Unfortunately, locking kids in closets and making them sit out in the sun at recess is standard punishment of special needs kids in many states. I know someone else from Arizona who went through that, and I personally went through that in Kansas.
Also in many states Black students are directed to special education programs, so there's often a racial element to designing the torture of special education students
A lot of narcissists go into the mental health field not because they actually want to help, but because it gives them power and influence over vulnerable people. Some of them believe they're trying to help, but the worst of them are deliberately, actively harmful because they get off on it.
I am convinced at this point that the person who scammed me got her psych degree specifically to be able to identify and manipulate emotionally vulnerable people more effectively.
Holy shit asking a SA victim if they thought it felt good? Particularly a child? I'd go after that shrink's license Also mental health care in this country is horrifically carceral, I've experienced it as an involuntary psych patient in a poor state-run hospital and a voluntary one in a rich private hospital. Both were terrible experiences
I knew a guy who couldn't wear long sleeves because of an asylum. There was snow and ice in the ground, he was manning an out door gate for hours, and still refused to even put on more than a vest. I was raised in the Dakotas, and even I was cold WITH a good jacket and body armor. Guy got PTSD for his suicidal treatment.
I'm pretty sure story 5 is mine, at least its the same as the one I posted on reddit a while back. I know in my case it happened nearly 40 years ago and it was very difficult to go after Dr's and therapists without some pretty concrete evidence and a hella lot of money to spend on lawyers.
@@mamabear444 it doesn't surprise me in the least. Some doctors are evil. Had a dentist cap all my teeth in the early 90's. I was under 6, and they started falling out the next week. Also had a doctor ignore my aunt's repeated complaints for a decade. It was very obvious cancer. Some people want the coat and the paycheck, but don't care beyond that.
Not a therapist but a school counsellor said I was not resilient and I was weak. Funny considering I have suffered multiple disabilities, physical and mental health issues my whole life and I am still smiling. I was 17 and had just broken my neck when the school counsellor told me this. After she said this, I went onto get a community award in a project that she was overseeing. I think she was just jealous of what I was achieving. I am now 32 years old and battling cancer and my psychologist said to me a few weeks ago “If someone asked me what the definition of resilience was, I would say your name.. you are the most resilient person I know”. This meant everything to me.
You've come out smiling through multiple disabilities, health issues, mental illness, and breaking your neck? I think you've got this. This is simply the final boss.
@@falconstudios146 Thank you! I have cancer and a deadly autoimmune disease now too, still smiling! 😁 I have my moments which is human and normal, but I pick myself back up again! ❤️
My youth psychiatrist on the crisisward was convinced all my behaviour (panic attacks, hyperventilation, catatonic state) was attention seeking. At an afternoon I was completely out of it, crying, she told me: "If you continue like this your parents will hurt themselves" This was over 18 years ago and I'm still mad, upset and feel like I can easily rip her a new one if I ever meet her again.
I had a therapist who told me all my problems was because my mum was an alcoholic... my mum was sitting next to me and she had, at most, one drink a week. I threw the prescription he gave me in the trash and it took years of struggling before I could bring myself to see another. it also greatly affected my mums own mental health. a few years later when in a meeting with a new, nicer and better therapist. I told her what the last one had told me and my mother, she immediately knew who it was and asked to see my mum. she told us how the last therapist had his licence revoked for how he treated patients and he apparently gave the same 'diagnosis' to everyone he saw, according to him the area I live in is plagued with alcohol abusing mothers, his diagnosis and treatments led to several suicides. I'm now doing a lot better. and my mum no longer blames herself when one of her children has an issue.
My mother is a very highly regarded psychotherapist in Sweden with a doctorate in Addictive diseases, among other things _(she works with many different people, but _*_mainly_*_ people who are addicts or have eating disorders - but also very much with people who have been abused in different ways, since the overlap between these diseases and abuse are very, very large)_ and I sent her this video and the answer I got from her was that she has never heard of such unprofessional behavior in her life, and almost all of these people _(except maybe the person who got the prompt wrong and the one who had great result with a not so "ordinary" therapist, whatever ordinary is - I know humor can be a big part of good counseling, depending on what you need, and calling out lies when they see them, at least when there's a report built, is great),_ shouldn't be working in a field that they OBVIOUSLY do not care about - or only cares about because of the sick power they CAN get over a persons life. She thought a lot of the people sounded like they abused their power, that's the main gist I got from her response - beyond that she was pissed off as all hell. She is by the way horrified that, generally in the US, it seems like the church a person is going to offer counseling, or that there are special "christian" counselors for people to seek out. That's a breach of everything that therapy is based on. Do NOT mix in your emotions about something that's so important to you as your faith in the search for healing. You may find some healing in the faith itself, but find your therapist/psychologist *outside* of the church system and make DAMN SURE they are not mixing in any sort of "faith based" advice into your therapy. They are supposed to listen, help and not judge. That's hard for *almost* every religious person to do *if* they mix their faith in with their job in listening to people who are blasting their souls on display in front of them. This is not something she said in context to the video, but she has hammered this home during my life. We are not religious, have never been, Sweden is not a religious country basically *at all* so I have never had these problems, but it can be a good thing for people in religious regions of the world to hear. Sorry if I sound like a "know-it-all", not my mission at all. Just wanted to share what she thought, as it could help someone.
"Then why haven't you done it yet?!" after I said I was feeling su*cidal. (I understand sometimes Therapists say this as a means of trying to jump the thinking process, to understand there are still things worth living for, with no intentions of harming their patient. But understand this, this wasn't my regular therapist. This wasn't even someone I was even seeing once in a blue moon. This was happening during an OFFICIAL EVALUATION for dissability retirement, and that was just the last thing after a whole slew of accusations of me being too lazy to work, making up my depression to get attention, and last but not least, informing me, that if it was for HER, I'd never get my disability, and instead would die homeless in a ditch with my kids growing up in foster care. And yes, I reported her.)
I had a counselor in rehab who asked me "would you consider the idea that your hallucinations are real and you're actually seeing and hearing spirits?" They're not real, they're hallucinations, and asking me that in the way that she did wasn't something that should have been said.
Your therapist might have wanted to gauge your answer to know the problem better. If she thought that for real then there is something seriously wrong with her.
"Well, maybe he was mad about something else and you just happened to be there when he decided to let it out?" Context: in middle school, one of my *many* bullies (the one who tended towards physical bullying) was the son of a teacher and the ex-principal. After he broke my arm, I was blamed for it because I punched him (after he attacked me, to get him to let go of me before my arm cracked) and got sent to a therapist to deal with my "issues" socializing with other kids in addition to being punished both at school and at home. That was the response when I told them what actually happened (that he blocked my locker that morning and became increasingly aggressive to the point of grabbing my arm and pulling it over his shoulder until it broke).
My therapist was slapped into my life because I was dealing with depression for specific reasons. The problem is my life is boring. I'd talk about what I was dealing with over the week (dull, dull and more dull). The actual reasons for my depression went away (my friend's problems that I was worried about eventually went away.) There was no reason for my depression anymore so I called off the visits. On the last day my therapist was called out of the room during our last session. Chuck, my therapist, came back into the room happier than I'd ever seen. He explained to me that I should be happy I wasn't the person he had just seen. The other half of the business was a general medical practice. My therapist explained to me that this patient was just determined to be HIV+. He said that I should be happy I didn't have his problems because he'd have to go home and tell his partner he was HIV+. My therapist was absolutely giddy. My advice is don't talk to Chuck. He betrayed a secret. I could have met and possibly known that patient in the waiting room. Chuck was more worried about making his life's work seem important than he cared about his patients. He broke the most professional and sacred trust in the world. Thank god Chuck didn't get into my childhood or he'd have very painful stuff about my life that would have given him bragging rights. Now that I'm not suppressing those memories, I'm glad I don't have someone like Chuck to betray my trust. I have a lot of problems to work out now that the repressed memories have come back, but I'm glad I didn't disclose them to Chuck. He disclosed a patient's deepest darkest secrets to me. God knows what he would have done with my nightmare memories. I could use help now dealing with the childhood memories I suppressed, but I simply can't trust a therapist. There's the way they market therapy to the world and then there's the way it actually works. No trust. Ho healing. And a whole myth built around the therapy world that they'll protect your secrets. What a load of crap.
my sisters therapist told her that she's just lazy. When she was finally able to get a new therapist, she got diagnosed with depression and generalised anxiety disorder. So, yeah, not just lazy. One of the caretakers in the clinic once told me that "sport helps with pain", every time i did sport my pain got worse and i had asked for pain meds multiple times that day and was told "to first try without", same guy later got fired for touching the girls. someone in the clinic told me how his therapist told him that "the voice wants the best for you", the voice told him to kill himself
I had a therapist who didn’t believe I wasn’t molested and told me flat out that they thought I was molested and “blocked it out”. Who does that? I mean it may happen to some people, but you let them find that memory themselves… you don’t try to plant one.
One therapist actually told me I should try drinking some wine before bed when I was an emotional wreck and couldn't sleep at night after the end of my first relationship (of 5 years). She KNEW I was diagnosed with ADHD (which makes you way more succeptible to alcohol addiction and others) and still sugested alcohol to me while in crisis. I'm so glad that I didn't take that advice. I've always been extremely careful about drinking alcohol and would never drink outside of the occasional social setting (and even if others are drinking I'll decline more often than not) and especially not while feeling down.
@@killuanatsume Having borderline, being autistic. Definitely would be clunky phrasing if they tried to separate the two, but that’s typically the preferred phrasing for each
The worst thing I ever hear wasn't said to me, it was said to a friend - a mental health nurse told my friend she would never get better unless she got some friends, to which my friend replied 'V is my friend', to which the mental health nurse said 'Her? She can't be your friend, she's autistic, THEY don't know how to have friends'.
The first therapist I went to as an adult. Spun in her chair all the time and just said “how did that make you feel?” In the autumn she commissioned a scarf from me (I’m very creative and have lots of skills) and I crocheted her one like she asked. Christmas rolls around, she’s trying to get out of paying me for the scarf cuz “$25 is too much” and then informed me I “complain too much”. It took me many years and major depression/suicidal thoughts and an exit plan to trust anyone to go back to therapy. Main reason why my plan got foiled? A cat I didn’t even want at the time that my twin thought would be good for me crawled into my lap for the first time ever that day. After many years of being my soul cat, he passed last year and I miss him terribly. ❤ RIP Ricky, my Catshine 😭💙
I told her I needed someone to unpack my trauma surrounding autism with. When I was 18 my mom told me that I had been diagnosed when I was 5 and nobody ever told me. It made everything in my life suddenly click into place, but left behind a lot of confusing feelings that I'm still dealing with to this day. She told me to take social classes and didn't touch on anything that I actually wanted to discuss.
I don't think OP misunderstood the prompt in story 7? If anything discovering that what happened to you was in fact a crime and not at all normal is honestly horrifying, discovering that how you were treated is the exception because you got unlucky and were put into the hands of deranged monsters. Its fucked, so even if the therapist was in the right it must have been painful.
The Story 13 guy is right. Those in abusive situations need to be prescribed a normal life away from their abusers. id say at least 2 years so they can live a normal life and use it to get on their feet. Alot of stuff goes away for a person if theyre allowed to do that in alot of cases. youll suddenly find that some of the people condemned as "useless" or "stupid" or "failures" end up being pretty damn great without all the toxicity and actually thrive. This is why high housing pricess are dangerous to people. They keep people in bad marriages and abuse situations if they cant afford to a place on their own
I told my first psychiatrist that i had voices in my head telling me to unalive myself and to cause harm to my body. He didn't even increase my medication. he just sent me off while I was sobbing. (I was 12 at the time, i believe.) No longer works in the field last I heard.
