Submitted by NonZeroDave t3_124aiwf in tifu

I want to preface this post by saying mental health is important and I’m in no way disparaging therapy. I’ll admit the post title is a bit clickbait-ish, but still accurate.


The story starts a few months ago when I joined a friend on an impromptu bar crawl and met a cute girl (who we’ll call KJ). During the course of the crawl and in between flights of local IPAs, we bond over the fact we both had recently got out of serious relationships and moved into apartments of our own. Turns out, her place is a stones throw away from my new bachelor pad.

Post crawl, she DMs me on Instagram and we continue to talk. Soon enough we start casually seeing each other. I learn KJ is a therapist who specializes in marriage and family therapy. As time goes by, we see each other with increased frequency and the Define the Relationship topic starts to sneak into the conversations. We agree to take things slow as we both have wounds to heal from our past, but since our “activities” were becoming less protected she ensured that she wasn’t sleeping with anyone else and on birth control. We agreed that if we do happen to get with someone else, we’d let the other party know and take proper precautions to protect ourselves. This arrangement worked until yesterday.

We had plans to hang out yesterday afternoon but she texted me the night before to talk about us. She wanted to take our relationship to the next level and be fully exclusive. I was hesitant because I honestly didn’t feel like I was a priority to her as she’d often cancel planned hang outs and only seemed to have time for me on some odd night out of the week. We’re both busy people and she had a new job so I tried not to fault her for it. Anyways, I let her know I wasn’t ready for that commitment yet and we decide to just remain friends. We also cancel our plans to hang out the next day to give her some space.

Cut to yesterday, KJ is out with some coworkers at a bar nearby my apartment. I receive a badly spelled text asking if she can come over. It’s raining pretty hard and I’m thinking she just wants to wait it out before walking back up to her place. Probably a bit naive, I know. She shows up soaking wet and clearly a few adult beverages down. She tells me she lost her phone and proceeds to lay on my bathroom shower floor. Eventually I her off the floor and into the bed with a glass of water to sleep it off. I call her phone a few times and eventually someone picks up. It’s a police officer at the station a few blocks from me. Someone had found the phone and turned it in. Since she was in no state to walk, let alone show up to the station, I ask the officer if I can pick it up for her. He assures me I can as long as I can unlock the phone. I proceed to get the code from KJ and head to the station.

At the station, the officer holds the phone up to me and I type the code in. It unlocks to her text message list and immediately below my texts I see her ex’s name with a ❤️. I’ll admit, curiousity got the better of me and I shouldn’t have snooped but on the walk back… I did. I didn’t even have to scroll to see on Friday, the day before she asked to take our relationship to the next level, she had been sleeping with her ex. It stings a little extra as I had asked her to hang out that day and she told me she was taking a “self care / mental health day”.

I get back to my place and confront her, she can’t explain anything besides being sorry and repeating “you don’t deserve this”. I know. She leaves. Oh and she had puked in my bed, so it became laundry day.

I also get the feeling KJ’s ex either doesn’t know he’s being described as an ex or at the very least doesn’t know about me. This morning I break off all communication but also give her a chance to come clean to the “ex” or I’ll message him myself. She confirms and sends screenshots of her confession. Who knew a marriage therapist would have such messy relationships, I definitely didn’t expect it.

TLDR: Met cute girl, pukes in my bed and I discover I may be the side piece at the police station.

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Comments

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ImAnActionBirb t1_jdykk8b wrote

Oof size large. So happy for you that you read the lack of commitment to plans with you and took that as a sign. Sorry you dealt with a deceiving person. Get checked! Good luck in your searches!

187

hansdampf33 t1_jdyle3m wrote

some people become therapist to therapise themselfs. Works a 100% of the time - not.

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rumblesnort t1_jdypchj wrote

I think the adage "the plumbers have the worst pipes at home" applies to relationship therapists/psychiatrists/psychologists. I've seen this more than a few times. You'd think there would be a study on this somewhere, don't believe these experiences are unique.

