Venting I think I'm going to break my therapist's heart

[hobbydevil]

... when I ctb, and somehow that thought alone is breaking me, too.

It's... I'm horrible.
I have a family who loves me, both of my parents, a little sister, other relatives... All of them have invested so much time and energy and money and love into me over years and years. The thought of letting them all down and hurting them really hurts me, too.

But strangely, at the moment nothing makes me feel quite as guilty about planning my death as what my therapist has said...

She told me that if I died... she'd be haunted by it forever. She sounded really worried and pained.
I know what you might think... It's her job, right? I pay her to care.
But she's so much more than that to me.
She makes her sessions so cheap for me so I can afford seeing her as often as I feel I need to. She listens to me for hours on end. She's so different from all the therapists I've seen before. I've come to trust her a lot and I've never been this open with a therapist before now, and that says a lot because I've seen quite a few...
I can be so raw with her. She's truly someone very important in my life right now.

Too bad I found her so late.
Had I met her five or four years earlier it might have changed everything for me. Back then I ended up with a therapist who didn't care about me at all and who made things worse in a multitude of ways, blind to the issues I had, not curious to even really understand me, and who cheered on my self-harming above all else.
Being a repressed lesbian and unknowingly picking a homophobic man as your therapist wasn't my best move.
I learned the hard way that a bad therapist can be much much worse than having none at all.

She's so different... not even just from him but every therapist I've had before.
But like this, as nice as it is, it also just feels like torture to be shown what I could have had and what could have saved me from a lot of pain in these past couple of years.

Now I find myself in this dilemma.

I love talking to her. She makes passing the time until my ctb date so much more bearable.
But at the same time... I am going to disappoint and hurt her. I know I will. I am getting attached to her, but I think she also cares a lot about me by now...
All that kindness and time and energy she's offering me, it could go to someone else who actually wants to live.
I feel like an energy vampire.

Yesterday she dropped the kicker on me.
She informed me she got invited to speak at a conference where I'm going to speak as well. She asked me if I am comfortable with that, and also told me that our work in therapy is her priority - meaning that if I said "no" she won't accept the invitation.
She could tell what I thought immediately... I'd be nervous as hell with her there.
Now she's set on not accepting the invitation... and I feel horrible about it.
She's such a brilliant woman. They deserve to hear her speak. Who cares about me? I am most likely going to be dead by March! It would be so selfish of me to keep her from it just so I can be there. If anything, I should be the one stepping down...

I'm so close to just writing her an email stating that I don't want to continue talking to her.
But as she knows about my suicidal thoughts she'd probably just be alarmed about that and inform my friends or family - I was dumb enough to give her the number of someone to contact in case she suspects I'm posing a real danger to myself.

The manipulative side of me tries to come up with ways to make her drop me, and tries to convince myself that she doesn't actually care, but the moment I talk to her I just can't bring myself to be mean or even cold.
She has such a motherly vibe about her.

But I need to remind myself she's not... That. She's my therapist. She has a life of her own, a family, children, other clients.
She'll be okay if I died, right?

God, I shouldn't have let myself get talked into giving therapy another try...

 

[noctiva]

I hear you, I had the same situation with my therapist! She absolutely heard me, she understood what I felt without me saying it. If I had found her 5 years ago, I think I'd be very much better now. But because I'm poor I could never afford therapy for long term sessions, I only got 10-12 sessions, and then was handed on to someone else somewhere else, so I could have therapy but so that they could refer me from health centre to health centre, getting free/ or very cheap therapy. But that also meant, that I always needed to catch people up, the first 4-5 sessions were just answering the same questions over and over, and then I hag 5-7 sessions therapy, followed by a break where they'd try to find me a different health care centre to send to.
This therapist now, she was great. I had the sessions with her, and she decided I need more, so she found some money from the state so I can continue with her for another set of 12 sessions. I was supposed to pay 3 myself, but I got 9 for free!
She listened, she really listened. She also gave me concrete help with my problems, such as 'Go there, talk to that guy, he does pro bono work, he can help you, I know him well'. And above all, I felt comfortable talking to her. When I told her about my acute crisis in October, she cried, she knew how important my love was for me, and she cried. She called me repeatedly out of our times to check on me, how I'm doing, if I'm well, gave me addresses for if I needed help and felt like harming myself.
I ended therapy with her a month ago now. It's hard, but I had to. I asked her at some point actually how she deals with everything she hears on a daily basis, and she told me that therapists do go to therapy to talk about what is going on, so she has a day a week where she doesn't see any clients but she has therapy and group therapy with other therapists herself. She told me that clients that have killed themselves never leave her, she has made peace with their deaths, but they are still with her, on her mind. That's when I knew I needed to stop seeing her.
I would be better off, if I still saw her. But the goal is to ctb, so better off would, in this light, be worse off for ctb. And I cannot have that. I cannot afford to not die anymore.

