My therapist is stalking me

Like all good "middle-class poor" Manhattanites, I have a therapist to whom I bemoan the frailty of the world, question the reasons behind my subtle rebellion against The Machine and debate how much of the blame belongs to my mother.

As of late, I have been feeling distinctly unsatisfied by our encounters. I am doing nothing but complaining about the same things over and over, and what little she provides in practical advice is impossible to attempt to accomplish between my demanding schedule of school, work, the gym, and a soupçon of a social life. In fact, not getting a chance to attempt to put into practice any pearls of wisdom she might blithely toss my way is the least of my problems. I'm so busy that I don't even have time to work her appointment into my schedule (she's only available on Tuesdays), let alone THINK about any of her gems. And so it went, week after week, month after month. So I decided there was only one thing I could do.

I had to break up with my therapist.

This is not as easy as one might imagine. It's much like trying to end a romantic relationship. While there were no tears or recriminations, there was much discussion of "why?" and "I don't think that's the real reason" and "we're probably on the verge of something very difficult for you and you're backing away because you're afraid to face it" and "I don't think stopping is a good idea." All of which is frightfully boring and mostly inaccurate, but after being showered with it for two weeks, I pulled the classic "I just need some time to myself" and told her I wanted to take a little hiatus.

You can imagine the questions that came on the heels of that pronouncement.

Finally, she says, "Well, I know from experience that once you've made your mind up, I can talk until the cows come home and I won't change it." (Oh, so she has learned something about me in all our time together!)

The first Tuesday, she calls me up and says that in response to my phone call that she can see me at 4:30 PM instead of the usual 2:45. MY phone call??? Yes, the one you left on January XX.


The reader will please note that at this point the message she's referring to is, literally, a week old. Either she's really bad at listening to her messages in a timely manner or she's looking for an excuse to contact me.

I clear up the "confusion" and she asks me if she will see me the following week. I say probably not.

The next Tuesday she calls and leaves a message on my VM saying that I missed my appointment and to call her the next day before noon. I call after noon and remind her that I was going to be taking a break from our sessions.

Before she can annoy me the following Tuesday, I send her an e-mail acknowledging that I know this is not the preferred method she would like me to use for contacting her, but that I'm so busy it's my only choice, and I will definitely be too busy to see her for another two weeks and I will keep in touch and let her know what's going on. She e-mails back that she hopes to see me the week of February XX, which would be the week after the two weeks I told her I was blowing off.

Well, we made it through those two weeks without incident. This past Tuesday, however, I get another phone call telling me that I missed my session and that I need to call her the next day before noon. This time I don't bother to call at all because I didn't miss a damn thing. I re-read my e-mail carefully and it clearly says I will contact her and let her know when she might expect me.

Apparently not calling is not an option, because she then sends me an e-mail saying that we need to discuss re-establishing our sessions.

ChristAlmightyGod. I haven't been seeing a psychotherapist, I've been seeing a PSYCHO THERAPIST!

While it makes for good anecdotal amusement, this obviously cannot continue. I don't want to deal with her tomorrow, so I will have to see her the following week and put a stop to this. I don't get easily creeped out, but she's creeping me out.

If I suddenly disappear, I trust I can count on you all to be my spokespersons. Tell the police the first place to check is under the floorboards of my therapist's office. And try and get the story on an episode of "Forensic Files" or "The Investigators" or "The New Detectives." That would at least give my woeful tale a hit of cool.