FRAGMENTS:

The Inner and the Outer Journey

In the promised land of psychotherapy

From my day in New York. I was happy to be there, but nervous about the upcoming days. Picture taken by my colleague. 2019.

This was to be my first trip to the U.S. I really wanted to go — and yet I didn’t want to at all. My trauma therapist and I had organized a conference together, just outside New York. We also worked together, this therapist and I. We’d been doing that for several years — almost as long as I’d been her client. But also, before that.

After the conference, I was going to stay in the U.S. for a few weeks. I was heading down to Oklahoma to work with my colleague at our foundation. We were going to teach courses, explore research opportunities, and build networks. I was looking forward to this part of the journey.

A lot had happened before this trip in my relationship with this therapist. But this was the first time I was absolutely certain that we shouldn’t be doing something like this together. And we talked about it over Skype, since we don’t even live in the same country. But she said it would look strange if I didn’t come, since it was she and I who organized these conferences together. Since we’re partners and a team. And I gave in, as always.

The classical question, why did I not leave?

Before we move on in this story, I want to say that I’ve asked myself a million times how I ended up in this situation. Why hadn’t I left our strange “partnership?” What was wrong with me that I couldn’t just leave her and all of this behind me? Why did I go to see her time and time again, do things with her, even though deep down I knew it was like playing with fire? I’m still pondering the mechanisms behind my actions and decisions. Behind the driving force and the attraction. What was it that drew me to her like a moth to a flame? And why did she let it continue?

The flight went well, even though I’d been nervous about flying that far on my own. In New York, my colleague from our foundation met me, and we were going to spend a night at a hotel in New York first, just so I’d have a chance to see a tiny bit of the city. And I did, though we mostly worked on a grant application for which we’d received follow-up questions, questions we needed to answer so they could move forward with our application for a small research grant. I lived for the purpose of this foundation.

I was able to enjoy the day a little. I got to see a bit of New York. It felt huge — that little me had made it all the way here. Though my nervousness was already coursing through my body and I felt my focus drifting. Still, I was able to enjoy sitting there on the grass, on an early spring day in Central Park, savoring a salad I’d brought along. It felt big. At the same time as I was terrified.

Time to move towards fear

The next day, we took the subway back to the airport to pick up a rental car and pick up another colleague and one of the conference speakers.

As we then headed toward the city where the conference was to be held, I could no longer hold back my fear. I started having flashbacks, couldn’t keep up with the conversations, and felt my consciousness coming and going. I tried everything I could to stay present. I have an arsenal of “tools” that I use to combat my dissociation and my PTSD — but it didn’t go very well. There were too many triggers in what I was doing right then: sitting in a car on the way to an unknown destination. To meet people, I didn’t want to meet (part of my trauma history is that I have been trafficked).

When we finally arrive, we meet one of our American organizers. She shows us into the college building, and we walk up a monumental stone staircase. My legs are shaking. It feels like my heart is about to leap out of my body. My mouth is dry, and I can feel my eyes darting around. More than anything, I just want to turn around and run away, but I force myself up the stairs. I force myself to keep going. Something I’m very familiar with doing.

Once we arrive at the right room, she’s already there — my therapist — along with her partner. All our mutual friends and acquaintances immediately go up to her, and they greet each other with warm hugs. When I reach her, she holds out her hand to shake mine. The only thing I want is for her not to treat me any differently from the others. And part of me wants her to see and understand how hard this is for me.

So, in all my uncertainty, I ask if I can get a hug, too. And I do. Not the warm, heartfelt kind, but at least, outwardly, there’s no difference between me and my colleagues.

My dissociation takes hold of me

There are many people in the room, and the atmosphere is quite hectic. More speakers are arriving, and everyone wants to test the technology and get their bearings; once they’ve done that, they leave to find their hotels. Later that evening, we’re having a get-together and dinner.

