Trying to get out

nice to see you again and thanks for sharing your update. this must have been an incredibly challenging experince for you, and your family, these past couple years. i'm glad to hear that there has been a positive outcome for you.

again, thanks for sharing, because it's stories like yours that help provide hope to others finding themselves in similar situations

Thank you so much. I can't believe I made it. The message board posts here actually turned out to be a major part of the case.

I remember you ramona, I read your posts for quite a long time. Thank you so much for posting an update, I'm so glad to hear this. I really felt for you, because I know that because of transference clients are vulnerable to this kind of mistreatment. Transference can feel bigger than life. You have been so brave. (In the past when I've said that someone was brave, they've corrected me and said it was horrible and they were terrified and they weren't brave - but I think when things are frightening and awful that is exactly when we are brave to persevere.) Good for you and I hope something happens to protect his future clients as well. Wishing you and your family the very best.

Ramona,

Hi! I’m glad you came back to check in and let us know how it came out and how you are doing!

It sounds so painful and frustrating- his medical boards should be doing something...one would think!

Welcome back!

**safe hugs**

Yes, it was absolutely terrifying and I didn't feel brave, but had to keep reminding myself that nothing was close to as horrible as being with T1 was. Worst years of my life. I don't want to scare people but if anyone here has ANY reservations about whether their therapist is dealing with their transference appropriately please talk to someone about it right away. I guess there may be therapists out there who handle it correctly but it makes you so vulnerable to the predators in the mental health industry. Think carefully about whether you're feeling helped or hurt, and if it's the later, enlist the help of anyone you can to get away.

I definitely remember you...because I, also, was leaving my unethical therapist.
I'm so...so...so glad that you've come out on some other side & are still here & sounding a lot healthier.
I know that hell....

You were able to get away? So glad to hear this.

I agree, you sound a lot healthier. I have often wondered what happened. I mostly lurk these days. I have even found myself looking back on this thread just to see if you'd posted and I missed it. I am glad you were able to break away.

I'm totally relieved that you got out of this.

I am so glad to hear that you made it to the other side. You sound so much healthier now. Thank you for updating us on your experience.

I look back on the way things were and I'm so scared. You guys were the first ones to tell me something was wrong.

With the miserable "treatment" and then the lawsuit it's been just under 6 years that this creep has been in my life. He definitely still haunts me and I'm definitely changed forever by what happened. I am doing everything I can to try to hold him accountable, because everyone I've told says this is likely something he does all the time and that he is very unlikely to stop.

He was so remorseless. It terrifies me how low the standards are for therapists. Please everyone be VERY careful.

It will be interesting to hear what the licensing boards say. Not to pry, but did you like file a civil suit? I wonder what the licensing board will make of his loss or plea there.

Hi Ramona, so nice to hear from you! I posted quite a lot to you during those times in the past - you may not find them under my name as I closed that account at some point and opened this new one - but I was very much rooting for you to come out of it somehow as a winner

Yes I filed a civil lawsuit. It went on for 20 months and for extremely complicated reasons I agreed to take a settlement just before it went to trial. Any judgment over a certain amount of money gets reported to the licensing boards and mine was above that amount. I ended up reporting him a few months before the settlement because I was worried about the statute of limitations running out and then the boards got the settlement information a couple months later.

I am so glad to hear that you are free from this terrible situation and that you won. I hope the board follows through as well. I am praying he loses his license. He shouldn’t go on unpunished for what he did primarily because he likely does it to others. He needs to be stopped. I am glad you are doing better in everything in your life. Hugs.

Hope you get the results you worked so hard for.

Since your settlement makes the judgement reportable, I hope the boards act on it and revokes his license.
Not much consolation but if he continues to practice, the report should really ding his malpractice insurance premiums.

I pray that the board will do something. I have been told that their reputation for holding therapists accountable is extremely poor. Even if they do discipline him, I have been told that it can take YEARS for it to actually happen. It took me almost 2 years to get a settlement during which time he continued to practice and abused god knows how many other patients. Now it seems that even with a mountain of documented evidence against him, it's possible he could go on for years more.

He is the worst thing that ever happened to me, and I have had a lot of terrible things happen to me.

The system is heavily stacked in favor of therapists and against patients who speak out. It is so sickening and heartbreaking, but it is true. I am incredibly lucky that I have gotten this far.

Yes, I have been told this will be bad for his malpractice insurance. This lawsuit has brought me in contact with the absolute sleaziest people I have ever met so I am afraid that thereis some company out there that will still insure him for the right price, and since he excels at financial exploitation of mental patients in addition to his other abuses, I'm guessing he has the cash to spare. It is so awful.

Wow, wow, wow. What a sick f***. My heart goes out to you, rj. I'd like to see that guy get his a$s kicked.

Thank you. I wish there was more I could do to stop him. In the mental health field, abusers are protected at every turn. It is so heartbreaking.

hi ramona. just want to say I just read this thread from the beginning a couple of days ago, and am so glad to hear you doing better! And that you won the lawsuit. I really hope you hear back from the licensing board and he gets punished and his license gets revoked. keep us updated!

Thank you so much for reading it. I am going back through the hundreds of emails between us as well as the posts here to try and start to heal. It is so frightening how little oversight there is for psychotherapists. I have been told it will take YEARS for them to discipline him. Other therapists I know whom I've told about this are shocked to hear it, but it seems that most of these people can pretty much get away with whatever they want--which I assume is something that T1 knew and why he was so careless.

I did read back on some emails I wrote three years ago this month talking about how all I wanted in the whole world was for the horrible panic and depression to stop. There have been a lot of bad things in my life that have happened since I left him, but nothing compares to how sick I was when he had me in his clutches. I am reminding myself daily how incredibly lucky I am to have gotten away. It is so scary. I didn't think I'd make it.

Again thank you for reading it.