Trying to get out

Yes! Judith Hermann is FAMOUS!

I didn't realize that until now haha

My exploitation happened in the early '90's. I wanted to know if what happened to me was just "frowned upon," as Pdoc told me and not such a bad thing. Didn't own a computer.
But I went to our tiny local library and researched "sex with your therapist." There wasn't much published about it back then. Somehow, I found Gary Schoener's (a licensed psychologist) name among info about the Walk In Counseling Center in Minnesota. He had published some articles about therapist abuse.

Anyway, I called the Walk In Counseling Center and asked to speak to him. I wouldn't give my name. (I was terrified. I didn't know what I had gotten myself into.) Amazingly, Gary came to the phone. I told him a bit about what happened..."someone I know might have had sex with their psychiatrist, is that bad?" I asked him if he knew any therapists in my area who might see me. Gary gave me names of three T's who specialized in therapist abuse.

"PrevT" was the second name he gave and she was the first T I phoned. I told her a bit about me. "But I don't suppose you take Medicare or Medi-cal." She replied that she did.
She agreed to see me.
She has been the best T.
I am so blessed to know her.

I hope you find someone like her, Ramona.

what day do you meet up with T3?

I meet her on Tuesday. Feeling pretty nervous.

Weirdly and unfortunately T2 sent me an email that he says he meant to save to drafts of a meditation he was writing up for me and some of it really made me feel hurt and judged by him. I am very likely completely oversensitive right now. I wrote him back I didn't want to do the first meditation he suggested because it made me feel like shaming myself for betraying my husband in my heart.

He wrote back that he hadn't meant to send it to me yet and he was just working on it and apologized and said he agreed there should be no shaming involved in my treatment.

The past couple of days have been OK but definitely pretty hard. I'm not having panic attacks all day like I was before, but there is a fear in me--in accepting my current lot in life. I wanted so badly to escape with T1, and even though there are positive things in my life it feels like all work and no play. What's the point if I can't feel excitement and joy and be in love?

I'm not having the wild desires for him as much, but because of that my entire sexual nervous system seems to be shut off. My husband and I are both exhausted with a sick baby, so neither of us are really into having sex right now, but I can't imagine how I'll ever want to again.

I only feel good during sex when I think about T1 and now that seems like a really ****ed up thing to do and something that feeds my addiction.

Life is a major bummer. It's all just so hard and sad and unforgiving and relentless.

Hitting me hard again this morning. The aliveness being gone from my life. It's so hard to feel so isolated and to have no purpose in the world. Please don't say my purpose is to be a mother and a wife. You might as well say I should delight in being an indentured servant with no brain or dreams or prospects of my own. I hate the loneliness of life. I feel invisible. At lesat when Iwas seeing T1 I felt those moments of aliveness. I had something to look forward to. Now I don't look forward to anything. Just so ****ING lonely.

And there's no one to talk to about it anymore besides you guys. No one wants to hear it.

It's a lonely life, without passion.

Umm - that was a fantasy, like the guy in the nytimes last year who gave like $700,000 to a fortune teller for her to build a golden bridge to his long lost love. Or a gambler chasing a big win? Maybe an Anonymous group would be helpful to you?

Is there anything in life that you have felt passion (not necessarily sexual) about in the past besides T1? That made you feel alive? Even back in childhood? Not necessarily a person, but something you loved doing, like, I dunno, seeing live music, going to the beach, hiking in the woods, painting, going to an art museum, rock climbing, dancing, anything? If so, try to find a way to reexplore that.

i feel passionless and purposeless too

Performing comedy and acting. And I can't get a job doing that. It actually COSTS a bunch of money to perform, plus all the slots are so late at night and I work nights and am exhausted from the baby.

I maybe just fired T2. I sent him a messages saying I'm not coming this week and that I'm thinking of taking a break for a while. I am so stressed out about money. I can't meet with both him AND T3 this week. I am SO stressed out. I tried to wiggle out of T3 and my husband flipped out saying I'd better go or he has no other suggestions of how to help me.

I just want someone to put me out of my misery.

Why would you fire T2 who has been professional and supportive?

I'm not sure why you're going to a 3rd therapist, but until you really know how that one will work out, why not alternate weeks or something? Don't burn your bridges until you know you can get to the other side of the river.

Maybe you could find a way somehow to do that occasionally? At least the comedy part--I imagine the acting would have to be a regular gig.

Why don't you see how you like T3 before deciding to take a break with T2? If you can't afford to see both this week, OK, but it sounds like you need to be seeing someone. I'm glad you're still seeing T3 tomorrow and hope it goes well. Do you know what her fees are like?

Would T2 maybe be willing to cut you a break on costs if you tell him you can't afford to keep seeing him? Or put you on a payment plan or something?

I'm firing him because of money. I'm going to T3 once because my husband told me to. I am SO broke and so buried in debt.

I don't trust T2. He accidentally sent me this email that he meant to save to his drafts about how I betrayed my husband in my heart. He just wants my money because he has a sick kid.