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nightowl_i t1_jdyu4m7 wrote

You dodged a bullet....therapists are humans too, but man this one is just bad

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techsinger t1_jdyzxyf wrote

>Met cute girl,
>
>pukes in my bed
>
>and I discover I may be the side piece
>
>at the police station.

Ducks bullet!

39

Notcarcarguy t1_jdz33xp wrote

Wow, I’m sure theirs some quote about how the hardest advice to take is your own or something like that. I’m surprised but also not surprised that a therapist would be such a mess. Glad you picked up on those flags and got out of there. That sucks though.

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TypicalJeepDriver t1_jdz4coh wrote

One of the craziest girls I ever met was in school to become a relational therapist. This girl is absolutely shit canned 3-4 nights a week, like falling down drunk. After a few drinks she always tries to delve in to personal topics with people to help them with their problems.

Like girl, no thanks. You’ve got plenty on your plate that you need to deal with before you can start looking in to my issues.

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Zlifbar t1_jdz5f6d wrote

I’ve always heard it as therapists are screwed up people trying to fix themselves.

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floof3000 t1_jdze6lk wrote

My husband is Psychotherapist/ Life coach and a can confirm, his private and emotional life is a big fat mess!

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analytical_mayhem t1_jdzfzb4 wrote

Therapists are people too, and as mentioned often get into their field due to personal issues they are trying to figure out.

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itsallminenow t1_jdzif63 wrote

Many years ago my dad went for his annual account review with the bank manager, back in the days when bank managers knew their customers individually and were the literal managers of their branch. He gave my father advice on his money, at which point my father said, "You're very good at this, your own finances must be in great shape"

The manager replied, "God no, I'm great with other people's money but I'm awful with my own."

It appears to be a truism that you don't have to have good personal behaviour to give good advice.

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debbieae t1_jdzvfv3 wrote

My mom is a therapist. She is the one who joked that therapists need to be just slightly crazier than their patients.

I think more than a few therapists are drawn to study psychology to try to understand themselves.

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ThadisJones t1_je0377h wrote

Many experts recommend professional therapists also utilize regular therapy in order to make sure they aren't going off the rails.

Then their providers also need therapy, and hey, it's therapists all the way down.

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xen0m0rpheus t1_je045e6 wrote

Doesn’t want to be exclusive but also is upset you’re not exclusive? Come on. Be better.

−6

MonsterReprobate t1_je0f2yg wrote

You're the relationship police and FORCED her to message this other dude or you would do it?

It's her business man. Dodge the bullet and move on. That shit is weird and authoritarian.

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adibork t1_je0ksrj wrote

Good to know— we give these therapists power to diagnose us and give advice, and we PAY them for this.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been privy to a therapist or mental health practitioner with either serious integrity issues and or emotional issues themselves.

It’s gross to think of sending a vulnerable person to be in the « care » of someone like that.

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NonZeroDave OP t1_je0nz22 wrote

I’ve been cheated on before and it sucks. I didn’t feel right sitting on knowledge that could help someone make an informed decision. Also she’s the one that brought me into the situation unwillingly through lies and manipulation.

I didn’t force her to do anything. I gave her the opportunity to talk to him first before I shared information that I have every right to share.

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AceKaydee t1_je0ooao wrote

Yeah I don’t get why you’re wanting to force her to tell this ex. She’s messy as fuck and you should just move on. The ex is probably just smashing only because she’s as crazy as you just found out she is BUT he already knew that! Leave it alone! Move on!

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NonZeroDave OP t1_je0rn07 wrote

Therapists are people and like all of us, can be messy and make mistakes. I’m not discounting the whole profession and maybe she gives great advice but just can’t apply it to herself. I have no way of knowing.

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analytical_mayhem t1_je0vwyz wrote

Folks seem to think if you are a therapist you must have your shit together, but often times it's more they are still working on themselves too. Obviously some have it together more than others, but at the end of the day they are more like the rest of us than we realize. Been to enough throughout my life to figure that out.

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sagittalslice t1_je0wiz0 wrote

Not sure what her being a therapist has to do with any of this? Was she drunk texting her patients? Did she try to have you involuntarily committed? Not sure why it’s relevant, this post could just have easily been “TIFU by talking to a web developer/electrician/tattoo artist/RN/whatever” lol.