Arriving at the restaurant I am now completely at the mercy of my dissociation. I’m fighting hard not to be overcome by sheer panic, to break down, or run away.

This is the third time we’ve organized a conference together; none of the other times were easy either. This time is different. I have not been granted a spot to give a presentation. Instead, to give me something to do, she has appointed me as technical coordinator. I accepted the role and asked to meet with the person on campus who knows the technology. It turns out there isn’t one on site. So, I mostly must figure things out on my own — like how to get a video presentation from her Apple computer to my windows computer, which will serve as the speakers’ presentation computer, unbeknownst to me before I arrive. I’m scared, jittery, and nervous, but I’m trying to keep my body, my movements and my speech under control. I am trying to be and look professional at the same time as I am falling to pieces within.

We check into the hotel. I’m sharing a room with my closest colleague at the foundation; she’s one of the few people who knows that this person I’m working with is also my trauma therapist. She doesn’t like her. I think the feeling is mutual. I’m afraid it’s my fault. I’m the one who alternates between confiding in one and then the other. I’ve talked to my colleague about my therapist, just to keep from breaking down, because very often I have no idea why the therapist is behaving the way she does, and it has often frightened me. I’ve been ashamed of talking about it with my colleague. I feel like I’ve burdened our collaboration far too much with my therapy problems, but I did not know what else to do. I often felt like I was drowning. I have on a few occasions talked about my colleague in therapy too, but my therapist has too and I felt very uncomfortable being in this loyalty conflict. On occasions my colleague also where in contact with my therapist. My colleague told me she had her own reasons for not liking my therapist and her ways. I do still think I partly destroyed the relationship I had with my colleague over this therapist and therapy.

I’m close to breaking point. And have no idea how I will manage myself through these days. I just know I must.

Just a week or so before the 2-day conference, the therapist told me on a skype call that she’d only be attending the first half of the conference on Saturday and then returning for the second half on Sunday. She says her old horse in the U.S. is seriously ill and she’s going to visit him — and that this might be the last time she gets to see him. I think it’s strange that she’s abandoning her conference participants, especially now that I’ve also been given such a minor role. I’m just supposed to handle the technical aspects, introduce the occasional speaker, take a few photos, and “be on hand.” She and her partner are going to borrow our rental car to drive wherever it is they’re going. I feel unsure about what I’m even doing there. And I think leaving the conference and its participants like this is a very odd choice, and quite a rude one. She will be leaving the conference, and I have been told to keep myself in the shadows. What is going on?

Escalating fear and confusion

At dinner, I’m so nervous that I can’t eat; I try, but I just can’t. The therapist and her partner are sitting across from me. Her partner gets his food in a bag and leaves the restaurant. I do my best to join in the conversations around me but mostly just sit and listen to the room buzzing with happy and expectant voices.

Halfway through dinner, the therapist asks to speak. She jokes and welcomes everyone. Then she outlines her plan for the next few days. Although just a week earlier she had said that I would step in as the presenter for the speakers while she was away from the conference, she now says that our American organizer will be doing that, and she apologizes for having to visit her sick horse. The speakers are taken aback by this news, but since it’s a sick horse, everyone is understanding (it’s a conference on equine-assisted therapy).

Personally, I’m now even more confused than before. If I’m not going to introduce any speakers or speak myself, they could have asked someone else to handle the technical setup and take photos. I don’t understand at all what I’m doing there? And I intensely wished I’d stood my ground better, that I hadn’t agreed to go there. This just feels completely wrong.

I try to get a few words in with the therapist, but she skillfully avoids me. Outside the restroom, I asked her to talk to me for 5 minutes. But she says no.

I walked back to the hotel as if in a fog. I don’t talk to anyone. I just follow the others. So, I don’t get lost.

I cry all night long. I try to be quiet. Twice I’m close to leaving the hotel room. I feel like I must get out and away. One of those times, I collapsed by the door and lay there sobbing uncontrollably into the carpet, to be as quiet as I can, so I won’t wake my colleague.