I wish you all the best on your journey, whether you want to ctb or if you decide to give it another go. Know that therapists are also just people, and that, like all other people, they will be affected by your death. Maybe a bit more so, because it was their job to help you see and find a way forwards, and because they get closer to us than anybody else. But they also have more support than other people in out lives. But the good therapists, the caring ones, they will be devastated. And yours sounds like she is one of the dedicated ones.

Edit: I'm sorry this is such an incoherent rant, don't bother trying to understand it. I'm a complete mess today and I'm not making much sense.

 

[Detour]

... when I ctb, and somehow that thought alone is breaking me, too.

It's... I'm horrible.
I have a family who loves me, both of my parents, a little sister, other relatives... All of them have invested so much time and energy and money and love into me over years and years. The thought of letting them all down and hurting them really hurts me, too.

Too bad I found her so late.

Had I met her five or four years earlier it might have changed everything for me.

All this is why I'm on this site. The family part, there's only two people from holding me back from Ctb and that's my parents. My siblings will be just fine. I've only started seeing one therapist about a month ago, but I had already made up my mind on ctb I just wanted to talk to someone for the meanwhile. I never thought about what she would think after, would she blame herself because she knows she's the first therapist I've seen ? This wouldn't be her fault at all, but maybe she'll think otherwise. I never thought about that, and yea if I would've found her sooner I prob wouldn't be here rn

 

[justwhy?]

... when I ctb, and somehow that thought alone is breaking me, too.

It's... I'm horrible.
I have a family who loves me, both of my parents, a little sister, other relatives... All of them have invested so much time and energy and money and love into me over years and years. The thought of letting them all down and hurting them really hurts me, too.

But strangely, at the moment nothing makes me feel quite as guilty about planning my death as what my therapist has said...

She told me that if I died... she'd be haunted by it forever. She sounded really worried and pained.
I know what you might think... It's her job, right? I pay her to care.
But she's so much more than that to me.
She makes her sessions so cheap for me so I can afford seeing her as often as I feel I need to. She listens to me for hours on end. She's so different from all the therapists I've seen before. I've come to trust her a lot and I've never been this open with a therapist before now, and that says a lot because I've seen quite a few...
I can be so raw with her. She's truly someone very important in my life right now.

Too bad I found her so late.
Had I met her five or four years earlier it might have changed everything for me. Back then I ended up with a therapist who didn't care about me at all and who made things worse in a multitude of ways, blind to the issues I had, not curious to even really understand me, and who cheered on my self-harming above all else.
Being a repressed lesbian and unknowingly picking a homophobic man as your therapist wasn't my best move.
I learned the hard way that a bad therapist can be much much worse than having none at all.

She's so different... not even just from him but every therapist I've had before.
But like this, as nice as it is, it also just feels like torture to be shown what I could have had and what could have saved me from a lot of pain in these past couple of years.

Now I find myself in this dilemma.

I love talking to her. She makes passing the time until my ctb date so much more bearable.
But at the same time... I am going to disappoint and hurt her. I know I will. I am getting attached to her, but I think she also cares a lot about me by now...
All that kindness and time and energy she's offering me, it could go to someone else who actually wants to live.
I feel like an energy vampire.

Yesterday she dropped the kicker on me.
She informed me she got invited to speak at a conference where I'm going to speak as well. She asked me if I am comfortable with that, and also told me that our work in therapy is her priority - meaning that if I said "no" she won't accept the invitation.
She could tell what I thought immediately... I'd be nervous as hell with her there.
Now she's set on not accepting the invitation... and I feel horrible about it.
She's such a brilliant woman. They deserve to hear her speak. Who cares about me? I am most likely going to be dead by March! It would be so selfish of me to keep her from it just so I can be there. If anything, I should be the one stepping down...

I'm so close to just writing her an email stating that I don't want to continue talking to her.
But as she knows about my suicidal thoughts she'd probably just be alarmed about that and inform my friends or family - I was dumb enough to give her the number of someone to contact in case she suspects I'm posing a real danger to myself.

