Atypically Recovering

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It’s hard to even comprehend how someone who is supposed to be a therapist can treat people like street garbage when they know their history of previous trauma. It’s having someone find out what will hurt the most, and then do that. In the 20 years I worked as a nurse, it never occurred to me to emotionally batter someone, or ignore why they were in the facility- to get help- and I took care of some pretty disturbed patients at times. But they were MY patients, and I was responsible for their care. It’s some serial killer mentality to make sport of hurting someone knowing that they’ve already been hurt. It’s manipulative emotional terrorism when it took so little to throw me away. There is no excuse. IF there really was something going on to limit the professional role, then the responsible thing to do is to let patients know that they are no longer able to be a therapist (and quit asking for money for bullshit ‘not-the-patient’s-problem’ personal stuff, especially knowing that I was on a fixed income).

I was stupid not to read the ‘warnings’ before signing on with the person who hurt me way more than other things in my life that may sound worse. Therapists have very personal information to use when making the CHOICES to cause more pain. I’d repeatedly asked that I not be told a call would come in X hours/days to avoid the “she didn’t call… again” scenario, and she refused. I think she figured that a little contact (at her convenience) was better than no contact, and that simply isn’t true. She told me herself that I had abandonment and attachment trauma to work through, and then acted like I was a hobby to deal with after helping patients who obviously were more deserving of her time- though she had no problem taking my money for 3 years. So, she created more attachment issues, and abandoned me like a rotting animal carcass.

That pedestal she has herself on must come with a lifetime supply of altitude sickness oxygen canisters. She made it very clear with the colonoscopy prep “no call” that I wasn’t worth helping to have the best outcome possible with the colon polyp/failed Cologuard test/abnormal MRI showing that there was cause to get the polyp out. Four people from the GI clinic (2 MDs, 2 RNs) emphasized the importance of getting the polyp out (but wouldn’t work with me on a volume I could tolerate). The physical feeling in my chest when she texted me “I’ll check my schedule” about discussing possible ways to make the prep easier was one of absolute worthlessness, and felt like my chest dropped about a foot. I wasn’t worth a phone call even if it could keep me alive. My life was nothing more to her than used toilet paper, after so many fake terms of endearment. After that, why would I get the polyp out? Why would I believe that I’m worth anything? Why would I ever want to speak to her after that, when I needed to talk to her the day she told me to message her, and she’d call me? Why did I waste so much time with someone who had been gradually and more frequently making it clear that I wasn’t worth her time? Why would I think that I’m worth going through hell again to remove the polyp? Why would I want to prolong my life? I’m obviously an idiot to think I’m anything but forgettable rubbish. I won’t actively end my life, but I won’t actively prolong it now, either. That ‘no call’ did a lot of damage.

I wish I’d never contacted her. I wish I’d read the book and court ruling before trying to find her. I wish I wasn’t hoping for something that she obviously didn’t think was worth her time… getting well. I wish I hadn’t believed that she gave a damn about any of her “patients”. She told me more than once that she did 10 phone sessions a day… I wonder how many of them are feeling the way I do. I wonder how many more of her former patients (like many in the 20/20 episodes) are now dead. I wonder why she continues to do things that result in a corpse collection as part of her curriculum vitae. But I don’t wonder about her.

I do hope the ‘captive’ patients that live with her can get away from her before their minds are set up to implode when she tires of them. I hope those who aren’t living with her get a clue before she does more damage to them (I know I’m not unique in how things ended with her, as the book would have warned me about). I hope she doesn’t drain their finances. I hope they don’t stay as long as I did. It wasn’t my job to tell her how to be a therapist, but now, I feel like I have an obligation to warn people to trust their gut if something seems off. To LEAVE abusiveness. To escape the constant chaos of unpredictability. To block all contact, in order to survive. I did block her in multiple places, and I still feel like I’m the ‘bad’ one in this situation. That I am so insignificant as a human that I deserved to be kicked to the curb by absolute indifference.

If she was thinking I’d come up with more money to ‘MAKE me worthwhile’, she was dead wrong. There was nothing left to ‘come up’ with. She once messaged me to ‘sell everything’ (I have screenshots of many, many messages) when she asked me to send $1000 USD for some website that never materialized (always another deadline, and some looney claims about ‘investors’). I didn’t send anything, and that’s when gradual breadcrumbing became ignoring. She didn’t see messages for days to a week, but wanted control over food again… how in the hell was that supposed to work? A month went between calls more than once. If she wanted me to still believe in her, leaving me isolated was the perfect way for me to wake up and realize how much she was hurting me. I guess I can be thankful that her hurting me ‘enough’ finally woke me up to how fucked up things were.

I’m glad I had the flawed mom I had- she did the best she could with how broken she was. I’m thankful for my biological mom, who is so much fun to talk to, and with whom I can just be goofy me without judgement. I’m thankful for previous good therapists I had, who had ethics and standards that kept things professional and fair. Even when there might be something difficult, they were honest with me, and I respect that a lot. I don’t respect creativity with the truth (bad enough that it’s a daily reminder in the US with who is ‘running; things). I don’t respect not following through with scheduled contact, or scripted empathy with no substance. I don’t respect manipulating already hurt people. I don’t respect self-promotion. I don’t respect hollow connections based on nothing.

But I’m deeply grateful that I’m not her.



Any reposts are originally from Atypically Recovering.