Trying to appear as if everything is normal

When morning comes, I haven’t slept at all. I take the coldest shower I can so the puffiness from crying on my face won’t be so obvious. I can’t eat any breakfast, but I help carry all the stuff we’ll need for the conference down to the car since my therapist and her partner are borrowing the car for their trip to the horse between Saturday and Sunday.

I keep to myself as much as I can; I don’t trust myself not to break down, so I try to somehow avoid attention and look busy.

I’m called up on stage during the therapist’s opening remarks, where I’m handed the microphone to say a few words; I stammer something about how wonderful it is to see everyone. It is a wonder something comes out of my mouth at all.

And if it hadn’t been for the situation, I’m in with this messed up relationship and all that has dragged into it, a situation that cannot be detected by anyone, I would probably would have enjoyed being at the conference. Normally, I love talking about my job and how we can advance our field. I’m shy, but I enjoy networking in my own ways and when talking about my passions I forget my shyness.

For the rest of the morning, I hold my camera tightly and keep myself busy documenting the presentations and what’s happening in the room. When I can’t hold back the panic, I go to the bathroom, lock myself up in a stall for a few minutes, cry, and then splash my face with more cold water. Then I go back out. A couple of times, I think I’m going to throw up. But nothing comes. I wish intensely I could stay in there, but I make sure to not stay suspiciously long. The absolute last thing I want is to draw attention to myself. And I am afraid if anyone starts talking to me, I will just burst open. Or turn away and run. Either way, I will be called a drama queen seeking attention. It is a horrible situation, to have to be there and seem “normal” and feel the utter confusion, fear, and dissociation that I feel.

Before the therapist and her partner leave the conference, she wants to talk to me. She says she has invited me as a co-administrator to her own company’s Facebook account and tells me to post photos and a short caption about each of our presenters. I’m surprised that she’s letting me log into her account. She makes it clear to me that this is only for the weekend. In my naivety, this assignment makes me feel — even though I’m struggling so much — a little special, and I am grateful to her for giving me an assignment. As if it were some incredible privileges to give away my photos and captions to someone else who takes all the credit for them? But at least I now have a job. Now I can focus even more on taking photos (later, she accuses me of having hacked her Facebook account).

The afternoon feels a little easier; I feel less watched when she and her partner aren’t there, and I even chat a bit with some of the speakers and guests.

Damned if I do and damned if I don’t

In the evening, we’re informed that one of tomorrow’s speakers, who hasn’t arrived yet, is stuck at an airport and won’t be able to make it here.

This happened at our previous conferences as well. We’ve had last-minute cancellations, and it’s always been resolved by asking someone else to step in at the last second. I frantically call the therapist to check if she approves of my idea: I’ve asked a team from Norway to present on their work, and they’ve agreed and say they can put together a presentation by tomorrow. I’m happy with the solution, but afraid of getting in trouble for making a mistake. And I tell my colleague this. I realize that it doesn’t matter how I choose to handle the situation — because whatever I do, it’ll be the wrong choice. But I tell myself that, after all, I’m still some kind of partner, and our American organizer doesn’t want to take responsibility for the situation and thinks my solution is good, so I feel like I’m doing the best I can. But I keep calling my therapist, and I leave a message on WhatsApp saying I need to talk to her and explain my solution to her in writing.

I cry myself to sleep again that night and sleep very little.

The next morning, as we’re heading out the door on our way to the conference, the therapist calls and says my idea is bad. She says that instead, I should ask all the speakers already on the lineup to extend their presentations. And that the closing discussion she will lead when she gets back should be extended as well.

My colleague shakes her head but knows I’ll do as the therapist says. And now I also must go to the Norwegian team and tell them that their work the night before was in vain and that they won’t present anything. It makes me feel stupid, but it’s just one more thing in the grand scheme of things that feels completely wrong. So, I just must grit my teeth and keep going.

