#therapty

Buster Moon sighed as he placed himself on the couch. It was three in the morning, and this was something of a ritual by now. He struggled to keep his eyes open, yet was far too awake to close them.

His little paws clung to a cup of steaming tea, where a teabag bobbed up and down at the surface. He made it for the smell more than anything. He hated himself for his trauma, and for the trouble it caused. He was always so anxious and jumpy, and it made it hard to get anything done.

Rosita and the others noticed, of course. It was hard to miss. But he hated to see the worried stares of his friends. He hated to know he was hurting them. And yet still when they inquired about his wellbeing, the lie that escaped his mouth was impulsive, and he could never even think before it slipped out.

When he said he was fine, he never meant it at heart. But oh, how he wished he did! It hurt him to know that his words dampened the spirits of those he cared about. He was aware that not a single on of the troupe believed Buster was 'fine,' or anything of the sort, for that matter.

He wanted to tell them how much he was hurting, but his thoughts would not allow it. Most of the time, his pain presented itself in the form of a tight feeling in his chest, nightmares, and little flashbacks. Sometimes these flashbacks were just little flickers, fissures in the present reality, but he couldn't ignore them.

He couldn't help the stab of fear when the face of a friend, a warm and loving figure, was suddenly replaced with the face of those who wished him harm. Sometimes that face was Jimmy Crystal, sometimes it was Angus Chrome, and other times it was Norma Hawkins - as the freshest trauma in his mind.

And these faces plagued his nightmares. He couldn't control it - despite his fervent wishes - but they did. And the fact that Buster was becoming increasingly phlegmatic plagued the dreams of his friends. No, his family.

Buster was slowly forcing himself to appear emotionless. He didn't even realize it himself. And when he wasn't, the happiness and charisma he put on display were just that: a display.

But wanted to apologize. So why couldn't he? He had the capability, of courze. Maybe he just didn't have the heart, as much as it pained his to say.

He sipped at the tea, looking down at it and watching the little swirls in the liquid drift apart and together in the surface, a paper-thin barrier. He closed his eyes for a brief second and breathed in the scent deeply, taking it in.

Maybe he should tell somebody. But how? He knew that the moment they said something, his mouth would only spill lies. He was disgusted with himself. Is this all he was? A charlatan and a negating runaway?

That. That's what he was doing. He was running away from his problems. He sniffed, looking up and out his office window. He could see the odd car driving by, headlights illuminating the streets and the darker corners of his room. A few street lamps flickered dimly, the light just enough the draw his eyes, and he saw an animal walk down the sidewalks once or twice.

And he had to wonder now as he tilted his gaze to look at what little of the night sky he could see through the window: would he be like this forever?

He felt like all he did anymore was chase the approve of others, trying to find some way to, what, confirm that his own self was valid? Why did he need a random stranger to validate him? Ash had told him so many times, as had the others, that he didn't need strangers to tell him he was good enough, he just had to believe it himself.

And that is where it all went wrong. He didn't. And so he took desperate measure after desperate measure to try and fix some part of himself that he couldn't even recognize.

First he flooded the theater, then he lied and got him and his family incoorporated with Crystal, then with Angus Chrome, and again with Norma Hawkins. It felt a god-awful Groundhog Day at this point.

And each of his mistakes came back to haunt him. He would have been willing to do anything to escape his problems at this point, but instead he just wallowed in his sadness.

As another flash passed before his eyes, a milisecond of Norma's talons, he made up his mind. He opened up his laptop, clicked Ash's email, and finally said something.

On Sept 04, 2014, VVV wrote:

Well you do HAVE to talk to me so it is a kind of safety net...and no one stays my friend. Life happens i am not fun to be around and my idea of fun is very different from other people. And why wouldn't you just ditch me. I am annoying and heavy. If not for money there is no reason to keep me around. And if i think that i would call you stupid 

On Sept 4, 2014, Jezebel Delilah Salome wrote:

I do not HAVE to talk with you on my own time – I choose to. I’m not super fun either – I like to craft and you do too – that works for me. I do not get paid to see you – I get paid either way, so that doesn’t count! In fact, I don’t even see an iota of what your insurance pays for you to see me. And I’m hoping that last sentence is missing punctuation and you are saying that you don’t agree with anything you wrote previously.

On Sept 04, 2014, VVV wrote:

But even the best intentioned people get tired of dealing with me. They say they are different or want to be that different person and they believe them and i try not to but i want to believe them and it never ends well for me. 

2016

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016, Jezebel Delilah Salome wrote:

I do not know where to go from here. I think, and cry, and don’t know what to do. Time and time again, I hear that I cannot be the friend that you need. And I accept responsibility for that – I am not a good friend. I am selfish and my own mental health stuff gets in the way (not what you’ve said, but what I’m acknowledging). I am not in a place where I can change that about myself right now. But, above all else, not matter what you say, I DO care!! I care until it hurts. I’ve stuck through and that has to count for something. I thought that if you had a counselor, things could be better – and I still believe that, but we keep running into barriers with you and counseling. You’re right, I need you filtered. You offer to be the best friend I could ask for – supporting me in everything and doing whatever I ask. I can’t return that favor. Partly because I have more responsibility and am pulled in more directions, but partly because I don’t have that in me – I’m selfish. And that makes me feel terrible. Terrible about myself and everything I do. Those who can’t do, teach…so I guess that’s what makes me a good social worker. I don’t have these issues with anyone else, so I’m not accepting 100% for this. If I were horrible, I would not have a 10 year marriage or other friends. Perhaps it’s because we are too close, spend too much time together, or are too similar/different, I don’t know. But for some reason, we aren’t meshing. So, to repeat my opening sentence…I do not know where to go from here.

Therapist - Drowning

I’ve talked to people more about it and it is funny to me what bothers them the most. My father hates that she used religion to try to conform me into being straight. My mother hates that the daughter that left seeking help from a therapist came back broken in even more ways. My sister hates that she tried to sell me to a man, who we ran into at Walmart once and he tried to approach and she just pointed at him and said a loud and firm “No!” as she swept me away. People in the therapist community couldn’t believe the amount of emails or that she took drugs from a drug rep. 

But no amount of religion or effort could make me straight, for three years and more I tried. I came back a different person and people will always miss some version of me they lost but in many ways, no thanks to the therapist, this was a great thing growing as a person is always something to strive for. I found it comforting that even after nearly going no contact with my sister she still had my back like no time had passed. And all the emails that formed me into a mindless pawn only capable of obeying turned into the biggest checkmate I could have hoped for.

I had trauma from a very early age and though that is not what this story is about it does of course have its place. Due to this and other variables it made me susceptible to narcissistic predators. I know therapist and predator aren’t words you often hear to describe a single person. But it also made me a people pleaser and a chameleon of sorts. 

I was always an anxious child and I could never articulate that or the reason behind it. Being too young to even understand it was anxiety I was feeling, I would often report to my parents that I did not feel good. To the point my mother would write me off saying “name a day in your life you did feel good.” Going to school was a battle I woke up to every morning for the entirety of my school years. Every year being told I would in fact get used to it. As it turned out to a degree I had gotten used to it, though it wasn’t any easier navigating the crowded halls or trying to pass as normal, I had unknowingly come to rely on the routine of those school days. The whole structure of my day was planned for me. 

When those days finally came to an end I thought the worst was over. Then one day I woke up and I was twenty-three and barely able to leave my own bedroom. My self destruction and addictions had reached a point that I could no longer function. I had already lived longer than I had ever planned to and considered these extra years an honest attempt at giving life a chance. But this didn’t instill me with the confidence to follow through with a plan or hitting an all time low and just acting on impulse. The thought “well, I can always just die” suddenly felt like an attack. 

My panic attacks had always come from outside sources, going to stores, family events, any interactions with people really. But for the first time I was in a fight or flight state from my own mind. The thoughts were so intense and so easily achievable that my mind went into full defensive mode. These panic attacks against myself went on for weeks. But I couldn't end it because this was a clear logical sign to me that it was not what I had thought I so desperately wanted or I would be at peace with the thoughts. This end was terrifying to actually consider as something I was truly willing to do. And I couldn't manage my anxiety with cutting, alcohol, or sleeping pills anymore because all of those things were no longer a comfort but a possible threat. I only knew I didn’t want to die.

So I went to the doctor and described the anxiety and panic and they advised me to see their in office therapist, Jezebel Delilah Salome, JDS for short. This was my very first time accepting I needed help and not from a vice but a real professional. Instead it was the beginning of a three year bad dream that drove me into a decade long nightmare. 