The manipulative side of me tries to come up with ways to make her drop me, and tries to convince myself that she doesn't actually care, but the moment I talk to her I just can't bring myself to be mean or even cold.
She has such a motherly vibe about her.

But I need to remind myself she's not... That. She's my therapist. She has a life of her own, a family, children, other clients.
She'll be okay if I died, right?

God, I shouldn't have let myself get talked into giving therapy another try...

Whatever you do it's clear she is deserving of the utmost respect. I can only tell you what I would do were I you and intent on ctb. Yes - I'd stop seeing her. But only after explaining, as you have here, why she's such a great therapist. And emphasising that others, more able to heal, deserve her attention (triage - like), and why she should therefore attend the conference. Of course, convey your sincere and deep gratitude to her. Obviously you would then have to lie and explicitly state you have no intention to ctb and maybe express an insurmountable doubt over your ability to get better any time soon, or whatever you think best. Yes she'll probably see right through it but if you stick to the lie then she can't really stick her oar in. That's going to be the hard part - maintaining the lie when she knows you so well and you have such fondness for her.

Please don't just leave her in the lurch - it would be a tragedy for her to become jaded. She at least needs to know how highly you regard her.

 

[hobbydevil]

I hear you, I had the same situation with my therapist! She absolutely heard me, she understood what I felt without me saying it. If I had found her 5 years ago, I think I'd be very much better now. But because I'm poor I could never afford therapy for long term sessions, I only got 10-12 sessions, and then was handed on to someone else somewhere else, so I could have therapy but so that they could refer me from health centre to health centre, getting free/ or very cheap therapy. But that also meant, that I always needed to catch people up, the first 4-5 sessions were just answering the same questions over and over, and then I hag 5-7 sessions therapy, followed by a break where they'd try to find me a different health care centre to send to.
This therapist now, she was great. I had the sessions with her, and she decided I need more, so she found some money from the state so I can continue with her for another set of 12 sessions. I was supposed to pay 3 myself, but I got 9 for free!
She listened, she really listened. She also gave me concrete help with my problems, such as 'Go there, talk to that guy, he does pro bono work, he can help you, I know him well'. And above all, I felt comfortable talking to her. When I told her about my acute crisis in October, she cried, she knew how important my love was for me, and she cried. She called me repeatedly out of our times to check on me, how I'm doing, if I'm well, gave me addresses for if I needed help and felt like harming myself.
I ended therapy with her a month ago now. It's hard, but I had to. I asked her at some point actually how she deals with everything she hears on a daily basis, and she told me that therapists do go to therapy to talk about what is going on, so she has a day a week where she doesn't see any clients but she has therapy and group therapy with other therapists herself. She told me that clients that have killed themselves never leave her, she has made peace with their deaths, but they are still with her, on her mind. That's when I knew I needed to stop seeing her.
I would be better off, if I still saw her. But the goal is to ctb, so better off would, in this light, be worse off for ctb. And I cannot have that. I cannot afford to not die anymore.

I wish you all the best on your journey, whether you want to ctb or if you decide to give it another go. Know that therapists are also just people, and that, like all other people, they will be affected by your death. Maybe a bit more so, because it was their job to help you see and find a way forwards, and because they get closer to us than anybody else. But they also have more support than other people in out lives. But the good therapists, the caring ones, they will be devastated. And yours sounds like she is one of the dedicated ones.

Edit: I'm sorry this is such an incoherent rant, don't bother trying to understand it. I'm a complete mess today and I'm not making much sense.

Not incoherent at all! You describe what I am feeling perfectly...

She is definitely one of the dedicated ones. That's what pains me so. She is such a good one. I would give everything to be able to go back in time a couple of years and pick her as my therapist then. But I can't... and I also just can't keep living for much longer...

I hate this so much.

Part of me still has a sliver of hope that maybe she can really help me, and maybe I can stay alive for a bit longer, but that hope is starting to wane with every day...
It doesn't help that I have attachment issues that totally get triggered by this situation with her. I hate getting attached to someone, and I feel so guilty for making her become attached to me, too.

I really, really don't want to stop talking to her, but at the same time it becomes more and more clear to me that it's cruel and selfish of me to make her go through this when I know full well I'm going to hurt her with my decision in the end.

