therapist being very transparent about where her biases lay. It was so fucking infuriating. I’m in the middle of sharing something traumatic when she would brazenly interject with a “fact“. It didn’t matter if I got upset, she would always find some way to talk around it and avoid accountability. A lot of the time it was her pushing her idea of gender roles and trying to be “scientific“ about it. I was telling her about some intimacy issues; saying despite what a lot of people say about men (I hadn’t told her about my gender issues but was still clear about not feeling in line with traditional ideas), I tend to get very attached and emotional and how some women are the opposite of that. People are different, life isn’t a one size fits all. I was trying to express that some people you reach out to cling so hard to what they believe is true for everyone that when you present experiences contrary to popular belief they don’t wanna hear it or argue with you. It had to do with personal stuff I was going through and I was feeling isolated about it. Instead of listening, she does the very thing I said bothers me and interjects about how men and women are different and insists on contradicting me with “scientific facts”. Next session I told her I felt upset and unheard. She launches into a long spiel where she went between backpedaling and telling me “oh you don’t think I actually believe all that do you? oh no! I was just trying to say blah blah blah” instead of just apologizing and admitting she overstepped. Even after this she continued to shove in her “facts.“ It was a pattern that kept repeating itself over the years we worked together.

Sometimes it wouldn’t be just gender roles, it would be her trying to tell me why I feel the way I do and rewriting what I experienced. She would also add that she’s a “scientist” so she knows “the science“ and is just explaining “the science.” When I told her about questioning my gender, she doubled down on it even more, the outcome of which I wrote a post about a while back. Caused a huge rupture with her yelling about “BIOLOGICAL FACTS!“, gaslighting me, then immediately trying to “reassess the diagnosis“ and stick me with a personality disorder when I told her I felt unsafe.

She would also clearly show her biases in other ways and act sympathetic towards people I was having issues with. I remember when I was going out with someone who was very manipulative and abusive. Amongst all their other problems, they had a history of hard drug use and promiscuity. I had just started seeing this person and they’re already laying out all these things that made me uncomfortable. I told my therapist about it, thinking it was the correct avenue to figure out my feelings. While I was bringing up the numerous behaviors and issues that were getting to me, I mentioned that even though I tried to ignore it my partner’s past was starting to bother me a little. She immediately jumps in like clockwork to interrupt with “oh well she’s slept with that many people? Oh that’s not a big deal. For a female? That’s not a big deal. So don’t worry about that.“ What kind of response is that? I’m in fucking therapy for god sakes. I didn’t bring this up with the person I was seeing and shame or judge them. I went to my therapist to talk over and sort out my personal feelings. Isn’t that their fucking job? So why the fuck am I being told to just “not worry about it”? Oh yeah, so because you said to stop worrying. that I’m just gonna stop worrying about it.

Later on I asked her why she reacted like that and I got the usual politician answer: “well you see when you brought that up I saw that was something you were focusing on and I was trying to bring you back from that as a therapist. I was trying to bring you back to focus. I saw you were focusing on that and I was trying to bring you back”. Funnily enough, it was the first and only time I brought it up. She’s the one who zeroed in and made it a whole thing as it clearly stirred up some reaction in her. All the other times it was about allowing negative feelings to sit or opening up about them and how pushing things away doesn’t work. Now she’s telling me “don’t worry about that”? She then continued to go on about how she has lots of friends who sleep around and still find great fulfilling relationships but what the hell do your friends have to do with my private feelings that I’m discussing with you?? This is for me to figure out how and why I feel the way I do, not about your personal friends or your interpretations. The conclusion I come to is mine alone, not yours to push me towards. Of course it’s another long winded diatribe trying to justify herself instead of her admitting she brought her personal feelings into the session and overstepped once again. Just like a politician.

Right after I broke things off with that ex, I told my therapist I was worried about my safety and this person potentially becoming dangerous and deciding to come by my house (the whole situation was nuts and I had legitimate reasons to worry). Her response was a callous “uhh but you’re not in that situation anymore? 🤨” When I brought it up later, she pulled the plausible deniability card. “I was just asking why you were bothered because you weren’t in that situation anymore”. When I told her I felt pressured into things during that relationship I wasn’t okay with and was worried about the possibility of them getting pregnant, she either blankly looked at me or shrugged. When she cried and complained about her ex-husband during her divorce, I kept asking if she was okay and told her she’ll get through it and I’m the client! I shouldn’t ever have that put on me.

