Member-only story
After I Googled My Therapist
this is part 2 of a story — part 1 is here
I never would have thought that googling my therapist would lead to an emotional breakthrough. I’m not recommending the practice as a way to heal, but that’s how it has turned out in my case. The credit goes mostly to her for the way she handled it. But I’ll also take some credit for being brave enough to bring it up.
What I found out via Google was so upsetting for me that it was clear I had to confess. I was scared. I thought about just quitting therapy instead, but curiosity won out. How would she handle this? What would her explanations be?
“You saw my children? she said, her voice rising to a higher pitch. She’s not much of an online person at all, so she doesn’t get how easy it was to find photos of her grown children.
I told her about finding her husband’s op-eds in support of Trump and Bill Barr. I said that reading those made me wonder whether she was a conservative too.
“I have to insert myself here,” she said. “I am NOT a conservative!” She told me that she and her husband had gone together to anti-war protests when they were young. “But something turned him,” she said, shaking her head mournfully.
When I told her that I wondered how she could even relate to me when she was so wealthy…
