My update and my answer to this post , a month later.
My new therapist is the real deal. They are incredibly trauma informed and they get my need to take things incredibly slow. We still haven't gotten to the actual trauma therapy yet. I told them that it might take like 20 sessions (roughly 5 months of therapy I think) or more for me to trust them and they are okay with that.
They are working within the bounds of my limits and needs. Officially they're a schema, CBT and EMDR therapist. But they're not pushing any methods on me. Instead they are seeing what I need and how I function. I spoke to them about my IFS (Internal family systems) work and now they refer to my "schemas" as my "parts" and my system as "IFS." They told me in one of the sessions they were going to refer to my schemas how I referred to them and they're actually doing that. They are showing me I can trust them. They also told me that I don't have to follow schema therapy exactly, I can do whatever I want basically and they will follow and help me with it.
They also explained to me despite being trained in those therapies, they like to mix and match different techniques depending on their client's needs. They told me a lot about their techniques, how they also do body based techniques and an EMDR version of Pete Walker's emotional flashback management. I spoke to them about other work I've done, grounding techniques and what not and how I have documents for them. Then they were like I can bring them to the therapy session. Now I feel excited. I have sooo many documents, journal entries, etc and I want to print all of them and give them to my therapist. But right now because I don't trust them fully. I'm still starting small and slowly. I don't want to overload myself. I feel happy that it's like this, that it's not only one type of therapy I am following. But rather a mix of my techniques and their techniques. It's good because I literally have CPTSD, my CPTSD is really complex and it doesn't necessarily fit into "one box of therapy." It's also good to know that if things need to be adjusted. They will be. Our therapy is like a symbiotic relationship. I feel like we are both on the same page and team and we are working together to help me heal. Also my psychiatrist is playing a role in this. Because he actually diagnosed me with PTSD with a subset of complex trauma, not CPTSD as theres no diagnosis.
They put me at the front of the session, tell me this is my session and I can basically do whatever I want in them as long as it doesn't fall into category of abuse. They also show me that this is true by letting me be in control of the session. I am the one in charge of the session and they act more of a guide. They let me bring in my notes and documents and then we discuss them. I remember one session I was feeling overwhelmed so I interrupted them and instead of continuing with what they were explaining. They immediately let me ground myself and taught me grounding techniques and walked through one method. I think that really showed me that this is my session and I am in charge.
They seem to be aware and careful of my needs and boundaries, how I need reassurance, predictability, how I need to take things incredibly slow. I stressed this to them a lot and they are attuning to it. They gave me a schema worksheet but they told me that I can take my time with it and they check up on me regarding the document every session. I am very honest with them. I tell them I don't trust them and all my fears regarding it. They validate them, tell me it is normal, understandable and that I can take my time. Last session for example, I told them that I find it hard to fill it out because I have fear they will email my abusive mom the worksheet and they reassured me they wouldn't do that and all the options they had regarding that. That they can only share it with my psychiatrist (which I consented too, they both work together) but they won't share it because it isn't relevant to my treatment with them. That if they will share it. They will inform me. They also told me that there is a shared database with all the medical doctors and professionals (but I already knew of that and I consent to it being shared as I am in treatment for many other things) and how I can lock it.
They also schedule sessions way in advance which is good because I need predictability. It's good to know that they aren't going anywhere and won't abandon me.
I bring them a lot of documents about my needs, boundaries, concerns and talk about them... And they are actually taking them seriously! They give me a lot of reassurance and list basically every scenario they can think of regarding my boundaries and tell me what they would do. They tell me they can't speak for what other people did and whether "it was bad or not" because they weren't there. But they can provide their own input to the situation and how they approach it. I also spoke to them about how it's important to me that they do not deny or minimise my experiences and see them from a point of view of a "context of abuse." They told me that is an important aspect of therapy however the point of the therapy is not to see whether they were wrong or not. But how their behaviour impacted me and the feelings associated with it. I see this as a green flag because this is a trauma informed response. The aim of trauma therapy is to not recount and recall all your traumatic events but rather to focus on how they impacted you, the feelings associated, the bodily sensations.
Since my trust issues are really big. They made a plan with me and told me that right now the plan is to build trust and in the future we will do the actual trauma processing techniques. I feel with every session, that these parts of me that are untrusting are slowly starting to trust her because she seems legit and knows what she is talking about. She has a lot of knowledge of how complex trauma manifests and how one is affected by such.
This is a big difference from all my other therapists. I am still seeing if we are a good fit or not but honestly I think we are and I will likely stick for a while.