When A Therapist Thrives On Client Drama
Maybe I had no real reason to feel betrayed in the moment of finding out that The Identity Thief – a narcissistic frenemy – was sitting out in the waiting room while I awaited to exit the therapist’s office after experiencing an unexpected panic attack. The therapist can see anyone she wanted to as a client. Yet, I felt betrayed because this narcissist was one of the main topics of discussion in my sessions with this therapist.
I literally felt as if I had been sucker-punched in my gut by this therapist. She knew my issues with this narcissist. She knew that I had already termed this copycatting narc as a narcissist. She knew that this narcissist was the reason for some of my internal anguish, but she took this narcissist and the narcissist’s husband on as her new clients. To say I was shocked by this was an understatement. I had no words. All I could do was stare at the therapist in hopes that she could read my stare as a sign of how betrayed by her I truly felt in that moment.
Nevertheless, there I was, building up the courage to walk through the waiting room as I fought within myself to withhold my emotions from gushing out of me like an explosive flow of hot lava from a volcano. Yet, I made a concerted effort to refrain from having an outburst. I did not want to even look at The Identity Thief, but I also did not want to give off the impression that anything was wrong. We were supposed to be friends, but I sensed that in this therapeutic arena where I sought my healing, all bets for friendship were off. I actually felt as if I were entering into warfare that I had not been given any time to prepare for at all.
When I entered the waiting room, I saw The Identity Thief first. I saw her husband sitting off to the side [facing opposite her] in my peripheral view. They were both quiet, but looked up as the therapist greeted them both by their first names. The Identity Thief was sitting stoically in posture [as she always did with an attitude of smugness]. I quickly glanced and it appeared that she seemed to be knitting something and had spools of yarn sprawled out on the side of her inside of a basket. I immediately saw this as so many things with her but mainly as her manipulative ability to appear busy while underhandedly causing chaos.
I could see that wicked micro-sinister sneer underneath The Identity Thief’s nose before she even looked up at me. The gleam in her eyes verbalized to me that she knew exactly what she was doing [with pleasure]. In the spiritual sense, I knew she was waging war against me. At the time, I could only guess that her wage of war was because I would not succumb to her desires to be controlled by her. She desired to be a carbon copy of me in every sense of the word from attempting to follow in my footsteps in everything that I did to literally attempting to steal my footprints to make them hers.
Interestingly, I took note of how The Identity Thief seemed to behave in a manner of innocence as if there was nothing wrong about her behavior. In the normal sense it was like, really, what would be wrong? How could I prove that I knew she maneuvered herself into my regularly scheduled time slot for therapy? Who would believe that she had the gall to insist on seeing the same therapist I saw even though this therapist was not the only therapist in this particular building. It was hard enough getting past my questions on how the therapist would allow this to happen seeing that the therapist already knew my history with The Identity Thief based on my revelations. What was this therapist trying to do? My mind was boggled, but I did not have time to pause to think.
Nevertheless, as I proceeded to get through the waiting room, I stopped briefly to position my body towards the Identity Thief and her husband. I automatically knew that I could not avoid speaking to her since we were supposed friends. So as I turned towards them, I spoke, and we all exchanged brief [but fake] pleasantries to which the therapist said, “I see you all know each other.” As I turned towards the door to leave, I fought the urge to bite my tongue when I heard the therapist say what she said even though I knew for the sake of confidentiality that she needed to pretend that she did not already know we all knew each other. The panic I had felt earlier was turning over in my gut into a ball of heated anger. How dare them all! How dare them all!!!
I heard the therapist call my name as I exited the door. I turned to look at her. She said in a meek but calm sounding voice, “I’ll see you at the next appointment” to which I replied, “Okay. I thought for certain that I heard a hint of sarcasm in the the therapist’s words, but I knew that I was just angry about what had just transpired between us. As I got into my car, I let out a deep breath of release. I turned on the inside light of the car and looked at my appointment time. I grew angrier when I saw that my new time was now an hour before my longstanding regularly scheduled time that I had long kept for five years had now been changed to accommodate the therapists new clients – The Identity Thief and her flying monkey of a husband!
I was livid to say the least. I started my ignition and drove off. On the drive home, I fell into deep thought and attempted to flashback to the times in therapy that I had revealed so much to the therapist about The Identity Thief. The only level of trust I had in the therapist at that moment was that she was bound by a state agreement to confidentiality, and if I surmised that she had breached this in anyway behind my back to another client, it would be over. I wanted to trust her, but I could not shake the feeling of betrayal. When I reached home, I sat down on my couch in the dark and burst into tears.
Up next … Part 4.
My Voice Unchained 