My last therapist was an older man. I specifically requested a female therapist, but he was the only one that had any availability for the next few months. So I begrudgingly scheduled with him. Basically all he did was recommend the Calm app, despite the fact that meditation makes my anxiety much worse. I often stopped being able to speak entirely during our sessions. The final straw for me was when I tried to open up about the abuse I faced growing up, and explained that I think I have PTSD because of it. He said there was no way I could have PTSD, because my abusers never physically harmed me or threatened to unalive me. And a lot of dancers faces abuse at the hands of their teachers, and I’m an adult now and I can’t keep holding onto that. I ghosted him and I’ve been hesitant to go back to therapy since. I’m on meds and overall doing better now, thankfully. But man he was such a dickhead
Over the years iv had a few bad therapist and sadly have a number of "worst thing a therapist has said to you" stories. One of my stories: TW - SA After I got out of a 4 year long a*usive situation (that included constant physical and s*xual a*use), which left me in a wheelchair (I was completely wheelchair bound for 3 years) and with really bad PTSD that I still suffer with today, I went to a neurological rehab to help me recover (mentally and physically) and relearn to walk, amongst helping with other daily living things. My first therapist there was supposed to help me develop coping mechanisms for my PTSD, work through my feelings about the a*usive situation I just left, and my feelings about how my life has changed so much after going from being able bodied my whole life to being completely wheelchair bound and house bound in a short 6 month period. I couldn't even stand up by myself, or walk a single step, when I started at the neuro rehab. Unfortunately this therapist did NOT help me. During our first session I gave her a run down of everything I had gone through, including details of the worst of the a*buse, the whole time I was talking I was uncontrollably crying and shaking, and when I finished talking she looked me in the eyes and said "wow, just get over it already and walk, it's not that hard". I left right then. I wheeled myself out of that room, a complete mess, and refused to attend any more therapy sessions until they gave me a new therapist. The neuro rehab was incredible and I'm so grateful to have been able to attend. Thanks to them I can walk again. Yes I use a walking frame all the time and still (5 + years later) occasionally use my wheelchair on my worse days, but atleast I am no longer trapped and having to rely on other people for absolutely everything. If your having issues with a therapist, or feel you aren't getting what you need out of ur sessions, it's worth switching to a new therapist. Sometimes therapy can be abit of a "hit or miss" situation, but please don't let one bad therapist stop you from getting the support you need. This story is my twin's: TW - Transphobia When my twin (29M) first came out as Trans (FTM), around the age of 18, my mum took him to see a therapist. This was to help my brother understand his identity better, to help him develop better coping strategies, and in the long term get him a Gender Identity Disorder diagnosis and get him on hormone treatments to help with his transition. Me, mum and younger sister were very supportive of my brother's transition and tried to support him as best we could, but we knew a specialist therapist would help him alot more than we could. The therapist my mum took him to see was supposed to be a specialist in Gender Identity Disorder and Gender Dysphoria. So on paper everything looked promising. However, near the end of their first session the therapist said something that made my brother refuse to go back, and in the long term really messed with him and set him back years in his transition. After my brother explained his situation and answered every question, my brother asked "what are my next steps? I don't know what to do." And the therapist, while smiling, responded with "Your a girl. Not a boy. Oh sweetie, your just confused. So you need to grow your hair out. Start wearing makeup, the more the better. Get a boyfriend. Start acting more feminine. And buy some nice girly clothes, a few dresses should help. That will make you look and feel like the girl you are. Don't worry, this is just a phase, your not a boy, your a girl, and if you do what I say then you won't be so confused anymore. After all you were born a girl, and you can't change that, no matter what you do". Honestly what the therapist said is one of the most vile and unprofessional things iv ever heard a therapist say to a trans person, and its one of the things that comes to mind whenever I hear stories of bad therapists. After that appointment my brother came out to the car crying his eyes out, shouting about how awful this therapist is and how he's never stepping foot in that building again. Which honestly his was completely understandable. Mum filed a complaint about the therapist, and then went on the hunt for a new therapist for my brother. After a few months of trying mum discovered a Gender Clinic an hour away, which was highly recommended in the area, so she got my brother on the waiting list, and a few months later my brother got his first appointment with this new clinic. When he came out of his first appointment there he was so happy and was really excited for his next appointment. He absolutely loved his new therapist and has been going there ever since. The gender clinic has helped him with every step of his transition and have been a massive support for him during the good times and the bad. My twin has known he was a boy since we were 3 years old, I was the first person he came out to, and iv supported him every step of the way. And today he is very happily living as the man he is and the man he was meant to be, massive beard and all :) Despite the rough start he had with a bad therapist, his transition is going very well and I've never seen him so happy. The right therapist for you really can make all the difference.
my previous psychiatrist would throw a rubber ball at me every time i said “i don’t know”. to this day i’m still afraid of saying i don’t know to someone of authority. i have a new one now and she’s great luckily! i’m sorry to everyone who had to go through things like that
my psychiatrist said she couldn't diagnose me with any personality disorders or just general disorders despite me having so many symptoms that affected me in my life. She said it was because i had "too many friends to be crazy" One year later, things got worse and i went to another psychiatrist and turns out i was diagnosed with not only autism but schizotypal personality disorder with a very bad thought disorder
There are definitely a few therapists in these stories who should easily be held accountable for ruining another person's life (or at least helping to do so.)
When I went to middle school, I had some really bad panic attacks almost every day. My mom sent me to the school counselor who my brother had previously gone to and said she was super nice. So, I went and for some reason they didn't give me the school counselor to help me, but instead a random hall monitor who was known for being super strict and mean. Anyway, instead of helping me feel safer at school or whatever she was supposed to do, she told me to list what made me anxious, even though sometimes I didn't have a reason. When I listed something, she would just scoff and say something like "oh that's not a reason to get upset" and things like "Well just stop being scared of that" and "just stop having anxiety." It was terrible and my mom didn't make me go back.
All of my 5 mental health "professionals" that I had including the one I have right now straight up tried to gaslight me into getting mentally healthy. First one (a psychologist) didn't even said anything like 99% of the time and when she did like one time I said I tried to kill myself last night and plan to do it again this week in a more dangerous way, she said "This will pass too, you just can't see it because you're too young!". Second one (psychiatrist) didn't have time, like never and he told me to only come if there was something wrong with my meds. When I told me concerns about being neuradivergent (probably both ADHD and autism) he brushed it off, saying "he'd understand it from my eye". If I tried to get an appointment it'd be 4-5 months later so he told me to just slide in after a client went out before next one can come in, and we'd talk for max 5 mins about what's wrong so he'd lower or higher the dosage. Third one was at the psych ward because I harmed myself and it needed serious medical attention and if I didn't go to ward, they'd put my mom and dad to jail if I did something similiar for not letting me get the care I needed. Lots of things happened that summer but that's another story. The doctor there gave me a medication which made my left arm go numb and it even felt like paralyzed but it also hurt so much I'd just cry and try not to move to not make it hurt but it was really bad. The doctor said "It'll pass." when I told her my situation. It didn't for 2 days. She also said I can't have ADHD because I'm not like the other kid there who has ADHD and anger issues who is very violent and took my book that I paid for away about handling ADHD without medication because "it could make me believe in it more." Fourth one was like an older sister which I went to have a chat, but didn't really help me (again, said I can't have autism because I'm not like her 6 years old autistic client). The one I have has ADHD himself and he said how the hell nobody realized I have ADHD, but he is very uninformed about autism. He just doesn't seem to care when I try to talk about my trauma and stuff and says "there's a huge hole in the wall (depression) we gotta fix it first, those are really unimportant when compared to that!" I just gave up about telling him I need to heal from my trauma first to heal my depression. Also when I told him that I finished writing my suicide letter and I was ready to go, he said "you see, when you don't do the homework I gave you this happens! You must do it!" I can't change it because of my family (I'm 17) but next year I'll choose my mental health professional myself and we'll see how it goes. (wow sorry for long rant lol)
At 5 I was having trouble paying attention in class, a public school therapist & administrator diagnosed me with autism and explained this to my mom, ending their meeting with “I can’t wait to meet your son!” The entire diagnosis was built on teacher’s comments. Needless to say, this absolutely infuriated my mom. A year later at a private school, someone sat down to review the diagnosis, actually supervised me in class for awhile, and dismissed it. They had a much simpler explanation: “your son is just an absent-minded little professor sometimes.”
Mine was seeing my parent at the same time... And I was dramatic and the depression and wanting to not exist anymore was all in my head. I was barely a teen.
My therapist told me that I needed to see someone more regularly for my “issues” (major anxiety and depression) as I was only seeing her once a month. She gave me the paperwork for a few other places and then wouldn’t follow up with me to see if I was able to get onto the books of another therapist. Trying to see another therapist has been a pain as they either do group sessions or couldn’t work with my work schedule. My meds management lady also vanished around the same time and I got put with a different psych nurse. Which I no longer see due to the company messing up my most recent appointment with him then told me I need to find a time to call them to get back onto his schedule and that they wouldn’t reschedule me at the front desk
That's rough. Remember that your health and well-being is the most important investment. Invest more time in yourself and find a better therapist, maybe someone who has good opinions online. Good luck and stay safe.
Getting told that I need to put on a mask and learn how to 'act normal' to 'hide what's wrong with me' as a teenager. I'm autistic and that really messed me up because it basically convinced me that I, as a person, was so unappealing to know and talk to that I'd be better off pretending to be something I wasn't. I never went back to that psychologist.
A therapist, my first, told me i was ‘too hopeless’ for them and i had to seek help from another. So i went to another institution and was told the same. For my current, there was a 40-week waiting list and during that time she just put me on meds to regulate my panic attack but instead i got depressed because of the meds. Now i have a new therapist which is helping a lot! It’s been almost 4 years since the first but it still hurts, knowing i was once ‘hopeless’ to them.
I've had numerous therapists, psychiatrists, medical drs, also tell me I was "a lost cause", "a hopeless case", "never going to get better". A previous therapist I had been seeing for over 7 yrs knew about my severe abandonment issues with treatment. She continually assured me she wasn't going anywhere. Then, out of nowhere, told me she took a new position and the next week would be our last session. It's been almost 2 years and I'm still so hurt and angry. I totally understand.
Therapy is a very... iffy thing. Some therapists are really good and genuinely try, while others just follow a sham routine that doesn't even work. When I was around 13-15, I was going to therapy for my immense anxiety and depression, they decided to put me in group therapy sessions with other kids. Sadly, the only other kids they had for these groups were the 'bad' kind of kids. The ones constantly in trouble and constantly causing trouble. The only things they did were try to teach them to be good kids, while I practically got taught nothing; I was already a good kid, I just struggled to handle my emotions that drastically affected my motivation in school. My dad immediately pulled me from these group sessions when they tried to force me to play board games meant for smaller kids, like Candyland. I really didn't want to play those board games, and the cherry on top was when they only gave icecream to the kids who participated, even though I highly doubt that they learned anything. It was back to solo sessions from on that point forward, although eventually I just learned to conquer my issues myself with the help of some friends.
When I was in high school I was (and still am) struggling with anxiety and depression and finally went to the school counselor and got referred to a therapist out of school. The first therapist I ever saw out of a school setting heard about my fear of death and anxiety, as well as being atheist, and proceeded to try to talk me into considering believing in god and the afterlife while I cried and had a breakdown because of my fear. No wonder I don't trust many therapists to actually help now. That and the focus only on my apparently 'not bad' anxiety and complete dismissal of my depression and almost every single counselor or therapist (with the exception of one lovely trauma therapist who was adhd with autistic kids) hearing about me being diagnosed autistic and proceeding to immediately point out how 'you can make eye contact and talk to me so clearly you aren't THAT bad'
Also to add on, I was in the hospital one time on account of an od, and when they asked if I was planning on doing it again, I didn't even say no just 'I don't know' and they were like 'eh it's fine you can go home lol'
"Hey, I've got patients who have real problems." I was in the ER that night for intentions. Half the patients in the psych hold were patients of that one therapist.