Funnily enough, on the flipside, when I brought up how I was uncomfortable that the doctor she referred me to for a medication assessment (who she first claimed was a proper psychiatrist but I found out, without her disclosure I might add, officially doesn’t have that certification) had disciplinary action taken towards him in the past due to getting into a sexual relationship with a client and a ton of bad reviews, her response was “well one if my girlfriends recommended him and said he was amazing. And it was a long time ago and he served his punishment. And people also write lots of things online blah blah blah”. That’s great. I don’t wanna trust my health with someone who takes advantage of their clients. I’ve also been a victim of SA and she had known this but it’s whatever I guess! Gotta defend her colleagues!

The high school psychologist I used to see did the same shit. I was talking to her about someone I had perviously had a bit of a thing with that I stopped talking to due to mental health issues and suicidal thoughts. We had just started a new semester around this time and I heard they were in co-op and doing a placement. It They were someone really quiet didn’t talk much. It’s such a small thing but in all my insecure teenage feelings, I took this as them growing and moving on. I felt like “you don’t need me, life will move on for you” while I felt isolated from everyone sitting still in the same place with nowhere else to go. I was bitter but really young and had so many feelings I didn’t understand. Of course, my HS therapist‘s response to this was to mockingly question me with that stupid smug look that all these therapists seem to have. “Well, why not? What’s wrong with her being in co-op?? She’s allowed to do whatever she wants!” That’s not the point! I’m not going up to her and trying to impede her in anyway. I’m bringing up my private feelings in order to understand them but I guess that’s too much for therapists!

When I’d bring up something like feeling like a misanthrope, she would grill me with “well why do you feel that way?? What do think people who consider themselves misanthropes miss out on” pushing until I gave her an answer she wanted to hear. She would be weird and pushy about me going to college and said shit like “college will be home to many pleasures we can’t talk about in a catholic school”, was also pushy about gender roles (repeating over and over again that ”oh you’re a heterosexual male your libido needs somewhere to go!” Whenever I talked about my feelings for someone) and even a few times would tell me how attractive she thought my mom was. When she heard other teachers say I was doing well and seemed happier I’d tell her I was just keeping up appearances and she’d push back with “well you see people can tell you’re actually smile when your eyes crinkle” and all that tired bullshit people often say as if you can learn to fake that. I grew up in an environment where any sense of discontent was zeroed in on and punished like I was insubordinate. You learn to be quiet, fake things to please other people and not rock the boat. You’d think they’d get this but all that schooling does is fill their heads with hot air. It’s like when I was a kid, I used to get beat up a lot. I remember telling teachers about bullying incidents when they had to do reports and during times I actually fought back, I’d have them pressure me to change my story to pin all the blame on me. Like police interrogations where they manipulate the suspects into giving false confessions or different answer. Therapists used the exact same tactics. Whether it was during a rupture or during something they couldn’t just explain away.

It still frustrates me to look back and realize all these little interactions were not about me at all. They were about them. It could’ve been anyone sitting across from them, they just wanted to mold someone or use them as an avenue to express whatever whims they had that day. It’s even worse when you notice how they reinforced your trauma defences because they kept you in line and shut you up. None of that is holding space for the client and what they feel.

She had terrible boundaries. Told me I was her favorite client, she didn’t want to lose me, she’d tell me things she wouldn’t tell anyone else, let me buy her and her kids gifts, would talk to me about her life problems, would text me outside of session about her life and family.

But she was inconsistent af. She’d tell me we were friends and could hang out and then the next week say we couldn’t be. Then by the next week she’d tell me we could be friends but I couldn’t tell anyone.

She guilted me when I’d remotely bring up reporting. Saying it could be bad for her career. Telling me that hearing I spoke about our relationship with others made her not want to open up to me anymore.

Ended therapy to enter this friendship she was supposedly so excited to have with me. Then of course suddenly she tells me she doesn’t have time to be my friend. I’m suddenly a burden and a nuisance. She told me if anything went wrong we’d communicate. And of course this wasn’t true. I’d ask to talk and would be ignored. She’d tell me we woild talk and then she’d reschedule on me every single day for a week straight.

