The Trauma of Therapy

Content Warning: discussions of su*cide and post traumatic stress disorder ahead. This is not an endorsement of using ChatGPT for therapy, but the elevation of the topic.

I was checked in to a psychiatric hospital at the age of 16, shortly before my 17th birthday. My first therapist after getting out of hospitalization was a white man named Michael Carney that demanded to look through my phone. I chose to calmly hand it over because I didn’t care enough to be concerned. I didn’t know this man, and frankly didn’t care what he thought of me. I also had just come from the brink of searching for death and the only thing I had in my phone that I was worried about were a couple notes that I had well buried.

After about 5 minutes he scrolled through and then came to the conclusion that I “didn’t react or have anything weird like others.”

Eventually after he cursed me out over text message calling me a fucker and a few other things I don't remember for being on the way but late around maybe our fourth session. I did not drive and had parents that worked like crazy. I had no control over when I arrived. My mom took the phone and went off on him. I never saw him again, but I have had my fair share of bad therapists since then.

The last therapist I saw ghosted me for a month when my insurance temporarily lapsed. She reappeared after ignoring my messages asking me when we would meet again like nothing had happened. This was when I was at the height of the ongoing derealization I have been stuck with for a year and a half. My therapist before that stopped being on camera a few months into our sessions and eventually started running errands, very clearly not listening and repeating the same thing.

During a therapist intro call in that year, the therapist called me nasty names and abruptly ended the session. Why? She said that insurance wouldn’t allow anyone to do more than one therapist intro call in one week. This was because she asked if I was actively looking for therapists and I told her she would be my second call that week. (This is untrue, by the way and not at all how insurance works) Terrible therapists have made me absolutely anxious of the process.

Bad therapists come in all shapes and sizes but we rarely talk about how traumatic the therapy process can be. The last three therapists I mention here were Black women. I have had many kinds of therapists, and very few have been excellent. There are therapists I still wish I had but I moved or they changed fields, and good therapists can be hard to find.

This year a conversation broke out online about people using Chat GPT as their therapists, and the response was largely to mock them. Using Chat GPT as a therapist can be dangerous for a multitude of reasons, including the fact that AI - while a threat - is still not capable or providing complex safe and well balanced/informed feedback enough to be a therapist. But what if the reason that people are turning to AI isn’t just for a sounding board, but to avoid the very real trauma therapists can inflict?

Recounting these caused me a little bit of anxiety in writing this today. I have not only CPTSD, but a panic disorder in addition to other neurodivergent comorbidities. Being blindsided by the behavior of my therapists wasn’t just painful, it was deeply traumatizing. Seeing what was supposed to be a safe space turn into a deeply painful process multiple times wounded me. PTSD, also known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, can become CPTSD or Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. CPTSD is more so characterized by sustained or repeated forms of traumatic events over a single incident injury. Re-traumatization can be harmful to people in any state, but with CPTSD it can cause more damage to an already struggling brain.

Ever since all of this, I decided to use alternative methods of taking care of my mental health. Because I am a researcher and educator at heart I am able to create some solutions that help aid my health until I can eventually find a safe professional. I work closely with my psychiatrist and continue to find ways that keep me level including speaking with my elders. Not everyone can do this, not everyone knows where to begin.

Instead of chastising people for using ChatGPT, we should be finding ways to educate them on the dangers while comprehensive alternatives. The mental health field is deeply broken and way too many people run unchecked, it needs to change. Even for an extremely well versed mental health educator and mentally ill person, I am overwhelmed by it. If I didn’t know better, I wouldn't be able to do better either.

It’s easy to see why a person would choose to talk to a robot over the 15 year professional that calls them a fucker.

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