My therapist said that I'm so self-aware that I almost doesn't need a therapy, we only see each other once a month, depending on the next session my therapist said it can even be once every 2 months.
the worst thing my therapist said was what they didn't say. Which was warn me that my parents had bad news of my Uncle's death. A WEEK AFTER MY STEP-GRANDFATHER DIED!!!
My Psychiatrist was mad that I wouldn’t talk to him. I was scared. He then told me and my mom that he doesn’t treat suicide there, and would call an ambulance if we wanted to. Never went back. Old Therapist was mad that I wouldn’t talk to her for anything serious, because I didn’t have anything serious to talk about that session. It was my second session with her, and she said that I’m wasting her time and mine. Never went back. Not many people give a crap about us
i had a psychiatrist (much older man) that told me i dont have ocd because i dont wash my hands until they bleed. yeah, but when im around "unclean" people, places, or objects i hold my breath until i almost pass out? that same psychiatrist during the same session announced my weight out loud after my mom and i told him i cannot know my weight due to my anorexia and i went on the scale backwards. that session was the last straw for my mom and she got me a new psychiatrist. who, unfortunately, we had to drop after she told me i wasnt anxious, i was experiencing side effects from a medication ive been on for a year? got a different one and increased my zoloft and guess what? anxiety went away. also had a therapist while in a residential that didnt meet with me for over two weeks (we are supposed to meet 2 or 3 times a week). it took me sobbing and yelling at this lady to take me and she was just like "i was coming to get you, be patient". no stephanie, i will not be patient when ive met with my friends therapist before i even knew what you looked like. and finally, i had a lady who worked with "adolescent medicine" who told me that since im scared of growing up that im going to die and compared me to an animal multiple times. this lady also scolded me for "not breathing properly" everytime we saw her and forced me to have an impromptu obgyn visit at the end of our (thankfully last) session, after i told her that i dont want to (i hated that lady and have a history of sa). OH and she told me i dont have an eating disorder because i liked the structure of being in treatment (i have two eating disorders, one related to my autism, which most likely contributed to my love of structure. who wouldve thought?)
I've had a couple therapist and shared my thoughts about how I was severely depressed and one of them even diagnosed me with severe depression. The depression made me unable to do a lot because I'd feel too down to be motivated. Every therapist I had would say "let's try and focus on getting your grades up" like yeah I'm questioning living so let's get some A's on some papers
Two things stand out to me. The first was a therapist who tried to diagnose me as delusional because i had hallucinations ((c)ptsd sympoms), completely ignored the obvious depression and autism, and tried to put me on an antipaychotic that I'd heard basically makes you a zombie if you don't actually have any kind of psychotic issues. I walked out and had my mom take me home. The other was when my last therapist told me she was effectively being fired for not having enough clients. She didn't say it outright but in hindsight it was obvious. She helped me more in one month, without medication, than anyone or anything else had in the entire rest of my life. She actually was the first person to really understand me, and help me understand myself and what my emotions were, and how i could communicate those and communicate my needs with those around me. She helped with my (c)ptsd and helped me deal with the breakup with my abusive ex girlfriend. She was one of the few people i trusted enough to come out to when i realized i was trans. She's the reason i considered switching my dream from game development to being a therapist, because i wanted to be like her and help people like she helped me. That one last conversation however, saying that this person who'd basically saved my life and seemed to understand me better than i understood myself "wasn't good enough" (according to how my brain processes firing as punishment) basically told me that I'll *never* be good enough, that the world isn't fair, and that good people often get the worst of the problems. That has done far more damage to me mentally, i think, than any other single event i can remember.
I’ve had a lot of bad therapists. There was one I went to in my late teens where I always felt more suicidal leaving her office than I was when I arrived. My home life was horrifically abusive, and I’ve had better therapists since then that are startled by some of the traumatic stories I can tell
Some “therapists” should never be allowed to practice. They can do more harm than good. My mom stopped going after one laughed at her poetry when she and her kids could have really benefited from it. I stopped for awhile after one told me to read the Chicken Soup books. And one told my daughter who at the time wanted to go to Portland, OR to punch herself in the eye and find a battered woman’s shelter there and they would set her up. Thankfully she didn’t take the advice. But wtf?
I was still in the process of applying for disability. The process was causing my mental health to tank so I sought out a therapist. Everything went fine for a few months before he decided I needed an ultimatum. Get a job, or quit therapy. At the time, I could either stand or sit for about 2 hours while being productive. I struggled to focus for longer than seconds at a time. It made every job within walking distance, as I didn't have a car and public transportation was kind of expensive, impossible. After 2 sessions of that ultimatum, I stopped seeing him at all. He quit pretty shortly after. I imagine he got fired after I talked about it to other people in the mental help group he was a part of. Never going to know for sure and don't particularly care to. I guess he missed the guilt complex that we were working on the first few months and didn't click with him that I applied for disability as a last resort.
Not long after my step father had passed from avery traumaticl terminal lung cancer (he and my mother were together for 25 years and I always had a great relationship with him), my dog who was my soul mate passing a few months before that and I had just lost my job, my then psychiatrist said I was spoiled and should think about the good things in my life, like I was complaining too much or feeling sadder than I should. I was also living in a house that was not mine and the owners made sure to tell me it was temporary, so I was telling how hard it feels to be in that situation being unemployed. She answered saying something like "when your father dies you'll inherit his house, so that's fine". My second father figure had just past away... I got so angry and stopped the appointment, never went back. Still haven't had any new appointments with other psychiatrists.
I'm just a psychology student, but I hear things that therapists have apparently said and just think "I sincerely doubt that a psychology professional would say that in good faith - they're either cutting corners or have an ulterior motive."
I had something like this happen, but it wasn't what they said and more what they didn't say. My first therapist was this nice older lady and I really believe she was helping me( I was 13 at this time) but for some reason they changed my therapist, and it was this older man.(it was a mental health center and it was being paid for by my school so they probably changed it because he was cheaper) I was slow to trust him because I didn't know him and it was at one of these slow sessions were I started to open up only to look up...and this man is ASLEEP. I've never felt so dismissed and unimportant in my whole life.
I had it in my head that when you go to therapy the therapist was supposed to listen to you. And they had the first time I went when I was in first grade. But a year ago when I went again the person didn’t listen, and would always turn to my parents (I was too scared to be alone with a stranger and I have no gripes with my parents, so one of my mum’s would always be in there with me) and ask *them* the questions instead of me. She would also never accept the answers I gave her when she did ask me directly, and would always say ‘are you sure?’ Over and over until I broke down. It got so bad that I started *dreading* going to therapy. I would get such bad anxiety over it whenever the next week rolled around. Eventually my mum took me out of it and I honestly don’t know if I’d be able to do therapy again. I was supposed to be seen (and maybe figure out if I had autism among other things) but instead I was ignored and made to feel like shit. Honestly don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust a therapist again, but sadly I’ll probably have to go back one day. I dread whenever that will be
I got sa'd in public transport and told that to my psych at the time bc I just can't use public transport anymore since and she said "Well, who says that will happen again?" already fucked up enough, I mean she should know what ptsd is, right? She then proceeded to tell me that if I don't get there "on my own" (public transport, my mom brought me bc it was already 30 min car ride) then I don't want/need this enough. She was in the opinion my mom is my manager and she was very unhappy that she helped me with stuff like giving me rides, booking appointments, talking to strangers, etc. those are things I have trouble with due to social anxiety, but that bitch of a mental health professional took that as me being spoiled and not even trying. I wanted to speak up against that bc it obviously upset me that she just assumed I am a lazy brat - she immedietely shut me down saying something along the lines of that the session isn't gonna be useful rn if I am gonna raise my voice at her and just called it a day. Never went back. Made me feel like none of my concerns and fears matter. Honestly made me feel more stuck because it had already taken years for me to ask my mom for help, her making it seem like I am just spoiled and lazy just got me back into the mindset that needing help with "simple" tasks is shameful. I got my autism diagnosis a few years later, and couldn't help but think about the psych - she wasn't only terrible at her job and treated me like shit, the stuff she had said was also pretty fucking ableist 💀 needless to say my life has improved by getting help with things I am unable to do on my own, instead of just pushing through when it is too much for me, and I don't feel ashamed asking for help anymore. Oh! I also remembered that when she prescribed me with the second antidepressants, as the first ones she had prescirbed made me feel like throwing up, she said "Then you can't be helped anymore" after the other ones hadn't helped me after just a month of taking them. She was my very first mental health "professional" I went to, so I basically didn't know that there's ones that aren't this shitty and also getting an appointment anywhere when you're not already in their system is an ages long wait, so we didn't have much better options at the time. Generally the waiting times until you get mental help are way too long.
I was sent to a behavioral institution after a break down at school where suicidal tendencies came out. A nurse or orderly or whatever, told me 2 days into my inpatient stay that I am to calm and obedient to need help. Yeah lady, my overwhelming fear of disappointing authority figures at the age of 12 leading to suicide tendencies doesn't make me calm and obedient nor needs help sorting out.
I'm studying Psychology at the moment and it makes me sad that there are incompetent people in the field that won't help you they just wanna make money and give unhelpful judgemental advice. Therapy is supposed to be a safe non-judgemental place where you feel heard, not traumatised. If a mental health professional makes you feel unsafe, invalidated or showing red flags, change immediately!❤
Went for anxiety and depression. Had the shrink tell me she didn't know what to do with me. I was a mild case and I told her basically if she couldn't figure out 2 very common issues she should find a new profession and hung up.
All these stories remind me of the time I was an out patient at the mental hospital and I was having a pretty serious mental breakdown. One of the nurses sits with me and asks “would writing a suicide note help?” I remember very vividly taking my hands off my eyes and just looking at her like she had two heads
I never had therapy experiences NEARLY as bad as these, but here's my story either way: I was in middle school, I don't remember exactly which grade. I felt extremely scared to go to school, I'd do anything to get out of it. I dreaded each and every single day I went. My parents noticed this, and recommended I talk to my school's counselor. So, I did. She said to me, "Oh you're just a little stressed" and sent me on my way. Thanks, man, really helped.
My therapist loves to imply I'm "dumb" because I didn't do the "easy" (generally difficult more confrontational) option in a situation that deeply upset me. it happens Every Time we speak and I bring up an issue
I have two. I first started therapy when I was 16 for depression. My therapist saw me once a week for two months. She then told me I had depression because my sister had diabetes. Um, no? Wtf, why would you blame my sister's disease? Later, I was seeing a different therapist. He diagnosed me with bipolar and sent me to their psych doc for meds. She prescribed me something, then told me I needed to also get on birth control because I "obviously can't keep it in my pants". I was 21, married, and had just had my first child. Even if I had seven children, it's not her place to say bullshit like that. I told my therapist what she'd said and never saw her again.
I was struggling with addiction when I asked my therapist what I could do to stop when she said “Just pray about it”. To be fair, she worked for a faith based organization, but the response was so callous and inappropriate that it turned me away from her for good. I have also since deconstructed and I’m no longer a Christian, so that kind of advice really doesn’t get me anywhere
My school counselor told me about her barley related relative who had blood cancer at a young age to make me (11 at the time) that my 2-3 panic attacks a day wasn’t that bad. Of course that situation for the kid was/is worse than mine.