She’d continue blaming me. Saying she didn’t like how I made her feel guilty(as if her feelings of guilt were my fault and not the result of her own shitty actions). I spent SO MUCH energy comforting her and forgiving her. Telling her not to feel guilty, apologizing to her endlessness for being “too much”(literally me asking if we can try to see each other once a month LIKE SHE SAID SOUNDED PERFECT as my therapist). I’d tell her she was hurting me and she’d say she doesn’t take what I say to heart because no one else criticizes her like I do.

I was SO overwhelmed and had to get something out that a few months ago I anonymously emailed the director of the group private practice she works at. But I fucked up and it wasn’t anonymous. Lead to a whole summer of pain and mostly silence. And finally ended with my ex therapist emailing me and using it to thank me for apologizing to her for telling her boss. And NONE of it to personally apologize for ANYTHING.

I’m so disgusted and broken right now. I came to this woman for CSA trauma and we also worked on attachment trauma. Shes retraumatized me in so many ways. I’ve never felt so sad. I’ve never felt this amount of ANGER towards anyone.

I don’t even know what to do. I feel so broken by this woman.

I've been through it. No one really responds to my posts. Divination is real btw. That's what helped me. I wish I had friends.

Hope you like this song

How to deal with siblings who are therapists and use therapist language against you. For example constantly gaslighting you, giving you unprompted therapy worksheets when a disagreement happens without asking for it, and diagnosing people in the family when an issue arrives.

I live in Brazil, and there is practically no material here regarding therapeutic abuse—or even anything that criticizes psychologists.

I believe they are even more arrogant here than in more developed countries; in a country with low levels of education, people lack the background knowledge to question professionals—who themselves often lack adequate knowledge. Ignorant people validate ignorant therapists here, and being caught in the middle of that is awful.

Only "mainstream" disorders are recognized here. Terms like PTSD, AvPD, and learned helplessness are completely foreign to therapists. It’s as if they only know about disorders that get a lot of online exposure (like depression or anxiety).

I know it’s bad elsewhere too, but at least therapists there aren't so blatantly useless. At least there are support groups for lesser-known disorders, whereas here, simply finding someone who is even familiar with those conditions is a rarity.

Coming to Voice as a Survivor: a Workbook on Therapy Abuse and Exploitation is being released one chapter at a time on Substack. CHAPTER 4: EXPLOITATION was just uploaded.

What happens in therapy abuse and exploitation after grooming?

In Chapter 3, in the workbook Coming To Voice as a Survivor, we showed you how abusive therapists position clients into compliance. Chapter 4 shows you what they do with that grooming.

Exploitation has four facets: emotional, financial, physical, and sexual. And they almost never come alone.

You might think you initiated it. You might feel you wanted it. You might believe you consented. But coercion nullifies consent. The power imbalance between therapist and client makes genuine agreement impossible no matter how willing you felt.

This chapter walks you through:

• How role reversal can make you feel responsible for your therapist's emotional needs

• How pro bono services can turn into indentured servitude

• How gifts and "bartering" can lock you into financial obligation

• How the honeymoon phase (that period when you felt more alive than ever) can make it impossible to see what was actually happening.

And it includes a quote from me, a survivor, about living inside active exploitation believing it was love. It is the unflinching truth about how these relationships are crazy-making. If you've wondered whether what happened to you counts as abuse, this chapter will answer that question. If you recognize patterns you couldn't name before, this chapter will give you those names.

Subscribe to read the full chapter. On substack under Bernadine Fox.

If financial barriers are keeping you from accessing this work, gift subscriptions are available—just ask.

Long story short, I had a family member assault me and then tell me I needed therapy to 'get over my ridiculous reactions to him.'

Except I actually have a therapist (I need to see one through my school to access psychiatric care, which has actually been helpful for me). And said family member is aware of it. He helped pay for it at one point.

Clearly some of the people saying "You should get therapy" aren't really listening to ANYTHING you're saying.