Being suicidal

I walk over to the conference venue. On my own, since I can’t eat and everyone else has gone to breakfast. On the way there, I crossed a bridge over a highway. In my highly dissociative state, the roar of traffic sounds like a lullaby. I’m drawn to it. In my mind’s eye, I see myself falling from the bridge, and the only thing I feel from seeing that inner picture is freedom. I can’t take it anymore. I don’t want this anymore. I don’t understand anything; I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I know that the whole situation is triggering me. I know I can’t think clearly. With that knowledge, I manage to steer myself away from the bridge and on toward the conference venue. To do that takes strength I don’t know I have. Everything in me screams at me to give up, but I don’t. I keep on going.

I inform the Norwegian team and speak with the organizer, who is supposed to explain the program change. I don’t dare take it upon myself to do so, even though the organizer asks me to. But I’m afraid of what might happen if I get on stage and speak, since my therapist has told me not to. And I’m torn between my sense of duty to take responsibility for the conference participants and not wanting to go against my therapist.

Halfway through the day, she’s back. I continue to stick to taking photos. I respond when spoken to, to the best of my ability, but I don’t initiate any conversations. I also continue to struggle with flashbacks and complete panic, and I’m so utterly tired, beyond exhausted. And I feel myself continuing to drift away in flashes. But by this point in life, I know that no one else usually notices when I drift away. I’m good at hiding what’s going on inside of me. That’s how I’ve survived my whole life.

The therapist calls me out into the hallway during a coffee break. She wonders why I’m so jumpy. I blame one of the presentations, and it’s true that it triggered me further. It was a somatically oriented presentation, and we’d all been asked to participate in an exercise with physical movements. And I noticed how hard it was for me to coordinate my movements at all, and I was afraid someone would notice that I was starting to break down. The last thing I wanted was to draw attention to myself, even though I felt very alone. If I broke down, I knew I’d get scolded for wanting to steal the spotlight and make everything about me. My therapist often told me I was making everything about me, and I believed her, so I minded myself not to.

Still standing — but barely holding it together

The day is almost over, and I tell myself I’ll manage for a few more hours — then it’ll be over. Just before the therapist’s closing remarks, she comes over to me and tells me I must come up on stage when she talks about our teamwork. That I must stand there next to her and smile. And say a few words. I say I’ll do it. So, I stand a little to the side of the stage, so I don’t miss it.

She talks and talks. And then she gets to something about our foundation, saying that without it, she wouldn’t have been able to do what she does. And then she looks at me. And I’m struggling — I don’t want to go up there. I don’t want to stand there next to her. I’m too tired, too scared, too close to breaking down. So, I freeze. I can’t move. Then she fixes her gaze at me and orders me to come up there. And I get a burst of energy. I managed to make my way up to her. I managed to look at her, and I saw her eyes sparkle with fury. I can’t bring myself to care about how angry she is. I take the microphone, smile, and tell the participants that it’s been an honor to be there, and I thank everyone. Then I hand the microphone back and step aside.

The conference is over; we load the leftover books and other items into the car. I walked back to the hotel room; I cannot go in the car. And once again, I’m drawn to the bridge over the highway. I’m extremely tired. And it would be so incredibly nice if all of this could just end.

At the same time, I’m a mother and the owner of several horses. And I feel that I have a mission in life: to help people who have experienced severe childhood trauma and neglect, often compounded by terrible “help” and “care” provided by the psychiatric system. I am still under the illusion that this therapy is good trauma therapy. That it is just me who is not getting how to grow and mature faster, to heal faster and be more insightful, and grateful.