I had to go to therapiats to get my gender dysphoria diagnosis. I was asked many questions. Most of them invasive. Most of them useless to determine if i actualy have dysphoria. Due to needing to see multiple therapists and a doctor i have been on multiple waiting lists. I never got any estimations , just well contact you when we have an appointment. This seemingly endless waiting was what made me attempt suicide. When i finaly got to the last one i need, he tells me that i got it but only barely. I lost my trust in medical proffesionals for a while after that. It made me repress the issues of CSA and other abuse i had suffered which where then just coming up. I had to lie to all of these people. I am now on hormones. I can look at myself in the mirror and dont hate my face. I dont hate my body anymore (with one exception but i have the date when that will be solved). I lied and would have not gotten my diagnosis i needed if i was honest. If that had happened i would have ended it. I also have a new therapist who only once droped her proffesional calm and that was when i told her all this. She was mad at them. Seeing her helped a lot and she also helped with the issues from the CSA and the mistrust of medical professionals.
In the army I was stationed in Augusta, GA. I'm from CA and it was hard to adjust to culture there. I saw a civillian psychiatrist on base, literally in a military hospital, and he just laughed in my face and said Californians don't do well here. I already had PTSD from my previous post and couldn't bring myself to see another psych until I went to the VA years after my discharge. They didn't help, either. All they wanted to do was medicate me and check in on it twice a month. All the stuff about VA PTSD treatment is bullshit. They don't do talk therapy outpatient and require medications that often don't really work. Everything in the media is propaganda and nothing else. Another one, also at the VA, said I should sell my house and enroll in homeless treatment at county mental health. Yes, really. The last one was a job training counselor who looked up everything I was ever treated for and said I had too much pain to hold down a job and refused to refer me. Almost all the pain he claimed was from injuries (bursitis, joint dislocation, etc) and after treatment it healed and I was fine soon after. FUCK the VA.
One of the most infuriating things I've been told whenever I've been looking for help with anger issues is to simply let go of some stuff from my past, and to just move forward with my life. That's cool advice and all, and if I knew how to do that, I would. But I can't and I've been blowing up at the smallest annoyances for several years now, so even if it's just a matter of "moving on", I clearly need help to move the fuck on.
my friend took her child with autism out of the public school system because of the way the school was handling her child. He is being home school and his mental health needs are being met and he is hitting educational milestones he would have never hit in public school
A long time before HIPPAA, I was looking for a new therapist when mine had to stop for medical reasons. I saw one therapist who was attached to a teaching hospital and told her I wanted to be sure everything was confidential. She said if I was coming to that kind of hospital, I shouldn't expect any privacy at all.
I got my therapist when I was in year 7, and I was telling her one day about how I could somewhat feel other people’s emotions as if my own, I still do, I swore that it wasn’t my own emotions. She said to me: “I’m saying I don’t believe you, but-“ From there on, I didn’t listen. Her saying that just proved she didn’t believe me entirely. However, the next session did go fine, and she said that it’s possible to have what I have, I’m just a type of empath and whatever. It’s fine though, I just didn’t like that statement. She clearly didn’t know it affected me. 🤷♀️
My psychiatrist (who was in complete control of my medication) effectively telling me he would 100% taking me off what my therapist said is needed Adderall, because it was a "school only medication" (despite us agreeing I also need it for life tasks and work) but also not wanting me on it because me being a college student meant I was 100% going to misuse it or sell it despite me having no history that should suggest I would be at risk to do either. Took me on and off it so much that I became super disregulated. Finally on it and my other needed medication regularly and I'm rocking a manager job.
There is a therapist that works with my father who clearly isnt cut out to be a therapist. When addicts come in and lie to her about needing medication she writes notes for them. Surprisingly she isnt nearly as kind to victims of domestic violence.
I was in hospital after a failed suicide, suffering from drug psychosis. A mental health nurse told me to get pregnant as having a baby to look after would fix me
This is not as bad as most people's, but when I was diagnosed with OCD I tried connecting dots about what I'd read about the illness to the symptoms I was showing, to figure out what coping mechanisms were best, and my therapist said "we aren't here to talk about that. Tell me more about your relationship with your parents" she also didn't want anything to do with the abusive relationship I was in, told me she wasn't here to listen to heartbreak stories. In reality, I was a 15 year old girl with a boy who was encouraging me to cut myself and send him pictures because he insisted that was the only way I was pretty. I had no issues with my parental relationships at the time.
My situation is more what the person who took my info when I WANTED to get get mental health help did. At the time I was sort of in foster care (it was complicated bc the family was who my bio dad had been staying with, idk if it was actually official or not) and I had serious issues with the foster mother after a year or so, primarily the fact I was an undiagnosed autistic girl who would have shutdowns and would cry when being yelled at. She was an 'expert' about ADHD, yet missed that I definitely had rejection sensitive dysphoria. Well I was staying with my bio mom, because it was just easier and was kind of a trial thing, and I mentioned to her that I would sometimes be overwhelmed by an inner void that pulled all emotions from me, I would feel empty and numb for weeks at a time. In retrospect, these were shutdowns. My bio mom agreed to get me someone to talk to. We were in the waiting room, I had already given my name and why I was there, apparently the person who dealt with that thought something was wrong I guess. They called the foster mom, who showed up screaming and kicking about 'how dare I do this to her, it makes her look so bad' ignoring the fact that two dozen people saw her act like this. I didn't ask for help again until I was an adult, nearly killed myself because I had to go live with her again, legit wanted to be dead, and was never given someone to talk to.
I'm seeking a therapist as soon as a spot opens up, and i really hope they're ready for one hell of an interview, cuz I know what's wrong with me and they'd better be willing to help with it in a way that mt brain won't turn around into crap like this.
I'm planning on working to become a therapist and this just disgusts me. I've gone through some things myself and I want to make sure I can help people the way people should've helped me. I want to promise that I can heal
The adhd specialist reminds me of the ASD "specialist" I saw. He said I don't have autism because I "make eye contact and talk too much to be autistic" It was a video call. I made no eye contact and barely talked the whole time.
"Now what really happened?" This was years ago when I had related one of my "crazy" stories about my parents. It took 40 more years for the psychological community to describe high-functioning autistic behavior, especially in women. I now realize both parents were autistic in addition to paranoid personality disorder, but at the time if the parents weren't alcoholics or drug users, everything was "fine" and the problem was the kid.
Oh, the first one is common, the first time I told a psychologist that I was suicidal she dismissed me from the service and told me to take a new appointment if I felt suicidal again in the next two weeks. It took months to even get that first appointment
My mom had a therapist back when she was a teen who asked her if her father had touched her inappropriately. She got mad because he would never do that so she asked the same question back. The guy just started sobbing uncontrollably
I was in a therapist office crying and she gives me a “no SI contract” to fill out. I never made any SI statement, I was just depressed and crying. So I’m crying and she’s giving me a piece of paper to fill out while she sits in silence. I know she only cared about protecting her own butt, but at minimum, she could’ve asked me the questions and filled it out herself. I never went back.
So, this one therapist I talked to for an intake essentially tried to convince me that I was: - "not man enough" because I am not a dominant person. (I struggle with setting boundaries and standing up for myself due to past traumas, I barely dared to speak when I was younger, let alone tell someone 'no'. I told him about this before he judged my "manhood") - Using/abusing drugs and alcohol (I've never taken drugs in my life and rarely drink any alcoholic drinks. On the handfull of occasions that I do, I usually keep it at one drink, maybe a couple if I'm at a longer party, but I tend to get panic attacks if I drink, so I don't like to.) - Too shy to be taken seriously. (I wouldn't call myself shy nowadays. I used to be, and I do struggle with social anxiety and am an introvert, but I am quite social and am usually the one in my friend groups who dares to speak up if someone needs something.) Throughout the conversation, he was pretty unprofessional. He would keep telling me how I was supposed to feel instead of asking me / giving me a chance to tell him first. And if I corrected him, he seemed to get upset. I had filled in a pretty extensive list of tests for him, had my own therapist send him a report on my current mental state, issues, and important moments in my life to help him prepare our session. He read them for the first time the last 10 minutes of our conversation (the emails with the files that were sent through to him were unread when he opened them on his computer). I know follow-up questions are an important tool in interviewing, but this man took it to another level. While we were discussing my drinking habits and usage of drugs, he asked me about every hobby I had and if people were dealing there, every place I visited and if I ever had been overed pills/weed there, then if I said no, he would ask if I was sure and then ask me again a few minutes later. I understand he wanted to make sure, but I walked out of that conversation, feeling like he just thought of me like a burden and a lair. After our conversation, he was supposed to call me back to check up on me. This conversation came a month after it was supposed to and lasted about 3 minutes. He just did not seem to care.
I wanted to unalive myself. (Was eventually diagnosed with severe depression) my first psychiatrist looked me in the eye and said “if you really wanted to unalive yourself so badly you would of already done it so your fine”
Re Story 16: I've only had one therapist (so far), and it might just have been because he was speciffically a therapist for kids and teens, but he absolutely wasn't "profesional" at all, which was great for me. He didn't treat me like a small child (I was 13 when I started seeing him), and he didn't mince words. He straight up told me "your dad is an asshole, and he'll most likely will stay an asshole for the rest of his life, deal with it" (and then helped me deal with it), which was 100% the best thing he could have said to me. I had so many adults (mainly social workers) give me false hopes that ended up getting crushed and only made things worse for my mental health, and I'm eternally thankful that he was not one of them but gave me actual help and guidance and treated me seriously (and I'm still sad that we moved and I had to stop seeing him). That guy was great in so many ways
I was about 13 or 14 my therapist at the time I had told me the reason I was S/A'd by my step father was because I was a splitting image of my mom and a better version of her and younger. Who the eff tells a child that!?!?! I bawled when she said that. I felt so dirty, and I felt like it was my fault it happened. I told my sisters what she said after my session, and then all hell broke loose. I thank God that I never had to see her again.
Late response here but -- "you're unteachable" and "maybe you should drop out". Bothered me at the time because I was trying my best, but looking back at it, I was with undiagnosed neurological issues and nobody was treating me accordingly. Not everything is your fault. It's okay to not understand or to feel out of place. The important part is to recognize and to figure out what is comfortable to you, to solve your issue.
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Unfortunately, locking kids in closets and making them sit out in the sun at recess is standard punishment of special needs kids in many states. I know someone else from Arizona who went through that, and I personally went through that in Kansas.
Education Major here: yep. I was mortified when I found this out.
Humans are fucking monsters
Jesus crist, i didnt think this was so wide spread, i thought it was like 5-10 schools. im sorry you had to go through that mate
Thats abuse! They all should be jailed!!! Those poor kids are scarred for life!
Also in many states Black students are directed to special education programs, so there's often a racial element to designing the torture of special education students
A lot of narcissists go into the mental health field not because they actually want to help, but because it gives them power and influence over vulnerable people. Some of them believe they're trying to help, but the worst of them are deliberately, actively harmful because they get off on it.
I am convinced at this point that the person who scammed me got her psych degree specifically to be able to identify and manipulate emotionally vulnerable people more effectively.
Holy shit asking a SA victim if they thought it felt good? Particularly a child? I'd go after that shrink's license
Also mental health care in this country is horrifically carceral, I've experienced it as an involuntary psych patient in a poor state-run hospital and a voluntary one in a rich private hospital. Both were terrible experiences
I knew a guy who couldn't wear long sleeves because of an asylum. There was snow and ice in the ground, he was manning an out door gate for hours, and still refused to even put on more than a vest. I was raised in the Dakotas, and even I was cold WITH a good jacket and body armor.
Guy got PTSD for his suicidal treatment.
I'm pretty sure story 5 is mine, at least its the same as the one I posted on reddit a while back. I know in my case it happened nearly 40 years ago and it was very difficult to go after Dr's and therapists without some pretty concrete evidence and a hella lot of money to spend on lawyers.