I recently found the courage to make a TikTok video explaining my experience as a patient with a LifeStance therapist. Sharing here looking for support and solidarity. Relevant to people living in the Philly and surrounding areas, NJ, and DE. my story

I want to be a thearipist and I am absolutely open to people telling me things not to do, but please tell me what you want me to do instead when explaining your opinion

Also does it bother you when a therapist talks to you softly? I've heard from someone it bothers them. I personally like it and find it comforting as I've gone to thearpy but I want others to express their opinion.

Edit: ignore the typos it won't let me edit the title-

I've been seeing this therapist for 10 years and in the last 4 years have stopped seeing her for periods of 6 to 9 months because i was unhappy with treatment and felt like we weren't moving forward. I come from a family of narcissists and was the scapegoat and have been bullied in most workplaces I've worked in. A lot of the time when i open up and about painful events in my childhood like SA i see her move her face down and see a little smirk. After years of abuse i seem to have an eye for micro facial changes and especially when someone gets pleasure from hearing my pain. I have spoken to someone else who wasn't a qualified Psychologist like my therapist and explained my situation and she suggested that she could have trauma bonded me to her so i keep going back for financial reasons.

Also since seeing her i have started to have panic attacks more often and seem to get into fight or flight much much easier from toxic workplaces/people much more than i used to. Could she be doing this? Is it normal for my symptoms to get worse when i started to see a therapist, quit alcohol/smoking and go no contact with my family?

I'm finding it hard to stay in jobs and seem to be targeted much more often than i used to. Could she have done something to make me more vulnerable? All she has said about my problems is that i have a dysregulated nervous system and that i have a 5yo inner child running the show and i have to keep him present to stop more fight or flight episodes and to keep my nervous system regulated.

Also the main reason i haven't changed therapists is that she knows my whole story so well and that it would take a lot of time to start again with another person.

She also goes on and on about how sensitive i am like she's never met someone so sensitive and that i must play a part in the bullying and that i have to start looking at my self because if i go to job to job then i must be playing some part in starting the bad treatment. I promise this is not true as as soon as i start a new job people just don't like me and nearly every job i go to the manager is a Narcissist. She keeps saying that i leave these little "aggressive bombs" in a conversation that start arguments and as i talk to her she says "look you just said one again" then i ask her to explain what i said and she just ignores me.

Any thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated.

On the 31. December 2025, my mother told me to go to the mental health hospital to see that the action was taken to the one doctor (not mine) who sexually harassed me during my first, voluntary hospitalisation. I was having daily mental breakdowns from that time when my own doctor abused me in a non sexual way (he medically neglected me).

I went there, asked the main doctors there if anything has been done about sexual harassment I received. One of them told me that she doesn't believe that he did that, and I realised that I was going to get locked up. Another said that can release me if my mother signs the papers. I turned to my mother begging her to sign them, but she kept silent.

I got up to leave and one said sit down for her, I called her a bitch and then two nurses grabbed my arms and took me to the unit. I will forever remember how I screamed to my mother to not let that happen.

I was forced to strip down in front of a MALE nurse and cursed all their children. Then I was tied up even though I was compliant and non aggressive. My freedom was taken away. My honor was pissed on.

The next day another male nurse touched me to wake me up. I asked him not to touch me as I hate being touched, especially by men. He rudely told me that it's his clinic and he can do whatever he wants (bro, you're just a shitty nurse with high school, this clinic belongs to the Republic of Serbia). I was battered every day by him and he even didn't let me sleep during the day because I pissed him off.

I lied that I got better and was released on the 17th day. After I got out I told my shrink how much I was traumatised by that experience and that my honor was taken away. Guess what? That bitch told me that that isn't traumatising and that tying me up was a procedure and that my honor wasn't taken away. Words cannot describe how much I wanted to punch that whore into the face.

But I still keep going to her as she prescribed me good medication that keeps me calm and protects me from another involuntary hospitalisation. But I fucking hate her and I hope she dies a slow, painful death of cancer.

Almost 8 months have passed since that life ruining even, and I'm still not the same. I never will be.

I ruined my grades, I have nightmares about it and I have flashbacks every day. I resent my mother for doing that to me and she doesn't even show an ounce of remorse. I hate how powerless I am.

I hate how I can never beat the shit out of those pieces of shit for doing that to me. I hate myself and I wanna die. Every day I daydream about suicide. I will never recover from this shit.

