If I were to sum up, in three words, how the first psychotherapy session went it would be: awful, daunting and awkward. To be honest, that wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting the session to be smooth and comforting.
So here's the story:
As usual, my heart was racing and my palms were sweating when I was sitting in the waiting room, but a bit of anxiety is normal when meeting someone new. As soon as the psychotherapist walked into the waiting room and introduced herself I thought 'oh she seems nice'.
Once we went into the meeting room we exchanged small talk and then spoke about what kind of difficulties that I feel I need help in and what psychotherapy generally is. So it started off good but when I mentioned the difficulties I was experiencing it seemed as though she was unprepared for the meeting.
As the meeting progressed, she really annoyed me. I don't even know where to begin.
1- She didn't show me any compassion when I spoke to her about a subject that was very difficult for me to talk about.
2- She also told me she got a phone call from my mentor about something really serious. She asked me to corroborate if the person who contacted her was a school counsellor but i told her she's a mentor. Despite making it explicitly clear that she is my mentor and NOT my counsellor, the psychotherapist told me that it would be best if I stopped seeing my mentor as things would get 'messy' and i might get 'confused'. I found her quite patronising because i'm 17 and I think I can distinguish between the advice they both give so why on earth would i get confused? It was also upsetting because it almost felt as though I had to choose between them two. I adore my mentor and i'm not going to stop seeing her just because the psychotherapist said so.
3- I felt like I wasn't being listened to because, as I mentioned before, I made it clear that my mentor wasn't a counsellor. Also, when I spoke about difficult topics I felt like she totally ignored me.
4- At the start of the meeting I told the psychotherapist that I had left education but yet again she didn't listen because when I later mentioned that again she didn't react in a helpful way. She stared at me for a good 20 seconds and said nothing. She was just shocked and that made me feel quite bad and embarrassed. I didn't expect her to look surprised. After the awkward silence, her response was 'so here we are half way in to the session and you have just dropped a bombshell on me'. I was just speechless because she didn't listen to me properly, despite me making it clear at the start of the meeting that I had left education. I just couldn't form any words.
To be honest, I found her really intimidating and I felt excruciating discomfort talking to her. However, I'm still going to continue seeing her and give her a chance because maybe this was just a bad start and I might feel comfortable with her in the upcoming sessions. But if she continues to make me feel uncomfortable then I will ask my psychiatrist to refer me to someone else.
Sorry about my long rant! I had to let it all out.
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