My Therapist Called Me a Slut and I Never Went Back
By: Alexandra Ringer
Tags: Sexuality, Psychology, Self, Feminism, Women

In 2017, I had finally decided to leave my abusive ex. I was trying to do all the things that would lend me to success, like going to therapy and dating.

As therapists do, when I would go into her office, she would ask me for updates.

How is your anxiety?

Have you had any contact with your ex?

How is dating going?

Being the natural over-sharer I am, I would spill. Often times, I would find myself talking the full therapy hour, 55 minutes, only to realize she barely got a word in.

I enjoyed Therapy. It was an avenue for me to sort through my own thoughts and life choices while simultaneously being held accountable by another human being. I would say it was going well.

Until the day she called me a slut.

In her defense, my Therapist did not use the word slut. But, with the use of other words, she made me feel like a slut. They say people remember less of what you say and more of how you make them feel, right? This is the perfect example of that.

It happened when I told her about a date I had been on that past weekend. His name was Ethan. He was a tall blonde boy with blue eyes, and I immediately had a crush.

We met at a Mexican restaurant and had drinks with tacos. We are getting along so well that we decided to go next door to another bar to keep drinking. Typically, I wouldn’t have done this, but, as I said, I was crushing. So off to drinks we went.

A few more drinks and several hours later, we decided to go back to my place. I knew this was a bold move and was out of my norm for a first date. Maybe it was where I was at in life, or the drinks getting to my head, but I really was vibing with this guy.

We ended up having sex.

And it was liberating. My abusive relationship had caused a whole slew of issues I was only half aware of at the time. I felt unworthy, undesirable, and often stripped of my own self-will. That night, I decided to claim that all back.

I shared this all with my Therapist. I even shared it with the enthusiasm that it felt good and that I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of guilt. Guilt that I was expecting to come from the girl in my head who had been abused. The one who was so familiar with being beaten up.

You know the emoji with the straight across teeth and big eyes? The one you send to your friend when you fear they have made a mistake. The “uh-oh, sounds stressful” face. That is the face she gave me.

I immediately felt like a child who had just gotten caught doing something terrible. This only worsened when she said, “… maybe we shouldn’t sleep with guys on first dates? Maybe that way they can learn to respect us first, while we learn to respect ourselves?”.

A third of me wanted to fight and stick up for my decision, the other third wanted to walk out of the room, and the last third in me wanted to cry.

I was in that room to recover. Recover from the shame, trauma, and low self-esteem that is a by-product of abuse. I was there to find myself, my worth, my voice. I was there to know I deserved better than someone making me feel small.

Yet, she hit every single trigger with her face and that comment. I was being judged by my Therapist for the choice I had made with my own sexuality and body. It reminded me of how I used to feel judged by my controlling ex, the whole reason I was in Therapy.

I was triggered.

I did not yet have the tools needed to stick up for myself, so I made a quick acknowledgment that she was right and desperately changed the subject. That session, I counted done the seconds for the timer to ring and walked out feeling empty.

I went home, called my mom, and cried. I cried because although I had felt good about my choices on this date, my Therapist made me feel bad. She made me feel like a slut, and even worse, one with no respect.

By the end of the conversation with my mom, who I luckily was close enough to be open with, I knew my Therapist was in the wrong. She did not have to agree with my choice that night, but she also did not have the right to judge me or make me feel like a slut for it.

So, my Therapist called me a slut, and I never went back… but this is not where the story ends. It took me years to realize I learned more in this experience than my 25-year-old self could comprehend.

I learned three worthwhile lessons:

No one defines you, but you.

That is unless you let them. I let my Therapist make me feel like a slut that day. I felt it deep. But just because she made me feel that way does not mean her words were right.

And why is being a slut bad anyway? This was a knee-jerk instinct to feel bad about because society tells us being a slut is terrible. Civilization, again not you, is defining that.

I did not know the power we have to look into ourselves, our hearts, our intentions, and question, “Is this true?”. Because sure maybe I had a casual sexual partner, but I was not a slut by the negative definition of the word.

If anything, I was a slut in a feminist way. Owning my sexual freedom, working on my own sexual recovery process, and exploring new experiences. We define our experiences, and no one else has the power to.

2. speak up for yourself.

Gosh, 25-year-old me let so many people do and say things that made me uncomfortable without speaking up for myself. I thought speaking up would have been confrontational and rude.

I used to feel a tightness in my throat, a tightness many women, especially women who have suffered abuse and trauma, learn to know. It is the physical manifestation of not feeling like you can speak up for yourself.

And how do you heal that? You speak up for yourself when you need it most. You speak up yourself when someone does you wrong or says something that is not true. You learn to use your voice and flex that muscle.

I did not yet know speaking up for yourself makes you strong and powerful. It makes you the hero of your own story and shows you respect yourself so much that you are going to speak up every time and demand those around you respect that too.

3. Professionals are human beings with a select title.

In my case, that title was Therapist. At that time in my young life, I expected a therapist to be completely free of judgment, and this expectation is not wrong. But it is also not realistic.

But what I didn’t realize was that her judgment could simply be a projection because that is what people do. People project their own morals, judgments, and opinions, even when they have a title that says they are not supposed to.

At some point in adulthood, we learn professionals are just people with titles and what a game-changer that is. Maybe that title is Doctor. Or perhaps the title is Parent. Or Teacher. Or Boss. No matter the title, a person is behind it. A person just doing the best they can with the title they have.

So don’t feel like people with notable titles in your life get the final word. At the end of the day, you know what you are, who you are, and what you’ve done. Any other opinions are just that, even when it is professional ones.