Hi All, I'm new here but this subject really got to me... a few years ago I had a Psychiatrist who got REALLY overly friendly and it totally screwed me up. Boundaries? Ha! That word was not in his vocabulary.

First of all, he talked to me about his own life way too much -- I learned all about growing up in his dysfunctional family, his high school and college years, and even about his troubles with his wife. He was only 2 years younger than me, and we both liked the same kind of music, books, and movies, and our politics were very similar as well. So we talked a lot about that. He once told me I was very interesting and "easy to talk to," and I thought: shouldn't I be saying that to you?

He'd extend session time with me sometimes up to 3 hours. He insisted that I come 3x/week. He'd email and text me outside of sessions, sometimes late into the night. When I had my baby girl, he even came to visit me at the hospital, wanted to hold my daughter, and brought gifts for me, my baby, and my 4 year-old son.

Needless to say, I fell in love with him. One of the reasons why I was in therapy was because my marriage was falling apart, and my doc gave me the attention I craved. I was so flattered.

But then -- and I'm not quite sure how or why this happened -- we started fighting. And I'm not talking about small arguments, I'm talking about screaming matches in session or on the phone. He was so loud that my husband could hear him over the phone in the next room! He subsequently terminated me and I was devastated.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that what we had was an emotional affair. I am still so ashamed that I let myself get so caught up with him -- he was my doctor, for cryin' out loud! On the other hand, his behavior was beyond unethical and I couldn’t really control that. It was his responsibility to create a safe space for me and he just didn’t do it. He even had the audacity to blame it all on me! Everything ended so badly, I then needed therapy to process through that trauma.

The worst part was that in the 2+ years I’d seen him, we did very little therapy. I didn’t understand the concept of working at therapy. So when I went to new therapists, I really didn’t know the right way to communicate with them or do the work I needed to do. So I bounced around from T to T and just got worse. It is still taking me time to sort all of this out.

So recently I had to contact him about getting treatment summaries and Rx records. I emailed him and he ignored me. I called him and he ignored me. I faxed him and he ignored me. I don’t know what to do at this point to get him to respond to my request. Any suggestions? And has any of this happened to you?

Thanks, I know this was long; thanks for reading.

--Flan