Tw for mention of suicide attempt
This woman has caused me so much grief. I havent been around much over the past few years because we cut complete contact with her family. Long story short: stuck up elitist MIL manipulated husband for years, alienated me behind my back and spread vicious lies about my mental health condition to get her family to dislike me. Classic smear campaign that worked. I had not seen her in 8 years. Her husband had sexually harassed me and was moving onto our preschooler and she called me a white trash liar. She heard of my psych unit stay after my mental health diagnosis and told her family she was concerned about what would happen to my daughter when I inevitably killed myself. NO help. NO support. No words of encouragement, no help with my daughter, just bullying behind my back.
Today, I left my therapy session and saw her in the lobby. I went “OH GOD FUCKING DAMN IT” and immediately went into the bathroom to call my husband. After, I heard MY THERAPIST call her back. I was so shaky. I couldnt drive. I immediately messaged my therapist to tell her and to request that my appointments not be scheduled near hers because I cannot see her again. I didnt expect to be so triggered. I guess seeing an unsafe person in my safe place was just too much.
I trust my therapist, I have worked with her for 6 years and i know she will uphold confidentiality. I am irrationally afraid that my therapist has believed my MIL’s lies. This bitch tried to add me on Instagram several months ago and the thought of her painting herself as the victim to my therapist disgusts me. Maybe my therapist was giving her advice on reconnecting and she had no idea who the horrible daughter in law really was. I am spinning an entire tale in my head to try to make sense of this. I solved the problem, I dont have to see her in the office again. Is there anything I am missing here? Am I going crazy? The shock has me feeling like my progress has been destroyed (it hasn’t) and like my number 2 safe place has been stolen.
UPDATE!
We had a phone session and none of us knew until yesterday. My MIL has to go to a different practice entirely and I dont think she even got to have her session yesterday. Good. Bitch.
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Your therapist should not be seeing both of you as it’s a conflict of interest. She should “fire” who ever she saw 2nd. It may have initially been a coincidence. Now that it’s known, it needs to be resolved.
Do you suspect MIL found out who your therapist is and scheduled with her on purpose? That would be an over-the-top boundary violation. What does DH say?
Tomorrow call your therapist and let her know, again, that you saw your abusive MIL in her office. Seeing your abuser is beyond horrible.
Holy shit that sounds awful. I’m sorry. I don’t think I’d be able to continue seeing this therapist knowing she also saw my MIL.
Obviously your therapist has to respect MIL’s confidentiality too, but if I were you, I’d be asking a lot more questions. Like is it common for a therapist to see an abuser and their victim separately? (You didn’t use this language so I apologize if it doesn’t fit, but she sounds horribly abusive) What precautions does a therapist take when hearing both sides of the same story, how do they ensure seeing one client doesn’t impede their ability to treat the other? I can’t believe this is actually allowed but what do I know…
Hope you can relax and calm down tonight.
Is your therapist aware of the connection now? This seems like too much of a coincidence to be by chance. Ball is in therapist’s hands. Only go back if she promises to fire MIL. If she has any reason to believe that MIL did this as a way to intimidate you or be in your space she should be banned from the entire practice. Perhaps if your therapist drops her you could ask her to also inform her colleagues to refuse her as a patient.
I’m not a therapist but a question for other therapists here—is this even ethical on the therapist’s end?
Does your therapist work solo, or is she a member of a practice? She can’t see both of you; she’ll have to drop one of you as a client.
Are you sure you can go on with this therapist, at this office, since MIL has tainted things and invaded your safe space? I imagine you might be dealing with the additional stress and “what-ifs” for a long time after this. Maybe you should look into finding a new therapist, or ask if your current therapist has a satellite office or if she can do remote appointments.
How did your therapist react when you texted her? As others have said and speculated, this seems like it would be a conflict of interest
This is a massive conflict of interest- not sure where you’re at, but we are in Alberta, and my husband and I are not allowed to go to the same therapist as the minor child that we very much get along with because of conflict of interest. You need to question the crap out of your therapist because this is very unethical. This assumes that the therapist knew who was who though- if it’s just an innocent mistake, your therapist will absolutely drop her as a client if they’re worth anything.
hooooly crap you poor dear! that is seriously traumatizing and your reaction was extremely understandable and valid. but you immediately took action and solved the problem, that is a massive win.
are you able to get in with an emergency appointment with your therapist? you are NOT going crazy but YEAH that was triggering AS FUCK and it might help to have an additional session to process. especially because it seems awfully suspicious that there are multiple therapists at the practice and WOW you just happen to have the same one? not to mention how many therapists are there in the area? i find it very hard to believe it is random coincidence that jnmil is seeing the same person, and that could add another layer of triggering.
sending you hugs, i’m so sorry this happened.
You don’t have to do everything at once. Breathe first. Cry, scream, whatever. I’m so sorry you’re trust was violated and that your safe space was taken from you.
This truly isn’t ethical and it’s a huge betrayal of your trust by the therapist, OP. This makes her inherently unsafe for you and I would leave, leave a public review and contact her licensing board. This is a breach of the professional code of ethics and makes me doubt her practice in serious ways. She absolutely knew and made the choice to hide that from you. And she’s not even careful enough to keep y’all apart.
If she’s seeing you both, she’s not going to be able to remain objective and you want someone who is trustworthy and only in your corner, not working their own “I feel good about trying to help them reconcile or I want to fix to this family” angle/fantasy. The rules against this are a big deal because it harms the clients. It’s not a small slip up. It’s not an oopsie. Her response will tell you a lot but there’s no excuse for this.