Upon meeting it went like I think most initial sessions go. The surface level greetings and how are yous dug deeper into what has brought you here, how can we work through this and sometimes that leads into poking and prodding an already sensitive wound to see what is really festering under the surface. My experience was no different and I shared things I was trained never to talk about outside of my childhood home. This became a new routine to structure my life around.

Therapy was really difficult and I don’t think it ever got easier. I was used to making myself small and invisible so I might catch less of the heat at home. And the words of my mother still echoed through me like a broken record. “You go on and on about stupid shit nobody cares about and I wish you would just shut up.” Just starting a conversation with me was a battle in itself. Now I was expected to know how I felt about things or worse speak about what had happened in the house I grew up in, the number one rule of living there was nothing that happened in that house left that house. “I don’t know” became the most common answer in my life.

The thing about therapy is even those dedicated to silence will begin to talk. For me it is the expectation of the silence and the possibility of disappointing or annoying the person I am literally paying to listen to me. I began sharing stories of my anxiety affecting my school days and how I had turned to different addictive vices to get through it. And those addictions carried me through two jobs before my anxiety finally called them out on what was really happening. I was slowly killing myself because I wasn’t brave enough to face it straight on.

All of this information led to the art of diagnosing and JDS decided it was probably borderline. A diagnosis I hated because suddenly everything I felt or thought was cast aside as me being irrational because of a BPD spiral. Anytime I came to her for advice on how to avoid doing the self destructive behaviors I had been leaning on for years she told me I was being manipulative. So I didn’t feel I could talk about the issues I was struggling with but I also wasn’t allowed not to talk about them. Though they were manipulative I had to tell her if I had cut because if I did I wasn’t allowed to talk to her for 24 hours.

The emails started when she sent me a blank email. I in return sent a question mark. That was all it took. For the next three years we would email from about eight in the morning to when she clocked out of work, usually about five. If I didn’t respond quickly she would email more or call. 

It was through emails that she started offering me extra sessions when she had free time. This prompted me to start going to the library, usually sitting in the parking lot because I was too anxious to go inside. I did this because if she messaged me short notice I was just down the road from her office. 

To say I couldn’t make an appointment or didn’t want it from her point of view meant I wasn’t serious about getting help. If I truly wanted to get better I would seize every opportunity offered to me. And she wouldn’t waste her time on someone who didn’t want what she had to offer. 

She would check in on me throughout the day. Asking what I was doing, where I was, if and what I had eaten, who I was with. She began offering me food she had brought from home because then she would know I had eaten. And we began meeting at a local store when she got out of work. 

At first it was presented to me as a good way for me to get out into the world with someone I trusted. It was just an extension of the therapy and the word progress was used a lot which meant I must have been doing better. Naively I never considered this wasn’t normal, just like I didn’t know it wasn’t ethical to be keeping in touch through emailing constantly. She just always said she had a lot to offer and honestly it did make me feel special and cared for. 

I even met her and her kids at that store. She emailed me that they would be there and by then it was just known that if she said where she was I was to be there as well. I remember her son picking out a single fake white calla lily even when told he could only pick out one item. He later gave it to me stating he was going to marry me. 

She would forward a lot of daily christian chain letters to me. And the topic of religion was always relevant. Not knowing much about it all it was easy to ask questions and she loved being able to talk about the subject.

JDS would print chapters from a CBT/DBT workbook (“Out-of-Control) and that was my homework for the time I wasn’t with her. The pages were crammed with information, by that I mean even in the margins there was writing. It was overwhelming and I often covered parts of the page so I could focus on just one paragraph or blurb and not the mess of information. It was like they had one thousand pages of information crammed into a four hundred page book, the book itself was out of control. We never went over what I could have potentially learned from the workbook she would check to see if I had marked the pages and move on to the next bundle she had printed.

I eventually joined a CBT/DBT group after many back and forths about not wanting to and her insisting this was the only next step. I didn’t understand what a group was going to tell me that the hundreds of pages from the book hadn’t already. In the end I joined of course. It was frustrating listening to everyone just complaining then the instructor would say what to do in a situation. The next time we met everyone would complain about their lives again and no one had applied anything to try to make it better or to understand the situation. I quit after only two meetings. If I was going to join a group I didn’t understand why it had to be one where no one was trying to use the skills, they just saw it all as the world against them, the innocent.

When talking about school I mentioned my best friend, the foreign exchange student, who I had come to see as more than a friend before she left. Not long after admitting this the therapist told me she was religious and if she didn’t meet with gay clients for more than a session or two before she would pass them on. This triggered immediate panic for me as I had only a session or two before mentioned my own feelings for another girl. As was the routine we dug deeper into this issue and she concluded it was adolescent confusion due to trauma. She would later ask me “how far I went with the girl?” And I immediately downplayed and lied and denied and begged her not to be disgusted with me. Stupidly I didn't understand how easy it was to actually just get another therapist, tedious to go through all of the specifics again but still well within my ability to do. But all I could think was I would lose this person swearing to help me if I was gay so just don't be gay. 

It was time to establish a system for when I was describing thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Something I had struggled with as they always came out as a confusing mess it seemed, I could never explain things in a way she could understand. This is where “decepticons” came into my life. The way they worked was I described a feeling or thought and JDS decided whether it was real or not and told me what was actually happening. So the girl I liked would have been a decepticon, my brain lying to me because it couldn’t process the underlying trauma that made me seek out this wrong relationship. Gay was just an easy label my brain stuck onto a trauma I couldn’t process.

This was not always a bad method or it would not have worked. If I described the urge to do a self destructive behavior she would ask questions and explain that it was a decepticon. My brain wanted to do the behavior because I was stressed out about having to do something and self destruction had become my go to for feeling stressed. But it became a problem when every thought and feeling had to be approved by her. My own thoughts and feelings were no longer something personal to experience but for someone else to dissect and decide whether I was just being borderline or dramatic or just dismiss the subject completely because it wasn’t real anyway. 

Around June I brought up a subject from home I was struggling with. I had hugged two of my sisters and my mother saw it and stated that I hadn’t willingly hugged her since I was two. I knew I had upset her by not offering her a hug but I didn’t like hugs and usually only offered them in the past when I was intoxicated. JDS saw this as something she could fix, like so many other things it just had to be the right person, so it became normal for her to hug me after our sessions. And I being the quiet people pleaser didn’t want to tell her that like the rest of the human population her hugs felt like hell. Because how do you tell someone that they are just like everyone else when they are very excited and certain they are the one exception? 

I would hesitate at the door often before leaving to listen and determine if anyone was close so I could make a swift exit. She called this door bombing and a sign that I needed a hug. I have never been much of a hugger but I didn’t suffocate so it just became part of the routine of leaving. Wait for the coast to be clear and get hugged. Later she would admit that the first time she hugged me was when she stopped seeing me as a patient and wanted to pursue a friendship.

Because of the trips to the store I began taking up her hobbies so we could continue with the outings because it seemed to make her happy and I liked her saying I was making progress. Making quilts was an easy and a time consuming distraction and a very repetitive process. And since my main goal with my time was to just urge surf this worked out nicely.

I hadn’t realized I had been so desperately seeking human approval and affection that when it was finally presented to me I couldn’t get enough of it. She wasn’t making extra time for other people. She wasn’t bringing everyone else homemade food to make sure they ate at least one meal a day. Food had always been a struggle for me because I was always nauseous from anxiety. And now I was always at the library waiting for her to say jump so I could jump. 

But it was no longer my well-being JDS had in mind. I had been groomed enough to push the boundaries from outside the confines of her office and into the real world. If people from the office saw us out together we had just happened to bump into each other. I had dedicated all of my time to her through the emails and always showed up when she said she added me to her schedule. Now I showed a willingness to drop everything and ignore my comfort zone to meet her at the store. Four months in and I was already obedient to the point of being lost without directions. 

It was around this time my sister began showing concern at my willingness to jump at any chance to do as JDS said. It was made clear to me that if I slacked in any opportunities to make progress then I was to blame for my not getting better. Even one missed appointment or one missed store visit was met with me being a disappointment and unwilling to do what it took to get well. I naively brought my sister’s concern to JDS and she explained that my sister was still stuck in the toxic life and was unwilling to get herself help.

