The Therapist seems to care about his family. You know what Therapist? I care about mine too.
I’m not a little client living alone on a deserted island. When you hurt me more than the situation required, you wounded me, and thereby affected how I can care for my family.
I’m not sure how you justify hurting my family while simultaneously asking me to be quiet and not upset yours. The sheer hypocrisy of that boggles my mind. Also, I never thought of you as someone who thought that way. Had I known, I would’ve shared less with you because I would’ve felt less safe.
Perhaps you figured that therapists are so much more influential than clients that hurting me wouldn’t have much of a ripple effect. It’s difficult for me to think of you as being that ignorant, but I don’t understand how you could think hurting me would stop with me.
If I’m hurt I’m a worse or weaker version of myself. Believe it or not, Mr. Big Almighty Powerful Therapist, you aren’t the only one of us who has children and family and friends. I have influence and responsibilities with mine and that’s why I say, you can’t hurt me without indirectly hurting many other people too.
I’m not as small and as insignificant as you must’ve thought I was when you drew up the plan for my termination and later when you tried to bully me into silence.
I couldn’t let you bully me even if I wanted to, because I can’t set that as an acceptable example to all of the young people who I’m around. The young people will have to manage this world one day and I’m not going to influence them to think that the way to do that is to shut up and stay in the boxes that powerful people place them in.
You and I used to talk about politics and all kinds of interesting subjects. It should come as no surprise that I’m going to hold you to a high standard of behavior.
I don’t appreciate you punching down on me and then wanting me to be quiet about it. I’m not a good choice of client to bully.
When you get annoyed or angry with me, please try to remember that you threw the first punch, and I reached out to you several times to try to resolve this, but you wouldn’t talk with me. The fact remains that you can fix this if you ever feel so inclined. I, however, am suffering and can’t just wait around doing nothing and hope that you decide to do the brave and right thing one day.
So take your time, but remember, this affects more people than just me because I’m not small. I’m not an ex client who lives on a deserted island.