If it’s a group practice, they’re still supposed to disclose that to both of you and schedule you far apart. There a lot of protocols and it sounds like she did none of them. She didn’t give you informed consent when she knows your abuse history. That’s not trauma informed. It’s not safe practice. And now it’s done you a lot of harm. I’m so sorry
It was Extremely UNPROFESSIONAL of your therapist to take MIL on as a patient! Should not have EVER happened.
If your therapist isn’t dropping one of y’all, no matter how much you trust the therapist, they’re completely unprofessional.
Qualified ethical therapists do not see family members!!!!
Your life is a fucking tv show WTF
Unless she is really dense, your therapist has known this entire time, there’s no possible way she hasn’t recognized the names and elements of each of your narratives/stories that you tell in sessions. (for “names” I mean your MIL is likely saying your first name in her sessions and you are calling her your MIL, and obviously if you have the same last names, well, there’s that lol)
I’m very curious to hear how your therapist handles this.
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First of all, I am so sorry OP. I actually know how this feels. I found out (accidentally) that the therapist my just no mom went to see after our estrangement was the therapist I saw for years and years as an adolescent and teenager. It made me blind with rage, and even though I was NC at that point I called my mom and unleashed on her. I hadn’t seen this therapist in decades, but it still felt like this huge violation and intention eff you to me – which of course is exactly what she wanted it to be.
The therapist has sadly since passed away and my mother was never going to go more than a handful of times for the performance of it, but yeah…I feel your pain.
It sounds like your therapist probably doesn’t know she is your MIL, unless you’ve specifically told her her name, or if you share an uncommon last name or whatever. Your JNMIL probably did it on purpose.
My advice would be to discuss this with your therapist in your next session. Be totally matter of fact about it – she is my horrible MIL, I am not comfortable with this – what do you suggest we do to move forward? And then see what your therapist says. Update us!
Did your therapist not say anything like “omg I had no idea, I will remove her as a client”?
If MIL has narcissistic traits, it’s my guess that this is deliberate and egotistical attempt of MIL to:
• Maintain an image of how people see her
• Continue a smear campaign against you, and
• Fulfil a desire to control the narrative of what’s happened to you, OP.
Whether or not you trust your therapist to keep confidentiality or to believe you over MIL, it’s a conflict of interest.
My sister and I looked into going to therapy at the same clinic because of a shared frustration with our narc parents (and with each other tbh), and the therapist we talked to (independently) said that unless we were asking to do therapy together, she wouldn’t take us both on as individual clients due to “something something code of conduct.”
Whether this was a personal thing she held herself to, or a policy of that particular practice, or a policy for therapists in general, I can’t say.
This would absolutely be worth talking to someone about. Perhaps not directly to your therapist, but if they’re part of a practice with a supervisor who doesn’t have any other information regarding you and MIL, it might be prudent to ask them if this is acceptable or not and if one or the other of you should voluntarily leave or be dismissed from the practice.
Switch the therapist, take no risks.
She tried, didn’t she? She tried to stick her nose into your business, and force you to see her. The levels they’ll stoop to never cease to amaze me. My guess is that somehow, some way, she found out who your therapist was, and purposefully went to this therapist to mentally torture you. You do indeed have a good therapist since when you texted her, and she realized this was your mil, she canceled on her and told her she’d have to go elsewhere. Until you said that, I was going to suggest you start over and find a new therapist, instead of letting her infiltrate your world, but thankfully, your therapist took care of it. That was a really $hitty move on her part, and it is just an example of the crap they put us through. Maybe this will show your therapist the level of crazy mil you have to deal with. You have every right to be shaken up by this, and your therapist can start helping you deal with this, seeing her in the lobby, trying to push herself into your world must have been so enraging. What did your husband think about this? Do you suppose she thought that when you told him, he’d be angry and call her, and used it as a way to start a communication line again? She might have been using this method as a way to break no contact. These mil’s are crafty, aren’t they?
Believe it or not this may actually be a good thing. My ex and I went for maybe two or three couples counseling sessions where he encouraged the counselor to “fix” me (while I was pregnant with our second). Turns out he was banging his receptionist – not joking.
I returned for individual counseling shortly after and during the divorce and wow did she (the counselor) have a LOT to say which helped me quite a bit. She told me she felt sorry for me as soon as she met my ex. (And she did a great job of getting him to open up).
Your therapist will probably now have a whole new appreciation of what you’ve been dealing with and may even be able to give you new strategies and words of wisdom!
Please keep us updated!
You’re not crazy, running into someone who traumatized you in a space that’s supposed to be safe will shake anyone. The fact that your therapist immediately handled it and MIL has to find a new practice proves you still have control here. She didn’t steal your progress, she just accidentally reminded you why NC was the right choice.
Not going crazy. You got triggered, normal AF given her history. Seeing her in a “safe space” is terrifying; your instincts were spot-on. The important part: you acted, set boundaries, and your therapist respects them. Progress isn’t erased because a toxic person exists, it’s proof you’re protecting your mental health like an adult. That’s all you needed to do.
You’re not going crazy. Getting triggered by someone who’s caused you trauma is completely normal, especially in a space that’s supposed to feel safe. The important part: you acted, set boundaries, and your therapist respects them. Progress isn’t erased because she exists; you’re protecting yourself, and that’s huge.
I’m so glad to see your update. I was going to recommend you report your therapist to the licensing board, because that’s extremely unethical.
You were not overreacting at all. It wasn’t ok.
>I trust my therapist, I have worked with her for 6 years and i know she will uphold confidentiality
there is no way that this is copacetic. One of you needs a new therapist.