Now it was time for something else to be discussed and decided. My family was an enemy to my well being. If I had come to her truly seeking to live this was a fact that I had to accept. They were manipulative and dangerous. If I were theoretically in the middle of the ocean struggling for each breath they were in the water using me to get extra breaths, pulling me beneath the surface, never quite enough to end my life but enough to make sure I stayed struggling. We were a sinking family reliant on each other for survival. My only connections outside of that office were now a perceived threat and I ran everything they asked me to do by JDS to see if it was safe or harmful. 

The topic of church had never gone away after JDS had told me she was religious and didn’t deal with gay patients. JDS had given me a purple bible and told me during my free time at the library to study it. Because she wasn’t allowed to preach as a therapist it would make her overjoyed if I brought up the topic so she could explain it. I was very eager to please and this was an easy task because I had a lot of questions about the bible from how the hell do you navigate it to dinosaurs to why? Why? Why? The answers to my questions were that I asked too many questions which was why I was missing the point. To this day I could not tell you with any amount of confidence what the point is. 

But not being able to answer my questions did not mean JDS wasn’t going to stop talking about the topic once it was brought up. After I had thoroughly read and analyzed the bible she started talking about church. This was a deal breaker for both of us. For her church was mandatory and for me church was an absolute pass. The two times I had gone to a church were recalled as miserable experiences, one a wedding and the other a funeral. Churches were full of people and long boring speeches in rooms with no air circulation. This was a decepticon, my memories lying to me to prevent me from making true progress. I just needed the right church which happened to be her church. 

She offered for me to join her family at her church one Sunday in July. I told her I didn’t know and I would either be there or not. I ended up having to message her for directions and it turned out she didn’t know what street her church was on so I kept passing it thinking it was wrong because it wasn’t on the street she was stating, it was one street over. But I got there and was greeted with hugs from her kids and a curt hello from her husband. The experience was exactly as I remembered: too many people listening to a long speech in a hot room. Worse, there was singing throughout. 

But this wasn’t the right reaction and I knew it. This was my brain telling me manipulative lies to keep me from getting healthy. Afterwards, I went to a local restaurant with her family and she enthusiastically asked me what I thought. I replied how I knew she wanted me to, which was to match her enthusiasm. It would all make sense to me once I adapted to the atmosphere of church and got to know the people. And every Sunday moving forward I would meet her at the church and then go out to lunch or out shopping with her family.

In just six months I had gone from being confused about what feelings I felt to only feeling what JDS told me I was feeling. I was conditioned not to trust my own thoughts and instead run them all by her so she could determine if it was even real or worth addressing.I believed the only hope for me was being saved and not even by her god but by her herself. To disobey, question, or argue meant being shunned and abandoned and by now I believed JDS was the only person I had in my corner. She had already started to tell me she loved me and that was something we didn’t even say in my family.

The few things I had known about myself or taken any amount of pride in were stripped away from me and shamed. My love for reading was scoffed at because it wasn’t the bible I was reading. The passion I had for video games was laughable and explained as a pointless waste of time. Genres of music or media I liked were explained as bad for me and replaced with things she approved of. Being gay was a trauma response and something that was worthy of being thrown away for.

I came to her unwell and the last official appointment we had I left feeling completely empty. The chaos in my mind was still present and I had fresh cuts on my arms but I was now ready. JDS had spent those six months breaking away what little pieces of myself I had established and even shook the very foundation my life was built on. Now she could and would make me into what she deemed the ideal human.

Friend - Lifeboat

Despite all of my efforts to keep JDS my therapist it resulted in the very outcome I was trying to avoid. She presented me with an ultimatum. There was nothing left therapeutically anyone could do for me but I could stay and she would pass me along to someone else who would come to the same conclusion as her. Or I could end therapy with her and become her friend. This was the logical choice because no amount of therapy could help me but she could as a friend and as a Christian. She was a Christian first.

I was extremely hesitant with this ultimatum. In my mind this was my last true attempt at this living thing everyone seemed to know how to do. I didn’t understand that starting therapy with someone new, though daunting, was okay. It didn’t mean I was a lost cause or a failure, just that I needed someone else who could understand better and had the qualifications to help me. But this realization wouldn’t come for many years and at this moment I was being told this was it, all conclusions were final and the outlook wasn’t very good.

But I was also afraid of the term “friend.” The only friend I had managed to have at this time lived literally on the other side of the globe. And even that had to end because she had feelings for me. But JDS assured me that her friendship would be different. I told her I didn’t even know how to be a friend. She explained it was the same thing, only more equality. Give and take. I told her I didn’t want to lose my therapist, I still needed help and I was certain without the safety of a paycheck there was nothing to keep her in touch with me. She told me she got very little money from my insurance anyway and she didn’t have to see me now she chose to. 

The unforeseen problem being that JDS was already an authoritative figure and I was the vulnerable patient. She had my full history of triggers and ways to manipulate me. Though in the end I agreed, this dynamic did not change. But by this time her word was law and I was devoted to making sure I fit the mold she had set out for me. 

Despite my hesitations I ended therapy in September and the next day spent my first full weekend at her house. I remember sitting after the appointment in our living room constantly checking my phone to see if JDS would still be there. My sister and her daughter were trying to interact with me despite my clearly distracted mind. Then an email finally came inviting me over. I still hesitated. I had a routine at night and I had already taken my night medication. And going to other places made me extremely anxious. JDS continued to say I was the one making my predictions come true, she was not abandoning me I was abandoning and resisting her. 

I wasn’t ready for such a drastic change. I still wanted the safety of her office and analyzing my trauma to feel better, we hadn’t even gotten to the better part. But she explained she was stepping up to be my friend and I was pushing her away. With this simple explanation I drove over and we watched Pirates of the Caribbean, the one with mermaids I had not seen. Halfway through I started to doze off and she insisted I could not fall asleep on the couch. I slept in her son’s bed and the last thing I remember was her asking me if I wanted her to sing like she did for her children. I declined. When I woke up we had breakfast and she told me it wasn’t so bad was it. Nothing to be anxious about. The next day I attended church as usual with her family. 

JDS also said once when we were going to the stores that if someone saw us she needed to know how we knew each other because there was a chance that they would know she was a therapist. I didn't know and it never happened. Later at church she offered the same chance and again I didn't know but I realized very quickly that she had already told everyone how we knew each other. 

Because JDS was a good Christian she extended her help to the degree that I needed it. There was only one person in the church that would talk to me like a normal human. Everyone else talked to me through JDS and approached me like I might have something contagious. She also took it upon herself to inform the pastor that I had mental problems and might require his help. She assured me this was normal and fine and I asked if he even knew what her diagnosis of me meant and she told me he had been well informed. When I met both sides of their extended family I realized they all knew where I had come from and that I was something unstable.

This weekend routine went on for several weeks. Then I started coming over on Tuesdays because her husband worked and I could help watch the kids and spend time crafting with her. At night after the kids went to sleep we would watch tv, approved by her. Sometimes she would pull the bed couch out to make more room. I always fell asleep first because of my medications but this is when she began sleeping with me. By February I was moved in. Later they would get bunk beds for the kids and I moved from the couch into her daughter’s/JDS’ craft room which had a bed. 

She continued to come in at night to sleep claiming it helped with my nightmares. Which I didn't understand because you can't stop someone from having nightmares. If I said anything like maybe her husband would have a problem or I felt cramped in the bed I was met with immediate hostility. I was being ungrateful and resisting the help she was offering to make me better. More and more it became about when her husband was trying to set up an intimate night she would say I needed her or worse come in and sleep right after they had done it. Even after asking her to at least not tell me why she was coming in she continued to, part of being a good friend was listening to her in her time of need.

I am a weird sort of person. From my perspective physical wounds heal and they hurt less, emotional wounds heal and they fester, and the pain even when dulled over time, lasts forever. I don’t have nightmares of being sexually assaulted, when I did it was only ever feeling claustrophobic in my own skin, trapped. Now I wake up from nightmares of her pressed up against me. Because what he did was physical and what she did was psychological. 

Her sleeping with me was preplanned, she never came in because of sobbing, as she would later claim, because she would tell me either when the kids were getting ready for bed or in the morning when her husband would ask for sex that she was going to be sleeping with me. Even if she was coming in because I was having nightmares or “sobbing”, at that time my nightmares were about being trapped in a bed with someone. So why would waking up to her pressed against me be anything but harmful, there was no comfort in the situation. She just got an excuse to escape what she wanted to avoid. I was always just a scapegoat or excuse or used.

