Trying to get out

And what about him initially sending you emails, calling etc , begging to get back to him, after the missed appointment?

Yes, what precaryous said. The guy is a clown. Unfortunately he's not just running around in a circus entertaining the audience.

I personally would not report him. As pointed out, there is really not much evidence. I would either never go back now or might do once or twice and really tell him what I think directly.

I see T2 again on Wednesday. I've emailed him about what's going on.

T2 didn't write me back today. I'm so freaked out. Maybe he was just busy with his own stuff but I emailed him this morning how bad things were for me and he usually emails back. I am so sad that T1 cut me off from emails, and I know it was 100% for his own benefit to cover his ***. I know he straight up lied to my face today, and he's done it before, but there is still that one pathetic part of me clinging to "if I follow all of his rules and don't email and go back next week THEN will he hold my hand again and tell me I'm beautiful again? Can I go back to him telling me he'd have sex with me if he wasn't my therapist again if I just don't email him anymore?"

I was glad at least that I clearly shook him a bit, both with the email and with skipping the appointment. He asked me if it felt good to make him "suffer." I told him that I wasn't trying to make him suffer, that I just wanted to feel like I had some power after feeling so helpless and powerless with him for so long.

You know the tone of his psych notes are going to change now-

"Patient failed our Friday's session. Made several unsuccessful attempts to contact patient verifying she had not harmed herself. Patient has appeared very unstable recently. Patient showed for today's session. She admits she was being manipulative by missing our previous appointment.."

He's not taking the high road, no surprise there. Perhaps it's time to rip off the bandaid (T1) and not look back. He has no dignity, but you still have yours. And integrity.

You're absolutely right about that. He treats my like I'm completely nuts. He has zero respect for me at all. None. Me staying is me refusing to accept that the kind and caring therapist he once was to me is gone. I keep thinking there is a way to get him back. I am in hell this morning after yesterday's session. Him cutting off the emails is brutal for me. Like SO brutal. I didn't even need to email him all last week--I just needed to know that I COULD. He takes away my power at every turn.

I was feeling better after two and a half weeks of not seeing him and I'm really in the hole this morning after yesterday's session.

One other ****** thing is that I'd much prefer to dump him over email than voicemail. It helps me with closure. I suppose I could do both. Leave him the voicemail on "his terms" and then send him an email for myself whether he reads it or not.

I know that it's time to cut it off. The part that keeps me hooked is the sexual connection. I was hoping to get some of that in yesterday's session but he didn't allow for it.

Ramona, it's just my opinion. I'm apologize if I was too straightforward. You have my support - whatever you do. I'm sorry times are so hard. You're going through a lot.

He has zero integrity. He lied straight to my face yesterday when I told him how difficult it is for me to trust him--then he looked right at me and LIED LIED LIED. And then tried to sell me on additional sessions--manipulating me like a ****ing crack dealer.

It's so hard for me to accept that I'm nothing but a paycheck to him. It's REALLY hard. The last card I have available to play is to just fire him. That's ALL I've got left, and I'm hanging onto it like a dog with a bone.

T2 never wrote me back since yesterday. It sucks hard because I really need the support. He has a sick kid that he has to take care of and over 30 other patients so, I know he's just busy but it really blows. I pay him a HUGE amount of money every week. I've gotten myself into so many vulnerable situations where I pay people large amounts of money to take care of my emotional needs, and then they don't even do it.

T2 also said that he was going to send me a referral for a couples therapist for my husband and I on Thursday and never did. It sucks to not be a priority for either of these men whom I pay large amounts of money. I feel super alone and isolated from this. I REALLY feel isolated.

He is causing his own suffering, ramona. This is an important thing to remember. It's so easy to blame ourselves for an unethical therapist. Don't let him manipulate you.

I dissociate a lot of the time during therapy, but yesterday I was fully aware that he was actively manipulating me and lying to me and I just let him do it because I was overwhelmed by the panic of the therapy ending right then and there. I walked out of the room feeling like I'd lost all the power I'd gained in the weeks before. I HATE to end it on that note--feeling powerless, but I also think every time I go back in there it could make me feel more and more powerless.

My mind REVOLVES around this man and I mean very little to him. I am so reluctant to let go because I feel like my life will be so empty without him--in a way it will be--but a friend has encouraged me to think of it as space and freedom rather than emptiness. It really does feel like I'll be starting life from scratch because so much of the last three years have been dedicated to thinking about him.

I wanted to call him and fire him today but I don't want to make a rash decision. Going to try to wait until Monday.

Im not sure this is the deal our ts are signing up for, per se. Taking care of our emotional needs from time to time might be PART of "the process", but its not like we just turn it all over to them like our dry cleaning.

