Who I Am, Why I’m Writing This

My name is Matt. In 2018, I started seeing a therapist and after a year or so, things got weird. After three years, she told me she loved me. We never had sex, but the boundary violation was certainly sexual. The damage I experienced was real and devastating. Patients aren’t usually the authors of case studies, but I thought it was important to document how it happened and the impact these boundary violations had on me. As I looked online for stories like mine, I found none, so I hope to help people by letting those who may be in similar circumstances know that they are not alone.

I also want to debunk the stereotype that sexual boundary violations are a uniquely male therapist-female patient thing. There are, in fact, substantially more female therapists than male ones and in any large population there will be bad and exploitative people. Here, in fact, is another such story that recently came out in which a female therapist sexually preyed on a male patient for years.

I’ve been in therapy now for over two years since leaving Sam, with the singular goal of getting over the experience. Yes, that’s right: I am in therapy to get over my previous therapist. I have a current diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Chronic. That’s a diagnosis you usually associate with soldiers in war and some psychologists would say that it’s not appropriate for me because PTSD requires a fear of death. So, I should say that the treatment I am undergoing is the same as for PTSD since many of the symptoms (minus fear of physical harm) have been the same: reliving the same moments over and over, looking for ways to have escaped, rumination, thoughts that the only way to end the pain is death.

Just a few words about myself: I am a successful professional, well educated at a top college, had never been clinically depressed or suicidal, have always been in good touch with my emotions, am open and honest with people, and believed that therapy was a great way to better understand aspects of my life and get to know myself better in general. I am married, live in a nice house in a nice suburb, make good money, have (or had) an active social life, am active in my community. In short, as this story begins, I am a basically normal, middle-class, middle-aged man.