Living with her was presented as the perfect outcome for me, I would no longer be pulled under water constantly and with her for support I was practically in a lifeboat at this stage.The only real difference being that she had no restrictions to interacting with me and I could be fully indoctrinated into her religion, which was the real cure all. But I found it difficult at first because I was trying to maintain the routines I structured my day around. I would wake up, make coffee, and then sit doing nothing while drinking coffee then shower and brush my teeth. When I moved in it seemed okay at first because I woke up the same time as her children and they played quietly until their father woke up and made them breakfast. 

Because an adult was awake they were less quiet perhaps, this is only a guess as I am still not sure. But it was because of me so my morning routine had to change, which I found set the whole day off and I didn’t know how to adjust. I could make the coffee in time for her to bring it to work but not before when I could drink it (as I left when she left for the day) and I could not take a shower unless I waited until after breakfast (which again I left for the day when she did.) I really just stopped brushing my teeth in the morning because the only time I could seem to do it was while her children did which worked out because the youngest still needed help and there I was. 

The new routine was I make her coffee and sometimes breakfast or lunch. Get dressed and leave because I didn’t feel comfortable or welcome in the house unless she was there. I was allowed to take a shower after dinner but before the kids went to sleep, which also happened to be when they took their baths and brushed their teeth. When it came to meals I sometimes had breakfast before leaving and otherwise would always ask if I could make something to eat, usually the response would be to wait until Tuesday so she could just feed the kids that as well because her husband wouldn’t be there to cook for them.

For the first couple of months nothing really changed other than I didn’t have therapy throughout the week. We still kept in constant contact throughout the day. But I didn’t have the support of a therapist to rely on, when I was confused or anxious or depressed there was no one to go to and ask how to cope or explain what was happening so I could understand what led to these emotions. I realized quickly I couldn’t say these things because they were manipulative or too heavy for friends to talk about. We could talk about the bible or her family or her relationship with her husband or how she was struggling at work or home. We could go to church together and I could spend time at her house crafting with her. 

But the original issues I had initially went to her with were all still very present in my life and I was still struggling. But now I was being told that I wasn’t really because things were better now that I had JDS in my life. If I wasn’t happier then I was being ungrateful or closed off to the effect she had on people. It was my own fault and something I needed to figure out or she wouldn’t keep me around because there were people out there who would appreciate the help she could offer and she would go find and help them. 

The threat of abandonment was constant and the silent treatment was used frequently to keep me in line. Sometimes if I did something without asking or not realizing it was something she didn’t approve of she would tell me I couldn’t come to her house. By this time things were very strained between me and my family so not being able to go to her house meant sitting in my car and texting and begging and apologizing. A lot of times after I gave up and stopped messaging, and usually because I had reached a point where the only solution I could come up with was to cut as punishment for what I had done. Or to turn my mental confusion into a physical pain I could understand. Hours later and bleeding I would finally get a text from her.

It took time to learn but I did realize the pattern, though still flawed. When I got a text after being told I couldn’t come to her she would bring up the topic. I either had to know why it was wrong, explain why and apologize or I could get away with saying I was sorry and wouldn’t do it again. If I chose to stand by my actions she would simply put me back into my shunned state and try again later. I did realize this pattern and stopped standing by my actions and for the most part I stopped doing anything without asking for permission first. 

But I also thought part of the price for getting out of exile was paying in blood. So every time I found myself locked in my car at night in a random parking lot I would cut myself and in my mind this was part of being allowed back into the safe place. When I was finally back with her she would explain that all the spiraling or bloodshed could have been avoided if I had just listened to her in the first place. 

This spread out into every aspect of my life. It was made very clear to me what was acceptable and what was not. I was to wear long sleeves at all times because my scars might have a negative impact not just on her children but someone else trying to recover or maybe influence someone to make that first cut. I was a mutilated monster. I was also no better than a drug addict, a throw away statement that JDS probably doesn’t even remember saying yet to this day echoes in my mind every morning and every night I take my prescriptions. Even if I had Autism, it wasn’t severe enough to even matter. It was something that could be drugged out of me. My sexuality was never discussed after her first warning but the message to pray away any sinful thoughts or lifestyles was drilled into me from the beginning of my religious journey.

Having to deal with me seemed to be a lot of stress in itself and she often told me that. If I got offended or upset she would say something like: “it was very frustrating trying to explain this situation to you but it was great of you to make me my morning coffee and pack my lunch but next time it would be even better if you could just read inbetween the lines so I didn’t have to explain so much.” I formed a new motto of what I was as a friend: Way too much, but never quite enough. Someone that needed to come with a warning label. I was a lot to tolerate and no matter how much I tried to make up for that it would never make up for the turmoil I put people through.

I told JDS I missed  being a client and feeling like I was making progress and she quickly made it about her. She made me feel like I was bad for making her feel like she was failing as a friend. I just couldn’t understand what a good friend was or I would be praising her endlessly. But this did eventually lead to her picking out a therapist every now and again. 

One was a friend of hers and she had already told him about me and that I was a forming christian. It was weird going and having him talk to me instead of me doing the talking. Then there was the woman with a lot of dogs and I was very uncomfortable because she met people in her home and all her dogs were yappy. There was a therapist in town who really couldn’t tolerate my opening silence so she said we mutually agreed it wasn’t a good fit. 

They  all had one thing in common and it was JDS setting up the story for why I was seeking therapy from them. I wouldn’t even know this starting story for almost a decade. After every therapy session she would have me tell her exactly what I said and decide whether it was okay to continue or not. JDS was a topic that was not allowed and I only mentioned her in passing if I had to. Despite being the sun I was bound to orbit and rely on to sustain my existence, to the outside world, or rather the therapeutic world, she was nonexistent.

During holidays she always treated me like one of her kids. I was never brought into her life to get healthy and make progress. I was just someone to make her look like a good christian. She never encouraged me to go places alone or to try new things. I was always waiting for her to go with me or okay a plan. I never felt like I was capable of independence or being an adult because that wouldn't have benefited her needs.

The topic of boyfriends sometimes came up and it was unspoken knowledge that we both remembered my experience with the girl from high school. I always brushed off the subject as I just wasn't interested or ready to even think about relationships. Again she had already told me she could relate and experienced dread at having sex with her husband. Her solution was I needed to find a guy who either wasn't interested in sex or couldn't have sex. 

A year after becoming her friend an older man joined the church accompanied by his son, maybe ten years old. He asked if I would join them for lunch and I declined and I told JDS this. So when he went to her and asked if I would go and she said I would if she could accompany them I was upset. And I remained upset every week when I had to go to lunch with him after church. The man began giving them frozen meat and offering them connections to get their car fixed if they needed it and he offered me money to buy clothes which I declined. After a few weeks of this he wrote JDS a letter saying that he felt he had courted me enough and if he could have me. 

At the time this was very awkward, not just because he was essentially trying to trade me for some meat and car repairs, but because he was asking her. I wasn't involved in the transaction at all. She still continued to say he was harmless but her husband stepped in and said she needed to put an end to it all. So she wrote an email to the pastor under my name and had him handle it. 

At the time I remember saying that if he was going to just trade for me he should have probably at least gone through my actual mother. But now I think he was the only one at the time that understood fully what was going on. He was asking the right person because she owned me. From the start he went through her and I obeyed even after refusing him because JDS said I would. So if he wanted me then he just had to convince her and she was always complying and I always obeyed. 

Later JDS would say that it was a misunderstanding and that he was simply new to the church and it was a normal thing to bring new people out to make them feel welcome. But I will never be that person to reach out and make someone feel welcome, and I won’t be the person gathering signatures on a card for someone I know is leaving. When I was new no one was bringing me out to lunch or even introducing themselves to me, she had already made it known who I was and where I came from.

In the beginning there was one instance that sticks out to me that I to this day can't understand how I let her glaze over it. The way she explained the friendship to me in the beginning was that it was fine to befriend a client but you had to wait three months. But since we had already crossed that line we would ignore the three months and just be friends. 

We went to an annual craft fair at the local high school in November. I dreaded it when it was explained to me and even more when I saw how full the parking lot was. Once inside I thought for sure I was going to pass out. There were more people than tiles on the floor and there seemed to be no end to the crowded maze of hallways. In the chaos JDS saw someone from her office and without hesitating told me to disappear. And if they asked we happened to bump into each other. When I questioned this it was just because the three months wasn't up, just a minor technicality. I asked why take the risk and not just wait the three months then? Her answer was because she was a Christian first.