Anyway, thanks for your input!
I'm sorry you've been through something similar with a therapist... and the way the mental health system failed you (having to send you from person to person in order to ensure you can stay in therapy). It's so unfair.
I think it was really noble and brave of you to end therapy with her. It says a lot about your character (in a positive way) that you did it to look out for her, although I admit part of me wishes you could keep saying her...

Whatever you do it's clear she is deserving of the utmost respect. I can only tell you what I would do were I you and intent on ctb. Yes - I'd stop seeing her. But only after explaining, as you have here, why she's such a great therapist. And emphasising that others, more able to heal, deserve her attention (triage - like), and why she should therefore attend the conference. Of course, convey your sincere and deep gratitude to her. Obviously you would then have to lie and explicitly state you have no intention to ctb and maybe express an insurmountable doubt over your ability to get better any time soon, or whatever you think best. Yes she'll probably see right through it but if you stick to the lie then she can't really stick her oar in. That's going to be the hard part - maintaining the lie when she knows you so well and you have such fondness for her.

Please don't just leave her in the lurch - it would be a tragedy for her to become jaded. She at least needs to know how highly you regard her.

Agreed and no worries - I will definitely make sure she knows how amazing she is. Hopefully she is somewhat aware already, because I have expressed my gratitude in just about every session so far...

I wish I was a better liar. I'm trying to think of excuses/lies I could use to convince her it's for the best for us to stop working on my problems, without making her worry... I don't think I will be able to keep myself from crying though...

 

[SweetForeignGirl]

... when I ctb, and somehow that thought alone is breaking me, too.

It's... I'm horrible.
I have a family who loves me, both of my parents, a little sister, other relatives... All of them have invested so much time and energy and money and love into me over years and years. The thought of letting them all down and hurting them really hurts me, too.

But strangely, at the moment nothing makes me feel quite as guilty about planning my death as what my therapist has said...

She told me that if I died... she'd be haunted by it forever. She sounded really worried and pained.
I know what you might think... It's her job, right? I pay her to care.
But she's so much more than that to me.
She makes her sessions so cheap for me so I can afford seeing her as often as I feel I need to. She listens to me for hours on end. She's so different from all the therapists I've seen before. I've come to trust her a lot and I've never been this open with a therapist before now, and that says a lot because I've seen quite a few...
I can be so raw with her. She's truly someone very important in my life right now.

Too bad I found her so late.
Had I met her five or four years earlier it might have changed everything for me. Back then I ended up with a therapist who didn't care about me at all and who made things worse in a multitude of ways, blind to the issues I had, not curious to even really understand me, and who cheered on my self-harming above all else.
Being a repressed lesbian and unknowingly picking a homophobic man as your therapist wasn't my best move.
I learned the hard way that a bad therapist can be much much worse than having none at all.

She's so different... not even just from him but every therapist I've had before.
But like this, as nice as it is, it also just feels like torture to be shown what I could have had and what could have saved me from a lot of pain in these past couple of years.

Now I find myself in this dilemma.

I love talking to her. She makes passing the time until my ctb date so much more bearable.
But at the same time... I am going to disappoint and hurt her. I know I will. I am getting attached to her, but I think she also cares a lot about me by now...
All that kindness and time and energy she's offering me, it could go to someone else who actually wants to live.
I feel like an energy vampire.

Yesterday she dropped the kicker on me.
She informed me she got invited to speak at a conference where I'm going to speak as well. She asked me if I am comfortable with that, and also told me that our work in therapy is her priority - meaning that if I said "no" she won't accept the invitation.
She could tell what I thought immediately... I'd be nervous as hell with her there.
Now she's set on not accepting the invitation... and I feel horrible about it.
She's such a brilliant woman. They deserve to hear her speak. Who cares about me? I am most likely going to be dead by March! It would be so selfish of me to keep her from it just so I can be there. If anything, I should be the one stepping down...

I'm so close to just writing her an email stating that I don't want to continue talking to her.
But as she knows about my suicidal thoughts she'd probably just be alarmed about that and inform my friends or family - I was dumb enough to give her the number of someone to contact in case she suspects I'm posing a real danger to myself.

The manipulative side of me tries to come up with ways to make her drop me, and tries to convince myself that she doesn't actually care, but the moment I talk to her I just can't bring myself to be mean or even cold.
She has such a motherly vibe about her.

But I need to remind myself she's not... That. She's my therapist. She has a life of her own, a family, children, other clients.
She'll be okay if I died, right?