@@mamabear444 it doesn't surprise me in the least. Some doctors are evil. Had a dentist cap all my teeth in the early 90's. I was under 6, and they started falling out the next week. Also had a doctor ignore my aunt's repeated complaints for a decade. It was very obvious cancer.
Some people want the coat and the paycheck, but don't care beyond that.
@@mamabear444I'm very sorry to hear that happened and how you were treated. Nobody should have to turn such a horrific moment into a happy one.
I got the feeling that was a p*do trying to justify their own actions…
Not a therapist but a school counsellor said I was not resilient and I was weak. Funny considering I have suffered multiple disabilities, physical and mental health issues my whole life and I am still smiling. I was 17 and had just broken my neck when the school counsellor told me this. After she said this, I went onto get a community award in a project that she was overseeing. I think she was just jealous of what I was achieving. I am now 32 years old and battling cancer and my psychologist said to me a few weeks ago “If someone asked me what the definition of resilience was, I would say your name.. you are the most resilient person I know”. This meant everything to me.
Keep going m8. If you’re resilient enough to battle cancer, nothing will stop you.
@@octopikmin3590 Thanks mate!
You've come out smiling through multiple disabilities, health issues, mental illness, and breaking your neck?
I think you've got this. This is simply the final boss.
@@falconstudios146 Thank you! I have cancer and a deadly autoimmune disease now too, still smiling! 😁 I have my moments which is human and normal, but I pick myself back up again! ❤️
My youth psychiatrist on the crisisward was convinced all my behaviour (panic attacks, hyperventilation, catatonic state) was attention seeking. At an afternoon I was completely out of it, crying, she told me: "If you continue like this your parents will hurt themselves"
This was over 18 years ago and I'm still mad, upset and feel like I can easily rip her a new one if I ever meet her again.
holy shit, thats insane.
I had a therapist who told me all my problems was because my mum was an alcoholic... my mum was sitting next to me and she had, at most, one drink a week. I threw the prescription he gave me in the trash and it took years of struggling before I could bring myself to see another. it also greatly affected my mums own mental health.
a few years later when in a meeting with a new, nicer and better therapist. I told her what the last one had told me and my mother, she immediately knew who it was and asked to see my mum.
she told us how the last therapist had his licence revoked for how he treated patients and he apparently gave the same 'diagnosis' to everyone he saw, according to him the area I live in is plagued with alcohol abusing mothers, his diagnosis and treatments led to several suicides.
I'm now doing a lot better. and my mum no longer blames herself when one of her children has an issue.
My mother is a very highly regarded psychotherapist in Sweden with a doctorate in Addictive diseases, among other things _(she works with many different people, but _*_mainly_*_ people who are addicts or have eating disorders - but also very much with people who have been abused in different ways, since the overlap between these diseases and abuse are very, very large)_ and I sent her this video and the answer I got from her was that she has never heard of such unprofessional behavior in her life, and almost all of these people _(except maybe the person who got the prompt wrong and the one who had great result with a not so "ordinary" therapist, whatever ordinary is - I know humor can be a big part of good counseling, depending on what you need, and calling out lies when they see them, at least when there's a report built, is great),_ shouldn't be working in a field that they OBVIOUSLY do not care about - or only cares about because of the sick power they CAN get over a persons life. She thought a lot of the people sounded like they abused their power, that's the main gist I got from her response - beyond that she was pissed off as all hell.
She is by the way horrified that, generally in the US, it seems like the church a person is going to offer counseling, or that there are special "christian" counselors for people to seek out. That's a breach of everything that therapy is based on. Do NOT mix in your emotions about something that's so important to you as your faith in the search for healing. You may find some healing in the faith itself, but find your therapist/psychologist *outside* of the church system and make DAMN SURE they are not mixing in any sort of "faith based" advice into your therapy. They are supposed to listen, help and not judge. That's hard for *almost* every religious person to do *if* they mix their faith in with their job in listening to people who are blasting their souls on display in front of them. This is not something she said in context to the video, but she has hammered this home during my life. We are not religious, have never been, Sweden is not a religious country basically *at all* so I have never had these problems, but it can be a good thing for people in religious regions of the world to hear. Sorry if I sound like a "know-it-all", not my mission at all. Just wanted to share what she thought, as it could help someone.
This is such comforting input, thank you. Please send your mother my dearest regards for the professional views.
It hurts that my country is always criticized
"Then why haven't you done it yet?!" after I said I was feeling su*cidal.
(I understand sometimes Therapists say this as a means of trying to jump the thinking process, to understand there are still things worth living for, with no intentions of harming their patient.
But understand this, this wasn't my regular therapist.
This wasn't even someone I was even seeing once in a blue moon.
This was happening during an OFFICIAL EVALUATION for dissability retirement, and that was just the last thing after a whole slew of accusations of me being too lazy to work, making up my depression to get attention, and last but not least, informing me, that if it was for HER, I'd never get my disability, and instead would die homeless in a ditch with my kids growing up in foster care.
And yes, I reported her.)
I had a counselor in rehab who asked me "would you consider the idea that your hallucinations are real and you're actually seeing and hearing spirits?" They're not real, they're hallucinations, and asking me that in the way that she did wasn't something that should have been said.
Your therapist might have wanted to gauge your answer to know the problem better. If she thought that for real then there is something seriously wrong with her.
@@Laszer271 The way that she asked it implied that she was actually wanting me to consider it and not just wanting to see my reaction.
"Well, maybe he was mad about something else and you just happened to be there when he decided to let it out?"
Context: in middle school, one of my *many* bullies (the one who tended towards physical bullying) was the son of a teacher and the ex-principal. After he broke my arm, I was blamed for it because I punched him (after he attacked me, to get him to let go of me before my arm cracked) and got sent to a therapist to deal with my "issues" socializing with other kids in addition to being punished both at school and at home. That was the response when I told them what actually happened (that he blocked my locker that morning and became increasingly aggressive to the point of grabbing my arm and pulling it over his shoulder until it broke).
And then they wonder why school shootings are happening
They will never send the bullies to a therapist. Right? Because abusing your peers on the regular doesn't need fixing apparently. 🙄
My therapist was slapped into my life because I was dealing with depression for specific reasons. The problem is my life is boring. I'd talk about what I was dealing with over the week (dull, dull and more dull). The actual reasons for my depression went away (my friend's problems that I was worried about eventually went away.) There was no reason for my depression anymore so I called off the visits. On the last day my therapist was called out of the room during our last session. Chuck, my therapist, came back into the room happier than I'd ever seen. He explained to me that I should be happy I wasn't the person he had just seen. The other half of the business was a general medical practice. My therapist explained to me that this patient was just determined to be HIV+. He said that I should be happy I didn't have his problems because he'd have to go home and tell his partner he was HIV+. My therapist was absolutely giddy.
My advice is don't talk to Chuck. He betrayed a secret. I could have met and possibly known that patient in the waiting room. Chuck was more worried about making his life's work seem important than he cared about his patients. He broke the most professional and sacred trust in the world.
Thank god Chuck didn't get into my childhood or he'd have very painful stuff about my life that would have given him bragging rights. Now that I'm not suppressing those memories, I'm glad I don't have someone like Chuck to betray my trust. I have a lot of problems to work out now that the repressed memories have come back, but I'm glad I didn't disclose them to Chuck. He disclosed a patient's deepest darkest secrets to me. God knows what he would have done with my nightmare memories.
I could use help now dealing with the childhood memories I suppressed, but I simply can't trust a therapist. There's the way they market therapy to the world and then there's the way it actually works. No trust. Ho healing. And a whole myth built around the therapy world that they'll protect your secrets. What a load of crap.
my sisters therapist told her that she's just lazy. When she was finally able to get a new therapist, she got diagnosed with depression and generalised anxiety disorder.
So, yeah, not just lazy.
One of the caretakers in the clinic once told me that "sport helps with pain", every time i did sport my pain got worse and i had asked for pain meds multiple times that day and was told "to first try without", same guy later got fired for touching the girls.
someone in the clinic told me how his therapist told him that "the voice wants the best for you", the voice told him to kill himself
I had a therapist who didn’t believe I wasn’t molested and told me flat out that they thought I was molested and “blocked it out”. Who does that? I mean it may happen to some people, but you let them find that memory themselves… you don’t try to plant one.
One therapist actually told me I should try drinking some wine before bed when I was an emotional wreck and couldn't sleep at night after the end of my first relationship (of 5 years). She KNEW I was diagnosed with ADHD (which makes you way more succeptible to alcohol addiction and others) and still sugested alcohol to me while in crisis. I'm so glad that I didn't take that advice. I've always been extremely careful about drinking alcohol and would never drink outside of the occasional social setting (and even if others are drinking I'll decline more often than not) and especially not while feeling down.
And being borderline doesn't automatically make you manipulative or a liar either. The stigma with both BPD and autism is crazy.
You mean having right? People aren't their diagnosis.
@killuanatsume Yeah I know. Just weird phrasing.
And NPD
@@killuanatsume Having borderline, being autistic. Definitely would be clunky phrasing if they tried to separate the two, but that’s typically the preferred phrasing for each
"you don't deserve to get better" and sometimes I still believe her.
The worst thing I ever hear wasn't said to me, it was said to a friend - a mental health nurse told my friend she would never get better unless she got some friends, to which my friend replied 'V is my friend', to which the mental health nurse said 'Her? She can't be your friend, she's autistic, THEY don't know how to have friends'.
That's because no autistic person ever wanted to be friends with the nurse.
The first therapist I went to as an adult. Spun in her chair all the time and just said “how did that make you feel?”
In the autumn she commissioned a scarf from me (I’m very creative and have lots of skills) and I crocheted her one like she asked. Christmas rolls around, she’s trying to get out of paying me for the scarf cuz “$25 is too much” and then informed me I “complain too much”.
It took me many years and major depression/suicidal thoughts and an exit plan to trust anyone to go back to therapy.
Main reason why my plan got foiled? A cat I didn’t even want at the time that my twin thought would be good for me crawled into my lap for the first time ever that day. After many years of being my soul cat, he passed last year and I miss him terribly. ❤ RIP Ricky, my Catshine 😭💙
I told her I needed someone to unpack my trauma surrounding autism with. When I was 18 my mom told me that I had been diagnosed when I was 5 and nobody ever told me. It made everything in my life suddenly click into place, but left behind a lot of confusing feelings that I'm still dealing with to this day.
She told me to take social classes and didn't touch on anything that I actually wanted to discuss.
…are you me??????
I don't think OP misunderstood the prompt in story 7? If anything discovering that what happened to you was in fact a crime and not at all normal is honestly horrifying, discovering that how you were treated is the exception because you got unlucky and were put into the hands of deranged monsters. Its fucked, so even if the therapist was in the right it must have been painful.
The Story 13 guy is right. Those in abusive situations need to be prescribed a normal life away from their abusers. id say at least 2 years so they can live a normal life and use it to get on their feet. Alot of stuff goes away for a person if theyre allowed to do that in alot of cases. youll suddenly find that some of the people condemned as "useless" or "stupid" or "failures" end up being pretty damn great without all the toxicity and actually thrive. This is why high housing pricess are dangerous to people. They keep people in bad marriages and abuse situations if they cant afford to a place on their own
A mental health nurse once said to me "at the end of the week you're nothing but a paycheck to me"
mine said when i was going into 6th grade, do you think it’s appropriate for a middle schooler to be sitting on the ground? never went back
I told my first psychiatrist that i had voices in my head telling me to unalive myself and to cause harm to my body. He didn't even increase my medication. he just sent me off while I was sobbing. (I was 12 at the time, i believe.) No longer works in the field last I heard.
