r/SchemaTherapy

My schema therapist has been checking in with me once a day outside of therapy because of my medical condition and the level of vulnerability I’ve been in after severe abuse by a previous mental health practitioner. The legal case has now concluded, but I’m still left feeling shaken, hyper-alert, and very alone in my body.
My current therapist has been consistently kind, steady, and caring in a way I haven’t really experienced before, and I do trust her. And yet she’s now going away for 10 days, and the daily check-ins that have been quietly holding me together are stopping.
I find myself in a split place. One part of me understands she needs rest and very much wants that for her. But another part feels like the ground has been pulled away without warning, and the support I was leaning on has suddenly disappeared.
What’s making this harder is that my reaction doesn’t feel fully present-day. It feels like my nervous system has been thrown back into an old story.
My previous therapist became unpredictable with contact before things escalated into abuse, messaging, then silence, then sudden reappearance, with no stability or sense of safety. Eventually, I was seriously harmed. Even though I know my current therapist is nothing like that person, my body doesn’t seem to register the difference right now.
Since hearing about the break, I feel like I’ve been spiralling in a way that’s hard to explain. It’s not just worry, it’s a deep, disorienting sense of being unmoored, like I’m back in that old place of waiting, not knowing, and bracing for something bad to happen. I don’t know why she felt it was safe to do this- leave me where I am with no check ins. She didn’t bring this up neither did we planned for it.
I keep trying to remind myself that this is planned, this is safe, this is different. But emotionally, it still feels like abandonment is happening all over again.
Has anyone else with complex trauma or attachment wounds found that a planned therapist break still triggered intense abandonment feelings? If so, what helped you get through the time they were away, practically or emotionally? I am not talking about journaling but something more cognitive and skill based, and was there anything your therapist did when they returned that helped repair that rupture or settle your nervous system again? Thank you.

Have been looking for „the one” for years….desperate for recommendations of some kind of therapist/guide/support who can actually support true healing, not just symptom management.
Online, I am in Australia.
No BS support. Experience severe dissociation, suicidality. History of abuse from a mental health professional so get easily triggered in sessions, esp if the person is inauthentic, incongruent or talking down. At the point where I’ve tried so much I’m not sure I believe anything /one will help.
Anyone know a miracle worker ?
Or at least a super experienced CPTSD therapist who is creative, authentic, alive (ie can feel and express the full range of life and isn’t stuck in that „fake calm” mode a lot of therapists seem to be in), knows their shit, won’t get freaked out when I talk about suicide, has a genuine heart, genuine curiosity and care, sense of play and humour.

I’ve been seeing my therapist for about three years, and we do schema therapy. The therapeutic relationship is a really important part of the work we’ve done together.
Recently, I share with her about a book I read when I was a child, that describes experiences I’ve related to since I was very young. Reading it has helped me feel understood, and I think it also explains parts of my inner world that I’ve struggled to put into words.
I was wondering whether it would be appropriate to give her a copy. It wouldn’t be an expensive gift, more something symbolic that says this helped me understand myself, and I thought it might help you understand me too.
For context, she has accepted thoughtful cards I’ve made for her before. She has also given me a small teddy bear because I never had one growing up, along with the companion book that goes with it, as part of our therapeutic work.
I’m aware therapists have professional boundaries around gifts, and I’d completely respect it if she said no. I’m just wondering whether offering a book like this would generally be considered appropriate, or whether it might put her in an awkward position.
I’d really appreciate hearing from therapists and clients, especially anyone with experience of schema therapy.