I had a session over zoom with my T yesterday. We were talking about how difficult it has been for me during this COVID pandemic given that I am a doctor and working on the front lines. He acknowledged that the situation is horrific and that there is some amount of unavoidable suffering that I will experience because of it. But he also highlighted the fact that I was “defending my right to suffer in this situation“ and that there is some avoidable suffering that I am bringing on myself. Specifically, he believes that I have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, which makes me experience bad patient outcomes as personal failures, that some of the sense of doom and terror I am feeling is because of this fault of mine.

I suppose I should be grateful that he is trying to find modifiable factors in this very difficult situation. However what he said about defending my right to suffer really rubbed me the wrong way. All I really wanted from him was some space to process my feelings and some empathy. I told him that his comments made me angry, that I did not want him to answer the question but what I was wondering in that moment is if he even knew what it felt like to lose a patient and feel like it was his fault. (I did comment on the fact that I hope and expect him to provide empathy on many other fronts with which he could not possibly have personal experience so my desire for that information was likely complicated.)

I’m trying to be rational and remember that his job is to use his unique expertise to help me in the long run, not just to play Mommy and comfort me whenever I am sad, but I’m still pretty disappointed and angry. I don’t know; what do y’all think?