While I’ve discovered that therapy might not be right for my personality overall, I’m glad I went to a different counselor for some short term support after my bad experience with Aaron Gleaves.
Having someone listen to me about my painful experience with bad therapy helped me feel listened to and understood. That’s a crucial element in my healing because one of the last things my bad therapist did was to not listen to me and shut me out.
I recommend getting another therapist if you’ve been treated badly by one, and here are a few of my reasons:
- Replacing my emotionally-weak therapist reiterated that he is absolutely replaceable. He isn’t a special snowflake and the only right therapist for me in the whole wide world. When I thought about it, what I lost with him couldn’t have been too great because it was with him and he turned out to be not so great in some ways that are dealbreakers to me.
I think clients often undervalue themselves because they know their therapist has many clients, while they only have one therapist.
I belong to no therapist, and it’s been empowering for me to remind myself of that by going to a different one. - Replacing my second rate therapist with another therapist gave me the opportunity to be listened to, which reiterates that I’m worth listening to. When my poor quality therapist shut me out, it sent the message that I’m not worth listening to.
When I think about how the most basic requirement of his job was to listen and how he ended up getting paid for 2 sessions at the end when he didn’t really listen to me at all, I get angry, and rightfully so. Replacing him helped me to correct his harmful message, because I am worth listening to! - Replacing my under-skilled therapist with a skilled therapist made the bad one seem much smaller and less significant. This goes back to him being replaceable, but it’s also more than that. He isn’t a larger than life movie star, even if he happens to look like one. He isn’t a star at all, just a bad actor.
Sure, getting thrown away by a great looking guy, even if it’s only in the context of therapy and not romance, sucks extra bad, not gonna lie. It kind of stings my ego. However, it’s a great opportunity to reaffirm what I think are the most important qualities I want in a man. There are qualities more important than being nice to look at.
The cherry on top is that the therapist I replaced Aaron with also turned out to be good looking.
Ha—my old therapist really was every bit as replaceable to me as I was to him.