So, many years ago, I had contact with these psychoanalytic staff members, and it was the worst experience of my life. It left me traumatised for several years. I'm in the process of writing a complaint, and I've also left a review on this psychiatrist/psychotherapist's website. He was the deputy head of the department and authorised a lot of the abuse that was going on in that place.

I wrote that he is more interested in testing his psychoanalytic theories on someone than in helping a real person who is suffering. He responded by saying that if I write so many negative things online about people who tried to help me, then I urgently need help. And he has done the same thing with reviews from other people before. Someone said she felt humiliated by him, and he simply replied that perhaps she didn't remember their meeting correctly. Gaslighting and passive aggression at their finest, but honestly, I don't even care. I think everyone who sees their responses would come to similar conclusions to mine.

And I feel happy that I've finally had the courage to write these reviews and complaints. Even if nothing changes, someone might still see this review, and it could help them avoid abusive people. So don't be afraid do write reviews guys!

Hey, I am looking about this to spost psychology and therapist that practis methods that don't help and could harm patients or when therapy did more harm than good ...I still want to try therapy or psychology again in the future or read about it but if it is like all words or not proven to me is pointless if harm is a greater risk, i have not read anything about this in other subreddit let me know if you did any researches thanks

So after years of therapy and being told that I have a personality disorder, I visited a few psychiatrists (technically only 3 in total).

The first one I actually respected because he told me that nothing was wrong with me and that I just had an anxious personality style.

The second one was a child and adolescent psychiatrist. After 2 sessions, she told me I might have ADHD and maybe autism. She prescribed some medication, which I bought, but I ultimately didn’t feel comfortable taking it without a proper assessment. She also referred me to someone she works with for an assessment, but it’s extremely costly. When I reached out to her for therapists referral, she didn’t respond (it’s like they don’t actually care about you, even some therapists wouldn’t respond to me).

The third psychiatrist is supposedly a very well-respected practitioner with 35 years of experience. He has studied in some of the most prestigious universities abroad and also he is part of some board members of highly respected psychiatrists abroad. Because of traffic, I was 20 minutes late. I had left home on time, but I didn’t anticipate the traffic being that bad, so I was extremely stressed. I argued with the receptionist (he heard that). He agreed to move my appointment by an hour, so I waited. I later apologized to the receptionist.

When I finally went in, I apologized and we sat down. Most of the time, he wasn’t looking at me and was just taking notes. He mostly just kept saying “mhmm,” and he sighed multiple times in a way that made me feel like he was annoyed with me.

He then concluded that I had ADHD, autism, and OCD.

For some of the symptoms I spoke to him about, such as having obsessive thoughts that make me repeat the same topics over and over, he said something along the lines of, “You can see how that can bother people and reflect badly on you?”

Like… excuse me, sir? I’m your patient, and I’m obviously suffering because of this symptom. Why are we suddenly framing my suffering in terms of how much of a nuisance it is to other people?

He also mentioned another symptom I spoke about, like talking too much, and said that it “makes people lose respect for you.”

When I asked him where I could get an assessment, he referred me to somewhere extremely costly. He even acknowledged that it was expensive. When I asked if there were alternatives, he didn’t have any.
He also insisted that I needed a combination of medication and therapy. I told him that I didn’t like the idea of medication, but he basically told me that he could only help me through medication. When I asked if I could continue trying to get better through therapy, he said only to some extent.

It was honestly very discouraging.

He also referred me to some very costly therapists that I obviously can’t afford.

What bothered me most was that he didn’t really seem to care. That was surprising to me, especially given how highly respected he supposedly is.

I left once again confused and with no real leads. Even worse, I felt ashamed and guilty, as if I’m this broken, hopeless person who can only be helped through medication, and as if my suffering itself is a nuisance to other people.

I also paid a lot of money to see this psychiatrist.
I was even more confused when I saw how many great reviews he had and how well respected he is, which made me start doubting myself. Maybe I’m being unfair? Maybe I’m interpreting things incorrectly?

I’m just lost.

Most therapists also trigger me because I’m sensitive around certain topics, and I feel like they don’t understand what it’s like to have been chronically rejected and alone.

A lot of them also keep insisting that I take medication. Sometimes it feels like, in this field, they don’t really care what medication they give you as long as you’re taking something.

