Here's a little something to hopefully help our undiagnosed system friends.
Bad Signs in Therapy (nonabusive)
They're uncomfortable with trauma based illnesses. If this person primarily works with psychotic illness, or mood disorders, there's a good chance they won't understand trauma disorders. Using websites like psychology today can help you find a therapist in the area who actually knows their shit with trauma disorders.
"that's a totally normal memory gap". If you have complete anmesia or "swiss cheese" memory past the age of 5-6 (1st grade-ish) that's not normally. Not being able to remember it in detail is, but if you don't know the names of any of your classmates, your teacher, your school, or anything that happened then it's not normal. If this persists into middle school and high school that's even more abnormal. Additionally, if your lack of memory distresses you, your therapist should express concern and spend a little time with you on it even if it's not serious or major.
If you feel like you "retreat behind your face like a turtle", "your face is a mask and your hands are gloves",or "everything feels fuzzy and distant" you may be dissociating or experiancing derealization and depersonalization. If your therapist hears these and says "that's normal" they don't know much about dissociative disorders. We said all of these to one therapist and she thought it was a mild anxiety issue and a normal thing. It's not.
Hopefully this can help some, it's all we could think of off the top of our head.
