I'm new here and I'm looking to shine a light on my problematic relationship with my therapist. That light being each one of your eyes and minds. I know that sounds weird or corny, but I have a hard time sharing these things so my problems end up in this dark, secret place where only my own negative thinking is allowed. So I'd be grateful your honest thoughts and opinions because I think it might help me face and understand this situation better.

I'm an early 30s male and my therapist is a woman who's a little older than me but not too much. I started seeing her a year and a half ago for child abuse recovery, depression, anxiety, PTSD, lots of other things. My life was pretty screwed up from ages 0-18, and I had to deal with it 100% alone. I made it far enough to get an education, decent paying job, etc., but I was left with a whole host of mental and emotional problems, mainly centered around self-acceptance, life skills, and relationships.

The central problem to this situation I think is the fact that I'm alone in the world right now. No family, no friends, no roots, I'm like a leaf in the wind. I always thought it'd be cool to be like the Man with No Name, drifting from town to town, completely self-sufficient, shrouded in mystery, but it actually sucks. I'm definitely a relationship-oriented person, my happiest most fulfilling experiences in life involved other people, and I feel empty and lost without people in my life. My parents, brothers, aunts, uncles, etc., could be described as "sociopathic", so with all that combined, I've had a bad life-long habit of getting caught up with abusive people.

Now onto my therapist. I went to see her for CBT specifically since she advertised herself as offering that service, but I really don’t think she has any interest or experience in CBT. Any time I’ve asked her about finally doing CBT she gets nervous and evasive. Her actual specialty is New Age/Hay House-type therapy, which I think is bunk, personally, so it’s not really a good match for me.

My therapist also seems emotionally unstable, and I’m pretty sure she’s manipulated me into this weird relationship with her that I feel stuck in. I grew up having my brain screwed with by my family and chosen relationships, so I'm really susceptible to being manipulated and abused. Which sucks! I'm in therapy to fix that stuff, not to get into it again.

Since I’ve been seeing her for a year and a half there’s a lot of material to work with, but I’ll just give the highlights.

• Acts like I’m special. Better than her other clients. Amazing and wonderful with no bad sides to me. Tells me that we both share this great, deep insight into life. Has this idealistic view of me that I’m this pure and great person, when I’m a flawed person like anyone else, and it puts a lot of pressure on me. Her saying this stuff has influenced me to stay with her. It makes me feel good, but after thinking about it a little, it’s like she’s dosing me with high-grade synthetic positive vibes. It’s too extreme and unrealistic, and the effect it has on me is to get me stuck on her.
  
  
• Given me bizarre, creepy, Norman Bates-style looks. Told me to close my eyes and visualize something; I closed my eyes, got weird vibes, and I sneaked a look and I saw her staring at me with intense eyes, head down a little, with a grin from ear to ear. I’ve never seen anyone look at me like that. She also gave me a flash of the same creepy look when she told me I should go on medication when I finally opened up to her about my anxiety (which also made me feel really bad about my problems). She seemed almost lustful about the idea, like I don’t know how to put it, it had this sorta serial killer vibe to it. Two people have given me somewhat similar looks before – one of them was a self-described sociopath, and the other was this cruel, manipulative woman. And of course I ended up in abusive relationships with both of them that lasted upwards of 3 years.
  
  
• Gives me dangerous, half-assed advice, and leaves me hanging when I listen to her and it ends up hurting me. One session she threw out this idea that I should emotionally separate myself from my family. So I listen to her, think about it for a few weeks, and I ended up in this completely awful place. I was in utterly excruciating pain. She gave me no guidance, no support, nothing. So I’m doubled over in pain in front of her, asking her for help coping with it, and she told me she couldn’t help me. She looked at me like I was a sick cat trying to crawl on her lap. Didn’t flinch, didn’t make any indication that she had a normal, human connection with me, since people generally don’t like looking at others in pain, particularly when they’re partly responsible for it. I felt so abandoned and used after that.
  
  
• Gotten angry and attacked me when I told her I was thinking of seeing a therapist who specialized in my issues. I feel like she’s “punished” me for bringing up actual, real problems I have with our relationship, so I learned to keep quiet about them. Yet she tells me that I should be open and honest about things, which is such disingenuous horsecrap.
  
  
• My T seems really selfish and self-centered, like our treatment is more about her than it is about me. I left therapy for a session to try out a new therapist, who ended up sexually harassing me (great luck lately, huh). So I’m desperate, burned, etc., and I go back to her. Instead of helping me through that experience, she put all the focus on her. Totally brushed over the fact that I was hurt, and made it all about her and our relationship. I really could have used some help coping because that other therapist ****ed my head up for a good couple of weeks.
  
  
• Our treatment has no goals. No direction. No structure. No organization. My therapist just riffs on things each session with no continuity and I can barely get in a word, it's like she wants to be a guru or something. Any time I ask about bringing in goals and structure, she gets evasive about it. “Oh yeah, I’ll bring it in next week”, then never mentions it again. So my treatment feels 1) completely chaotic; and 2) hijacked by my therapist for her own needs because I’m living out this weird, fake, potentially abusive relationship with her. I feel bad for her so I try to take care of her, weirdly enough.
  
  
• She flirts with me sometimes. I mentioned sex about two months ago and she seemed really into me talking about my sexual life and sexual history. Gives me really heated eyes … like, some of our sessions have gotten a little steamy. She’s showed me some skin here and there. Glances at my crotch from time to time. This has gotten me stuck to her, too, because I’m lonely, I haven’t had sex in a few years, and I think she’s attractive.

Those are just the highlights. I have to be honest, I feel like I’m trapped in this fake relationship and I’m scared of firing her. She's helped me with a few things, and I've "bonded" with her I guess. I’m still a little skeptical of my own judgments, but worst of all, I’m alone in the world! If I fire her then I’ll be 100% alone again, so I’m giving her this incredible amount of leverage in my life. My gut instinct tells me this whole thing is rotten, but I’m scared and embarrassed of doing something about it. Scared about being alone. Embarrassed because deep down I know this isn’t right, and I’m ashamed I let it happen, and ashamed that I’m alone and scared in the world. I've been through this same situation before with abusive people (including my family, sociopath girl mentioned above, most of my other girlfriends, "friends", etc.). Also, things aren't great in other parts of my life, either. My work environment is negative, my apartment situation is negative, I've neglected my health and responsibilities for the past couple of years. I want to start cleaning up my life, but I've got a mountain of work to do so it's all a little overwhelming.

Thank you for reading this really long post. I’ve let this fester for a year and a half and I finally want to take care of things, but I’m still a little lost and stuck with it all. I would be thankful for any thoughts or advice. I’m sorta new to reaching out to people.