God, I shouldn't have let myself get talked into giving therapy another try...

Yea, therapists get paid good money to do what they do, and while they might "care" some about their patients, they do, like you mentioned, have a life and family of their, at the end of the day, being a therapist is her job, what she does for a living. I have come to the fact that no one REALLY cares about anybody.....even if they do, once we die, they sooner or later move on and forget about you. It's just facts sadly. Life makes no sense

 

[Dazedandconfused32]

I'm presently dealing with the same issue and it's heartbreaking. I think deep down she obviously knows somethings up because she asked today if I was going to leave her. It takes all I have to evade the question in itself. She said it's not fair to her if I were to just up and leave as it would be unfair for her to just move across the country and not tell me until the week of. I know I am being sooo selfish but I do dearly love and care for her and vice versa. We talk often throughout the day via text. We're extremely close and she is so good to me. But I just can't do this anymore. I'm so tired and just need to find my peace. Please tell me. Is it best for me to terminate treatment instead of just CTB'ing one day while still seeing her. This is sooooo hard for me as she's the only reason I've stayed as long as I have. I genuinely wanted to try and did feel as though I've done all I can do. But in me terminating treatment I essentially have to CTB immediately because I couldn't handle it. I know I sound pathetic. I don't know what to do

 

[hobbydevil]

I'm presently dealing with the same issue and it's heartbreaking. I think deep down she obviously knows somethings up because she asked today if I was going to leave her. It takes all I have to evade the question in itself. She said it's not fair to her if I were to just up and leave as it would be unfair for her to just move across the country and not tell me until the week of. I know I am being sooo selfish but I do dearly love and care for her and vice versa. We talk often throughout the day via text. We're extremely close and she is so good to me. But I just can't do this anymore. I'm so tired and just need to find my peace. Please tell me. Is it best for me to terminate treatment instead of just CTB'ing one day while still seeing her. This is sooooo hard for me as she's the only reason I've stayed as long as I have. I genuinely wanted to try and did feel as though I've done all I can do. But in me terminating treatment I essentially have to CTB immediately because I couldn't handle it. I know I sound pathetic. I don't know what to do

It's like you're reading my thoughts tbh. I feel exactly the same way! She's so, so good to me, too and one of the reasons I am even still around (CTB this month was my initial plan). She also asked me something really similar the other day... She asked if I think I'm going to want to "ghost" her eventually, as she is well aware of how I deal with my fear of attachment... She asked me what we can do to prevent that, and how she could reach me should that ever happen. Which makes all of this so fucking hard, she's so goddamn close to me she knows exactly how I work at this point... How am I supposed to lie to her?

And yet, just like you, I just can't deal with this anymore at all! I wish I could give you advice but I'm just as lost.
Both options available just seem so horrible... CTB while in treatment will devastate our therapists... and just leaving treatment and then CTB shortly after will probably just have the same effect, except it will make them worry if they can sense that something is up... which let's be honest, they probably will in both our cases!

I wish there was a way to make this easier... I would like to just... disappear and slowly fade from her memory... but there's no way I can terminate treatment with her and then wait long enough for it to really soften the blow until I CTB, just like you said...

You don't sound pathetic at all by the way!

 

[Dazedandconfused32]

It's like you're reading my thoughts tbh. I feel exactly the same way! She's so, so good to me, too and one of the reasons I am even still around (CTB this month was my initial plan). She also asked me something really similar the other day... She asked if I think I'm going to want to "ghost" her eventually, as she is well aware of how I deal with my fear of attachment... She asked me what we can do to prevent that, and how she could reach me should that ever happen. Which makes all of this so fucking hard, she's so goddamn close to me she knows exactly how I work at this point... How am I supposed to lie to her?

And yet, just like you, I just can't deal with this anymore at all! I wish I could give you advice but I'm just as lost.
Both options available just seem so horrible... CTB while in treatment will devastate our therapists... and just leaving treatment and then CTB shortly after will probably just have the same effect, except it will make them worry if they can sense that something is up... which let's be honest, they probably will in both our cases!

I wish there was a way to make this easier... I would like to just... disappear and slowly fade from her memory... but there's no way I can terminate treatment with her and then wait long enough for it to really soften the blow until I CTB, just like you said...

You don't sound pathetic at all by the way!

Hugs to you my friend. I'm sorry you are having to go through this also. It's awful