I cannot go on like this. I need it to stop

I don’t want to die. I just can’t bear to be in this very confusing relationship anymore. A relationship where I’m expected to heal myself entirely from my own traumas so that I won’t be a danger to the people I want to work with. I’ve tried to end the relationship several times. But I’m not able to stay away. Time and again, I go back, even though I’ve decided many times by now that it’s not sustainable. Part of my reason not to leave is that we’re in the middle of trauma therapy, and I don’t know where I’d turn to get continued help. I’ve tried time and time again in Sweden. But I’ve been turned away with the response that my traumas are too severe — and I’m quoting a chief psychologist — “you simply have to learn to live with them.” And they were mostly referring to the consequences of those traumas. I must choose between the help I am receiving that I have told myself is good and no help at all. And mostly I still think that whatever goes wrong in the therapy is my fault.

Before I started my trauma therapy with this therapist, I was reasonably functional. Very dissociative, but I was functioning in the life I’d built for myself. I also hadn’t been suicidal for many, many years. But now I was. Seriously suicidal. Often.

After the conference had ended, the therapist and I met one more time; she called and asked if I’d take care of the feedback forms. That way, I could review them and bring them with me the next time we were scheduled to meet for therapy. Right then and there, I never wanted to see her again. But I went to the meeting. She and her partner were sitting on a bench outside the hotel. The same hotel where my colleague and I were staying. And the hotel I was responsible paying for, through our foundation (a foundation I had set up to support this therapist so I, instead of her, would be financially answerable for our work together). She gave me the feedback forms and a bag of Clementines. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her — I didn’t want to talk to her in front of her partner. So, I took the forms, the Clementines, and we said goodbye, and went our separate ways. I felt like a child being handed a lollipop and a brisk “off you go,” but don’t forget to do your chores.

The next day, my colleague and I were flying home to her place in Oklahoma. We drove people back to the airport, and since there were so many people in the car, I don’t think it was very noticeable that I was gone. At least the therapist was gone, that was a relief.

The aftermath

During my first few weeks in Oklahoma, I had to push myself to keep from lying in bed staring at the wall. I went on study visits, taught courses, and met with people, but when I was alone at my colleague’s house out in rural Oklahoma, I’d go out to the horse pastures, and look for trees to hang myself from, and test out which belts and ropes might work. But I couldn’t go through with any attempts; instead, I collapsed beneath the trees and cried and cried. And so, I sat there with the horses, for several days. And thought about my children. I just wanted to be home with them. I wished I had not gone on this trip. It all had turned out to be much harder than I ever could have imagined, even though I knew how this therapist could be at times. But this had been one of my worst moments with her.

After a couple of weeks, I suddenly received an email from her asking if I’d had time to think things through and was ready to discuss my behavior.

I didn’t understand what she meant.

She was seemingly thinking I had behaved in some way for some specific reason she had in mind. While I felt I had just tried to survive something I wasn’t sure I would. Had she totally missed how utterly hard it all had been for me? Or did that not matter? I felt unsure — maybe what I had experienced did not matter. Maybe my emotions and dissociation and all the other trauma related stuff were just something I had to learn to control? Maybe I was a bad person because I couldn’t? But I had known it would be hard, and had not wanted to come, why had I not been allowed to stay home? Why on earth had she insisted on me coming? It did not make sense to me.

Then she asked if I wanted to build a website for her business and if I could send her a quote with pricing details. And then, in quick succession, she asked if my colleague and I, through our foundation, would like to offer courses together with her. But before deciding on that, she wanted us to answer a few questions she had so she could determine if we were a good “fit” for each other. She wanted to evaluate our work.

My colleague was skeptical about the whole thing. But I was so happy. I thought (for the umpteenth time) that now, now things were turning around. Now she’ll stop seeing me as only a severely traumatized client and realize that I — that we, through our foundation and our courses — have something valuable to offer.

My colleague reluctantly agreed that we could answer the questions together and send our course materials to the therapist so she could decide if we could work together.

We sent everything, and I put together a quote for a website. Then we didn’t hear anything for a while.

When I got home from the U.S., I traveled down to see her where she lives and work, in Central Europe. That was our therapy plan. I’d go see her every 10–12 weeks for a couple of days of intensive trauma therapy, then I’d go home again. At times we had therapy over skype, as voice calls, in between the visits.