I hope you are in a better place r now and that therapist was so in the wrong.
My last therapist was an older man. I specifically requested a female therapist, but he was the only one that had any availability for the next few months. So I begrudgingly scheduled with him. Basically all he did was recommend the Calm app, despite the fact that meditation makes my anxiety much worse. I often stopped being able to speak entirely during our sessions. The final straw for me was when I tried to open up about the abuse I faced growing up, and explained that I think I have PTSD because of it. He said there was no way I could have PTSD, because my abusers never physically harmed me or threatened to unalive me. And a lot of dancers faces abuse at the hands of their teachers, and I’m an adult now and I can’t keep holding onto that. I ghosted him and I’ve been hesitant to go back to therapy since. I’m on meds and overall doing better now, thankfully. But man he was such a dickhead
Over the years iv had a few bad therapist and sadly have a number of "worst thing a therapist has said to you" stories.
One of my stories:
TW - SA
After I got out of a 4 year long a*usive situation (that included constant physical and s*xual a*use), which left me in a wheelchair (I was completely wheelchair bound for 3 years) and with really bad PTSD that I still suffer with today, I went to a neurological rehab to help me recover (mentally and physically) and relearn to walk, amongst helping with other daily living things.
My first therapist there was supposed to help me develop coping mechanisms for my PTSD, work through my feelings about the a*usive situation I just left, and my feelings about how my life has changed so much after going from being able bodied my whole life to being completely wheelchair bound and house bound in a short 6 month period. I couldn't even stand up by myself, or walk a single step, when I started at the neuro rehab.
Unfortunately this therapist did NOT help me.
During our first session I gave her a run down of everything I had gone through, including details of the worst of the a*buse, the whole time I was talking I was uncontrollably crying and shaking, and when I finished talking she looked me in the eyes and said "wow, just get over it already and walk, it's not that hard".
I left right then. I wheeled myself out of that room, a complete mess, and refused to attend any more therapy sessions until they gave me a new therapist.
The neuro rehab was incredible and I'm so grateful to have been able to attend. Thanks to them I can walk again. Yes I use a walking frame all the time and still (5 + years later) occasionally use my wheelchair on my worse days, but atleast I am no longer trapped and having to rely on other people for absolutely everything.
If your having issues with a therapist, or feel you aren't getting what you need out of ur sessions, it's worth switching to a new therapist. Sometimes therapy can be abit of a "hit or miss" situation, but please don't let one bad therapist stop you from getting the support you need.
This story is my twin's:
TW - Transphobia
When my twin (29M) first came out as Trans (FTM), around the age of 18, my mum took him to see a therapist. This was to help my brother understand his identity better, to help him develop better coping strategies, and in the long term get him a Gender Identity Disorder diagnosis and get him on hormone treatments to help with his transition.
Me, mum and younger sister were very supportive of my brother's transition and tried to support him as best we could, but we knew a specialist therapist would help him alot more than we could.
The therapist my mum took him to see was supposed to be a specialist in Gender Identity Disorder and Gender Dysphoria. So on paper everything looked promising.
However, near the end of their first session the therapist said something that made my brother refuse to go back, and in the long term really messed with him and set him back years in his transition.
After my brother explained his situation and answered every question, my brother asked "what are my next steps? I don't know what to do."
And the therapist, while smiling, responded with "Your a girl. Not a boy. Oh sweetie, your just confused. So you need to grow your hair out. Start wearing makeup, the more the better. Get a boyfriend. Start acting more feminine. And buy some nice girly clothes, a few dresses should help. That will make you look and feel like the girl you are. Don't worry, this is just a phase, your not a boy, your a girl, and if you do what I say then you won't be so confused anymore. After all you were born a girl, and you can't change that, no matter what you do".
Honestly what the therapist said is one of the most vile and unprofessional things iv ever heard a therapist say to a trans person, and its one of the things that comes to mind whenever I hear stories of bad therapists.
After that appointment my brother came out to the car crying his eyes out, shouting about how awful this therapist is and how he's never stepping foot in that building again. Which honestly his was completely understandable.
Mum filed a complaint about the therapist, and then went on the hunt for a new therapist for my brother.
After a few months of trying mum discovered a Gender Clinic an hour away, which was highly recommended in the area, so she got my brother on the waiting list, and a few months later my brother got his first appointment with this new clinic.
When he came out of his first appointment there he was so happy and was really excited for his next appointment. He absolutely loved his new therapist and has been going there ever since.
The gender clinic has helped him with every step of his transition and have been a massive support for him during the good times and the bad.
My twin has known he was a boy since we were 3 years old, I was the first person he came out to, and iv supported him every step of the way. And today he is very happily living as the man he is and the man he was meant to be, massive beard and all :)
Despite the rough start he had with a bad therapist, his transition is going very well and I've never seen him so happy.
The right therapist for you really can make all the difference.
my previous psychiatrist would throw a rubber ball at me every time i said “i don’t know”. to this day i’m still afraid of saying i don’t know to someone of authority. i have a new one now and she’s great luckily! i’m sorry to everyone who had to go through things like that
my psychiatrist said she couldn't diagnose me with any personality disorders or just general disorders despite me having so many symptoms that affected me in my life. She said it was because i had "too many friends to be crazy" One year later, things got worse and i went to another psychiatrist and turns out i was diagnosed with not only autism but schizotypal personality disorder with a very bad thought disorder
I am so sorry for all of you. .those worthless therapists should be fired and lose their license! Wishing you all healing and the best ❤
There are definitely a few therapists in these stories who should easily be held accountable for ruining another person's life (or at least helping to do so.)
When I went to middle school, I had some really bad panic attacks almost every day. My mom sent me to the school counselor who my brother had previously gone to and said she was super nice. So, I went and for some reason they didn't give me the school counselor to help me, but instead a random hall monitor who was known for being super strict and mean. Anyway, instead of helping me feel safer at school or whatever she was supposed to do, she told me to list what made me anxious, even though sometimes I didn't have a reason. When I listed something, she would just scoff and say something like "oh that's not a reason to get upset" and things like "Well just stop being scared of that" and "just stop having anxiety." It was terrible and my mom didn't make me go back.
It's literally the same as telling a kid with asthma to "just breathe". That hall monitor seems as useful as a wet match.
All of my 5 mental health "professionals" that I had including the one I have right now straight up tried to gaslight me into getting mentally healthy. First one (a psychologist) didn't even said anything like 99% of the time and when she did like one time I said I tried to kill myself last night and plan to do it again this week in a more dangerous way, she said "This will pass too, you just can't see it because you're too young!". Second one (psychiatrist) didn't have time, like never and he told me to only come if there was something wrong with my meds. When I told me concerns about being neuradivergent (probably both ADHD and autism) he brushed it off, saying "he'd understand it from my eye". If I tried to get an appointment it'd be 4-5 months later so he told me to just slide in after a client went out before next one can come in, and we'd talk for max 5 mins about what's wrong so he'd lower or higher the dosage. Third one was at the psych ward because I harmed myself and it needed serious medical attention and if I didn't go to ward, they'd put my mom and dad to jail if I did something similiar for not letting me get the care I needed. Lots of things happened that summer but that's another story. The doctor there gave me a medication which made my left arm go numb and it even felt like paralyzed but it also hurt so much I'd just cry and try not to move to not make it hurt but it was really bad. The doctor said "It'll pass." when I told her my situation. It didn't for 2 days. She also said I can't have ADHD because I'm not like the other kid there who has ADHD and anger issues who is very violent and took my book that I paid for away about handling ADHD without medication because "it could make me believe in it more." Fourth one was like an older sister which I went to have a chat, but didn't really help me (again, said I can't have autism because I'm not like her 6 years old autistic client). The one I have has ADHD himself and he said how the hell nobody realized I have ADHD, but he is very uninformed about autism. He just doesn't seem to care when I try to talk about my trauma and stuff and says "there's a huge hole in the wall (depression) we gotta fix it first, those are really unimportant when compared to that!" I just gave up about telling him I need to heal from my trauma first to heal my depression. Also when I told him that I finished writing my suicide letter and I was ready to go, he said "you see, when you don't do the homework I gave you this happens! You must do it!" I can't change it because of my family (I'm 17) but next year I'll choose my mental health professional myself and we'll see how it goes. (wow sorry for long rant lol)
0:21 If someone responds to you with "Great" after you express your harmful thoughts, ya no that person has got to go
At 5 I was having trouble paying attention in class, a public school therapist & administrator diagnosed me with autism and explained this to my mom, ending their meeting with “I can’t wait to meet your son!” The entire diagnosis was built on teacher’s comments.
Needless to say, this absolutely infuriated my mom. A year later at a private school, someone sat down to review the diagnosis, actually supervised me in class for awhile, and dismissed it. They had a much simpler explanation: “your son is just an absent-minded little professor sometimes.”
Mine was seeing my parent at the same time... And I was dramatic and the depression and wanting to not exist anymore was all in my head. I was barely a teen.
My therapist told me that I needed to see someone more regularly for my “issues” (major anxiety and depression) as I was only seeing her once a month. She gave me the paperwork for a few other places and then wouldn’t follow up with me to see if I was able to get onto the books of another therapist. Trying to see another therapist has been a pain as they either do group sessions or couldn’t work with my work schedule. My meds management lady also vanished around the same time and I got put with a different psych nurse. Which I no longer see due to the company messing up my most recent appointment with him then told me I need to find a time to call them to get back onto his schedule and that they wouldn’t reschedule me at the front desk
That's rough. Remember that your health and well-being is the most important investment. Invest more time in yourself and find a better therapist, maybe someone who has good opinions online. Good luck and stay safe.
Getting told that I need to put on a mask and learn how to 'act normal' to 'hide what's wrong with me' as a teenager. I'm autistic and that really messed me up because it basically convinced me that I, as a person, was so unappealing to know and talk to that I'd be better off pretending to be something I wasn't. I never went back to that psychologist.
A therapist, my first, told me i was ‘too hopeless’ for them and i had to seek help from another. So i went to another institution and was told the same. For my current, there was a 40-week waiting list and during that time she just put me on meds to regulate my panic attack but instead i got depressed because of the meds. Now i have a new therapist which is helping a lot! It’s been almost 4 years since the first but it still hurts, knowing i was once ‘hopeless’ to them.
I've had numerous therapists, psychiatrists, medical drs, also tell me I was "a lost cause", "a hopeless case", "never going to get better". A previous therapist I had been seeing for over 7 yrs knew about my severe abandonment issues with treatment. She continually assured me she wasn't going anywhere. Then, out of nowhere, told me she took a new position and the next week would be our last session. It's been almost 2 years and I'm still so hurt and angry. I totally understand.
I actually got too depressed to do it. I knew if I went and didnit, things would get worse, and all the suffering was for naught.
Therapy is a very... iffy thing. Some therapists are really good and genuinely try, while others just follow a sham routine that doesn't even work.
When I was around 13-15, I was going to therapy for my immense anxiety and depression, they decided to put me in group therapy sessions with other kids.
Sadly, the only other kids they had for these groups were the 'bad' kind of kids. The ones constantly in trouble and constantly causing trouble. The only things they did were try to teach them to be good kids, while I practically got taught nothing; I was already a good kid, I just struggled to handle my emotions that drastically affected my motivation in school.
My dad immediately pulled me from these group sessions when they tried to force me to play board games meant for smaller kids, like Candyland. I really didn't want to play those board games, and the cherry on top was when they only gave icecream to the kids who participated, even though I highly doubt that they learned anything.
It was back to solo sessions from on that point forward, although eventually I just learned to conquer my issues myself with the help of some friends.