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mfomatratzen t1_je0yf8j wrote

Can someone reply with a real TLDR? I feel nowadays these summaries are more of a punch line and less of an executive summary.

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StevenKeaton t1_je1324b wrote

Rule of thumb to consider in the future: Most therapists are badly in need of a therapist.

Not too surprised to hear this.

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jfjdjsj t1_je19z8q wrote

most therapists are the ones who need to be in therapy. for real. this is such a common situation.

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Seinglede t1_je1frv7 wrote

If you met a doctor who wasn't perfectly healthy, would you feel the same way? Giving advice based on empirically validated studies and implementing that same advice in your own personal life after emotionally draining yourself by spending your entire time at work dealing with other people's emotional issues are two entirely different things.

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shaunwyndman t1_je1nznk wrote

I'm a therapist, we are all human. Also there are a lot of different flavors of therapists out there, depending on the state you live in someone can pass themselves off as a therapist if they are a life coach etc. Someone who specializes in marriage counseling might be an LMFT, they have a different professional standard than a social worker or a mental health counselor. At the end of the day thought we are still human beings, just because we dispense best practice advise doesn't mean we follow it. Physician heal thyself , a contractor with a hole in the wall, a cobbler with no shoes it applies.

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NonZeroDave OP t1_je1r0ui wrote

You’re 100% right, it was completely on me for naively assigning some moral expectations for someone’s personal life based their profession. This person is an LPC NCC, not exactly sure what that means though. I don’t mean to disparage or discount the profession and apologize if it came off that way.

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adibork t1_je1zm1f wrote

They’re supposed to be a bit better than most of us. Otherwise id just talk to a friend and for free. They’re in a position of authority.

Many regulatory colleges have a mandatory requirement that each practitioner do a minimum number of hours for their own treatment per year.

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adibork t1_je20mwr wrote

Bad analogy (to physical health. )

I wouldn’t want to take advice from someone who can’t implement their own ideas.

Id rather take advice from someone who can empirically test their own recommended practices.

Better analogies:

Would anyone hire a personal trainer who doesn’t ever work out?

Or hire a vocal coach who doesn’t sing?

Or a Spanish teacher who doesn’t speak Spanish?

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sergius64 t1_je2hkfs wrote

So she gave you green light for no protection and meanwhile was doing her ex at the same time... sigh. Don't some people call that rape?

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mkculs t1_je2o846 wrote

This sounds more like a rom-com than real life. Great tag line but I’m sorry it’s real for you.

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zigwaldo t1_je30uaz wrote

A lot of therapists go into that field trying to figure out what’s going on in their own messed up heads.

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Seinglede t1_je3n9r5 wrote

Considering a substantial number of the best coaches for professional sports teams are fat middle age men who absolutely could not compete with the players they are coaching, yes. In many cases, you absolutely would hire someone who cannot practice what they preach because they have a better theoretical understanding of how to succeed than you do.

In the case of language, knowing the language is a prerequisite to teaching it because if you have a theoretical and comprehensive understanding of the language, then you can speak it to at least some extent. Knowing is the entirety of the battle. In the case of a variety of other fields, you can have a pristine understanding of the theory without necessarily being able to put in the work to apply the findings of that research in your personal life. Here, knowing is only half the battle.

Psychology has a substantial body of research empirically backing a variety of methods and practices, much in the same way medicine does, and a therapist can advise you to attempt these treatment options on the basis of that research.

This is why I used the doctor analogy, because mental health care is directly analogous to health care. My Doctor smoking cigars and drinking way too much alcohol on off hours does not make him telling me that if I don't quit smoking I'll probably die of lung cancer and that my alcoholism is killing my liver any less valid. He has a body of science to back up the claim, I don't need to rely on his personal character or experience to validate that advice.

Obviously, it would be ideal if you were perfectly put together in your personal life as a therapist, which is why most therapists are directed to go to therapy so they can get other people to identify the dysfunctional shit in their life that they cannot see in themselves. However, this is true for literally all professions.

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