She “tested” me — in public

When I got to her place after the events in the U.S., as usual, I didn’t know what to expect. Every time was different from every other time. There were always different rules in place, and I just adapted to the new ones. The first day we met in her office, and she explained to me that she suspected I had a narcissistic personality disorder. And that she had arranged the conference and her own presence — and absence — to test me. To see if I was going to take over the conference — simply steal it from her. She also explained to me that her partner had had a really hard time with me — and she had, too — because of the enormous amount of aggression I’d directed at them. That was palpable throughout the entire conference room. That her partner had had to leave the restaurant that first evening because he couldn’t stand it.

I listened, growing increasingly bewildered. How could she — how could they — have such an incredibly different experience of what had happened? Why did she even want me to come to therapy now, if I was such an aggressive person, so narcissistic and threatening? (She often said she hated to work with narcissistic clients). Why, then, had she invited me to collaborate and wanted me to design her website? Still, and again, nothing made sense to me.

Escalating confusion and fear

Every time I met with her, I became more confused — and it had been like this for three years now. At the same time, I tried even harder to work on myself in therapy and did everything I could to see myself through her eyes, so that I could understand what I was contributing to the relationship. Was I still not mature enough and had I more work to do on myself?

The thing was, the more I worked on myself according to this therapist’s instructions, the more I felt I lost myself. But she told me I would eventually see myself and all my behaviors, if I just kept going. So, I did, I just kept going, long beyond what made sense.

This round of therapy sessions ended with her retracting the NPD diagnosis and instead simply stated that I have narcissistic traits. I went home and told my now ex-husband what she’d said. Mostly because I was so confused by the whole situation — both her so-called live and public test and her conclusions. After all, both she and my ex-husband knew how narcissistic my mother had been (my ex-husband had met her) and how I had adapted to her. I figured that if anyone would know whether I am very narcissistic, like her, it would be him. He had lived with me for 20 years. He said that I was probably one of the least narcissistic people he knew. I also asked others who had known me for a long time, and they said the same thing. Some suggested that it was my therapist who was narcissistic. It confused me even further, as not too seldom, she would claim something I made her feel, and I would sit there in utter disbelief, because she named what I felt. It felt more entangled, as well as dangerous.

What had happened in the U.S. had been a nightmare, and so were the aftermath. But it wasn’t the first time the therapist and I had had a “conflict” or a “rupture,” nor the first time I’d been incredibly confused by her and her actions and words. It seemed I was a monster. I did not know how else to understand her. Maybe we were both monsters? Or partly? And we triggered the worst in each other? Or I simply was too dumb to understand what she understood — exactly as she said. And I was too fearful to trust her and therefore the therapy had no effect on me? But how could she not see what the bigger picture of working together and doing therapy did to me? That the reason I could not trust her was that she lost her plot so often with me? Calling me all sorts of things? Being so inconsistent?

Even if she made me feel extremely confused and by the dynamic we had made me feel like a very bad person, I of course defended her — in front of my ex-husband and everyone else. I stayed very loyal. Even though every time I was farther away from her and not in frequent contact with her, I would usually come to my senses and be able to view her from a distance. I felt like I was living with two realities in my mind, her, and my own (and everyone else’s that I spoke to about it). And I would at least be able to listen to and consider what others around me saw and understood about what was going on between us — and what my own gut feeling was trying to tell me about it. But in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to believe anything other than that she had my best interests at heart. That she understood me and knew what I needed to stop seeing myself as a victim (that was her constant criticism of me — that I saw myself as a victim) and that she knew what I needed to mature and “grow up.” So that I, too, could be ready to help others with severe trauma. Following the protocol, she used with me.