When I was in high school I was (and still am) struggling with anxiety and depression and finally went to the school counselor and got referred to a therapist out of school. The first therapist I ever saw out of a school setting heard about my fear of death and anxiety, as well as being atheist, and proceeded to try to talk me into considering believing in god and the afterlife while I cried and had a breakdown because of my fear. No wonder I don't trust many therapists to actually help now. That and the focus only on my apparently 'not bad' anxiety and complete dismissal of my depression and almost every single counselor or therapist (with the exception of one lovely trauma therapist who was adhd with autistic kids) hearing about me being diagnosed autistic and proceeding to immediately point out how 'you can make eye contact and talk to me so clearly you aren't THAT bad'
Also to add on, I was in the hospital one time on account of an od, and when they asked if I was planning on doing it again, I didn't even say no just 'I don't know' and they were like 'eh it's fine you can go home lol'
"Hey, I've got patients who have real problems."
I was in the ER that night for intentions. Half the patients in the psych hold were patients of that one therapist.
My therapist said that I'm so self-aware that I almost doesn't need a therapy, we only see each other once a month, depending on the next session my therapist said it can even be once every 2 months.
the worst thing my therapist said was what they didn't say.
Which was warn me that my parents had bad news of my Uncle's death.
A WEEK AFTER MY STEP-GRANDFATHER DIED!!!
My Psychiatrist was mad that I wouldn’t talk to him. I was scared. He then told me and my mom that he doesn’t treat suicide there, and would call an ambulance if we wanted to. Never went back.
Old Therapist was mad that I wouldn’t talk to her for anything serious, because I didn’t have anything serious to talk about that session. It was my second session with her, and she said that I’m wasting her time and mine. Never went back.
Not many people give a crap about us
i had a psychiatrist (much older man) that told me i dont have ocd because i dont wash my hands until they bleed. yeah, but when im around "unclean" people, places, or objects i hold my breath until i almost pass out? that same psychiatrist during the same session announced my weight out loud after my mom and i told him i cannot know my weight due to my anorexia and i went on the scale backwards. that session was the last straw for my mom and she got me a new psychiatrist. who, unfortunately, we had to drop after she told me i wasnt anxious, i was experiencing side effects from a medication ive been on for a year? got a different one and increased my zoloft and guess what? anxiety went away.
also had a therapist while in a residential that didnt meet with me for over two weeks (we are supposed to meet 2 or 3 times a week). it took me sobbing and yelling at this lady to take me and she was just like "i was coming to get you, be patient". no stephanie, i will not be patient when ive met with my friends therapist before i even knew what you looked like.
and finally, i had a lady who worked with "adolescent medicine" who told me that since im scared of growing up that im going to die and compared me to an animal multiple times. this lady also scolded me for "not breathing properly" everytime we saw her and forced me to have an impromptu obgyn visit at the end of our (thankfully last) session, after i told her that i dont want to (i hated that lady and have a history of sa). OH and she told me i dont have an eating disorder because i liked the structure of being in treatment (i have two eating disorders, one related to my autism, which most likely contributed to my love of structure. who wouldve thought?)
I've had a couple therapist and shared my thoughts about how I was severely depressed and one of them even diagnosed me with severe depression. The depression made me unable to do a lot because I'd feel too down to be motivated. Every therapist I had would say "let's try and focus on getting your grades up" like yeah I'm questioning living so let's get some A's on some papers
Two things stand out to me. The first was a therapist who tried to diagnose me as delusional because i had hallucinations ((c)ptsd sympoms), completely ignored the obvious depression and autism, and tried to put me on an antipaychotic that I'd heard basically makes you a zombie if you don't actually have any kind of psychotic issues. I walked out and had my mom take me home.
The other was when my last therapist told me she was effectively being fired for not having enough clients. She didn't say it outright but in hindsight it was obvious. She helped me more in one month, without medication, than anyone or anything else had in the entire rest of my life. She actually was the first person to really understand me, and help me understand myself and what my emotions were, and how i could communicate those and communicate my needs with those around me. She helped with my (c)ptsd and helped me deal with the breakup with my abusive ex girlfriend. She was one of the few people i trusted enough to come out to when i realized i was trans. She's the reason i considered switching my dream from game development to being a therapist, because i wanted to be like her and help people like she helped me.
That one last conversation however, saying that this person who'd basically saved my life and seemed to understand me better than i understood myself "wasn't good enough" (according to how my brain processes firing as punishment) basically told me that I'll *never* be good enough, that the world isn't fair, and that good people often get the worst of the problems. That has done far more damage to me mentally, i think, than any other single event i can remember.
I’ve had a lot of bad therapists. There was one I went to in my late teens where I always felt more suicidal leaving her office than I was when I arrived. My home life was horrifically abusive, and I’ve had better therapists since then that are startled by some of the traumatic stories I can tell
Some “therapists” should never be allowed to practice. They can do more harm than good. My mom stopped going after one laughed at her poetry when she and her kids could have really benefited from it. I stopped for awhile after one told me to read the Chicken Soup books. And one told my daughter who at the time wanted to go to Portland, OR to punch herself in the eye and find a battered woman’s shelter there and they would set her up. Thankfully she didn’t take the advice. But wtf?
“You don’t wanna become like one of those lazy depressed people”
I was about to tell her I was struggling with sh and suicidal thoughts.
I was still in the process of applying for disability. The process was causing my mental health to tank so I sought out a therapist. Everything went fine for a few months before he decided I needed an ultimatum. Get a job, or quit therapy. At the time, I could either stand or sit for about 2 hours while being productive. I struggled to focus for longer than seconds at a time. It made every job within walking distance, as I didn't have a car and public transportation was kind of expensive, impossible. After 2 sessions of that ultimatum, I stopped seeing him at all. He quit pretty shortly after. I imagine he got fired after I talked about it to other people in the mental help group he was a part of. Never going to know for sure and don't particularly care to. I guess he missed the guilt complex that we were working on the first few months and didn't click with him that I applied for disability as a last resort.
Not long after my step father had passed from avery traumaticl terminal lung cancer (he and my mother were together for 25 years and I always had a great relationship with him), my dog who was my soul mate passing a few months before that and I had just lost my job, my then psychiatrist said I was spoiled and should think about the good things in my life, like I was complaining too much or feeling sadder than I should. I was also living in a house that was not mine and the owners made sure to tell me it was temporary, so I was telling how hard it feels to be in that situation being unemployed. She answered saying something like "when your father dies you'll inherit his house, so that's fine". My second father figure had just past away... I got so angry and stopped the appointment, never went back. Still haven't had any new appointments with other psychiatrists.
I'm just a psychology student, but I hear things that therapists have apparently said and just think "I sincerely doubt that a psychology professional would say that in good faith - they're either cutting corners or have an ulterior motive."
10:18 oh my god what the hell
I had something like this happen, but it wasn't what they said and more what they didn't say. My first therapist was this nice older lady and I really believe she was helping me( I was 13 at this time) but for some reason they changed my therapist, and it was this older man.(it was a mental health center and it was being paid for by my school so they probably changed it because he was cheaper) I was slow to trust him because I didn't know him and it was at one of these slow sessions were I started to open up only to look up...and this man is ASLEEP. I've never felt so dismissed and unimportant in my whole life.
I had it in my head that when you go to therapy the therapist was supposed to listen to you. And they had the first time I went when I was in first grade. But a year ago when I went again the person didn’t listen, and would always turn to my parents (I was too scared to be alone with a stranger and I have no gripes with my parents, so one of my mum’s would always be in there with me) and ask *them* the questions instead of me. She would also never accept the answers I gave her when she did ask me directly, and would always say ‘are you sure?’ Over and over until I broke down. It got so bad that I started *dreading* going to therapy. I would get such bad anxiety over it whenever the next week rolled around. Eventually my mum took me out of it and I honestly don’t know if I’d be able to do therapy again. I was supposed to be seen (and maybe figure out if I had autism among other things) but instead I was ignored and made to feel like shit.
Honestly don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust a therapist again, but sadly I’ll probably have to go back one day. I dread whenever that will be
man... that therapist really didn't care about suicide?
I got sa'd in public transport and told that to my psych at the time bc I just can't use public transport anymore since and she said "Well, who says that will happen again?" already fucked up enough, I mean she should know what ptsd is, right? She then proceeded to tell me that if I don't get there "on my own" (public transport, my mom brought me bc it was already 30 min car ride) then I don't want/need this enough. She was in the opinion my mom is my manager and she was very unhappy that she helped me with stuff like giving me rides, booking appointments, talking to strangers, etc. those are things I have trouble with due to social anxiety, but that bitch of a mental health professional took that as me being spoiled and not even trying. I wanted to speak up against that bc it obviously upset me that she just assumed I am a lazy brat - she immedietely shut me down saying something along the lines of that the session isn't gonna be useful rn if I am gonna raise my voice at her and just called it a day. Never went back. Made me feel like none of my concerns and fears matter. Honestly made me feel more stuck because it had already taken years for me to ask my mom for help, her making it seem like I am just spoiled and lazy just got me back into the mindset that needing help with "simple" tasks is shameful. I got my autism diagnosis a few years later, and couldn't help but think about the psych - she wasn't only terrible at her job and treated me like shit, the stuff she had said was also pretty fucking ableist 💀 needless to say my life has improved by getting help with things I am unable to do on my own, instead of just pushing through when it is too much for me, and I don't feel ashamed asking for help anymore.
Oh! I also remembered that when she prescribed me with the second antidepressants, as the first ones she had prescirbed made me feel like throwing up, she said "Then you can't be helped anymore" after the other ones hadn't helped me after just a month of taking them. She was my very first mental health "professional" I went to, so I basically didn't know that there's ones that aren't this shitty and also getting an appointment anywhere when you're not already in their system is an ages long wait, so we didn't have much better options at the time. Generally the waiting times until you get mental help are way too long.
I was sent to a behavioral institution after a break down at school where suicidal tendencies came out. A nurse or orderly or whatever, told me 2 days into my inpatient stay that I am to calm and obedient to need help. Yeah lady, my overwhelming fear of disappointing authority figures at the age of 12 leading to suicide tendencies doesn't make me calm and obedient nor needs help sorting out.
I'm studying Psychology at the moment and it makes me sad that there are incompetent people in the field that won't help you they just wanna make money and give unhelpful judgemental advice. Therapy is supposed to be a safe non-judgemental place where you feel heard, not traumatised. If a mental health professional makes you feel unsafe, invalidated or showing red flags, change immediately!❤
I remember going to a counselor as a kid who told my parents there wasn't anything wrong with me because I wasn't actively self-harming.
Went for anxiety and depression. Had the shrink tell me she didn't know what to do with me. I was a mild case and I told her basically if she couldn't figure out 2 very common issues she should find a new profession and hung up.
All these stories remind me of the time I was an out patient at the mental hospital and I was having a pretty serious mental breakdown. One of the nurses sits with me and asks “would writing a suicide note help?” I remember very vividly taking my hands off my eyes and just looking at her like she had two heads
I never had therapy experiences NEARLY as bad as these, but here's my story either way:
I was in middle school, I don't remember exactly which grade. I felt extremely scared to go to school, I'd do anything to get out of it. I dreaded each and every single day I went. My parents noticed this, and recommended I talk to my school's counselor. So, I did. She said to me, "Oh you're just a little stressed" and sent me on my way. Thanks, man, really helped.
My therapist loves to imply I'm "dumb" because I didn't do the "easy" (generally difficult more confrontational) option in a situation that deeply upset me. it happens Every Time we speak and I bring up an issue
Yeah, someone needs their license challenged. Maybe try new professional 😢
I have two.
I first started therapy when I was 16 for depression. My therapist saw me once a week for two months. She then told me I had depression because my sister had diabetes. Um, no? Wtf, why would you blame my sister's disease?
