AtypicallyRecovering

I first had inklings of something not being OK nearly 3 years ago. Something wasn’t right, but I was the one who was seeking help for a messed up head, so what did I know? There was one other time when I didn’t listen to my gut, and it nearly got me murdered (and did get me raped, beaten and sodomized for 6 hours before I was able to escape prior to being dismembered alive), so being someone who thinks others are more valid, correct, ‘better’, etc. has cost me a LOT. But when I’m done being a patient patient, I’m DONE.

I was in tears every month when I sent another month’s payment in, not realizing it was the solidification of how well ‘breadcrumbing’ was working on me. There was just enough contact to make me think things were OK ‘enough’, but not to erase my concerns completely. I did start to be more guarded, but that still wasn’t enough. I wanted SO badly to be a success story, and help others as many of her previous patients had done. But I also knew that the calls she never followed through with making, time she was unavailable (grew over time), other projects that took up her time, etc were making me feel more worthless- not the opposite, which was the supposed goal after seeing the TV show decades ago, and reading her book. It all seemed very precarious and confusing.

There is a ‘normal’ dependency during deep trauma work (never got past the listing off of events, or some one-off discussions… there was no “work” on the issues). With eating disorder therapy, nowadays, it’s quite common for someone else to make decisions about what someone eats because there really is an inability to act on the logical ‘need’ to eat. But when is it more like ‘grooming’ ? When is the goal KEEPING someone dependent for the therapists’ own reasons? These are what I now feel were ‘breadcrumbs’ or other ways to manipulate me into being dependent. This should never be the goal of therapy, even when trauma and developmental stalls are involved.

– telling someone they want to know them for the rest of their (therapists) life…. the goal of therapy is to heal and move on. If a friendship develops AFTER therapy, that’s up to the parties involved. When the “I’m not going to lose you” starts, it’s a worrying sign. I’m guessing she’d say it was about me not dying from the eating disorder- but then why not make those phone calls as planned? Because it keeps the patient hoping for contact. Eventually, the realization is that no call is likely to come, and the abandonment and attachment issues just deepen. For those who keep listening to the BS, it keeps them where the therapist wants them…wanting more contact.

– wanting control over food… again. Nearly 3 years after that was appropriate. But when the therapist can be MIA for a month at a time between phone calls, how would having control over food look? There’s a saying “Whoever controls the food controls the people.” (from Henry Kissinger- yeah, not a great source, but he wasn’t wrong with this- then or now, even from beyond the grave). It was about political people, but it also fits here. When someone is in control over something as basic as food, that’s not a good place to be unless that person is known to the person being helped, and there’s enough “safe history” to be OK- as in eating disorder patients going through various programs where parents make and supervise food and eating. My ex-therapist and I never met- and never even had a video call. We never saw each other face to face.

– history of questionable safety or ethical issues. I won’t go into detail, but the internet is full of negative information about this therapist. I simply didn’t want to believe it, and it has cost me a lot- financially and emotionally. There was a book written by someone who just seemed bitter at the time I heard about it (never read it). I did read several articles when I was trying to locate this therapist, but I couldn’t reconcile the person I’d seen in the TV episode on a news program and talk show 20+ years ago with what I was reading online. Do some serious digging when it comes to getting help online for any health issue.

– not ‘letting’ me quit earlier. She dIdn’t want to ‘lose’ me, I wasn’t in a place to make a sound decision (per her), didn’t get through the stages (barely kept a toehold in stage 2 of 5, when per initial estimates would have taken about 2 years for the entire process).

– ALWAYS has excuses/reasons for not having contact as planned… sick (she was sick for months in total over the past 3+ years), other projects, new patients, emergencies, jet lag, traveling/flights, patient returning after causing chaos with multiple patients- leaving the patients who were impacted in the dust while the therapist couldn’t ‘ethically’ not deal with the troublemaker (but for those who didn’t cause trouble, no problem with them hanging out in the cold), family sick, family traveling and had to get them from the airport, moving, moving again, moving between countries every few months, etc. ALL of this can be valid, but when it’s a pattern of never-ending reasons for not having contact, it’s a problem. NO THERAPIST should breadcrumb a patient. Period. Full stop. OR, if their life is that chaotic, it’s their ethical responsibility to set limits on new patients, or keeping ones they already have. An honest conversation is always a better option than meeting their own need to be essentially the ‘dear leader’ of their own cult.