She got her website. She deducted the cost from what I paid her for therapy. She got a very good price — at a friend’s rate. She stated that we, our foundation, with me and my colleague as trainers weren’t a good fit as course providers and said she’d thrown away our course materials. And she continued to talk about me as narcissistic and aggressive. But I also knew what happened if I at any point on purpose expressed anger towards her, that if anything would trigger an explosion from her. Though she would tell me she rarely felt anger. And made that sound like she was very evolved. What she said and what she showed rarely felt congruent.

Trauma bonding means you cannot leave

And I continued to see her for trauma therapy for nearly two more years. Then she abruptly terminated our therapy because she’d been in supervision and realized she was too angry at me. She said she had understood she couldn’t see me clearly. And she was afraid she was no longer good for me. When I agreed, she got angry with me.

That conversation ended completely in an email a few weeks later when she told me she disliked me. From that point on, I went completely “no-contact.”

When I unblocked her about half a year later, because I didn’t think I had anything to hide, it didn’t take long before I had a new attempt at contact from her in my inbox. And so, the circus started all over again… This time, I wouldn’t be in therapy with her; instead, we’d be working together. We would be offering courses together. That too ended in “rupture” and “conflict.”

This isn’t the whole story. It has many more episodes and crazy twists. And we did other work together as well. In total, we kept at it for eight years. Before I managed to extricate myself from the whole thing. By then, I was completely penniless and in debt. On the verge of becoming homeless, without resources, without almost everything in my life that had ever meant anything to me. The journey from there to where I am today has certainly not been easy. But I’m okay today. And I have no longer any contact with this therapist/colleague/ “friend.”

Why am I sharing this story?

Because I’ve basically kept quiet about it all these years to protect her. And all this secrecy has taken its toll on me. But also, because I often criticize our Western psychiatric system (I’ve had bad experiences with it too, mostly when I was younger). And I want to show that psychotherapy can also be very harmful. Because the power imbalance inherent in psychiatric hierarchies is also inherent in psychotherapy.

Was she a bad therapist — or was she just caught in her own beliefs of how a good therapist acts and what their job was? Was my experience with her primarily about individual harm — or systemic harm? (and sometimes in my uncertainty I wonder what I did wrong).

I know there are psychotherapists who don’t work the way this psychotherapist does. My criticism concerns both the risks she took with me, as well as her methods and her overbearing way of making all the decisions about us.

Not all therapists are as high-handed as she is. There are, of course, excellent therapists. Just as there are excellent, highly empathetic, and humane psychiatrists.

I’m training to become a psychotherapist myself, and I think a lot about the frameworks and rules that apply to psychotherapists. But perhaps even more so about the theories and values on which psychotherapy is based. I’m not convinced that the core of psychotherapy is entirely “healthy,” for lack of a better word. There’s something about all psychotherapy that feels outdated and wrong.

Psychotherapists — the good guys?

After my experiences with this therapist, I’ve sought psychotherapy to process them (what irony — having to go to therapy to process my previous therapy). But so far, even though I’ve tried about ten therapists, they’ve all gotten angry at this therapist and haven’t been able to see or hear me. They’ve felt so deeply affected and threatened by this therapy story that they’ve lost sight of me, and I’ve ended up having to help them instead of the other way around. I haven’t given up. I’m continuing to look for someone who can hold both themselves and me. But I’m also managing quite well on my own.

Psychiatry often faces criticism. But it’s far less legitimate to criticize psychotherapy and psychotherapists. They’ve gladly taken on the role of the “good guys,” the ones who stand for humanity and compassion.

I don’t know why this therapist I’m talking about here acted the way she did. I’ve in the past repeatedly invited her to an open dialogue about it. But she doesn’t want to talk about it. She’s explained it from her perspective — or so she thinks. And she believes that in every instance I bring up, she’s had good reasons to act the way she did. On a few very brief occasions, she has admitted that she may have hurt me, but when I’ve followed up on what she said, she’s immediately taken it back and blamed it all on me. On one or two occasions, she also claimed that she overestimated me — that she didn’t understand what she was getting herself into. But during the last few months we were in contact — long after therapy had ended — she repeatedly said she loves me and that she forgives me.