Therapists are con men.

T3 is even more expensive than T2. I don't have the money to see any of them. I can't even afford a table to eat at at my house. We don't have a ****ing table. I have spent TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS on therapists. They are CON MEN AND WOMEN.

I don't even have a ****ing table.

I wish I was dead. Truly.

This is not a life. I'm here as a slave because I have a baby. I love him and can't leave him without a mother. I pray for death. My body is dead. I can't feel anything since T1. I hope it's over soon.

Today was a VERY bad day. I remembered what it was like to feel alive with him. It was a very bad day.

Seriously? Betrayed him in your heart? Falling for someone is not a betrayal. A betrayal is when you have an agreement and you break it. Like not to have sex with other people. That makes me roll my eyes so bad. Certainly the therapists you have seen sound like imbeciles and incompetents.

I can't tell you what to do but you are putting an incredible amount of pressure on yourself to keep this all contained. I would see t3 and more importantly I would say everything to my husband and damned be the consequences. Personally I think most marriages are built on thin air. But this would be a good test of whether this marriage is worth staying in.

I know, it's bad right? He sent that and then I wrote him back I felt judged by it and then he wrote me back he hadn't meant to send it, that he'd meant to save it to drafts.

But isn't that just as bad? That that's what I know that his first draft was?

NOT good.

He IS very kind and he has helped me get away from T1 and he has helped me feel a little better, but there's definitely a wackadoodle element to him. He's super Buddhist so talks in those terms frequently--sincerely. He's a good therapist, I believe, but overwhelmed.

I saw T3 today. I tried to unpack the entire story as quickly as I could so I could get her feedback. I could see my hands shaking as I spoke.

I abridged the story as much as I could: 4 years ago I got fired from the dream job of a lifetime, then I went to see this therapist, then he touched the back of my hand, then the 5 day orgasm, then I didn't tell him for 2 years, then I told him and he said he felt the same way and held my hands and said if he wasn't my therapist we could have wild passionate sex right then, that we could be together mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, yada yada yada.

She said that T1 is a psychopath who tortured me without remorse. She said that what he did was akin to raping a 5-year-old. She said the only difference was the absence of the physical acting of penis-in-vagina, but that everything else was as damaging as that.

She said for me to take some time to decide what i want to do because I am still grieving. She told me that at her first internship 30 years ago she co-facilitated a group of therapy abuse victims and that I sounded exactly like all of them--protective of him, desperate to please him, loyal to him till the end, reluctant or refusing to report, never completely out of love with him, etc.

I feel so stunned and overwhelmed.

Holy crap.

I'm sorry, Ramona. I'm glad you found T3. Let me know if there is anything I can do.

my T likened what happened with my former T to child rape. i can see the similarities. T3 sounds wise... she even led a group for therapy abuse victims?? how perfect is that for you?? man, i wish i could be in a group like that... the only thing now is the financial issue for you

I'm also glad that you have found, ramona. Perhaps the best move now would be to stop seeing T2 as well and just go to this woman. She seems to validate your experience and feelings, which is wonderful. Perhaps a group like what T3 described might be very helpful, but if you cannot afford it, if there is one choice to make, I would choose T3 for now.

Wow, Ramona, that must have been shocking to hear her say it that way. But it sounds like she really understands what you're going through. Did you make another appointment with her? Could she maybe work something out if you can't afford it right now? Or even just to go every other week instead of weekly?

It's financial and she's also ALL the way on the far side of town--like as far West as you can go and I'm as far East as you can go.

And the financial issue.

I told her the first part of all the stuff he said and how I reacted and she said
"So it was an affair." And I just started to cry.

And then she said: "You realize you have NO fault whatsoever in this, right?"

I told her I'm not a dumb person and I can't believe I didn't see it. She said that's how psychopaths work. That that's how Bernie Madoff made off with all those smart people's money.

She said in the group she work in 30 years ago there were women who had actually had plastic surgery and had boob jobs because their therapists had expressed they liked that sort of thing.

I feel so strange.

I went on the wife's Facebook page again yesterday a couple hours before the appointment. It's been a while since I have. I think I somehow wanted to be feeling the full pain of it when I went in to see T3.

She had posted photos of when they took a luxury vacation to Japan for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was a few weeks after the real intense stuff started between me and T1 and I remember telling him I didn't know how to survive that week without him because he said he'd be out of email contact. He said just masturbate.

It was a brutal week for me. I felt like I'd been locked in a dark basement for a week with no contact or light. He was very flippant about it--just deal with it.

They were in JAPAN during that. You should see the place I'm living in.

I told her I don't know what I want to do right now and I'm terrified of therapy in general. She said "of course you are." She said to take some time to sit with this--my experience with her, my experience with T2, to think about what it is feels truly right deep in my gut and I will know because she says there's still part of me deep down who knows I can trust myself because I had the strength to leave T1.

I told her about the intensity of the suicidal thoughts over T1. She said I saved my life by leaving. She said I could have died.