Suzy Says

I might need a therapist to recover from my therapists. If so, it’s going to be a woman, and a straight one.

Before you start yelling homophobe at me, I would remind you that I live in what may well be the gayest city in the world, and ask you to read my (mis)adventures in therapy first. If you still think I’m gay-averse after that, let me have it. I promise not to say, “some of my best friends are gay.” Deal?

Therapist One chose the week before I was slated to go to London for the first time after Dad’s death (not counting the trip immediately after his death), when he knew I was scheduled to clear out Dad’s things and visit his friends and generally be immersed in the horror of being Dadless in Dad’s house, to break up with me on the phone because he had a crush on me. Shouldn’t he have told me in person, at least, and not on the phone? And couldn’t he have held it in for just one more week and told me after I got back? Unbelievable. I was so shocked that I didn’t say much while he was on the phone, and then it seemed stupid to call him back and rant about it, so that was it. PS: Guy is married and has kids.

After a couple of months, I overcame my native slothfulness enough to find another therapist. Last week, I informed Therapist Two that my benefits run out at the end of the month. He took the opportunity to hug me and tell me that I should fire him as my therapist (well, he’s right about that, anyway) and he’d take me out to drink champagne and we could be “friends”. In the course of the hug, his fingers touched my back (the actual skin! Ick). I was horrified and fled. PS: Guy is married and, yeah, has kids.

A couple of days later, he called me on my cell phone and said, “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t too freaked out by what happened last time I saw you.” We still have our standing appointment this week, and I am planning to confront him at it, so I said, “We’ll talk about it when I see you. I have to go now.” There was no way I was letting him off the hook or excusing him or anything like that. And it just shows he knows what he did was wrong.

The thing that kills me is that my first reaction was, “Is there something about me that makes this kind of thing happen?” I can’t believe that I was blaming myself for the actions of these two guys, who are: medical professionals and know most of my horrible secrets, thoughts, and feelings. My trainer thinks these guys must have skipped all the ethics classes in their 10+ years at school, and the whole fiasco is an exercise in ego and power. I think she’ll be my therapist from now on.