But as time went on my definition of friend was to do as told and stop trying to understand why things had to be the way she said and just accept them without all my questions. If her husband didn't want to do a project that's what I was for this meant changing out their toilet for a new one for instance. If she wanted to go sit at a craft fair all day I was there to keep her company. If she wanted to do anything I was there to do it too whether I wanted to or not. Friendship meant being owned. I was her dog and I wore that collar and leash proudly not realizing how much it felt like a noose.

Once we did something I wanted to do, which was to go see Doctor Strange in the theater. I was excited because I hadn’t gone to see a movie I wanted to see in years. After JDS just kept saying I should be grateful she suffered through it for me. And how much she hated it and didn’t get it. This went on for days after we had seen it to the point that I couldn’t recall how I even felt about the movie but I knew that it wasn’t worth knowing I had made my friend suffer.

The music I listened to had to be changed as well. Music had always been my biggest ally. It muted out the world I found so overwhelming while saying all of the things I didn’t know how to express. I would often send people songs when I didn’t know what to say or how I felt and this had always worked quite well for me. It had once even ended a relationship I had wanted to be out of so desperately, not for long, but that was how powerful music was to me. 

I listened to everything from Beethoven to Slipknot. None of it was right. JDS introduced me to her music and slowly I stopped listening to music. Which led to me not having a muted experience of the world which led to more and more shutdowns and I didn’t know why. I just knew that JDS had a lot to offer me and she wasn’t afraid to drop me and find someone else who could appreciate it and be grateful.

When it came to my family they were the biggest sickness in my life. Why would I ever choose to go to my family events over her own? They have been destroying me since childhood. They were literally killing me, the reason I sought therapy in the first place. Her family would teach me what the term really meant. Only JDS could present me with healthy versions of things like love, family, and friendship. 

When I visited someone from highschool with my sister and niece I didn’t know it would result in sitting in a parking lot late at night bleeding. When JDS got out of work I wasn’t responding to her texts immediately, as was the expectation. My sister and niece had left but I was finishing the Guardians of the Galaxy movie we had all started. I was laying on the couch where my family had been with me and he was sitting in a recliner. 

JDS ended up calling my sister, I can only assume she got her number from my emergency contact paper at the doctor’s office. She showed up at his apartment demanding to see me and then yelling at me that we were having sex and my hair was a mess so I couldn’t deny it. She scolded me and wouldn't let me return to the house. He was a distraction and not a Christian, I should have spent the day alone studying the Bible. All of the things I had been learning in therapy were being contradicted. I wasn't trying to get out into the world and be independent or make friends. I was tagging along to where she wanted to go and meeting only people she approved of. 

There are three times that come to mind when I say this. The first time was after I had been staying at her house for a few months and my family showed concern and told me they didn't think it was healthy the way JDS was making herself my entire world. I talked to her about it and she said of course they would say that, they were abusers losing control over someone they had had control over for nearly twenty-five years. I returned my family's concerns with certainty that they were wrong and they told me that if that was what I thought not to come back. 

So I fully moved all of my things into their basement. I also moved my cat into the house which to this day I feel guilty about. Before he would jump on my shoulder and perch there as I walked around the house. But when I moved him there and I left for the day he was confined to the room I was living in with no food or water or litter box. To this day he can’t handle closed doors even if everyone in the house is on the same side as him. He also went from being curious of strangers to running and hiding the second he hears a new voice in the hallway.

 The second time was after getting disability I wanted to bring my sister and niece to the zoo. Last minute it didn't work out and JDS got angry when I wouldn't just bring her family instead. To her this was an even better option not seeing that I didn’t see the two as interchangeable. I did bring them in the end but it caused a lot of tension that I felt extremely guilty about and very ungrateful for not wanting to bring her after all she had done for me.

The third time was when JDS was looking at cars for me and I asked my father for advice as he had always been my source of knowledge in this subject. JDS immediately pulled out her favorite adjective for me, ungrateful. How could I be so ungrateful asking him for advice when she was doing all this work to help me? I ignored my father’s advice and just went and got the car she had set up from the people she had bought a car from. And it got her some kind of discount for referring someone to them.

But it wasn't just being grateful that was my job. It became a constant effort to keep her on the pedestal I had placed her on in therapy. It felt like a constant battle to counter her self deprecations. She was a perfect mother and wife and the best friend anyone could ask for. Even if she failed she had tried and that counted more because she had learned in the process. Her body was fine and she skipped the extra snack that day so it was a good job. From therapist to friend to god. She could not be seen failing at anything.

It wasn’t long after moving in that it was apparent that I needed to contribute more. I had sold most everything I owned to pay the little rent they asked for. But if I sold an item for $100 I gave all that money to them at once and it didn't count towards next month's rent. I was also paying my way on any outing I had to attend. And I was always fine if I didn't have to go and often said family came first and I understood if they wanted to go out just as a family. She rarely let me out of these events including Christmas at both sides of their family and none of my own. 

JDS also had me sign up for food stamps, stating that I was homeless, and so I did because at this point arguing just meant silence and getting kicked out. So I began paying $194 dollars towards groceries a month. Mind you that other than Sundays, I left when she left for work without having breakfast and didn't return until dinner when she was getting home from work. So other than Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday I was eating three meals at their house. She stated that she had given me a choice to either buy myself food or food for communal meals, but there were only communal meals. I always asked when or what I was allowed to eat and the answer was always when it was convenient to feed them as well. If I made egg salad for instance it wasn’t just for me it was for the whole house, if I made coffee it was for everyone, nothing was for just me.

I also took care of feeding the cat and bunny and cleaning the litter boxes and the bunny cage. Whenever asked I watched the kids and I always watched them when he was at work and she took her nap from about 1 to 3. Sometimes I would sleep on his side of the bed so that I didn’t have to watch the screaming children and really it was the best sleep I was getting throughout the week because their bed was huge and I had my own space. I couldn’t nap in my room because I wasn’t allowed to close the door and JDS was allowed to close her’s. I also usually did the list of chores her husband left her on Tuesdays and the weekend day he worked on top of just cleaning up such as laundry and bathroom and sweeping and dishes.

Since they were homeschooled and science wasn’t one of their allowed subjects I started doing little experiments with them like putting an egg in vinegar and checking its progress every day. Or when Pokemon Go came out I showed them how to throw a ball to catch a pokemon. Both of these things became forbidden in the house. 

Science was a touchy subject because to them the scientific facts came second to the bible so it would have to be taught with caution. I was still waiting for my dinosaur questions to be answered so I didn’t argue. Pokemon evolved into different versions of themselves and evolution wasn’t real. I argued a little that if anything pokemon were fake creatures with fake powers so if anything it could teach that evolution was fake. It was an argument I didn’t agree with but wanted to continue playing pokemon which I just did anyway if I was sent to get the mail or to get milk at the store. Whenever I watched the kids it was just watching them play imaginary games or watching veggie tales.

I was still a burden though to their marriage. I didn't understand this at the time because I was making sure the list of chores he left for her was done so by the time he got home they could spend more time together. But she wasn't spending that extra time with him or even her children; she was spending it with me. She kept saying I needed her. And he was often down in the basement cleaning his guns or taking care of his houseplants. But who better to become a scapegoat than the random woman moved into the house. I can see it now. It was my lap she laid her head on and instructed to massage her scalp and play with her hair. And it was me she came to sleep with at night after getting ready for bed in their room right in front of him.

My help was also a problem when it came to renovations. JDS decided she wanted a new toilet and unbeknownst to me he had said no due to finances. So when he went to work one weekend she went and picked out a toilet and I did the grunt work of removing the old one and installing the new one. And I had missed the true purpose of the list of chores he left with her, which was for her to contribute to their household as he did while she was at work.

They had begun marriage counseling through the church because he believed therapy was snake oil and almost didn't marry JDS because of her job choice. But as she told me, she is a Christian first, and that worked on him too it seemed. He also invited his parents over so they could tell her how bad of a wife and mother she was being and how I was the problem while I sat in another room unable to not overhear the conversation or her sobbing. Maybe I was the problem but as always I was just doing what I was told because that was the only way to avoid dying and how I would get better.

This ultimately led to the decision to kick me out. It wasn’t gradual, there was no notice that this was happening. Just that I needed to be gone. Months earlier my parents had told me not to come back if I was going to choose JDS. Luckily my family did not stand on the don't come back stance they had presented me with. In fact when I called saying she was kicking me out two of my sisters showed up within the hour to clear all of my stuff out. I left nothing there. Three years of my life disappeared while they went on a family day trip.

