[WrkNPrgress]

What preconceptions have you had about your T in the early days that were proven or eventually revealed to be untrue? I'm not talking about general opinions or personality disillusionment but more real-life based stuff you caught yourself assuming about them.

I assumed she had some horrible relationship with her Dad until one day she talked about him and told me about his work and such and I realized they had a good relationship. I realized was projecting my own story onto her.

I also assumed she was sober until I recently saw a picture of her at a recent event, drinking a beer. Nothing scandalous, of course, but it affected me in as much as I realized I had made a pretty bit assumption with no real evidence. I have yet to figure out where that came from.

Kinda funny that way.

[ruh roh]

I thought she lived in a big home and drove a swanky car. She later told me she lives in a small home and drives an old car that she can cram a lot of stuff into and is a good dog car. I like the reality a lot better than my assumptions. :-)

[satsuma]

I don't know why, but when I first met my T I thought he was single. I didn't see him as a family man, for some reason.
Then one time near the beginning I was too anxious to speak at all,I was feeling sick, and so he said that he would do some talking first, and he told me that he had just been to his first ever parent/teacher meeting for his daughter.
For some reason that really helped me to trust him! I think it really helped me to know a bit more about his life, apart from his psychology qualifications which I already knew.

[calibreeze22]

I thought she was straight and in love with a much younger Hispanic guy. I was way wrong (except for the in love part) - recently married to a non-Hispanic woman her own age.

[CharlieStarDust]

I was convinced she was a lesbian - finally mustered the courage to ask her. She's married to a man.

[growlycat]

I thought that Kashi was a gay man. He has described himself as heterosexual and has been married for decades and has kids. I am still under a weird delusion that he is gay or bisexual despite the evidence. Someday maybe he will come out or tell me the whole story and I might be relieved that I'm not crazy. At least about that issue

[atisketatasket]

I had preconceptions that they would all be annoying idiots but I don't think I cared enough about them as people to develop factual preconceptions about them. At least not that I can recall.

I have speculated about their mental health or lack thereof once I was an established client.

[kecanoe]

At first, I assumed he was married. Then realized he was divorced. Then knew he remarried. And then, totally surprised to learn that he had divorced again. It still bugs me that a family therapist has been divorced twice. I mean, shouldn't he take his own advice?

[captgut]

I thought he had no kids (false), had never smoked (false). I mean cigarettes
I can't remember anything interesting...

[MessyD]

I assumed that he was married as he talked about his daughter sometimes. He seemed like he got it all together. Until he told me that he was divorced. He could tell I was surprised but I was also glad to know he was human and not all perfect, made me feel closer

[Erebos]

Always thought my pdoc was either stoned or reAlly really tired and inattentive.
He always sits very reclined, and will often close his eyes for periods of time.
Turns out he only works with addicts, who can and often are highly volatile. They frequently misunderstand eye contact. So he always adopts a totally non confrontational.
As for inattentive, the guy has scary perceptive abilities.

[rainbow8]

I thought she "had it all!" Husband with a good career, she being a T, 2 kids, nice home, she being pretty and nice too. I was shocked when she got divorced!!!

Another shock was reading something she wrote about herself and her past. She experienced losses at an early age. She wrote about her anger. She used the "f" word in writing. I wasn't expecting that from her at all!!!

A pleasant surprise, though not preconceived, was her changing her mind about saying the words "I love you" to me, and signing emails "Love, T". I never expected that!!!

I assumed initially that my first therapist was more sophisticated intellectually. And that the second was a bit of a snob because he showed off a lot of varied and diffuse knowledge and emphasized how his clients tend to be highly educated. Both assumptions turned out wrong quite quickly. Well, the second does know a lot of things and I do believe his clientele is highly selected by him but he has proven very open-minded and only moderately snobbish, which I tend to be as well, or at least I assume I am, so it's okay.

[magicalprince]

I thought she was out of reach. That there's no reason she should have feelings for someone like me.

[WrkNPrgress]

I'll add one more.

I always assumed she wore contacts because sometimes she would tear up sometimes when we weren't really talking about anything emotional. One time it happened right at the beginning of the session. I also remember her wearing glasses one day.

But one time the subject came up and I asked her if she wore contacts and she said no!

When means all those little teary moments were about something else. ... allergies?Emotions? I have no idea. I'm so intrigued.

[brillskep]

I assumed he was single. I was so sure of it, I even wondered why since he seemed so sociable, intelligent, and handsome. Then one day a couple of months in, he said something about his girlfriend - I was absolutely stunned! This actually turned out to be very important to me, because it used to be that when I was in love or in a relationship, I didn't feel emotionally available to anyone else (friends for example) and I realized I had assumed my therapist was single due to his warmth and uncanny emotional availability even toward me, a client. I learned a lot from that and revisited my emotional and relational flexibility

[junkDNA]

i wondered if he smoked weed on the regular..
one time i just asked him. he said something like, how would you feel if i did?

i thought, bingo!!!

but then later he told me hes never even tasted whiskey. and now that i've gotten to know him a lot better, i know he doesnt smoke weed and never has

I thought T was a specific type of conservative Christian given how there's a lot of them where I live.

In my country, in schools, you can be sent to counseling because you're seen as deviant if you're LGBT. The school counselor will literally try to get you to be less...LGBT...

Turns out she's more liberal, has some LGB friends though she doesn't know gender identity isn't sexual orientation.

She doesn't curse. Boy was I wrong. She's a Christian counselor. I always assume other Christians behave better than me by biblical stands. She curses as much as I do, like a sailor. I was tickled to pieces the first time she said the F word.

[rainboots87]

I assumed she was Christian (not for any particular reason), but it turns out she's Jewish. Doesn't make any difference to me.

[runlola72]

At some point in our early sessions T mentioned being the son of a preacher, and that he has always been active in church. When he told me, I felt disappointed. I assumed he would be pushing his religion on me, or referencing it often. I assumed he was firmly ensconced in his belief system and would be unable to access some of my less conventional beliefs. I assumed a lot. Anyway, it turns out he has been very open to my views, and never pushed his religion on me. I've felt a confusing urge to explore Christianity and have been unsure if this was simply to feel connected to T. My T has been gentle, never once pushing his religion on me, even after, at a particular low point, I asked him to pray for me. I feel total in control and yet supported. I don't know how he does it. I also like that he references God with female pronouns, which was not what I had expected.

[thesnowqueen]

I heard indirectly that his son was getting married (at some point) but it was only after he passed away - when I was googling about him and his family that I saw his daughter had also got married a couple of years before. Photos of him walking her down the aisle

[pachyderm]

I assumed that he, like all doctors, was "on my side" and would help me. Turned out not to be true.

This was decades ago.

Things were much more complicated than I was able to handle.

[thesnowqueen]

My long term T was in his 50s when I started seeing him and had shoulder length hair. I'v shown people a picture of him and some say he looks more like a musician. He had very wide ranging interests from art to music to literature, as well as science, etc. At some point I got the wild idea that he might be interested in BDSM! After some discussions on sexuality I came to realize this was pretty unlikely. I also thought at the beginning that he would have experimented with drugs - at least when he was younger. Turned out he had never even smoked a joint!