When A Therapist Thrives On Your Drama
When I first embarked upon therapy as a way to deal with my issues, I was only looking to gain relief from depression and anxiety. At the time, I had very little understanding that the bulk of my issues were the result of narcissistic abuse. Cognitive behavioral therapy was my way to unleash the stress within me. I had someone to truly listen to me even if that someone was paid to do it.
Almost simultaneously after beginning therapy, I also began the intake of psychotropic medications to relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression. After a lengthy process of finding the right medications, I began to feel great relief. I was finally able to push myself up and swim away from that deep, dark place in the abyss that had held me bound for so long. Talking about my problems was therapy for me, but a listening therapist was even better. I felt heard, validated, and understood.
As time moved on and I began to study personality disorders, I became aware that therapy was not going to help me a whole lot in the area of narcissistic abuse. As much as I loved the therapist I saw at the time, she did not seem to have deep knowledge about about narcissistic personality disorder and narcississtic abuse. She seemed to be far from having lived the experiences with this personality type herself even though she mentioned helping clients in areas of domestic abuse.
I must admit that I was confused as to how a therapist could not help everyone. Now I know better, and now I realize that many therapists have specialty areas. Although I felt lucky enough to have found a therapist that was able to assist me with my mental health concerns, I still suffered greatly with setbacks throughout my time in therapy because I was in various relationships with narcissists at the same time. In fact, I never seemed to make any leeway in my relationships unless I chose to do the work on my own outside of therapy.
Oftentimes, when speaking to this therapist about my struggles in those narcissistic relationships, she would seem to readily sympathize with the narcissists. I never understood this until I realized that she did not know as much as I thought she knew about narcissistic personality disorder. She, in fact, caused me more harm than good in some instances. My explanations of being victimized seemed to sometimes fall upon her deaf ears, and I would sometimes leave her office angry, confused, and disappointed with questions as to where I had gone wrong.
Even though this therapist claimed to have a few clients that she would say were narcissists, she explained to me that she would never willingly diagnosis them with this disorder. She reasoned that it was better for clients not to know NPD as a diagnosis because it would most likely devastate them and cause more harm than good. At the time, I did not understand this. I wondered out loud on a few occasions how anyone could get help without the proper diagnosis. Yet, this therapist told me that I would in time come to understand, particularly as I began to learn more in my graduate studies on the way to becoming a therapist myself.
This therapist reasoned that diagnosing clients with any Cluster B disorder needed to be handled with extreme care. She preferred to diagnose clients in terms of mental health illnesses such as depression and anxiety or in terms of other issues instead of pointing out disorders in their personalities. She believed that a lack of extreme care in diagnoses could result in clients prematurely ceasing necessary treatment especially when it was hard enough to deal with such clients in treatment in the first place.
In terms of helping clients who are victims of narcissistic abuse, this therapist believed that talking through a client’s problems was the best course of action unless a client was in imminent danger. I will readily admit that she was the best cognitive behavioral therapist that I have worked with, but she seemed clueless in the ways that a narcissist wielded narcissistic character traits towards their targets and victims. I often felt like I taught her a lot about this disorder the more I studied on it, but then I also wondered if that was the point. Maybe she wanted me to learn for myself.
For the most part, though, I frequently felt annoyed that this therapist seemed to sit on the edge of her chair stoking the flames of my problems by siding with the narcissists in my life. When I felt done with situations, she would encourage me to stick it out, give these narcissists grace, or change my mindset with how I dealt with them. To think about it, however, I am all for seeing different perspectives. In fact, I have even empathized with these narcissists by placing myself in their shoes in attempts to understand them.
However, at some point, I had to step out of those metaphorical shoes of empathy and face the facts. Those facts were clear. Those narcissists were not going to change no matter how much I stuck with it, gave them grace, or changed my mindset in how I dealt with them. Upon further studying of about narcissists, I found that what I learned often did not match up with suggestions this therapist gave me. Yet, I deferred all expertise to her for a long time. After all, she is the therapist.
Needless to say, I attempted to see the viewpoints of this therapist regarding my relationships, and although she yielded her listening ears to my concerns, she seemed to side more with the narcissists. This, in turn, often caused me to angle my thoughts towards the narcissists’ problems in an effort to be more there for them even though that was usually my internal inclination anyway. So I did everything I could to change myself and be more compliant in these relationships, but it was simply not working out – at least for my advantage.
I was still suffering and very unhappy with the state of things. Between therapy and journaling, I built up an enormous ability to vent about those situations until it became where my therapist would simply pick up with where I left off in the occurrences of all the drama in my life until the next session. Since my appointments were scheduled for every two weeks, it was easy for her to remember. It was also very early on in the beginning of my years with this therapist. So I had not yet realized that she simply did not have the capacity to assist me at all with narcissistic abuse.
Find out what happens in the next post.
My Voice Unchained 