Reblog: Dr. Failure

Sharing Zoe’s post because the world needs to know that stories like this are real. I’m both relieved and disgusted that I’m not the only one telling them. Un-fucking-believable

Yet happening every single day.

Please Don’t Be Someone Who Hurts Me

At the end of last session, I stood up to leave and then suddenly remembered that I forgot to tell the therapist that I can’t do my normal Tuesday session time this week because my professors swapped schedules for Monday and Tuesday. So I quickly blurted all of that out as I was literally walking towards the door. I think I assumed she’d just be like “Okay, no prob, I’ll see you next Friday then.” She didn’t. What she actually said was,

“Okay, well…we have time. So let’s sit back down and try to figure out another time that works because we need to see each other.”

Um, what?

I did as she asked and managed to reschedule the session for Wednesday evening after work, but the entire time I felt my heart racing in my chest. When I finally left, I felt really strange and unsettled about that very short, but obviously significant interaction. I couldn’t figure it out, but something about it just pissed me off.

I think my main reactions are

1. why do we “need to see other”?; and
2. what is this “we” shit anyway?! There is no “we”. And I don’t “need” anything from her (right?).

If you’ve been reading along with my posts about sessions with her, I think it’s fairly obvious that this therapist and I get along quite well. Things have gone smoothly thus far and she’s been a tremendous resource for me during the aftermath of Zooey’s termination bullshit. But I have approached this therapeutic relationship with more caution than I think I’ve ever used in any relationship, ever. I feel super protective of myself now and especially protective of certain system members. I feel so much guilt over what happened with Zooey. I want to make sure I don’t let anyone hurt them like that again. I think it’s safe to say they’ve been hurt enough already.