But this left me asking JDS what about me? She said that place would kill me and now she was sending me back, did my life not matter anymore? I hadn’t developed to a place where I was functioning any better than when I first met her. My anxiety was just as high and my family dynamic was near nuclear because of her. There were no answers for me, only the instruction to leave.

god - death

JDS was still very active in my mental health journey. She would come with me sometimes for med manager appointments. If she couldn’t go she advised me on what medications to ask for and they all made me worse. Eventually she decided to bring me some drugs from a drug rep. When she said she had the sample packets of some medications I asked what that had to do with me because we were having a completely different conversation and I didn't understand the topic change. She said they were the sleep ones for me to try because nothing else was working in her opinion.

When she accompanied me to a psych eval she kept saying that no medication helped me and that she believed I had borderline. The evaluator seemed to talk to her more than me. Which to me was a relief because it had been explained to me as a very long and stressful full day. When the results came back she read it and told me not to read it, that it could negatively impact my well being. I didn't read it until I moved out two years later and I don't think it would have impacted my well being negatively. The evaluator very bluntly stated that I did not have borderline and JDS wasn't willing to lose the hold that had on me. Overreacting and irrational, everything I thought or felt could be dismissed by just saying I was being borderline and she could tell me what was real if I would just listen.

It was my pcp and my sister to first suggest to me that maybe I was on the autism spectrum. JDS strongly disagreed with this and told me that even if I was on the spectrum it was too mild to even matter and that it was a male disorder. Now that was very invalidating at the time because I had already started looking into that world and the things were aligning too well. Suddenly all these things that made me feel like an alien missing the handbook on how to be human not only had a name but a whole community of people who could relate. I began to make my case to JDS with information upon information on the possibility of misdiagnosing Autism with borderline and highlighting lists of traits even she couldn’t deny I had but it was all for nothing.

The therapist I was seeing at the time agreed that it was a possibility but I only saw her once because she insulted christians, which I had to disclose in my debriefing with JDS on everything I had discussed in the session, and so it was decided I couldn't see her anymore. But after some thought about the therapist being willing to indulge the notion of autism she asked if I had already canceled my future appointments. Confused at being questioned about doing what I had been told to do I hesitated to answer and asked why. She said that if the therapist was willing to say that, it was a diagnosis disability couldn't deny. 

One of the few times I got angry was when she said this. Because to me, disability didn't matter as much as figuring out how to get better. I didn't want anymore diagnosis that weren't real because it was my life she was playing with so she needed to make up her mind. She insisted I wasn’t Autistic and it had been causing arguments so I had dropped the subject because I was borderline. Now she wanted me to just go with this diagnosis because it would be convenient not because she believed it was true. 

At this time I got a referral to a different psych eval that would not allow her to attend the appointment with me. Within ten minutes he asked when I had been diagnosed with autism and I said right now? After many hours he said he had enough information and wouldn't make me stay the next two or three hours because it was clearly very uncomfortable for me. Again JDS advised I not read the evaluation and instead summarized it for me. And I began the process of applying for and getting disability.

But I had also developed a deep shame of having autism. The routines that I had relied on since my school days, she had called disruptive and restrictive to my healing journey and her life. The movements, stimming, she had called embarrassing and would cause people to stare and judge me. My muscles ached from the energy it took to stay completely still. She even had me go on a muscle relaxant (through talks with my pcp who she worked with) to try and make the ticks stop, they only made my spine feel like it no longer knew how to support me. If possible the autism should be medicated out of me but none of it worked and I couldn’t remain on the muscle relaxants.

If I was autistic it wasn't enough to matter and ultimately anything to do with it was a choice I was making to upset her. My misunderstanding or needing clarification was no longer a simple explanation but a choice to be difficult and thus worthy of an argument instead. My stimming could be influencing her children so I needed to continue to keep it controlled. My lack of emotional reactions was seen as ungrateful no matter how much I expressed with words how grateful I was.

After three years things started to adjust. I had a therapist who knew what they were doing and I began to think maybe getting better didn't have to feel so terrible. I began playing pokemon with my father and sisters daily. Driving to the city to raid literally all day and becoming part of a community. I moved into my own apartment and began talking to people a little more every week as we played this stupid game together. I made friends in the area I lived in too. 

The friendship continued to disintegrate. All we did was argue week after week and at the time I didn't quite know why. I had stopped showing up the second I was told I could. I stopped backing down when she told me I was wrong without explanation other than she was always right. I endured the silent treatments instead of begging her to talk to me. I stopped picking up the house when I visited. When she put herself down I didn't defend her more than a one sentence counter. 

And after talking it through in therapy and being frustrated with always being put down and blamed. It began and ended with ultimatums, I told her that if I was wrong she was wrong too and she could either admit that or stop talking to me. She stopped talking to me. The only time I heard from her was months later she sent a Christmas email saying I had been missed and I told her to never contact me again. I wouldn't know for another seven years that she didn't understand why I left.

But it didn't stop there. It stopped for her there, three years done and moved on. But for me it kept going. At first in ways I didn't even realize. My friendships kept falling apart because I couldn't maintain them because I didn’t know how to set healthy boundaries. My definition of friend was ironically misrepresented to me. I would do whatever was asked of me whether I wanted to do it or not. And I couldn't understand why I was angry or resentful of the people who were just being good friends. I didn't understand that I was feeling taken advantage of and feeling tugs on the old collar and leash that had been choking me like a noose for years. 

And ten years later I have one sister that still won't talk to me. My mother tells me at least once a week that though she is happy to have me back I am not the child that was taken from her by that woman. My father still doesn’t trust therapy and sees it all as brainwashing. I can only refer to those years as the cult years. I can't watch or read content with religion. Whenever I try to craft I can't enjoy it or spiral after because she took credit for my interest in any of it. I can’t accept whole parts of who I am because I am so ashamed of them and can only see them as failures or flaws within me.

To this day I know that JDS gives herself credit for my very existence. Because without her I would have died in my situation. Any hobbies I enjoyed were because she had motivated me to try new things. I got disability because she had dedicated her life to making sure I got all the help I needed. Any successes I had made even after we were no longer talking was still because of her because she helped me get a therapist. She pushed me to get the car I had which meant even the ability to travel could be credited to her. I applied for living through low income housing after getting on disability which meant she got me my apartment. Everything is because of her.

My new start to life was already stained with the past. She was a ghost haunting my thoughts and perceptions of everything. I could  hear her telling me I was a mutilated monster when I didn’t wear long sleeves. I could hear her annoyed sighs at how ungrateful I was if I didn’t appreciate just the ability to breathe constantly. Anytime I caught myself stimming or ticking or not monitoring and countering my autistic traits I was embarrassed and disgusted with myself. My Autism wasn’t severe enough to matter. For the first time I was truly free. I was an adult with my own money and my own home and I had never felt more imprisoned in my life. 

My days lost all structure and became dictated by what was convenient or acceptable to JDS. She had micromanaged every aspect of my life and then there was no one but me and I was too ashamed to have routines. There was no one to ask when or what I could eat. There was no one dictating how I spent my time be it cleaning or studying the bible. Now I could go back to playing video games and listening to my favorite music and watching whatever I wanted on tv. But instead my anxieties steadily got worse and my shame at the struggles I have grew because I didn’t know how to be me or even who I was without being told what I thought or felt about every little aspect of my life.

Every day I found myself stuck in the same thought patterns. I was a dog to be used and obey and if I didn’t I would be easily thrown away, only now I had no master. My Autism, though enough to be recognized as a disability, wasn’t severe enough to matter and was really only an excuse for behaviors I refused to change. I was addicted to several medications which made the constant I’m no better than a drug addict feel very true even if I was taking prescription medications as directed. I still knew with complete certainty that I was gay but even thinking it to myself caused severe anxiety and paranoia that someone would magically hear the thought. 

Though I had so many unanswered questions about her god and many things I disagreed with strongly and knowing I would not be accepted by such a god, I had still devoted years to the idea that there was a higher power that would magically make things work out if I just believed and devoted myself to the lifestyle. I know by that description it does not sound like belief but for those years I truly attempted to study and believe and pray to be normal, I wasn’t even asking to be happy, I just wanted to be good enough for her to tolerate even if she couldn’t understand or accept everything I was. And I ended up alone and worse off than when I had initially sought the help, at least it felt so. And I couldn’t even be angry with some person in the sky because they couldn’t be there and if they were they were not with or for me.

