I have been slimed.

I've had so many people projecting all over me this week, I don't even know where to start.

Remember that show I was so happy about? Well, it stressed Doug out and he decomped a couple of days later.

Instead of telling him to take a nap, his therapist told him to leave me because I dunno what. So, we get him to a gig on the road and he doesn't come home.

That was scary. He shows up here with THE POLICE because the therapist told him not to come here alone, to get some of his stuff. ARMED MEN came into my home because THE THERAPIST is projecting all over us. Okay.

So, I give him a floppy with his work on it and do not give him this computer and by the time they all leave, the police are practically apologizing to me for even coming. Okay.

Then, he goes to stay with the guitar player who accompanies him sometimes. This guy shames Doug by telling him I am an anti-Semite for having a link up on our site TO STOP THE BOMBING. And, he tells him that he should get a RESTRAINING ORDER so I don't STALK HIM at his gigs.

Doug is away for a week. In all that time, I only call him once because I'm hoping he'll calm down. Not exactly stalking behavior. Talking to him, there are two other reasons I'm a bad person. I didn't print out the play for him so I must be a control freak. (I couldn't afford toner and spend all my money that week filming his show, duping his cds, on cards. That's all.) Also, the play is unblocked, unrehearsed and we're only weeks from opening. (Well, the therapist told him to have no contact. I'm not Kreskin and can't direct him if he's not here. lol)

I don't know why I'm laughing except, I don't know what else I could possibly do.

Everyone around Doug seems to be more unwell than he is.


Thank God for Doug's friend Mike. He's a social worker and has a good clear head. Because after a week and two missed gigs, I call Mike and we clear everything up. Doug needed a fucking nap.

:shrug:

So, Doug says he's coming home is on Sunday after a Saturday nite show. I only hope that no one else finds something else that is wrong with me between now and then.

I don't know if the therapist has been projecting her control issues all over us all this time or what. But, I think if Doug makes it home in one piece, she's going to be seriously fired. I don't know yet. Maybe there's something that can be salvaged here. Maybe she's just got too much on her plate.

The guitar player either gets into treatment or he's also seriously fired.

I can't believe how many people are just wandering around with no personal boundaries and no problem sliming other people.

:wtf:

Edit: Several edits because my PTSD got socked in but good by all the bs and I can't seem to type very well. New rules: Next time, he takes a nap.

My first thoughts, though, were for any kids that you might have living at home with you and having to see all of this....:-(

I recognise Doug's going into crisis mode though, from how I always used to react to stress of performance (not on stage, but in a job, school, or socially....)

Otherwise, I would say that I would probably try to keep myself in balance through all of this, keep MY boundaries clear, and have a very good talk with Doug when he is rested up.

I also would guess that anyone who so loves someone as you do, and dedicates herself to helping manage your loved one's problems and life in general, is going to get seriously dumped on once in awhile.
To me, the odds are so in favor of this happening in such a relationship and also in such a creative, artist's world.......:silly:

But also, find out more about his therapist - from him if possible - and about the reasons why all of the threats and force were deemed necessary - man, this just HAS to be brought out in the open IMHO!
:wtf:

You take care! :hug:

DemEx

and my old 80 lb INCONTINENT Lab. Did I mention, I'm also handling poor Buddy?

:wtf: about the therapist is right. When Doug gets stressed out, he experiences me being harsh --->raging. But, no one else has ever seen or heard me fly into a rage. I don't think the therapist gets that although she's had 10 years to get to know me and all my warts.

She's not just a therapist any more, she's also a friend, so double :wtf:

I know everybody will calm down but man, I wish I had a :tinfoilhat: on all week just to dodge the flying youknowwhat. And, it can't have been very good for Doug to be told that he couldn't trust me. That must have been AWFUL for him. :(

What doesn't kill you.

:hi:


edit: I'm going to give up on typing because my whatEVER just isn't working right now. I'm sorry.

In fact, I'm do anger so badly that I have anxiety attacks and am on meds for that.

Wouldn't it be a huge CLUE to a therapist that a person who'd rather have an anxiety attack than express anger CANNOT at the same time RAGE?

I feel flummoxed, really. I don't mind being dumped so much or any of the usual stuff. Life happens. We try to stay in balance, sometimes we don't.

But, I just don't understand how someone with a DECADE of experience could make not one mistake but SERIAL mistakes based on the reports of a stressed out client.

Unbelievable.

Doug is so loved, and so lucky to have you supporting him. all this sounds like a bad dream for you.

Maybe time apart will be good for him, but IMO there should be lines drawn in the future, with definite boundaries and expectations. I have a child who freaks out when she is sleep deprived, it is as though some "other" enters and I am unable to communicate anything with her.

Do these new friends have the capacity to fill his needs?

What are you doing now to care for yourself, for your own peace of mind etc?