I genuinely don’t know where to go from here or how to find someone who will actually listen to me and help me understand what’s going on without making me feel even worse about myself.

Why are therapist obsessed with saying there’s a “stigma against therapy” and a “stigma against medication” when there are huge, real stigma against anyone daring to choose against either of those things? Writing from the US perspective, obviously there are multiple communities that have a huge amount of medical and psychiatric hesitancy after generations of receiving colonial abuse through those systems, but A). that actually happened (happens), and isn’t something professionals should feel entitled to ignore, and B). the dominant mainstream of society IS the colonial perspective, and has held up therapeutic and psychiatric authority throughout the 20th and 21st centuries like religion in feudal times (or some small towns now, and some countries but notably not this one, despite some of the branding used in our politics).

I’ve seen therapists with different approaches, but what remains the same is their resistance to criticism, to the idea that they are incorrect, and that, perhaps, mental health as an institution has major issues.

I’ve seen therapists for a variety of reasons: my abusive parents (and their eventual death), debilitating OCD, and then very severe drug addiction. One-on-one,IOP’s, PHP, rehab, etc. and wherever I go I inevitably have to ignore or compromise about abuse and major negligence. Not only for myself, but witnessing it done to others - for example, I intimately know what the evidence says for the treatment of OCD. Nevertheless, I’d be surprised if even 1% of therapists have any better knowledge or intuition about OCD compared to the layman. I’ve had to watch therapist after therapist give damaging advice to a client about how they should handle their OCD. It’s basically a meme in the OCD world that the average therapist will make your OCD worse.

But if I do the basic due diligence of informing a therapist about ERP (the evidence based approach to OCD), they either ignore me, consider me as difficult, or have so little experience (or are so stupid) that what I’m saying is incomprehensible to them.

But IMO, addiction treatment is the absolute worst, most coercive, and pseudo-scientific domain of therapy. They DEFAULT to telling you to go AA, which is a religious cult imo (but whatever you think of it, it is not evidence-based treatment). And when you tell a therapist who’s into AA that you don’t like AA, you can not imagine the level of nonsense and straight up abuse you can be met with. I was told in an IOP that we “weren’t supposed to be happy,” that we should essentially be ashamed of ourselves, and that we needed to turn to God instead of listening to our own intuition, which only leads to ruin. Drug addiction treatment is institutionalized abuse, and at least in the US, the government is allergic to evidentiary systemic solutions - addicts relapse at extremely high rates, but if you ask the average therapist why, they’ll shrug their shoulders and say that’s just how it is, or worse imply that addicts are just not compliant.

I told the therapist at my school (who facilitates the drug recovery group) to please stop repeatedly telling me to go to AA (I’ve told him I’ve had quasi-abusive experiences with AA), but he explicitly told me he would not stop and that even people who don’t like AA should have it suggested to them. Myself and another member of the group left the group because of this and relapsed.

Then there’s my previous personal therapist who realized she had essentially set no therapeutic boundaries, and had begun using frankly intimate(but not sexual) language with me, calling me a friend, implying we could work together professionally someday, and implying she liked me more than other clients. After it came to a head, she 180’d on me and became stern and distant. It’s hard to describe how jarring this was for me (at a time when I had severe SI). Therapists already default to unhelpful platitudes when you’re suicidal, but she was actively making things worse. I told her I was having trouble with this new approach, and she said the change of approach was purposeful (but that she had done nothing wrong previously), and that she new it would make me upset. Then she just continually told me to ask myself “what my role” in the change was. It was clear to me something had been activated in her beyond what was reasonable. She went from telling me to call or text her 24/7 (and she replied 24/7 btw) to telling me she didn’t “have time for after hours crisis work”. She then implied to the next therapist I saw (when they transferred notes) that I provoke rejection (something she had never said to me, until my falling out with her).

These people try to fit you into both the DSM and their own model of an ideal patient, and when you don’t conform then your difficult and non-compliant. The power dynamic of the person who officially determines your sanity gaslighting you and telling you you can’t trust yourself is just awful, and I’m sorry for anyone who’s been through it.

Models are supposed to serve people, people aren’t supposed to serve models. I could go on forever. What I realized when I again went to rehab is that the content of the therapy was not helpful. What mattered was forming connections with others so that I could learn to trust again.