Later, I was seeing a different therapist. He diagnosed me with bipolar and sent me to their psych doc for meds. She prescribed me something, then told me I needed to also get on birth control because I "obviously can't keep it in my pants". I was 21, married, and had just had my first child. Even if I had seven children, it's not her place to say bullshit like that. I told my therapist what she'd said and never saw her again.
I was struggling with addiction when I asked my therapist what I could do to stop when she said “Just pray about it”. To be fair, she worked for a faith based organization, but the response was so callous and inappropriate that it turned me away from her for good. I have also since deconstructed and I’m no longer a Christian, so that kind of advice really doesn’t get me anywhere
Now I'm unsure about seeing a therapist.
My school counselor told me about her barley related relative who had blood cancer at a young age to make me (11 at the time) that my 2-3 panic attacks a day wasn’t that bad. Of course that situation for the kid was/is worse than mine.
I had to go to therapiats to get my gender dysphoria diagnosis. I was asked many questions. Most of them invasive. Most of them useless to determine if i actualy have dysphoria.
Due to needing to see multiple therapists and a doctor i have been on multiple waiting lists. I never got any estimations , just well contact you when we have an appointment. This seemingly endless waiting was what made me attempt suicide.
When i finaly got to the last one i need, he tells me that i got it but only barely. I lost my trust in medical proffesionals for a while after that. It made me repress the issues of CSA and other abuse i had suffered which where then just coming up. I had to lie to all of these people.
I am now on hormones. I can look at myself in the mirror and dont hate my face. I dont hate my body anymore (with one exception but i have the date when that will be solved). I lied and would have not gotten my diagnosis i needed if i was honest. If that had happened i would have ended it.
I also have a new therapist who only once droped her proffesional calm and that was when i told her all this. She was mad at them. Seeing her helped a lot and she also helped with the issues from the CSA and the mistrust of medical professionals.
In the army I was stationed in Augusta, GA. I'm from CA and it was hard to adjust to culture there. I saw a civillian psychiatrist on base, literally in a military hospital, and he just laughed in my face and said Californians don't do well here. I already had PTSD from my previous post and couldn't bring myself to see another psych until I went to the VA years after my discharge. They didn't help, either. All they wanted to do was medicate me and check in on it twice a month. All the stuff about VA PTSD treatment is bullshit. They don't do talk therapy outpatient and require medications that often don't really work. Everything in the media is propaganda and nothing else.
Another one, also at the VA, said I should sell my house and enroll in homeless treatment at county mental health. Yes, really.
The last one was a job training counselor who looked up everything I was ever treated for and said I had too much pain to hold down a job and refused to refer me. Almost all the pain he claimed was from injuries (bursitis, joint dislocation, etc) and after treatment it healed and I was fine soon after.
FUCK the VA.
One of the most infuriating things I've been told whenever I've been looking for help with anger issues is to simply let go of some stuff from my past, and to just move forward with my life. That's cool advice and all, and if I knew how to do that, I would. But I can't and I've been blowing up at the smallest annoyances for several years now, so even if it's just a matter of "moving on", I clearly need help to move the fuck on.
my friend took her child with autism out of the public school system because of the way the school was handling her child. He is being home school and his mental health needs are being met and he is hitting educational milestones he would have never hit in public school
A long time before HIPPAA, I was looking for a new therapist when mine had to stop for medical reasons. I saw one therapist who was attached to a teaching hospital and told her I wanted to be sure everything was confidential. She said if I was coming to that kind of hospital, I shouldn't expect any privacy at all.
I got my therapist when I was in year 7, and I was telling her one day about how I could somewhat feel other people’s emotions as if my own, I still do, I swore that it wasn’t my own emotions. She said to me: “I’m saying I don’t believe you, but-“ From there on, I didn’t listen. Her saying that just proved she didn’t believe me entirely. However, the next session did go fine, and she said that it’s possible to have what I have, I’m just a type of empath and whatever. It’s fine though, I just didn’t like that statement. She clearly didn’t know it affected me. 🤷♀️
My psychiatrist (who was in complete control of my medication) effectively telling me he would 100% taking me off what my therapist said is needed Adderall, because it was a "school only medication" (despite us agreeing I also need it for life tasks and work) but also not wanting me on it because me being a college student meant I was 100% going to misuse it or sell it despite me having no history that should suggest I would be at risk to do either. Took me on and off it so much that I became super disregulated. Finally on it and my other needed medication regularly and I'm rocking a manager job.
There is a therapist that works with my father who clearly isnt cut out to be a therapist. When addicts come in and lie to her about needing medication she writes notes for them. Surprisingly she isnt nearly as kind to victims of domestic violence.
I was in hospital after a failed suicide, suffering from drug psychosis. A mental health nurse told me to get pregnant as having a baby to look after would fix me
This is not as bad as most people's, but when I was diagnosed with OCD I tried connecting dots about what I'd read about the illness to the symptoms I was showing, to figure out what coping mechanisms were best, and my therapist said "we aren't here to talk about that. Tell me more about your relationship with your parents" she also didn't want anything to do with the abusive relationship I was in, told me she wasn't here to listen to heartbreak stories. In reality, I was a 15 year old girl with a boy who was encouraging me to cut myself and send him pictures because he insisted that was the only way I was pretty. I had no issues with my parental relationships at the time.
She told me I wasn’t really sick, didn’t need therapy, and just all around abused me.
My situation is more what the person who took my info when I WANTED to get get mental health help did. At the time I was sort of in foster care (it was complicated bc the family was who my bio dad had been staying with, idk if it was actually official or not) and I had serious issues with the foster mother after a year or so, primarily the fact I was an undiagnosed autistic girl who would have shutdowns and would cry when being yelled at. She was an 'expert' about ADHD, yet missed that I definitely had rejection sensitive dysphoria. Well I was staying with my bio mom, because it was just easier and was kind of a trial thing, and I mentioned to her that I would sometimes be overwhelmed by an inner void that pulled all emotions from me, I would feel empty and numb for weeks at a time. In retrospect, these were shutdowns. My bio mom agreed to get me someone to talk to. We were in the waiting room, I had already given my name and why I was there, apparently the person who dealt with that thought something was wrong I guess. They called the foster mom, who showed up screaming and kicking about 'how dare I do this to her, it makes her look so bad' ignoring the fact that two dozen people saw her act like this. I didn't ask for help again until I was an adult, nearly killed myself because I had to go live with her again, legit wanted to be dead, and was never given someone to talk to.
I had a therapist that told me I need better coping skills when my MIL triggered my trauma.
I'm seeking a therapist as soon as a spot opens up, and i really hope they're ready for one hell of an interview, cuz I know what's wrong with me and they'd better be willing to help with it in a way that mt brain won't turn around into crap like this.
I'm planning on working to become a therapist and this just disgusts me. I've gone through some things myself and I want to make sure I can help people the way people should've helped me. I want to promise that I can heal
The adhd specialist reminds me of the ASD "specialist" I saw. He said I don't have autism because I "make eye contact and talk too much to be autistic"
It was a video call. I made no eye contact and barely talked the whole time.
"Now what really happened?" This was years ago when I had related one of my "crazy" stories about my parents. It took 40 more years for the psychological community to describe high-functioning autistic behavior, especially in women. I now realize both parents were autistic in addition to paranoid personality disorder, but at the time if the parents weren't alcoholics or drug users, everything was "fine" and the problem was the kid.
Oh, the first one is common, the first time I told a psychologist that I was suicidal she dismissed me from the service and told me to take a new appointment if I felt suicidal again in the next two weeks. It took months to even get that first appointment
My mom had a therapist back when she was a teen who asked her if her father had touched her inappropriately. She got mad because he would never do that so she asked the same question back. The guy just started sobbing uncontrollably
I was in a therapist office crying and she gives me a “no SI contract” to fill out. I never made any SI statement, I was just depressed and crying. So I’m crying and she’s giving me a piece of paper to fill out while she sits in silence. I know she only cared about protecting her own butt, but at minimum, she could’ve asked me the questions and filled it out herself. I never went back.
I had a therapist that I trusted try to convince me that a traumatic experience was in my head, because he didn't believe me.
My therapist laughed at me while I was explaining myself and balling my eyes out
So, this one therapist I talked to for an intake essentially tried to convince me that I was:
- "not man enough" because I am not a dominant person. (I struggle with setting boundaries and standing up for myself due to past traumas, I barely dared to speak when I was younger, let alone tell someone 'no'. I told him about this before he judged my "manhood")
- Using/abusing drugs and alcohol (I've never taken drugs in my life and rarely drink any alcoholic drinks. On the handfull of occasions that I do, I usually keep it at one drink, maybe a couple if I'm at a longer party, but I tend to get panic attacks if I drink, so I don't like to.)
- Too shy to be taken seriously. (I wouldn't call myself shy nowadays. I used to be, and I do struggle with social anxiety and am an introvert, but I am quite social and am usually the one in my friend groups who dares to speak up if someone needs something.)
Throughout the conversation, he was pretty unprofessional. He would keep telling me how I was supposed to feel instead of asking me / giving me a chance to tell him first. And if I corrected him, he seemed to get upset.
I had filled in a pretty extensive list of tests for him, had my own therapist send him a report on my current mental state, issues, and important moments in my life to help him prepare our session. He read them for the first time the last 10 minutes of our conversation (the emails with the files that were sent through to him were unread when he opened them on his computer).
I know follow-up questions are an important tool in interviewing, but this man took it to another level. While we were discussing my drinking habits and usage of drugs, he asked me about every hobby I had and if people were dealing there, every place I visited and if I ever had been overed pills/weed there, then if I said no, he would ask if I was sure and then ask me again a few minutes later. I understand he wanted to make sure, but I walked out of that conversation, feeling like he just thought of me like a burden and a lair.
After our conversation, he was supposed to call me back to check up on me. This conversation came a month after it was supposed to and lasted about 3 minutes. He just did not seem to care.
Holy shit, what a nightmare. This guy's an asshole, I'm sorry you had to go though all that :(
I wanted to unalive myself. (Was eventually diagnosed with severe depression) my first psychiatrist looked me in the eye and said “if you really wanted to unalive yourself so badly you would of already done it so your fine”
Re Story 16: I've only had one therapist (so far), and it might just have been because he was speciffically a therapist for kids and teens, but he absolutely wasn't "profesional" at all, which was great for me. He didn't treat me like a small child (I was 13 when I started seeing him), and he didn't mince words. He straight up told me "your dad is an asshole, and he'll most likely will stay an asshole for the rest of his life, deal with it" (and then helped me deal with it), which was 100% the best thing he could have said to me. I had so many adults (mainly social workers) give me false hopes that ended up getting crushed and only made things worse for my mental health, and I'm eternally thankful that he was not one of them but gave me actual help and guidance and treated me seriously (and I'm still sad that we moved and I had to stop seeing him). That guy was great in so many ways
I was about 13 or 14 my therapist at the time I had told me the reason I was S/A'd by my step father was because I was a splitting image of my mom and a better version of her and younger. Who the eff tells a child that!?!?! I bawled when she said that. I felt so dirty, and I felt like it was my fault it happened. I told my sisters what she said after my session, and then all hell broke loose. I thank God that I never had to see her again.
As a CMHC grad student.. my jaw is on the floor.
Late response here but -- "you're unteachable" and "maybe you should drop out".
Bothered me at the time because I was trying my best, but looking back at it, I was with undiagnosed neurological issues and nobody was treating me accordingly.
Not everything is your fault. It's okay to not understand or to feel out of place. The important part is to recognize and to figure out what is comfortable to you, to solve your issue.
My therapist called me a miss just to mess with me