Agree with unaluna's post above. It's not realistic to expect a therapist to take care of our needs and to pay attention on a daily basis in the long run. Probably what T2 was thinking is that frequent contact might help you through an immediate crisis, but it's just not sustainable. It does not mean they don't care or that other patients are more important, but everyone has a life with many different elements. Also, it is weekend right now.

Can you truly imagine that the old sexual attraction and connection could ever come back after all this? Even if T1 allowed it, I think it would be very bad news for you to be so attracted to someone self-centered and abusive like this guy, again. I think that would be self-destructive.

My first suggestion would definitely be to fire him over the phone without much explanation. Maybe if that is impossible, go back to one more session and do it there. I would not mess with email now.

Finally, I would like to reiterate what was said earlier on this thread: you may not feel it yet but I think you are definitely making progress with all this. You seem to see correctly where the right and wrong things are, of course it's not easy to overcome the emotions overnight.

ETA: I think your mind and life will be lacking this destructive drama when you leave T1 behind, and it may sting for a while. But then you can fill it with something positive, with the power of having been through all this and coming out with integrity. You will need to find ways to do a lot of that on your own and/or with the everyday social support around, because therapists really cannot do that for us. It's not their role either.

I read the whole series of threads on this situation and I felt compelled to sign up here so I could comment on it.

I see that you have idealized his relationship with his wife, but think about it this way: How would it make you feel if your own real life husband was having sexually explicit emails and conversations from another woman the way T1 was having these sexual conversations with you? I doubt you would be very happy if your own husband was telling a woman that he really wanted to have sex with her except for a professional duty holding him back, right?

He's not just deceiving and taking advantage of you. He's deceiving and taking advantage of his wife too. His wife would probably be very hurt and furious if she knew that he was telling you that the only reason he's not having sex with you is because of "boundaries".
You shouldn't envy his wife. You should feel sad for her that she is wasting her life with a man who clearly doesn't love her and is chasing after other women while she is raising his child.

Now, I am not saying this is your fault in any way. If he had respect for his wife, he never would have let things go down this road. The fact that he did let things go this way just goes to show that in spite of the "perfect" image his wife is giving people of their marriage on Facebook that clearly he is not such a good husband after all.

I think it is VERY TELLING that he has been "neutral" in his email replies to you and now doesn't want you sending emails to him either. I definitely think he is trying to cover his tracks by not leaving a trail of emails proving that he was egging on your sexual fantasies.
If he had nothing to hide, then he'd keep talking to you in email the same way he was talking to you in session. He knows what he's been doing is wrong and others will judge him for it if they really know what's going on.

I am so sorry that you ended up with this guy. He's been very unfair to you. I am glad that you are reaching out to others for help and reality checks about this situation. Keep talking about it with other people who are not emotionally involved.

"I dissociate a lot of the time during therapy, but yesterday I was fully aware that he was actively manipulating me and lying to me and I just let him do it because I was overwhelmed by the panic of the therapy ending right then and there. I walked out of the room feeling like I'd lost all the power I'd gained in the weeks before. I HATE to end it on that note--feeling powerless, but I also think every time I go back in there it could make me feel more and more powerless."

Stick to your guns. Take your power back by canceling your appointments with T1 and never return.

Really truly appreciate you signing up just to respond to to this. This board has been a lifeline for me--a place to come when I just can't get in touch with anyone else so i can pour out how I'm feeling whenever I need to.

Someone else has mentioned what you've mentioned as well--that his beautiful wife's life is not as idyllic as it seems on Facebook--of course, no one's is. But I got sucked in there--their beautiful home, their hikes through the national parks, trips to Italy, their beautiful backyard. She is gorgeous and clearly beloved by a lot of people from the flood of posts by other people on her page. But, yes, she is married to a guy who is bad at his job and has manipulated at least one patient (there must be others, perhaps in other ways) for his own gain. His children go to a $20,000/year elementary school, and I'm LITERALLY trying to turn my closet into a bedroom for my baby. But if he's so ****** with me, being married to him probably isn't anywhere near as great as I imagine it to be. I wonder if he's actually cheated with other women.

I am completely guessing at this, but the way that he keeps pushing me to make more and more appointments makes me suspicious that his practice isn't doing well and that maybe money has become an issue for him. We live in an extremely expensive neighborhood (I'm in a rent controlled apartment I've been in 15 years) and prices for absolutely everything are through the roof right now.

The email thing definitely felt like a DOUBLE manipulation--he cut me off because 1.) he's finally realizing that he's acted inappropriately and wants to cover his tracks, and 2.) when I was so devastated about being cut off, he VERY manipulatively said to me: "Well,...YOU'RE the one who wanted to cut back on appointments. I believe I can still help you, but it all has to take place within this room, so I'm available to you as much as you need, as many times a week as you want. You just have to make an appointment."

