A Therapist Told Me, “I’m The Only One Who Can Help You”

Let’s all take a moment to just read that title again because that’s what was actually said to me in a posh therapist’s office in Pasadena, California sometime around 2011.

Before I tell you what prompted this malpractice-worthy statement, let’s set the scene.

I was in my late twenties and finally ready to unpack some of the trauma I’d been navigating on my own for more than two decades.

Or rather, I was almost ready. I always knew I’d end up in therapy someday; when you go through a certain amount of trauma, it’s just prudent to give it a try, if only for a while.

I had been doing okay in my life, but I’d just been on a few dates with a nice guy who also revealed that he’d been through some trauma. When I told him honestly that I didn’t think I was in a place to enter a relationship, he stream-rolled over my bullshit answer and I was too dumb not to over-disclose that I had a lot of apprehension about dating.

He gave me a glowing recommendation of his own therapist. I was broke and unless it was at some weird free clinic, I did not see the possibility of a long-term arrangement for treatment. But he was persuasive.

“Seriously, this will be so good for you,” he said. “I’d even happily pay for a session.” I felt uncomfortable with that idea, but also so overcome with gratitude for the generous offer that I agreed to at least check this guy out.

The therapist was enthusiastic about helping and told me he wouldn’t take my money, at least not at first. Just come in for an hour and we’ll see what’s what. We had a nice first session, and if I recall correctly, we had two more.

No talk of money.

I didn’t have a lot of reference of what therapy would be like. I’d had one session at my Cal State University’s counseling center a few years prior and this tiny little old woman in tiny old woman glasses sat there judging me while I talked about how fucked up my family was. I didn’t even get to anything that I had actually intended to talk about- I was just warming up to see how it felt to talk to her.

She didn’t say anything- she just stared. Then at one point, my words almost pushed me past the stoicism that had been forced on me my entire life and she criticized me for not crying and told me she thought it would be a good idea if I came back the following week.

The college offered 10 free sessions and although I was at an emotional impasse I didn’t know how to cross, I could not imagine spending another nine hours with that woman, even spread over a semester; even spread over a lifetime.

But I always figured I’d actually be “in therapy” someday. Too much had happened for me not to eventually process it all with a professional.

I don’t remember his name; Let’s call him Dr. Assface.

So, Dr. Assface had actually been really nice. At one point we’d jumped into some pretty deep trauma, beyond what felt like a good idea. He saw it, too. I had a moment of like… yikes, how will I go back into the world now that I’ve opened up this wound, it’s just going to leak all over my life.

I don’t remember what kind of therapist-magic he worked, but I felt okay a few minutes later.

“Sometimes we have to sew you back up a little,” he said.

He was growing on me. I’m easy-going about self-disclosure and I can speak pretty comfortably about heavy things, but it takes a lot for me to actually trust someone.

It didn’t occur to me that spending three sessions with this guy would build up my feelings of trust, only to tempt me to pay beyond my means to keep coming back.

I’m positive, however, that it occurred to him.

“So, let’s talk about money,” he announced, with ten minutes left of our third session.

I had health insurance, but his office didn’t take what I had. He gave me his rate; I think he might have told me it was his discounted rate. Only $250. Per. Week.

This guy was under the delusion that I could afford to hand over $1000 a month. I was making about $1500 a month at the time and it didn’t even cover my bills. And that’s what I told him. Every penny was accounted for, and I was going deeper into debt each month. Even when I got a considerable raise a few months later, I was still sinking into debt.

When I’d said I couldn’t afford therapy, I wasn’t being coy or cheap. I just didn’t see how it could be an option in that moment.

“This isn’t about the $1000,” Dr. Assface clarified, insinuating his point so assiduously that it felt like it was somehow true.

He told me it didn’t matter how much it was, I’d still find a problem with paying for it; it was a deeper problem. I told him my only problem with money was that I wasn’t making any.

“No,” he said. “This is a deep issue with money. You have some serious issues going on here.”

It was like I wasn’t even talking to the same person I’d spent three sessions opening up to.

“Well,” I said, disappointed, but also completely prepared for the moment, “As I suspected in the beginning, this isn’t going to work out.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” he said. “I’m the only person who can help you.”

I truly don’t know if I responded to that, but I can’t imagine speaking after hearing those words. Maybe I laughed it off. I don’t know if I was angry yet; I think I was more dumbfounded.

But I remember walking down the long hallway out of the fancy glass-everything Pasadena office building, with the absurd suggestion that my problems were so significant that out of the entire world, the only person who could help me was this fat old white man who expected a 29-year-old girl with a low-paying job and no savings to pay $1000 a month for therapy.

And honestly, thank God I didn’t have the money, because for all the damage Dr. Assface did that day without me paying him, imagine what he could have done to me if I did!

“I’m the only one who can help you,” seems like a pretty dramatic warning to drop on someone who doesn’t even have a mental illness; just some trauma that needed to be spoken out loud and understood a little better.

I’ve met far beyond my share of emotionally abusive people; I think trauma survivors are especially vulnerable to the weird tactics used by narcissists and gaslighters, particularly before we’ve been primed to understand their evasive techniques. But I believe there’s a special place in hell for mental health professionals who have the gall to manipulate their patients.

Part of me immediately retreated to the well-trained part of my brain that learned early on to say “fuck you” when people tried to sell me their BS. This problematic trauma response has honestly served me incredibly well, in spite of the inevitable side effects like, oh I don’t know, lacking trust for all things and people.

But there was also a deeper part of me that internalized that statement.

For years, I had thought of therapy as breaking the emergency glass. Whenever I got stuck in a slump or felt my trauma symptoms spiraling, I would always remind myself, “someday you’ll go to therapy and take care of this once and for all. That option is always there for you.”

Meanwhile, I’d done a really good job surviving without any help from anyone.

But with that statement, “I’m the only one who can help you,” my last hope for thriving suddenly felt like an empty glass case with no fire-extinguisher inside.

If I’d had the wherewithal, I would have reported Dr. Assface, but instead, I left his ritzy all-glass building and never looked back.

I did a six-month run of therapy somewhere else a few years later. It was on a sliding scale and the whole experience was honestly pretty “eh.” I think finding the right therapist match would’ve made a big difference, but she was okay. She was affordable, and she helped me process some things I had never been able to look at before, and that was valuable to me.

“That’s a lot to go through,” she said one day after hearing a particularly heavy part of my trauma story. “How did you survive?”

And I realized that I had survived by becoming incredibly strong.

Granted, I shouldn’t have had to acquire stories that we follow up with the word “survive” when we tell them… But sometimes people fuck you up, and sometimes those people forget to “sew you back up” so you have to learn how to do it yourself.