Tag: suicidal ideation

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10 unparalleled reasons your abandonment issues, which are only with therapists, are uniquely iatrogenic to therapy:

  1. She knows your other therapist failed to outlive your treatment because they were working together when her brain tumor was diagnosed
  2. In the summer of 2002, a few months into treatment, you admit this impacts your ability to “engage” and she assures you “I wouldn’t start this with you if I wasn’t going to finish it”
  3. But then in December she says she might be retiring
  4. And then in March she says she’s 99% positive she IS retiring
  5. But then she doesn’t (though she doesn’t tell you – in April, she’s just still “there”)
  6. And then in June she suddenly moves to a different practice
  7. Which, she promises, in July, is moving to a different location
  8. Which, in August, when you show up there, is only a sign by a locked door with no one there
  9. After you drove from an hour away
  10. And it’s not the first time you drove an hour to a session that she didn’t show up for

(Lots of lessons, today. Lesson Number Two: If your therapist seems like she might be flightier than YOU, Go With Your GUT. She probably IS.)

SO! And that was just the therapy part of my 2003! I left out the part when I was pink-slipped into a psychiatric ward for half a month for being suicidal, or the part a few months later when my ex-husband’s “anger management counselor” pulled me aside to tell me privately that she was seriously worried he would rape me, or how she failed to express concern about why I failed to express concern (because he already had raped me though I wasn’t yet able to correctly define it) or the part when we had to have a special meeting with the city police, where I worked, because of his behavior there,

blah

blah

blaaaaaah……

Therefore whether or not I would, could, needed, wanted, deserved, was sick enough, (blah blah again) to go to the nearest eating disorder clinic was not something I had time or energy or resources to contemplate because I was busy just surviving. Despite the fact that I was vomiting profusely and often and somewhere in there my kidney function had been compromised and I had to quit one of my part-time jobs that I loved best. When that newspaper article came out in December of 2003, I gave it as much time as it took you to read that last blog post. And in the year that followed before the next article came out in December of 2004 was no better. My gem of an ex had the sheriff kick ME out of the house, I packed up my stuff and moved 5 times, transferred schools, changed my program of study, relocated to the nearby city, and spent the summer in a women’s shelter for victims of domestic violence. All while having no insurance and a therapist charging me for each full billable hour down to 15-minute increments which I was STUPID enough to be GRATEFUL for her willingness to let me accrue a bill.

(Which is why, when my divorce settlement came through, I. LITERALLY. Gave. Her. My. HOUSE. I paid my lawyer, bought a few groceries, and gave her All. The. Rest.- my freaking HOUSE.) (This is Lesson Number Three: A therapist who allows you to rack up a bill for over a year is VIOLATING YOUR BOUNDARIES. RUN. Run Away FAST.)

https://www.toledoblade.com/news/state/2004/12/04/State-levies-new-charges-against-embattled-Sylvania-psychologist/stories/200412040062

Don’t want to read the article? Allow me to enlighten you. Remember the Ohio State Board of Psychology wanted to revoke David Garner’s license for having a sexual affair with a colleague that he was supposed to be supervising. This inspired him to send a letter to his own patients and their families soliciting them to support him with the following exact words: “I do believe that those who will be personally affected by decisions made by the board should also have a voice.” Then, he, himself, sent the board the inch-thick stack of letters they wrote for him. If you think, as I do, that sounds like he blatantly used his position of power to exploit them, you’d be right on target with the State Board who accused him of just that. Personally, I wonder why he didn’t change careers and run for public office, because even though he wrote those words with his own “pen,” he denied the charges, indicating his ability to create his own reality is on par with any skilled politician.

I did mention the article to my therapist. And we actually had a discussion about GARNER’s awful lack of boundaries. (Right?!?) (cue Alanis Morissette.) But in December of 2004 I was preparing for my divorce trial while failing Russian History (I thought the Romanov dynasty would be “fun”) while living with an aunt and uncle and grown-up cousin and trying to get better “for” them. (Which, by the way, Does Not Work.) (That’s Lesson Number Four: You cannot get better for other people. It can be a temporary motivating factor, but It Is NOT sustainable.)

In mid-2005 I got my very first apartment – the first time I ever lived alone. The day I got the keys, I picked up some burgers, fries and a shake, and promptly inaugurated my new bathroom by vomiting, again, profusely, and often. On day three, I ran into my therapist’s office unannounced and blurted out, “Does this mean I can’t do it?!? Or that I’m doing it?!?” She said I was fine. And asked me if I wanted to take home the stuffed puppy her grand-daughter had her bring in for me at my previous session, which I had turned down, not wanting to be more involved with them or their father or her outside life than I already was. But this time I took it. I slept with it every night, Every Single Night, for the next thirteen years.

