Ethical Rage

Vulnerability has always been hard for me. I’ve always been able to push myself to be vulnerable because I know that’s what it takes in therapy to get anywhere. But it’s always been hard. And now, it’s amplified.

After opening up, I have to move through all the defenses that immediately pop up afterward. I’m exhausted. I’m angry. And with everything in me, I hope the board makes my second therapist take courses on ethical care so she has to hold herself accountable to better judgment calls.

I read through her email. Every line checks the boxes needed to try to stay within ethical lines. But the email also contains blatant lies, and ending things that way was clinically poor judgment. I’m trying so hard to process this without having rage sitting right on the tip of my tongue, and it’s fucking hard.

I’m tired of people using the bare minimum of ethics to justify poor care. Ethical standards are the minimum. The bare minimum of expectations. And when you can’t even meet that and have to carefully word an email to twist things so it seems ethical, it’s pathetic.

I’m tired of hiding my anger to make myself more palatable, more put together, more “believable.” The truth is: what happened was not okay. It was not ethical. It harmed me in ways I still can’t put words to. I’m stuck struggling because of a clinician’s huge fucking ego and poor judgment. And I’m angry.

And that doesn’t mean what I’m saying isn’t the truth.

Yes, some of what I’m saying is perception-based judgment.

But the facts of what happened… that’s truth.

My perception of her character is my perception based on my experience with her.

I hate her.

I hate that she gets to sit across from people and hear their most tender, painful stories while knowing she has no problem completely destroying them if it means protecting her own sense of self. Has no problem destroying them when the mirror is being held up in the form of a client questioning the dissonance between what is said and what is shown.

Author Note:

If my anger makes you question whether I’m honest or not, you wouldn’t believe me either way.