I don’t know what she’s forgiving me for, or what she means when she says she loves me. It’s never felt that way. Personally, I miss the intensity of our relationship — how, despite everything, I could sometimes speak to her without holding back about things that not many others can listen to. But I also know that I need to keep my distance. And I know that the person I miss doesn’t exist.

Psychiatry and psychotherapy have the same roots

I want to continue talking about how not only psychiatry can harm people, but psychotherapy as well. Perhaps it’s fundamentally the same harmful values — the idea that there are mental illnesses/mental disorders that some people can learn about and then “cure” in others?

Here was a trauma therapist. She wasn’t unaware that things that had happened to me had given me the so-called symptoms and harmful coping strategies I had. Yet there was something in her approach that gave her the right to “treat me,” according to her convictions (and her desire to experiment). This has led me to reflect deeply on the shared fundamental values, ethics, and views professionals hold on their own expertise within psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy.

Now, I don’t want to try to survive any more “treatments” for my so-called mental illnesses/disorders or symptoms. I still need to undergo psychotherapy as part of my training to become a psychotherapist. But beyond that, I’m looking more for wise and thoughtful people who dare to engage with others — and with themselves — at the same time. In encounters where there is true equality. And where responsibility is evenly shared, from the very beginning.

What was driving her?

This psychotherapeutic relationship had been ongoing for three years before this conference took place. We knew each other even before therapy began. I don’t know if it comes across in the text just how utterly confused, I was by the mix of relationships we had. For a long time, I thought the whole situation was so difficult simply because trauma therapy is difficult and taxing. It wasn’t until much later that I understood how complicated our relationship had been and that it had affected me in a way that I still feel today. Why did I give her so much power? Why did I make her so important? How could I have almost given up everything for the idea that one day we’d work together? (An idea she constantly kept alive.) Why did she keep coming back into my life?

I think I may never fully understand what happened. Now I have enough distance to start talking about it. To write about it. Fully aware that I — and the choices I made — influenced the situation. I’m not trying to assign blame. But I’m seeking understanding. Or rather, a way forward, where this experience — just like every other traumatic experience in my life — becomes part of my story. But it won’t dictate my future choices. I will not let fear govern me. It’s clear that it has shaped me and my own values and thoughts, but I will never let this experience with her define me.

What should have been a healing experience turned into a devastating and painful one. It became a form of anti-therapy.

And despite it, I learned to like and respect myself. In contrast to what I felt the therapy was teaching me — almost out of defiance. Somewhere along the way, I switched sides and began practicing acting in my own best interest, standing up for myself, liking myself, and comforting myself (but still being an obedient client, colleague/friend). And in that way, I was eventually able to stand up straight and say, “Enough is enough. I don’t want this anymore. I’m leaving.”

It was a process. To be able to leave this relationship. It did not happen from one day to another. I had to build stamina to be able to leave, before I could do it. I had to make sure I would not go back. Once I had made the decision, I was bombarded with messages to keep me stuck in it.

Leaving this relationship was as important as it had been to leave my parents at 13 years of age. Twice now I have had to leave the people I thought were the ones that would eventually show me they were on my side. And that I mattered.

Now I tell myself I matter. Maybe that was the learning I had to do, this extremely hard way.

I matter. Despite what anyone else thinks about me and my value. I matter.

This text is an adaption of a text published on Mad in Sweden, in Swedish, last year. I post it with a bit of trepidation in English as I feel this is all too hard to believe, or people will tell me I exaggerate and that the situation was not really that bad. So, I overexplain a bit. And I have a hard time stopping editing it… Afraid I have missed something vital to the story. And of course, I am still fearing she is right, maybe I am a very narcissistic person?

Know I am doing fine now. And that it is good for me to process this by writing this article. It gives me clarity and some more distance to it.

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