Back online.
As part of walking out of the police station without any penalty, it seems that I agreed to something. On Wednesday I emailed the police and the something, to say, no thank you. As I was trying to remember how to breath, and how not to dissolve into a quivering wreck. I'd picked up that the something would include an assessment to support my needs. Which sounds quite nice, I could try asking for the money I need to send me back to university?
I mean if they are serious about helping me...what do you think?
According to the website it is 'a programme of tailored support' to help in managing debt, health concerns, homelessness and sex work. Hey, If I answer in the right way I might find myself sitting before someone I trained with. At first my humiliation would be complete, but then I'd stand up and tell my story.
No seriously, I am so bloody boring thank goodness! No dept, health concerns, homelessness or sex work for me. Just re-traumatization by an idiot therapist too invested in his identity of 'being good' to see the harm he caused.
The something is mandatory.
I'm over my shame now.
Shame is integral to the therapist's Hot Potato - so I can't allow myself to feel it!
The police turned up yesterday evening to get my signature, to say that I want the something. So much for truth. I had emailed to say no thanks - I don't want the something. And I have no idea what I signed. I had to be in the car ten minutes ago to get to work! But they also came to tell me the good news that the psychotherapist doesn't want to take it further.
Anyway I spoke to the woman who administers the something, when I made my appointment. It seems that the something is an American assessment (a set of questions) that are designed to take account of the differences women experience in life because we are women! So my answers will feed into an American university's research (?) to help support the sale of the assessment I guess. Assessments such as WEMWBS, GAD-7, PHQ - 9 start as products behind paywalls until someone photocopies and posts it!
And I hope too (because I still don't know!) that I'm going to be asked to explain my behaviour.
Apologies if you know this story and have had enough of it? The more times I go through it the more sense it starts to make to me. I'm still pulling the fragments together.
Almost done..
"Alrighty then. Picture this if you will" She - me - I had suffered four years of chaos and mayhem, faced terror, despair, loss, grief. She - me- I hadn't had a full nights sleep since it began! His blurb said that he specialised in PTSD, yup she has that. His blurb said that he specialised in a modality that she didn't use, so that would be interesting. She didn't want to be an expert. He sounded like a Buddhist, that would make things easier.
Anyway, during the weekly therapy there was low level flirting - from him. The most memorable incident was so shocking she will never forget it. Therapy was now like a drug. She was horrified and compelled and decided to abide and see. It made her feel better. But it was truly honey off a razor blade.
Eight months into therapy the flirting suddenly ended. In response to the therapist's authoritarian turn, and feeling psychologically attacked, she asked to change the relationship from therapist/client to mentor/mentee because she knew that if she ever suggested that anything he said might cause her negative emotions - his response was 'I didn't mean for you to hear it that way. You couldn't have understood me. This is what I meant you to understand'.
And perhaps that sounds OK to you?
But she came from a more Gestalt understanding of therapy and so for her, therapy could never be about one person deciding what something means and the other feeling obliged to agree. The therapist was extremely defensive, and took any suggestion that he could ever do anything wrong, as unacceptable.
So be it. She had worked with consultants in hospitals and was used to this. So she kept her head down and observed her feelings.
After seventeen months, her feelings for him, her strong feelings, had not died down at all. He had stopped flirting, and now the feed came from conversations, especially the joy of difference. She had recovered enough from the years of despair to be able to face the truth that he didn't feel about her as she felt about him, but she really, really needed to know what had happened.
The result of her honesty - for she told him - was not good. Not good at all. Years later she would learn that misogyny comes to the fore when male therapists turn their discomfort about their own feelings towards blaming their female client for their feelings. He said some really quite barbed and horrible things to me. So no, the therapist did not help her to understand what had actually happened, not at all.
He lectured me, because I had to believe that he could never feel that way about a client, and he made out that I was transgressive, pushing at boundaries, and that I should have known better!
The second time she tried to raise the subject of his honesty, lack of, and especially her need for authentic dialogue, he turned red and blushed, and went into defence again.
So it was that the end of therapy minus any resolution was so destructive for her - he replicated the same emotional agony as her sad and desperate gaslighting husband had done. He refused to be honest about feelings. So she was now retraumatised without any hope of gaining an understanding.
What hadn't he understood?
Cognitive dissonance is my kryptonite. I'd said this in session many times.
She left the room hallucinating, and suicidal.
Because we were encouraged to use recordings of our sessions as students in level 2 I'd learnt how precious recordings are. They are the only way to know what was actually said. My recordings of my husband's gaslighting saved my sanity - that and Wim Hof method. And so I had recorded all the sessions from the moment the sessions turned to lecturing me - the 3lack 3ox.
Whatever...
If the therapist had respected my request to know what had actually happened, the gaslighting problem would have ended in less than 50 minutes.
And I am left with the conviction (!) that a therapist who cannot step out of defence when he feels criticised is going to continue to trample his client's autonomy and do harm to other clients. Therefore I should have made a complaint to his professional body, as soon as I left therapy.
Instead I first tried to get the so often mentioned 'coffee fuelled discussions' back. Then I said that I wanted my notes - that should have been a warning to him that I was thinking of making a complaint!
Then I sent him the recordings that evidenced his defensive stance, back. Then my victim statement. And I was now ready to contact his ethical body...
And so he made a compelling case of harassment to the police!?
OK, the above is hardly a riveting account!
I will spend all day tomorrow distilling the heart essence
But one thing is settled, there is no pathway to resolving the issues between us, and this story is now completely mine.
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