My therapist gave me her personal number very early on. She told me it was okay to message her instead of a friend I was having issues with and even encouraged me to stop talking to that friend entirely – to go “cold turkey.”
She began sharing extremely personal details about her own life, including sensitive information about her adult children. This created additional anxiety for me. I started feeling more invested in her well being than in my own. We spoke daily for months and months.
Then she told me we were friends and that it would be better if she handed me back to the mental health team. She reassured me that “nothing would change”, until I started questioning her. At that point, she gave me the silent treatment, which led to a psychotic episode. I had no choice but to report what had happened in order to get help.
She refused to take me off a messaging app and even had her daughter monitor my social media and threaten me. Now, I have to undergo trauma therapy because of what she did. She was dismissed from her position, but even then, she had the audacity to claim that we were both victims of the NHS’s negligence. She never apologized. Instead, she called me a liar and told me I had ruined her life, even after I explained how much her actions contributed to my suicide attempts.
The press has asked for my story, and I have even been approached by a writer who wants to turn it into a book. This experience has changed me forever, and not in a good way. The words “groomed” and “emotional abuse” have been used by other professionals, but I still can’t bring myself to say them out loud.
-E