Obsessing About My T ...

[Hukug]

I'm experiencing a lot of anxiety and I think that is why I am focused on anything other than my real problems. Today I have been obsessing about what my T thinks about me, and part of me wants to find out more about who she is. Past Ts have told me little things and it has always left me feeling yuck. This T has not said a THING, not even a passing mention, and in some ways it feels very safe, in others, it feels … weird.

Knowing that not knowing anything about her helps me feel safe, yet today I am obsessing about the idea of trying to google her or look her up on Facebook. I'm sure her privacy setting will be set up so I (or anyone she hasn't allowed it) can see anything, but there's always the 'what if'. I don't know what it is I'd be 'looking for' - maybe reassurance or something. Maybe it would be just one pic on her profile… but it could just as well be a picture of her family. If she has one. I don't even know that much (thankfully).

I don't think I could cope if I knew she had a family. Yet WHY do I find myself wanting to search for her?

Please tell me I am dong the right thing by NOT even 'going there' - I know it would really F#k me up to come across anything if I do search, yet it's like an itch, the more I think about it, the more I want to 'just look'. Tell me some horror stories or something about looking up your Ts and finding out way too much and it all backfiring or something. It would only take a few seconds and a couple of clicks of my mouse and it could ruin everything :(. Only good outcome would be if she is ungoogable.

I try to remind myself of what happened with one T I saw many years ago, and the shame I felt. I had seen her walking in town with someone I knew (a man who happened to run the hostel I was living at). Then they both went on holiday at the same time, for the same length of time, on the other side of the world. Ok, so they are together - no big deal, did not bother me at all. But then a nurse who worked at the hostel told me he was going out with someone else (who happened to work there too). So he was two-timing my T. And clearly she had no idea. They broke up while overseas. The other woman asked me 'how is your T? I know a little about it …'. what sucked was that I could never ever tell my T that not only did I know she was being cheated on, I probably knew about it before she did. I continued to see her for a few years after that, but I felt like I was carrying her secret, and I felt a lot of shame about knowing, and knowing she had NO idea I knew. And would be mortified no doubt, if she ever found out, that I had known.

It makes me angry to think other mental health professionals put me in that situation. they knew she was my T, yet it didn't stop them a) telling me about her being cheated on, b) the 'other woman' asking me - very inappropriately - how my T was, after she had broken up their relationship.

 

[Utuw]

How do you know that your first Therapist and the owner of the hostel were actually together though? Were they holding hands? Were they kissing like lovers do? If they were just walking together that doesn't mean they were together.

 

[Gidil]

I can see your dilemma, but it's really not your business in any way. You were her client, not her friend. IF she was being cheated on then that was in her private life. You haven't really given any other information other than she was walking with the guy in the same place overseas? Maybe they were friends? Maybe they had a business idea they were collaborating on? You don't really know the nature of their relationship. It seems like you just assumed they were seeing each other because you saw them together in the same place.

 

[Ahec]

No it wasn't my business - it was made to be my business though and should never have happened.

They were definitely together. They went on a holiday to the same place (the UK) at the same time AND the gossip staff member told me they were together and she was being cheated on. I heard this from more than one source actually - all of whom were mental health professionals working in the same system as my T and who worked with the manager. Oh, and it was the 'other woman's' ex husband who told everyone his ex wife was two-timing with my T and the manager. The 'other woman' also had the audacity to ask me 'how is your T?' And that she "knew a little about the situation"..

It definitely happened and I should NOT have been told - because it hurt my therapy to know this and it was not my business.

 

[Edi]

And yes - they WERE holding hands when walking together in town.

I want to make it clear this was a previous T, not the one I see now.

 

[Eluli]

I know this is a little late... Hope things are going well for you!

I've had different relationships with different therapists. Some that I've seen / known socially or professionally (as friends or acquaintances, or I've worked with them & they're colleagues, and sometimes both...not simply knowing them in a clinical setting). Others have been total strangers outside of a clinical setting. I like all 3 scenarios that I've had experience in for different reasons.

Sometimes one cannot help the boundaries in play, but most of the time people have options. Have you talked with your current T about how uncomfortable you were in the previous setting?