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By the time I woke up to what was going on with my therapy I was literally working 24/7 for my therapist. I couldn't give her money or gifts, but I could help out. She had two illnesses that made her somewhat disabled. I became her administrative assistant and her accountant. I did errands for her: groceries, picking up items, delivering things. We bought a house together and she would give me a list of things that needed renovating. I renovated every part of that house. I washed her car and walked her dog. I washed her clothes and cooked her meals. I painted her summer cabin, installed gardens, and took her car in for repairs. It was endless. There was always something more she needed that I could do. And regardless of what I did, it was never enough. One day I realized that my life had been consumed by her and what she needed. What I needed no longer factored into my life. Therapy had started out with her focused on helping me through my trauma and had somehow ended up here. And I realized my caretaking started as I felt her taking a step back from the therapy in which I was engaged and desperately needed. It was an attempt to keep her and make her care about me. Given my childhood, it was all I knew. The idea of saying no to her was terrifying. Even the idea of saying 'wait a minute' caused me tremendous anxiety. And when I finally found the courage to say 'I will do that after I do this for myself,' the look on her face was of anger. Extricating myself from being her 24/7 helper was a long process but a revealing one. At the end, I was able to get away, but it was painful. My worth to her had become not me the person in a healing process but what I gave to her. I realized I had been doing all of this to protect my healing process and a therapeutic relationship that was essential to it, but I realized I had been robbed of that a long time past. As I extricated myself, she became angry, insolent, manipulative, and punitive, revealing behavior like that of my children who were being held to task. She feigned illness and threw temper tantrums. I would set boundaries that she would ignore. By the end of it all, I was walking away from her. It took years to pry myself away from her expectations that I do these things for her and to realize that this wasn't my job, I did not have to do these things. During this process I recognized that many other clients of hers were doing the same things: walking her dog, painting her office, doing errands, cooking for her, landscaping, fencing, electrical work, etc., etc. Our house was teeming with her clients all the time doing 'stuff' for her. My therapist had her own private work force she had harvested from her client pool. My therapist was a master at appearing to be all-giving and generous while actually being the one taking mercilessly from others. So with that I want to say that breaking away may take time. But I encourage you to take every opportunity to see what is happening. What is your abuser saying? How does it make you feel? Is that how it should be? Is it helping you? Is it true? What would happen if you refused? How would that impact you? I would also encourage you to start looking for another therapist. You don't need to engage that person yet; just start collecting names and finding out about them. Caring folks will naturally encourage you to immediately stop seeing this exploitative therapist Those who had an inkling of what was happening with me tried. It was their caring about me and what I was going through. But I couldn't just stop. So if stopping is also too hard for you, you can still move away an inch at a time. Every inch, whether it's a thought or something you do or don't do, will be worth it. Bernadine Fox To return to the list of Essays, click here. |
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