I was my abuser, too.

I went to see my therapist today. 

I almost didn’t go. As someone who has seen just how dysfunctional, abusive and fundamentally broken a professional advice giver who has made it their life’s work to tell other people how to fix their problems when they’re a disaster of a human themselves and aren’t even capable of fixing their own shit, to say I have trust issues around therapists is a bit of an understatement. For the same reason I wouldn’t go seek flying lessons from someone who’s crashed a plane a dozen times already, or go to a mechanic who drives a car that is always breaking down and won’t run, my experiences of having a backstage pass to the dysfunction has made me wary of therapy as a whole.  I gave 3 years, 8 months and 8 days and I gave SO MUCH to a woman who was a “professional” therapist, and she couldn’t tell the truth even when it didn’t matter. She nearly destroyed me. What if I’m wrong about my therapist too? 

I went anyways, just to get out of the house if nothing else. And, I actually DO like my therapist, and feel like she’s someone I can trust. She’s never given me a reason not to, or to doubt her. Plus, someone who shall remain anonymous feels incredibly threatened by her, so. She MUST be pretty good. 

I told her everything. No embellishments, no upsell on the drama, no downplaying the parts that make me look bad. I told her all of it. And as I told her, on the verge of tears the entire time, everything that’s happened – the lies, the deceptions, the manipulation, the gaslighting, all of it…  I realized I fucking hate someone I love. Or maybe I love someone I hate. Same thing? Opposite things? I’m not sure. All I know is, there’s now a layer of shit on top of something that used to be beautiful. 

Do you remember the scene in the movie “The Devils Advocate” with Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino, when the women are in the changeroom, and Charlize Theron’s character sees the other women for who they are, and you see the persons authentic self under the skin, crawling around? 

Yeah. That. Except instead of demons, someone who is terrified of the truth. Of fact. Of honesty. Of reality.

I told my therapist that being gaslit by someone to believe you’re the problem, and that you’re “violent” and “dangerous” because you react to being lied to, cheated on and manipulated is abuse. Existing in a constant state of vigilance because you’re always trying to differentiate between truth and lies is abuse. Constantly worrying about being blindsided by the truth when you’ve already accepted the lies AS the truth is abuse. And MOST of all, being framed as being abusive, controlling, violent, dangerous and monstrous as a reason for being afraid as a means to mask her own fears of her lies and deceptions being exposed and discovered is abuse. It was validating to be told that yes, it IS abuse. Of course it’s abuse.

As my therapist pointed out today – Erica wasn’t the only one who abused me, though. I abused me too. I kept accepting Erica’s manipulations  – I’m not calling them apologies anymore, because apologies without change is just manipulation – and setting myself up for a repeat of the same bullshit the next time she had a bad day, was pissed off about something, was nearing her period, was angry at the interest rate on her mortgage going up again, or whatever other reason or excuse she had to be awful and rude to someone. I knew it would happen again, and I was ok with it because the dopamine hit called “hope” hit hard.

As my therapist said, the time where I could continue to blame Erica for hurting me and abusing me passed a long time ago. I knew who she was, I knew how she treated me, I knew how she used me, and I knew she wasn’t going to change, and I kept going back because I kept hoping that NEXT time would be different, knowing full well it wouldn’t ever be different. I went back, knowing full well that this person who was doing incredible harm would continue to do incredible harm.

But I let it happen. I allowed myself to be abused, so the hard pill to swallow here is that I was complicit. I had the power to stop it and I didn’t. 

~ R