Legally, you have not committed murder if you kill someone in self defense. That is what I mean. Seems a bit offensive to lump, say, a domestic violence victim who clubs their abuser with a blunt object while they are being strangled, with the abuser should the abuser succeed in strangling them. Those two things aren't the same thing at all.

I don't know what this secret is, but it sounds like you're using a lot of black and white thinking about all this. I have no idea if you deserve to be lumped in with murderers and child molesters, but maybe you're using some mental gymnastics to come to that conclusion.

And I don't know if L is lying to you. What she said just doesn't ring true to me. That doesn't mean I think her intention was to be deceitful. I just think therapists should probably be a bit more cautious in their reassurances and never make promises they can't keep. Just seems like so many people have been hurt by therapists who, while I think they thought they were helping at the time, were too cavalier with their words and too eager to make the client feel good. Because I think making the client feel good and having the client trust them makes therapists feel good. That's understandable. It makes me feel good if someone trusts me and if I am able to help them in some way that makes them feel better. I think most people feel that way since we're social creatures. But I think many therapists, maybe even most, fall into the trap of making the client feel good for the secondary gain of themselves feeling good - which means there is even less of an incentive than there would be otherwise for a therapist to say something the client might not like. I think maybe things just pop out of their mouths sometimes. From what many other people have quoted their therapists as saying, I don't get the impression that therapists necessarily have a tendency to think before speaking.