The Eternal Search for the Spotless Therapist
Why do therapists suck?
“What are your addictions?”
I was sitting in front of Jamie on a hot Wednesday evening munching chocolate. “Erm chocolate”.
That was a bold move. Jamie eyed the chocolate piece dangling from my mouth with one judgemental eyebrow raised. That is some excellent facial coordination, Jamie. I guess you don’t use Botox.
“Let’s talk about that”. Can’t wait.
We spent the next 30 minutes discussing why I had an addiction to added sugars. I knew pieces of the puzzle but I needed help in tying them into a coherent story. Jamie didn’t help with that. Instead, she simply said, “At least it’s not alcohol or cocaine right”?
That doesn’t help me you cow.
Next up was Vanessa.
Vanessa seemed promising. She had experience in addiction, but not specifically in added sugars. I wasn’t concerned since it seemed unrealistic to find someone who caters exactly to my very specific type of problem. We scheduled a session and I sat expectantly in front of my Zoom, the ever-ready student wanting to dig through the trenches of psychological crap and cleanse my inner ghouls out.
We spent 15 minutes talking about chocolate. In the middle of a gut-wrenching childhood memory, she said “Stop”.
I froze.
“Tell me how you’re feeling”.
Isn’t that literally what I’ve been doing the last 10 minutes?
“Erm, I already am”
“No, close your eyes and tell me how your body feels as you narrate this experience to me.” Eh? What is this tomfoolery?
“It feels ok”, I said. “You didn’t close your eyes”, she reproached. Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes. “How do you feel?”. I feel like punching you in the face. I pursed my lips and said, “I don’t feel like doing this”. Needless to say, Vanessa and I didn’t last very long.
Then came Ali. Ali changed my life. She was the eternal sunshine in my seemingly spotless mind. She was a few years younger than me and at the time was still supervised as she hadn’t gotten her license. This seemed to bother a lot of my friends. I understood why.
Many people seek therapists who they can look up to. The older therapist typically does have more wisdom to share and can draw upon this effectively in therapy.
But, I didn’t see age or experience as a prerequisite. I just needed someone who understood what I was going through. I was a single woman in a big city with seemingly infinite options and very finite levels of patience.
Ali being single herself, resonated very strongly with my loneliness. She was warm, compassionate, articulate, and intelligent, and we got along like the spark that catches fire when putting a matchstick to a matchbox. It just worked.
Until it didn’t.
Two incidents happened that unraveled it all.
One, Ali got a boyfriend and she told me about it. How dare she? We were supposed to brave through the single world of ice cream and Saturday night reruns of Friends together.
Two, I had expressed that I had some love for her in the form of gratitude to which her response was, “I have a lot of warmth and compassion for you”.
That stung… like a real bee. You tell me you have a boyfriend, you tell me you went on vacation with him and this is the part where you choose to hold back and actually have boundaries?
You see, Ali committed the mistake most newbie therapists tend to commit. Oversharing. What this did was make me think we were friends. My head knew we weren’t, but my heart didn’t. I came apart at the seams and went through a mental breakdown. Needless to say, I left Ali.
It was the single hardest, most difficult thing I have done. I still think of her and wonder how she is doing. I wonder if she cares or remembers me in the way that I still care and remember her. The moments in between my recollections are getting farther, but the affection still remains. After all, this woman changed my life.
I realized the gift of my time spent with Ali.
She helped me live better while I was with her, but more importantly, she helped me gain enough courage to realize I might be better off living without her.
