My first therapist loses her license, so I am terminated.
The pain is so great that I struggle to get out of bed.
Devastated, I go looking for a new therapist who is just as warm.
After a year, I finally find one.
She smiles at me as if I matter the first day I sit in front of her.
She continues smiling for months.
She says, “You are welcome to email me.”
So, I do.
I do a lot.
I go to her event.
I write her while I am on vacation.
She writes back.
She loves my writing.
She says I have broken her heart wide open.
I am happy.
I have finally found the mother I’ve always wanted.
She’s my therapist, but she welcomes emailing as often as I need to, and so I email her all the time — pictures of my childhood, my adventures abroad and reflections on Buddhism.
I like this relationship.
I like it very much.
Then I hit a rough patch.
My plate feels too full.
I can’t take the stress of work.
I miss my old therapist.
I want to go home, but I can’t.
My boyfriend breaks up with me.
I am not feeling well.
I am suicidal actually.
I tell my therapist this. I tell her I’m not feeling well.
I talk on the phone with her often. I don’t get into Stanford, and I’m devastated.
I ask for a session on my lunch break.
I ask for an hour and then change my mind and ask for only 30 minutes because I have a client right after lunch and can’t be late.
She thinks it’s a good time to diagnose me.
I’m in my car dressed professionally for work.
“Borderline” she says.
I don’t have time to process it but feel an urge to cry. I go back to work, and I can’t hold it in and cry in front of my patients and colleagues.
I write her that I wish she hadn’t done this.
So she becomes angry and takes away my ability to write her all together.
I sit there my next session, shaking and reading aloud an email I had sent her that said she would no longer read.
I want to cry.
I don’t understand what I did.
She recommends DBT later.
She says you can reach out if you’d ever like to come back.
I try DBT.
The woman forgets my first name. It’s not a good fit.
I ask to come back.
She says she full, but maybe in a year or so.
I ask to come back a year later.
She says no. She says it’s our last session.
She says I have done nothing wrong, am amazing, but she will only offer only one more session.
She says I need a trauma therapist.
This is what she advertises on her profile, but yet, our work is done. I become upset and say she traumatized me.
She takes away my last session.
Another termination.
I cry.
I puke.
I hurt.
I’ve lost the woman I made into my mom.
“Refrain from ever contacting me again,” she says.
I crawl into bed each night and cry. It’s been almost two years.
I had a smile that first day.
I had a smile those first few months.
I haven’t seen that same smile in a very long time.
They call this “therapy.”
It feels more like subjecting oneself to torture.
I want to recommend it, but I am not sure I do.
Can you relate? Let Rebecca knows in the comments below.
Getty image via pticelov