AITAH for being upset that my therapist ghosted me for four months?

Advice

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I (24F) have been seeing my therapist for a while (1 year in March) and until recently I thought we had a good therapeutic relationship.

My last session with her was in April. That session was actually with me and a friend, so it wasn't a normal one-on-one session.

After that, she went on holiday for about a month for her birthday. I completely understood and didn't expect her to contact me while she was away. After she came back, I saw from her WhatsApp status that she had become sick, so again, I understood. I figured that once she recovered, we'd eventually resume our sessions.

Except... she never contacted me again.

It's now been four months since my last session, and I've received absolutely nothing from her. No "hey, how are you doing?", no explanation, no message asking whether I wanted to resume sessions. Just complete radio silence.

There's another factor that makes this more confusing to me. Around February, she told me that I no longer needed to pay for my sessions because she wanted to give them to me as a gift. I didn't ask her to do this, and I genuinely appreciated it. So I don't think the issue is that I stopped paying or that there was some unpaid bill.

At one point, she also told me that she doesn't decide how a session should go because the client decides, which I understood to mean that I should have some control over what we work on during therapy. But I'm wondering whether she's applying that philosophy to the entire therapeutic relationship and basically thinking, "She's an adult; if she wants another session, she'll contact me."

And this is where I'm conflicted.

I could have contacted her. I'm an adult, and I know I can reach out if I want another appointment. I also didn't explicitly tell her, "I don't want therapy anymore." So maybe I should have just messaged her instead of expecting her to initiate.

But at the same time, I feel like it's really fucking unprofessional to have an established client disappear for four months without saying anything, especially when there was NO conversation about me ending therapy or taking a break.

I don't expect my therapist to chase me down or be responsible for my life. I just feel that if therapy is an ongoing relationship, there should at least be some communication when sessions suddenly stop. Even something as simple as, "I'm back and feeling better. Let me know if you'd like to resume our sessions."

Instead, I've been left wondering whether I'm supposed to interpret the silence as her deciding that our therapeutic relationship is over.

So, AITA for feeling that she handled this unprofessionally, or is it reasonable for her to assume that because I'm an adult, I'll contact her when I want to resume therapy? Because this is also my first time in therapy AND something like this has never happened before. Please help :(

Posted Aug 12, 2026, 3:25 AM UTC

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