– asking for money besides what was agreed upon for therapy itself. It’s NEVER OK for a therapist to ask for money outside of this. Ever. This is also a test of how well the breadcrumbing has gone. Unfortunately, it took me another year, and more issues, to wake up that I’d been hung out to dry for a couple of years by then. When I finally said no, twice, to money requests, contact dropped even more. I’d paid what had been agreed to to the tune of $32K USD- which was huge for me. I’m in financial desert land now.

– talks about specifics of other patients’ issues, weight, family business, etc. NOT OK. She’d asked me if she could tell another patient about me, who would be having contact with me (further along in the process, and a peer support contact). That was fine. But to tell me deeply personal and disturbing information about another patient and his/her family was more than not OK. In the US, it’d get someone disciplined by their licensing board, and possibly federal charges under HIPAA. But this therapist isn’t in the US.

– when the request for money is ‘no’, and a list of financial issues on the patient’s end is responded to only with asking if I had the banking info to make a transfer, that’s a huge going-down-in-flames red flag. The patient becomes what the therapist needs… so effectively ending the therapy.

– says things very specifically, in a way that may sound like a commitment, but is meaningless in the end. “I want to talk to you” doesn’t mean “I will talk to you”… and eventually, “I will talk to you at X time.” becomes meaningless, and retraumatises the ‘target’. With the therapist knowing full well about the abandonment and attachment trauma.

_ has written in a book that telling a patient something positive doesn’t have to be true… just don’t be negative. Isn’t that just a fancy description for deceit and BS ? I’ve heard how my sense of humor is “to die for” (yeah, well in the end, it may be… ), or “you’re so much funnier than people in comedy videos”. Uh huh. I wasn’t laughing then, and definitely am not laughing now. “I wish I’d been your mother” “You’re like a daughter to me.” (gads, I hope not, for her daughters’ sakes). I have trouble believing anything she’s said to me at this point.

– doesn’t respond directly to emails (or whatever communication) about issues WITH therapy (the calls that didn’t come more often than they did, requests to not planning calls ahead of time, falling asleep during calls- multiple times, etc.). It leaves the patient feeling not worth listening to or the time to work things out… and in this case, ‘working it out’ would have meant that the therapist would actually have to give a rip about what they were doing to the patient with the inconsistencies and ongoing breadcrumbing. No patient should have to keep track of “said she’d call” and “actual calls” for nearly 2 years.

She travels throughout Europe seeing patients who pay ‘enough’. She has some live with her family. Her plans’ deadlines are always extended, whether publishing books, phone calls, or other endeavors. She makes promises she doesn’t keep. She keeps those around whose stories might boost herself. She often uses “I’m saving your life” or other dramatic terms. She talks about patients with patients… sometimes with their permission. Or not. She had more restrictive food ‘rules’ based on nothing more than random internet searches- not peer-reviewed science based studies (first thing my dietitian did when I told her I was no longer with ‘M’ was to lift all food rules not specific to physical diagnoses I have- and said that if something sounded good, but might be a bit on the ‘fun’ side, go for it… and supplement by tube as needed. That’s where I’m at. Still using an NG after 3 years because I can’t get my volume tolerance up).

These are just a few personal examples. Yeah, I know it makes me sound so stupid and gullible- and I can understand the gullible part. And that’s what desperation for help can do. It blinds someone’s ability to realize that they aren’t perceiving things incorrectly… they’re being manipulated. The desire to get well blurs what is so clear, but only realized when something happens to blast open the blinders, and see what has been going on. There are others who experience this, and/or are at higher risk – domestic violence victims, cult members, and the thoroughly disenfranchised. And this therapist knew that local family was gone, I am basically housebound from disability, and was selling my childhood home (not for much, unfortunately). I couldn’t have had a bigger bullseye on my head.

In the US, report any such therapists to their licensing board- to prevent others from going through what you did. And if seeking online help, be sure to know the way to deal with unethical behavior from a therapist or other healthcare provider. Keep records. Take screenshots of any messages. Save emails. Keep financial records. Protect yourself. It’s much better never to need any of it, than to need it and not have it.