Sent this email to T:

I don't know if I can take this anymore. It literally feels as if my heart is being ripped from my chest. *I thought I had the strength, the courage, to get through this; however three situations that occurred this weekend have shaken me to my core. They told me what I truly believe, what I am willing to stand up for, and it is incongruous with my sense of self. *It has opened wounds, wounds I thought were healed. I feel despairing, as if the life I am living is a farce and I wonder why I keep trying to fool myself.

I believe I can heal; however, I am not sure I can bear the consequences of what opening up means to me. I have "known" you for a year, but still have the impression that the whole relationship is a facade. *This "therapeutic relationship", an inherently one-sided entity that only exists in the vacuum of an hour in an office, that means everything to a client, is just another day at work for a counselor. I don't doubt you love your clients, but at the end of a day, we are a paycheck, a means to an end. I've had my own clients; twelve people I've seen day in, day out for almost 13 years. I'm guilty. I've thought I was better than them; they are "clients", "consumers", "service users", "participants"...no matter what these people...and they are people...are called, we think we are better, we think we "have it together", let's help these "clients", they need our help, because we are better than they are, we "have knowledge" they don't have. I watched a disabled self-advocate on Friday be shushed during a meeting for the MFP initiative. An initiative designed to empower individuals such as she and she was silenced by someone who "knows better"...the person who runs the initiative.

I identify as a service provider, but I also identify as a client. I like being a service provider; that feels powerful, like I'm making a difference...but at the end of the day, A (one of my clients) wonders why I cannot say I am her friend. Why? It's not good for her. Well, why isn't it? I don't like being a client. I am me; there is nothing "wrong" with me. I am no less worthy of love, respect, or friendship. Neither is A.

How am I supposed to open up to a person who I would like to know better but never can? How am I supposed to open up to someone who experienced sitting on her own couch and realized she felt vulnerable and didn't like it. How am I supposed to open up to someone I know probably does the same things I do in relation to clients? I see it from both sides, and I find both sides lacking. I would love to know you outside of the therapeutic framework, but highly doubt you would want to do the same because something is inherently "wrong" and "different" about me because I am a "client"; no more, no less. It makes me want to raise my defenses and rebuild my walls.

I'm starting to believe that the whole system is inherently and pervasively f**ked up.