Luckily I was still working with the therapist who first brought up the possibility that maybe I should question why I was feeling so badly about the friendship. They were very patient with me and very aware of how to deal with a lot of the things I was struggling with. 

I worked with the therapist who showed me what therapy could actually do for someone willing to put in the effort and time. The help I had desperately been seeking did not come from scripture or a friendship, it came from what a therapist learned in a classroom. I did not need to erase or conceal whole parts of myself to blend into society. I could be autistic and gay and awkward and still make friends and leave the house without feeling like I was being judged. 

I continued working with the therapist who taught me my stuttering and ticks were not a source of shame and embarrassment. The more I fought to try to conceal them the worse they got. And they did not tell me my autism was too mild to matter. They began working with me to realize how to better cope in situations that overwhelmed me or how to prepare for something knowing it was going to be stressful.

They didn’t write my family off as an enemy but instead worked with me to learn better communication skills. And worked with me to better process past traumas to control my anxiety better. It got to a point where I was able to have healthy relationships with my family and I am able to set more and more healthy boundaries that are respected.

I no longer have to ask permission to shower or eat or cook. I can have routines that are not disruptive or inconvenient but rather help keep me on track and feeling like I had some sense of control. When I pay rent now it is for the freedom to actually live in the space I am occupying and when I use food stamps it is to cook food I actually enjoy. I can wear tshirts without worrying that I am going to trigger someone or contaminate them with ideas from scars I can't erase, I am not responsible for other's decisions.

Those years I was being told that I was supposed to be happy and I wasn't. So I began to think that happiness was truly just something that I was not compatible with. But any time I showed any emotions that were not deemed acceptable or correct I was punished in some way. Be it the silent treatment or not being allowed back into the house. Maybe she saw this as setting boundaries (too late) but to me it meant being triggered by someone using my past against me or having nowhere to go. So I didn’t have opinions on anything until whoever I was with said how they felt about it and then I mindlessly adopted their view.

Even after it was over it all stayed with me. The fear of people finding out I was gay stays with me even today. It was scary coming out the first time but the worst that could happen was people would stop talking to me and that was already a consistent occurrence at that time. Now I have actually seen how much people can hate that part of you that you can't change. I've been in a room of people regurgitating scripture about love tainted with human hatred, knowing I was an imposter even if I had done everything to convince, even myself, that it was just a trauma response. 

She has stated that this is not the case, she works with LGBTQIA+, and maybe she does. I would be shocked but pleasantly surprised if this were the case but the therapist I worked with and the family I lived with did not tolerate anything even hinting at such things. Even pokemon was banned because it had evolution in it, nevermind that it was made up creatures fighting, evolution was the problem. Maybe what she said wasn't the warning I took it as, I don't work with gay people, I see them once or twice and then pass them along. Maybe I misunderstood, even if I did her homophobia was enough to scare me back into the closet, so if she wasn't even trying it radiates off her, but the message was pretty clear because even I picked it up loud and clear. 

Every friendship I have had since has failed. It took a long time to realize it was because I was trying to apply her rules of friendship to other people. Always being available, dropping everything when summoned, obeying every suggestion as if it had been an order and to do whatever chore or remodel needed to be done. If the partner wouldn't do it then it was now my job, which puts a lot of tension on a relationship and I often am the scapegoat when I thought I was just being a good obedient friend. Always the cheerleader whether they are right or wrong because friends blindly boost the other's ego. All of this was a one way street that benefited the friend and left me wandering around feeling alone and resentful. Friendship was never give and take it was give and hope it will one day be enough to stop being told I was ungrateful or a bad friend or unworthy.

But even working with someone I trusted, which I didn’t think was possible after seeing what someone could do with the ammunition I gave them in the safety of an office, I couldn’t talk about my experience with her. She had referred me to the therapist which meant I didn’t know what the story was. How could I stick to her story if she didn’t tell me what it was. And if I didn’t know what to say the answer was always to say nothing and change the subject. But one nagging thing kept coming up consistently for the next seven years. 

What if she does it to someone else?

Survivor

The idea of filing a complaint against JDS was brought up now and then because I couldn’t seem to move past the thought that she would do it to someone else. And that person might not be as lucky as I had been. They might not have people to fall back on when she was done playing with them and threw them back to the world worse off than when they met her. If she did it again it would be my fault because I didn’t say anything.

But I didn't think that I alone mattered enough to have anything done about what happened. And since nothing bad was occuring there was nothing to report. And if there was something to report no one would believe me, someone on disability and medication, over her an upstanding member of society and the church community. As she had said when my family threatened to file a report if they did I was just as much at fault because I was a willing participant. If JDS was guilty, so was I and I didn’t want whatever that implied to happen when I was trying to get my life together.

Despite this constant dread I couldn’t file a complaint because I still had this twisted loyalty to her. She had trained me so well to not speak of our relationship that it took seven years for me to say anything that wasn’t scripted by her. And I didn’t even mean to say it. During EMDR I casually mentioned that she had often slept with me and it made my skin crawl more than being sexually assaulted. I panicked when I realized what I had said and went on the defense. She had always told me what was happening was fine and no one would believe me anyway. And here this therapist was questioning if that was okay. I sent them the emails of the ultimatum to prove that I wasn’t making it up. My therapist had no idea about any of it because when JDS introduced me she told a very different stormy about how I had essentially stalked her to her church after meeting once and so she ended therapy immediately. But now having thousands of emails saved from over the years the story JDS had told could be rewritten with the truth using her own words as proof.

My therapist sought counsel from a supervisor and they both agreed that a report needed to be made. As always, I kind of pushed this idea aside as it wasn't bad enough, even though it was still destroying me, I still made excuses, the most common being that it was too late. What it really was was my lingering loyalty to remain silent when it came to the topic of her.

But even if it was too late there would be documentation that it had happened. So if she did it again to someone else they would not be alone. My silence would no longer be tormenting me with the possibilities of its consequences. For the first time in my life I was standing up to someone who had deeply wronged me by filing a report. It wasn't until she asked for an extension on her reply that I began to get angry. Not because she asked for an extension but because after writing out the complaint I couldn't stop the nagging realization that it had been ten years.

Ten more years of my life felt like it had been taken from me. Friendships and relationships had been ruined, and continued to be destroyed because of her profound influence over me. This also made me angry because two adjectives kept coming up that I did not want associated with my name. Victim. Vulnerable. I finally for the first time in my life started to think, yes it will help to have it on record and maybe deter her from doing it again knowing that I had spoken, but what about me?

What about me? I had already endured the experience of her and I still wondered if I was happy to have survived. Having all of the trauma she learned about over the six months she was my therapist, thrown back in my face daily and used to manipulate me into doing whatever she wanted whenever she wanted for years. Being told that every part of me needed to be taken apart, analyzed, and reassembled into a more acceptable human. I thought I was used to making myself smaller and invisible so I didn't think it would be so hard or harmful. But I wasn't making myself smaller; she was cutting away whole parts of me and trying to staple on what she preferred. Being told that I was way too much to possibly handle while also never being quite enough to reach set expectations or to be worth all the effort she had to go through dealing with me. Losing my entire family and being expected to be grateful to just have her's as a replacement.

It is easy to think back at all the red flags and even easier to say how stupid I was. But things didn't happen quickly. Appointments became constant emailing. Emailing became store visits. At this time if I didn't jump at every opportunity she would tell me that I was resisting progress and her help and she couldn't help someone that didn't want to be helped. If she offered extra time I needed to be available and if she said she would be at a store after work I had better already be in that parking lot waiting. Because she wasn't going to waste her time on someone who didn't want what she had to offer. Store visits became church. That's over about four months. During which it was established that if I truly didn't want to die I needed to get away from my family. It was also established that my being gay was a result of trauma from a past relationship. This she could relate to because she had also been abused. And I took up sewing because then we could go on more trips to the store and she could show me her projects. I could read the bible and she would be so pleased with me because then she got to preach while answering none of my questions.

Here is where it is still very easy for me to fall into it was all my fault. But there is that word again, vulnerable. For the first time in my life someone was responding to me in a positive way and I didn't realize that was something I had been missing until someone offered it to me. She was making extra time for me, she was in constant contact, she was making extra time in her schedule for me, she was bringing me food from home, she was putting in so much effort just for me. I didn't know this wasn't normal. She was my first therapist, was I naive, yes, but I wasn't the one who took college courses on ethics and boundaries.