Here's love from my home to yours

is good guy who is oblivious. Imho, he's clearly OCD but, I'm not a doctor. It's sort of scary to me that these two in "home alone". :(

I'm just resting today. The trauma of it all is subsiding a little. Doug called to check in earlier but he's still not really okay as I can tell by listening to him talk. He's got a show tonight and I hope he'll have enough help to be all right.

I almost called the guy running the show because he's a friend of ours but decided, that would be invading Doug's privacy so, I didn't. All of this is sort of nerve wracking so I'm trying to just focus on innocuous, daily activities.

remember my 16 year old daughter? yadda yadda yadda. her counselor called me with this news:

your daughter is fetal alchohol syndrom affected. She does not "get it" and most likely will never "get it"

side note: I adopted her and her two siblings 10 years ago. two of them are on the honor roll. all three were labled feral and unadoptable.

I have decided to start making movies again. Little short films about the contrasts of life.

cheers sfexpat2000.

I've always loved film but it's not my medium. I don't understand how you go from seeing to editing or something. There's something that is missing for me, like the tactile part of most things I do. Writing poetry, for example, can be tactile. I don't understand film but both of us are addicts. :)

I can't tell you how much I admire what you have accomplished with those kids. It's just breathtaking. It renews your faith in in human beings.

:hug:

:grouphug:

(And am reminded how much we have depended on her good sense and support.) Because, early in the week, when things started getting dicey, I emailed her and said, "When this is over, I'm going to need more help because what I'm doing is unsustainable. Maybe Doug can go to a skills class for Aspies and daycare or some activity twice a week." And what I meant was, I'm tired and am trying to figure out how to adjust our situation a little bit so I can do better.

So, instead of responding to me, SHE PASSES MY EMAIL TO DOUG. Which is just wrong. It hurt him. When he told me about it, he was angry, AND HE WAS RIGHT TO BE ANGRY.

The thing is, I can't even tell how many times in the past I've figured out adjuestments in this way with that therapist. Countless times. And, she's NEVER betrayed my trust or Doug's sense of himself in this awful way.

So, I think she must be having a crisis or something. This is just so unlike her. :shrug:

i will post a little more later, cuz i have to get up from this computer and get something done for a change. just wanted to say-
:hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: :hug:
and have a long talk with that therapist. she got some splainin to do.

When I ask him to please come home, he says no. When I ask him if he'd just like to stay with his friend, he says I'm being negative and upsetting.

Oh boy.

I've only had my own mental health issues to deal with, so I've never had your experience, i.e., a loved one.

Looking back, I'd have to say, unfortunately, that MH professionals were often more of a hindrance than a help. I had to be my own advocate usually; tough, at a time when you're in no shape to do so.

The best support I ever got, in fact, was from a caseworker on my insurance carrier's MH support line. I was feeling awful, really awful, like I wanted to die, didn't know what else to do, so I called this 800-number, and the woman on the other end said, "Sounds like you need your meds adjusted. Go see your doctor NOW, don't wait." I thought, "Duh."

I don't know your situation at all, but it sounds like your friends are your best bet. I know you two have had some tough times before, but you've always gotten through them. Peace.

Mary

days anxious and numb and now, just weepy. That's all right. Doug has people around him and I need to deal with me first anyway.

It's just so strange to see the therapist sort of buy in. It's like I'm being sucked into a tug of war, except I won't play. It's counterproductive. I think my job is to just stay "still" as much as I can.

What a world.

ya know, that is the hard part of it all, i guess, for families. you want the professionals to be the voice of reason, and be there to straighten our loved ones out. but they really have to accept those emotions, and deal with them, because they can't go around telling people that what they think and feel is wrong. so, this therapist has to accept that doug feels threatened, and let him act on that to make himself feel safe. not because she thinks you are a threat, but because she thinks that doug needs to feel like he can act and make change for himself. i wouldn't be surprised if she would like to shake him a good one, and say- are ya nuts man? this is beth we are talking about here!
i dunno, i think there ought to be some middle ground. and you would hope that in a long term relationship with a therapist there would be some room for that.
hang in there honey. when things calm down, there will be some room to go back over it, and talk it over. my probably rotten advice would be to have a long talk with that therapist and doug, and see if you can lay a little groundwork before next time. calling in the cops seems to be taking things a little too far.

Even therapists can get buffaloed, even by clients that they've had for a long time and in theory know well. Maybe especially if they know the client well and consider him/her a friend... Therapists can be led by emotion, too (and that's actually the prime reason that I am no longer in full-time practice. I am really hideously bad at the continual detachment required; I can't turn it on and off the way some people can.)