Thanks again for responding. I guess I do still believe I could feel this sexual attraction to him. That's the reason I'm still going. I have a WILD physical longing for him that actually physically HURTS at times.

Every time I decide I'm going to end it for good, I think of how I'll feel afterwards--when it's truly over, and I'm ****ING TERRIFIED. It's a black hole opens up in both my heart and my head and I feel this overwhelming emptiness and terror at the prospect of never seeing him again. It's like I truly don't think I'll be able to bear it.

T2 is overwhelmed by his personal and professional responsibilities. He's told me as much. He has 36 trauma patients and a baby with leukemia. I emailed him Friday morning telling him how ****** I was feeling. I am paying him a HUGE amount of money. He could have sent me back one sentence saying he heard me. He's a good therapist but I'm just another ball he's juggling to keep the paycheck coming in. That hurts. It's not about dropping off emotional drycleaning. It's about having someone I'm paying a huge amount of money to show me some consistency and follow through. He said he'd email me a couples counseling referral for my husband and I on Thursday and he never did. I really like him as a therapist but it's hard to feel like such a low priority to someone when I'm paying SO much money. He's got too much on his plate and he's just juggling me to keep a large sum of money coming in. It sucks.

Do you think youre ready for couples counseling? It seems like that would mean making a HUGE change in your marriage relationship. Instead you are focusing on feeling abandoned by T2, for no referral yet? I feel like i would need to talk about what going to couples counseling would mean for me, with my t, for a while before i called. So maybe t2 IS taking care of you.

T2 is the one who has repeatedly encouraged couples counseling. He's not withholding the referral for my benefit. He doesn't have the time or energy for follow through on the things that he says he's going to do. He has a huge amount on his plate and I'm not a priority. He also doesn't send billing statements for reimbursement for months at a time. He's overwhelmed. I keep picking people to ask for help that don't have the time energy or inclination to help me. I REALLY like him and think he's a good therapist, but I told him how freaked out I am that he has a personal relationship with T1 and recalled some positive things he said about T1 before he knew everything that was going on and he never wrote back. It's tough.

The truth is I need to stop depending on therapists, but I don't have a good support system in my own life to replace them. I'm trying to build one up but it takes a long time.

But how do YOU feel about it right now? Are YOU ready? How do you envision it?

NO! I just want to go back to T1 holding my hands and telling me I'm beautiful again. THAT'S what I'm ready for.

I apologize in advance if what I have to say is hurtful.

I feel a huge amount of empathy for your T having a baby with Leukemia. Sometimes I feel like we expect our T's to have superhuman abilities and it doesn't sit well with me. He has many clients, and each client expects to be treated as a priority because they're paying him "huge amounts of money." The reality is that he's still a human being.

I get that it's his job. I really do. But they are still human beings above all else. What if there was an emergency with his baby over the weekend? He has generally been very good about responding to emails. Could there be another reason he has not responded?

I used to pine over the fact that my T doesn't 'care' about me. That I pay him money to care. We spent countless hours talking about this in therapy. I've been in weekly therapy for 6 years now and I think I finally realized that I don't need him to care about me - I need him to help me care about myself. I just figured this out now. It's an epiphany.

Therapy is a process. I'm not suggesting that my end result should be yours. I'm just asking that you see T2 as a human being. I don't think his goal is to hurt you. And yes, I understand it is his job to follow through on his promises - but everyone makes mistakes.

I really dislike email communication when in distress. I find that it 'feeds the beast', if you will. Hopefully he will set boundaries regarding expectations surrounding email communications in the future.

I DO see T as a human being. We talk about his baby and her condition during every session. When I don't hear back from him I worry that something has gone wrong with her. He tells me about their struggles, the horrific procedures she has to go through. I know her chemo schedule. I know how much debt he's in to the hospital I know the horrible insensitive things people have said to him about how he and his wife should have another kid "just in case." That's why I keep paying him huge amounts of money and never call him out on not being there when I need him. What I'm saying is I'm a ****ING mess and have been suffering for years and I wish that I could just find one person who could be consistent and be there for me. I'm not saying that I blame him. Of COURSE I'm not as important as his baby. I just feel like I put myself in situations where I'm taking care of my therapist's needs over and over again. I really like him as a therapist and a person. He's kind, but he's got too much on his plate and I'm just lamenting that I've put myself in yet another situation where I can't get my needs met.

And yes Yellowbuggy, I'm super insulted that you've stated that I don't think of him as a human being. Your stating that I don't have empathy for him or his baby disgusts me. You don't know **** about me or what I've been through, what I've sacrificed, or how I suffer. **** you.

Thanks for telling me to go **** myself.

Don't worry, I won't contribute any more to your thread. I sincerely wish you the best.