Dear Lo,

First, I want to start off by expressing how much I enjoy your resources and tell you how much they have helped me. I had a situation with a mental health therapist that just made me wonder and question why people do what they do.

I had a therapist who I had been seeing for almost two years. I thought we had a good therapeutic relationship. I trusted her. We had been talking about ending the therapeutic relationship because it was time. She assured me that she would give plenty of notice and that she would never just abruptly discontinue our therapy. She knew that I had an extremely hard time with loss because we discussed that topic many times.

Just a few weeks ago, one of my little pets passed away, and her cage mate was having major surgery. My therapist and I sent some messages to each other that were not healthy, but I still wanted to communicate. Then our beautiful foster dog went to her new home.

A week after those upsetting events, my therapist sent a note to all her clients that she would be leaving in 30 days. That same day, just a few hours later, she sent me a message telling me that we should “part ways” and she ended her message with “best wishes.” This abrupt ending threw me for a loop. No goodbye?

From watching your codependency webinars, I realized that in therapy, I was depending on my therapist for external validation. I now understand that this all comes from my past and growing up always looking for praise and validation from my parents with my achievements.

I had a choice to just end therapy or get a new therapist. With my struggle with confidence in myself, I chose to have a new therapist to help me process my grief for not only the loss of my pet, but for the loss and dismay of the way my therapist decided to end our therapeutic relationship.

I fear that I will fall back into that pattern of codependency for my therapist. I dreaded choosing a new therapist and having to explain my fear of loss all over again just to possibly be hurt again. My new therapist is much more experienced and she has assured me that she will not do as my previous therapist did. I have heard those words before. I do not want to be dependent on someone else for my validation and I expressed that to her.

There is a part of me that feels ready to end therapy. I do have times of great confidence because I learned through the group on codependency how to validate myself, be mindful, and show my authenticity, but then the confidence fades.

Should I continue therapy even though I think I have the tools to help myself? Won’t therapy just continue my need for that validation?