Two years ago I gave it to my cats and replaced it with a stuffed monkey from the zoo, named Emerson. My (current) therapist said she thought that sounded “significant.”

It was.

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River Centre Clinic was not a place I would ever be sick enough to need treatment a second time.

But the thought of it’s existence brought me comfort, because I assumed that at least part of my old treatment team had to be there. Where else would those specialists have gone when their hospital program closed? And maybe I could talk to them, someday. I had never stopped keeping an eye out for them whenever I drove an hour to the city to shop at the malls. I mean, therapists, nurses and doctors went to malls, too – right? I badly needed verification they existed, because although I cherished my memories of treatment there, those memories didn’t feel like mine. They felt like something I read about, and that was a source of great pain and confusion to feel like this thing that was so important to me had nothing to do with reality.

Reality. A good transition word to refocus. For, as I said, “De Nile ain’t just a river in Egypt,” it was my Way Of Life. I was in denial about my health, my job, my marriage, my education…almost everything. Thus, I had no insight about my misery. I simply assumed the things I had heard were true:
“You’re not happy with anything!”
“No matter how/what/when/where, ___ it’s never enough for you! You’ll never be happy!”
“You know what, you’re spoiled! You’re just like your father/mother/grandmother! you have to have everything go your way or all you do is…”
What was my way? I had a “way”?…I never figured that one out. I just figured (is that past tense?) it was all true and I was a dyed-in-the-wool malcontent with no hope of hope. I had long since accepted that as fact. I only wished acceptance made it less painful.

So there I was driving home from the factory one summer morning. I remember about where I was, north of town, and how when I glanced out the passenger window I noticed the mist rising off a field that was backed by a treeline, and how I thought, “Wow, today’s gonna be a scorcher” And that moment it hit me:” I don’t have to stay here. I can leave!” Immediately: a flash of joy, of relief, of shock, then shame settled in for, by “leave,” I meant leaving the living. (I’m still too ashamed to use the “s” word.) This was not a new thought; desensitization to the idea settled in beside the shame. For the time being though, the shock lingered and I was able to use it to began making attempts to change. Something. Anything.

I started by moving from nights to second shift (a.k.a. No Life – you work late, so you fall asleep late, so you get up late, so all you really have time to do is get ready for work. Repeat.) By the time the company Christmas party rolled around, though still on the high end of a healthy weight range, I’d lost about two dozen pounds. I met up with my old friend at the shrimp table exactly like the year before, remembering how emaciated she was despite all the “free shrimp” she was so happy about. I still wish I had the burgundy outfit I bought for the event – a huge splurge for me, from the Ann Taylor store. I bought it because the semi-cropped jacket over the zip-up pants made me look deceptively thin.

That year, though, the roles were reversed, and it was my old friend who was staring and whispering, and I who was uncomfortable and irritated. And I remember why! “They don’t know anything about eating disorders! I’m at the high end of a healthy BMI for someone as short as me! I have WAY more experience with this than they do!! I KNOW what I’m doing.”
Another flip-flop: I didn’t socialize that year. I just hung out with my antisocial husband.

My next change was the job, itself. My depression made me desperate; I jumped at the first viable position. It was at a bank, where no one would notice how much weight I’d lost, freeing me to continue to lose more. My new boss, though, seemed food-obsessed, constantly bringing in desserts that most co-workers were more than happy to be pressured into eating. But me? Well…one Ash Wednesday, I amused myself for 3 days in a row by challenging myself to open my wrappers in total silence, so she wouldn’t hear me eating at my desk. I told her I was fasting for religious reasons – and oh! the shameful kick I got watching her freak out exponentially as each day passed.

Two big things happened in 2000. The first big thing was we done got ourselves this new-fangled gadget they was callin a computer, and we bought us a complicated piece o’ furniture as durn big as a shed to put the thing in. And what was one of the first things I did with it?


I looked up this place called The River Centre Clinic.
I read every name, every bio: David Garner. Maureen Garner. (husband and wife? yep)
A unique last name; female.
More that I don’t recall because they didn’t stay.
(But not one name from my old team.
And I’d know because I kept every scrap of paper from that program.
I still haven’t thrown any of it away.)