Church became weekends at her house. Weekends became Tuesdays and a few extra days. Days became moving in. Over time she went from being my therapist to my friend to a god. She needed me to see her word as law and to obey her like my life depended on it. I lifted her up in any way she required, be it emotionally or contradicting something negative someone else said or what she thought about herself. My family was right when they said it was like I worshiped her. And she had always told me that even if I said something I had done wrong too so I would get in trouble with her. So after filing the complaint I also waited for what backlash came for me. Would I lose disability or my food stamps or my housing? Would no provider want to work with me because I was a potential risk to their job? 

Everything I had was because of her and if she went down then everything I had would be lost too. So I thought. Until I made a report and it got me really thinking. Now for all its ups and downs this life was mine the second I went into fight or flight against my own mind wanting to kill itself and not acting on it. Enduring those panic attacks day after day. I wouldn't have anything if I hadn't made the decision to give life one more chance and ask for help. One of the hardest words in the entire world to say and yet even whispered can carve itself through your entire life creating a whole journey I almost missed.

Now back to the beginning. I never thought I would be taken seriously. When I realized that people were willing to listen I got anxious because it had been drilled into me to remain silent and I had told everything I could prove through emails at least. But this led to a lot of pain not just facing all that had happened but realizing people would now decide to what extent it mattered. And for the first time I realized I mattered, I didn't want it to happen again still, but i mattered too. I was no longer satisfied with a note in her file or some classes. Because what could a few classes teach her that a whole college degree couldn't? 

Then the day came and the word revocation came up immediately. Already I was an emotional mess not because of that word but because everyone on that board was discussing what happened logically and seriously. She had no way to bias them. In fact her response to my complaint was viewed as more evidence of her arrogance and inability to understand what she had done to another human being. And the fact that she had asked for an extension to take a class on dual relationships wasn’t seen as taking the matter seriously and getting a headstart on the potential consequences the board decided to deal out. It only made it worse.

For the first time in the entire time I had known her, her catchphrase “I'm Jezebel Delilah Salome and I'm always right” held no weight to these people. They only cared about the facts and they weren't questioning my credibility or sanity but criticizing her incompetence in the situation and the arrogance of her response. I had not allowed myself to even hope for a revocation of her license. For months I had already been trying to come to terms with it being a note in her file no one would read. I had not allowed myself to even hope for a revocation of her license.

Revocation. But can she just reapply? At first I thought I could only be at peace with never. And I had to sit with it for about two weeks. Ten years to reapply seemed fitting. That was the same sentence I had served. 

Then I felt guilty. Did I ruin a life because I couldn't just get over the damage? Did I take someone else's therapist away from them? Then I remembered what happened at the hearing,  the information of the meeting truly settled in. My chest felt lighter like for the first time in my entire life I could finally breathe. The noose strangling me was gone. The talons in my back pushing me into silent obedience out of twisted loyalty were gone. The relief I felt was so foreign that I mistook it for panic, this feeling was new and to my brain that meant bad. But I only needed to talk it through and really let what happened sink in. 

Turns out the first thing I could do with this feeling of freedom was cry and deep breath. It was actually over. Did I still have a long way to go, of course, I'm beginning to think I will always have a ways to go. But now I was headed towards something and not trying to run or hide or keep the secrets and silence. I could still be something and I could  still make friends. I've lived with the ghost of her for ten years but after that first breath and realizing I was very much alive, life didn't crumble by telling the truth. With help from the right people I had finally defeated my final boss. Always the hardest boss of the game and it turned out to be me. Then that cutscene happened where you finally have the boss down and all your backup shows up to support you and land those final blows, take some of the hits for you so you could finally take a breath. In the weeks that followed I allowed myself to let my guard down and I forgot to worry and just celebrated being validated and listened to and acknowledged as a human being.

But I knew who I was dealing with and as the time for her window to sign the consent agreement drew near I had my doubts. Despite everyone's optimism I held onto my doubts and anxiety because I knew how watching that hearing had been from her perspective. She would have seen herself as the victim and felt very attacked. And the worst part was not being able to say anything, because in her mind if she could just explain it all to them then she could make them understand that what she had done was right or justified or necessary. So when the date came and went I wasn't surprised but that weight that had only just left me slowly began to settle right back into place. It wasn’t even gone long but I felt weaker and the things I had carried for a decade were crushing me now, like they had tripled in weight.

I kept reminding myself it wasn't personal. She was the main income in her house and she had to try to save her job. But it still felt like she would rather strangle me than to just let go of the leash she had always held me by. That was what it felt like, being a dog, being owned, having someone yank me back suddenly by a leash that has felt more and more like a noose the more I fight against it. Because dogs that disobey get punished and every time I didn't do as was expected or did something she didn't approve of I was punished. And I so easily slipped back into that mindset that she would always win and always have this power over my life.

Now it is not personal but I still suffer for her ego and pride and refusal to admit she is capable of doing wrong. It was wrong when she started hugging me during sessions, wrong when she got my sister's number from my emergency contact because I was hanging out with a high school friend she didn't like and came to their house just to tell me I couldn't go to her house, wrong when she told me she didn't work with LGBTQIA+ community, wrong when she had me meeting up at stores, wrong to schedule messages for me cause it would be good for me, wrong to talk about religion because it made her happy, wrong to invite me to church every week and then to her house, wrong to give me an ultimatum, wrong to befriend me, wrong to dictate my life, wrong to take my opportunity to grow and learn with a proper therapist.

As hard as it was to read through old emails it was also surprisingly redeeming. I had always thought I was so stupid and submissive to her but there were periodic indications of my refusal to completely let her win. I did hesitate about becoming her friend. I told her after that I missed feeling like I was making progress. I argued about things I didn't understand and was met with consequences or being told I asked too many questions but I kept asking the questions. I fought for my opportunity to be diagnosed as autistic whether it was too mild to matter or not because it was important to me. 

I lost friends and family and myself. It was only three years for her, it has been ten years for me. She got to walk away unscathed while I felt like I had barely made it through fully intact. When I was finally free it felt worse than the freedom she had offered me from my family. I had very little support and a whole new kind of trauma added to all of my unresolved past trauma. 

I made the complaint with the intention that even if nothing came of it, as hard as that would be, at least what happened to me would be on record. So if she did try to do it to someone else, which had been a constant source of anxiety since I left, there would already be something on file. But as the process started, for the first time in my life, I thought "what about me?" Yes, I didn't want anyone else to go through what I had, but it had already happened to me. Didn't I matter? Surprisingly I found myself answering that yes, I did in fact matter. 

After not signing the consent agreement I realized I would be called to testify to my experience at a hearing. It was a constant battle to try to remember that the board hadn’t changed their minds it was up to JDS to try to do that. The board was still on my side.

For the first two months I was living off the high of feeling validated and knowing my experience was being taken seriously. But that couldn’t last forever and I couldn’t stop thinking about how the board had not followed through with what they said in that meeting. JDS was a danger to the community and needed to stop practicing as soon as possible. Expedite. But that wasn’t happening.

Months passed and there was nothing for me to do. Unlike with filing the complaint and even waiting for the board meeting that would hear my case there was nothing for me to do. I had already done my part of going through the hundreds of emails and trying to make sure the right ones weren’t lost in the masses. But I was stuck in a waiting room with nothing to do but think.

What would I do if they went back on everything they had said? They already hadn’t expedited the process. What trick did she have up her sleeve that gave her the confidence to drag it out into a hearing? When and what would I lose? I began to tear myself apart because I couldn’t breathe in the empty waiting room I locked myself in. I couldn’t just move on or pretend it wasn’t happening and I had no information on what was even going on.

Then I got notified that an adjustment to the consent agreement was going before the board. They would either accept it and it would officially be over or they would deny it. By this point despite the toll it was taking I didn’t want them to accept all of her demands.

The fines they wanted her to pay to make a point were negotiated down to not even the amount of one of the fines. JDS picked the date she would stop working because she needed time to close with clients. Like it hadn’t already been six months. Instead of revoking the license she would surrender it so in the end even if it was bad it could still look a little better on paper. They kept saying it would spare me from having to go through a hearing as if I hadn’t already been through ten years of this hell. They were not doing me any favor and if they had truly cared about the public they would have expedited the process or suspended her license until it was all sorted out. In the end JDS got whatever she wanted even in losing.

I was preparing for a huge battle for six months and then it was over. There was nothing I could do or say. All of the things she had done that I hadn’t reported because I didn’t have evidence would stay with me. Really everything that had happened will stay with me.