System Fractures

I’ve been in my head about the termination I went through this year (the one that happened by email), and every time I try to write about it, I end up drowning in shame and deleting everything.

Not just shame, honestly. It’s also this feeling that my thoughts start spilling out in ways that feel unaligned with who I am. Even when everything I type is true, it feels mean, and it feels like I’m shit-talking, and that’s just not something I like to do.

I keep telling myself I’ll take it to therapy, and I will, but it’s hard, because I need some way to release this between sessions in a way that doesn’t wreck me. And I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. Writing it in my notes app doesn’t feel cathartic at all. I just end up sitting with the shame in silence, holding something that still feels too big and too confusing to carry alone.

Part of why this feels so heavy is because I don’t feel believed. I don’t have a professional reputation in the community. I don’t have a title or letters behind my name. And when something happens in a therapy room, or ends in a way it never should have, it’s easy to feel like your voice has no weight. Like your desperation to feel heard erased any likelihood of people seeing the truth spilling out of you.

I’m angry that I let myself get into that situation in the first place.

Angry that I didn’t trust the red flags that were there before everything unfolded.

Angry that a place I was supposed to be able to trust ended up hurting me more.

And I don’t know.

I’m not so sure I’ll ever have a therapy experience that lets me fully heal without adding more to the pile.

Part of me expects this to go south at some point. Will my natural way of existing and wanting to connect on a deep level cause my therapist to care too much? Will my propensity for saying what I see directly cause a defensive reaction where they leave?

I’m not saying I can’t learn to be less direct and more soft in my approach. I’m not saying I have nothing to learn or no involvement in how a dynamic is shaped or plays out. Because I have reflected on my own part in things, how I showed up, and the ways I need to shift.

But I’m fucking scared that I haven’t learned enough for someone to stay with me through it. I’m fucking scared. I don’t know if I have it in me to keep trying if this time fails in pain again. I really don’t think I do. And I’m not going to tell my current therapist this because that’s a lot of pressure from a history she had no involvement in.

I’m just… I don’t know. I can’t figure out what I need to do differently so that I don’t keep ending up hurt. I guess there’s still a part of me with enough hope to want to open up and let her in. To want to believe she can stay.

And the thing is, I want the person I’m working with to be able to connect with me in a real way.

I actually need that to be able to work through my stuff.

I really think the system is flawed. I think the way it’s set up makes it too easy to mimic attachment patterns and end in ways that mimic attachment trauma. I’m not saying there isn’t a need for structure, boundaries, and rules. But I think they’re too rigid, and I think that stops people like me, with my history, from getting the full therapeutic experience they need to not get damaged more.

Do I have thoughts on how that could change in a way that’s safe for both parties?

No.

Because I haven’t allowed myself to go there.

Because if I do, all I’m going to feel is more anger at the systems in place and how they don’t always protect the clinician or the client.

Authors Note:

I strongly believe that caring too much wouldn’t be an issue if there wasn’t so much stigma/shame about it that therapists feel alone in it and feel like they can’t talk about it amongst their peers and in supervision. That’s the systems fault. The system is failing both therapists and client and it’s fucking maddening.