I seem to recall that Doug has, among other things, Borderline PD. One of my training advisors, lo this decade ago now, sat me down one day and gave me the best advice about being a therapist for BPD clients possible: the person on the other side of the desk is not reliable. It's not personal and it's not a reflection upon either therapist or the client's best intentions... it's a wiring fault and it has to be managed like a chronic illness or addiction recovery. It can't be cured, it can only be mitigated and the therapist's job in those situations is to teach mitigation strategies and observe the client's behaviors and entire world, not just what the client perceives and relates. BPD is tragic mostly because it DOES put people who are basically well-intentioned and well disposed in a situation where their only effective survival strategy is to manipulate their environment and the people in it. Thus, she really reinforced to me that when dealing with a BD client, the people who can best assess the client's behavior are not the client and therapist, but those around the client on a highly regular basis. I never forgot that, but my advisor had been in the field for all of her adult life by that point, and a lot of therapists seem to forget that very basic rule from time to time.

As for the breach of trust in showing the email, that was utterly unforgivable. To tell any client that their primary care giver is in need of respite (which is basically what you need and is both utterly reasonable and utterly sensible and what should have been happening all along) when that client would immediately consider respite to be abandonment is not only irresponsible and unethical, but cruel. The fact that you have not had respite built in to the care for Doug from the beginning is a lot startling to me to begin with; Even ten years ago when I was still in my internship, we always set up respite care for cases where a client needed supervision or assistance and there were few primary caregivers. That was standard operating procedure, whether the respite was getting a day nurse in three times a week for the physically disabled or getting a child into an educational-therapeutic center, or having trained care workers come into an Alzheimer's patient's home.

Were you two my clients, I would not consider it an unreasonable or at all threatening to the safety and security of Doug. It sounds imminently sensible. And yes, I would work with him to realize that the classes he needs and the supervision he needs are the best things for him... but jeezie creezie!! There's such a thing as TACT. That's my bloody definition of the job: the person who is paid to tell you the things you don't want to hear in a way you can't refuse them and will make you like what you have to do that you don't want to do. Yes, maybe she was having a bad week... but her job is to leave her bad week outside her office door. If she can't do that consistently, she needs to get out of the job and get into research (my choice) or do something that is less critical to the functioning and future of the people she works with, like bomb disposal or smoke jumping.

The only thing I can offer other than virtual hugs and support is this: what's the trauma of finding and establishing a new relationship with a therapist going to be like? Is it going to cause more upheaval and pain and suffering than having a sitdown and come to Jeebus meeting with the therapist, one on one?

(I walked away from this post for a bit because I needed to work on something I was cooking.... but of course I was still thinking...) One other thing... Have you had any indication that perhaps the therapist would like Doug to move on to another therapist or that she's tired of working with the two of you? A stupid breach of trust like that (and it really is stupid - not something I'd expect of an experienced and long-term therapist-client relationship) may be her way of trying to force the situation, to force you two to "fire" her so that she doesn't have to "quit." Then she can make herself believe that she was innocent and blameless and that she no longer has to be responsible. It basically could be a way to get herself out of a situation she can't handle anymore without subjecting herself to the guilt of walking out. It's that whole emotional conflict of being both a therapist and a friend; having lost the detachment of being a therapist, the only way to get herself out of the therapeutic relationship is to cause a breach of such mind-bogglingly idiotic consequences that there are no choices left for you and Doug but to break off both the therapeutic and friendly relationships. (Which of course is about the worst possible thing for Doug, since abandonment issues are all over the place...)

It may well be that this therapist is tired of our situation. I don't know what to do about that as Doug has split me or, made me the "bad guy" in this situation.

I feel angry that the therapist or me or Doug have to be so stressed out with so few resources that we resort to this behavior.

:(

I don't know really how therapists could assume anything.


On the one hand - as a patient - it's nice to be believed (and I want victims to be believed) - on the other hand it's got to be common for people with problems to blame other people.

And then - as you say - there are projection issues of the therapists. It's all crazy.


I hope things are getting better. :hug:

I know that sounds cruel, but clients (I never use the word victim; that has too many connotations that are far too negative) with perception-based issues are very truthful, and I have always accepted their reality as valid for them. However, a perception-based issue at its very heart means that truth and reality are not necessarily the same thing, and are often widely divergent. I would serve a client with a grandiosity issue quite badly if I "believed" my client was indeed the smuggled-away heir to the throne of Upper Disenchantment. In such cases, my job is not to believe but to assist in discovering why such an idea became so very important to the client in the first place, and helping the client learn to mitigate the behaviors that come from such beliefs as well as helping to change the circumstances of the client's life so the belief can be removed.

I have no doubt that my husband has concerns about our marriage that should be respected and addressed.

But, they are not equal to needing armed guards to retrieve his stuff.

Being concerned is not the same as being in shared reality.

...but it isn't. All I can say is I've been there and I feel ya. Take care. :hug:

But, I do thank you.

:)