Dear Renita, 

I want you to know that leaving the relationship with my narcissistic mother is far more complicated than leaving other relationships.  No, it's not as hard physically (my divorce from my narc ex was a doozy--all those games he played with my children when he had his parental rights..uggh!), but very much so emotionally.  Walking away from an abuser isn't as simple as "I am not talking to my mother anymore".  It's deep, it's scary, it literally causes PTSD (or C-PTSD, if you will).  I have nightmares every single night.  I hear a woman cough in the grocery store and she will sound like my mother and my heartrate will immediately go up and I will sometimes start shaking.  I will jump every time someone drives past my house and honks.  If there's a knock at my door, I go into "criminal mode", acting like someone hiding from the cops (hiding, freaking out, shutting curtains, peeking out the blinds, etc.). 

If you were a good therapist, you'd realize that when someone leaves any abusive relationship, there will be residue that they need help with.  If you were good therapist, you'd stop me from rambling and prod me with questions to get me to the source of all my anxiety and worry.  If you were a good therapist, you'd not treat our sessions like a "BFF lunch chat", because we are so NOT there to discuss what's going on YOUR life.  If you were a good therapist, you'd take the hint when I tell you things about my life that I want you to ask more about them.  I want to dig into my nightmares, my PTSD, my lingering guilt I have at times, and how I feel about walking away from my own mother. 

Do you think this is a game for me?  That I am cutting her out of my life as way to win at the "mother-daughter" games that so many are seen as playing (when in reality, they are probably going through what I did, and they either just don't know about NPD or don't want to accept it)?

Do you know what it's like to lose a mother?  It would be easier had she died.  To know that your mother loved you and then passed away must be easier than to have your mother be alive and not love you at all.  Losing someone that's still around, still living their own life while trying to make your life a living hell is very, very complicated.  Don't you think that's why I booked sessions with you? 

You ignore my cries for help.  You tell me "Wait until you're 40, life will get better."  I said "I am 40, and life was better at 30".  And rather than ask me why I feel that way or what's going on that makes my life so hard right now, you talk about why YOU love your 40's and how life is great for YOU.


And when I do tell you about my life, you literally fight the urge to fall asleep (heavy eyelids, rubbing your eyes).  And I know it's not the time I see you at in the day, as I see you on different days and different times. 

You are sending your message loud and clear: What I say is NOT important to you and what I say is not worth a damn. 

*sigh*  I am so sick and tired of being around narcissists.  And after four weeks of seeing you once a week, I have decided that you may be one yourself.  But I will thank you for one thing: every time I come into contact with another narcissist, I get better at recognizing them.  I also recognize the signs faster, and end up not having to waste my time with useless people (unlike my last therapist, which YOU accused of being a narcissist, which I wasted 6 months on). 

The only issue I have is that you are giving this poor excuse for therapy to others.  So this time, while I've had therapists like you in the past, I am not going to let it happen.  I am not going to let you make others feel like they aren't worth your time or that they don't matter.  You are taking people's lives in your hands, and I am afraid that if you give someone else the "therapy" that you've given me, that you may ruin them into believing what they say doesn't matter.  That what they're going through doesn't matter.  And that you, the person PAID TO CARE about them, can't even bring herself to do that. 

But we do matter.  And we deserve better mental health care than the likes of you and your shitty "therapy", which seems to be trend in the mental healthcare industry right now.  So I am done with this.  As I am done with my mother.  But while can't report my mother for being a bad mother at the age I am now, I can report you and stop you from hurting others with your "I could care less that you're here" attitude.  I can take a stand for all of us who have dealt with therapists like you, and I guarantee you, there's a lot of us.  And eventually, none of us will take it anymore.  And that will change the mental healthcare industry for the better, because when we all band together, we can get shit done.

And all of the bad therapists out there?  Will have to find a new job.  So good luck with that.  Maybe you'd do better as a call center employee or the DMV?  Or some other place where employees are expected to be annoyed that they have to deal with the public?


Sincerely,

Girl Lost