quote:

innocent googling t

I think you are being way to hard on yourself. It is innocent googling if she's using her own name and it's available for the public to read. Otherwise she would have changed her name and/or posted it in a private site.

I've talked to my P about this quite a bit because he has some info online and like you, I read it, felt guilty and then told him about it. He said he understands natural curiosity when it comes to your T or P and he would be surprised if he patients didn't google him, if only to make sure he's legit.

You haven't done anything wrong.

It was there in public for the searching. I don't think anyone could blame you too much here.

Thanks you guys, but--

I feel so awful about it. If I hadn't done anything wrong why would I feel this way? It's like I want to crawl out of my skin.

I should clarify, when I said this was a personal blog I didn't mean personal in the sense of "Oh, here is my favorite poem. Look at this cute picture of my dog," this was writing very frankly about problems in her marriage, frustrations with her co-workers, reflections on insecurities, confusion, self doubt, etc. Like I said, it was really like a diary. I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen it. And I feel so bad that I did see it.

I crossed some sort of boundary in my own mind at any rate. This is way more about T than I wanted to know. And I can't help but be kind of mad at her. I mean, why the heck? Why did she do this?

P.S. And I guess part of the problem is, stumbling across this level of vulnerability activated my protective and care taking instincts, and I'm mad because due to my stupid obsession and curiosity I failed even to fully protect her privacy from myself.

Thanks people for letting me vent about this here.

((((HIC)))))

I can only guess how sick you must feel over the whole thing and hope you can find peace somewhere, somehow and stop beating yourself up.



Liese

(((Liese))) (((xoxo)))

quote:

wow, I would tell my therapist (or anyone im close with) asap if I found something like that. She may not know all that is visible.

Yeah, I've actually been thinking hard about what my responsibility here is. At first I thought, "Oh, I've got to tell her, no way she knows," but now I'm thinking it really *is* an obscure and hard to find sort of thing. As in, I'm surprised google pulled it and it probably wouldn't have except for the random specific search terms I put in with her name (stuff related to that hobby I mentioned). I tested and when you just google her name you can go through pages and pages, this blog doesn't show up. I'm wondering if maybe she feels mostly secure and is taking a small calculated risk for some obscure reason of her own-- a weird form a thrill seeking, hoping her H will find it, I dunno. Given all this uncertainty it's starting to seem more respectful to just stay out of it, say nothing, and put it all out of my head as much as possible.

Does that make sense?

HIC,

I see absolutely no problem in anything you have done. I wouldn't think twice about it - I wouldn't even tell my T. Nothing you have done would violate my personal ethic radar or moral code. Honestly.

The information is there. It is public. You didn't lie, cheat or steal to get the information. It is public and it is yours to read.

Instead of feeling bad about it - go back and read it all again and try to use it as a positive to be close to your T.

SD

quote:

idk, but if you dont address it, wouldnt you have it on your mind all the time in session?

Well, I hope not, but I suppose I won't know until I actually go for my next session (not for five more days, perhaps fortunately). My hope is that I'll be able to put all this from my mind and continue therapy as normal.

Being able to write, vent, and somewhat "process" here has been an enormous help. I feel much better about everything today, the whole incident still seems a bit odd but much less catastrophic than it did at first. The brief reading I did was really more of a confused skimming and honestly I don't even remember a lot of it-- in terms of the actual wording and phrasing. I do feel good about the fact that I resisted reading more than I did. And really it isn't as though I even learned anything about T that is at all shocking, horrifying, or even surprising. Of course she has problems and emotions the same as anyone. It was just a shock to me to stumble across such a frank discussion of them in non-anonymous form on the internet! That is what disturbed me more than anything, I think, the fact that this blog exists more than the specifics of what I read on it. "Therapist annoyed with co-worker" is not exactly breaking news in anyone's book, you know?

In short, this is all starting to seem like a more minor incident to me than it did at first, and I hope soon it will fade out of focus altogether. I still think this is pretty dumb of T, though.

SD,

Thanks so much for sharing your perspective on this. It would probably be healthy and refreshing for me to think more like you do about this. Technically I get that you are right-- I didn't lie, cheat, or steal or do anything objectively wrong on a moral level that anyone could point to-- except I do feel that I went against my strong sense of what must be T's preferences concerning what I know of her, and that seems wrong enough on it's own.

As far as going back and reading goes-- I'll admit part of me would like to and hence the title of this thread. But really, even ignoring my scrupulosity I just don't think I can handle it emotionally, being close to T on that level. I want to know stuff about her like where she grocery shops, what book she is reading, what is her favorite flavor of ice cream, and where she goes on vacation. I can't handle all this other stuff. I think *I* need the boundaries even if she doesn't.

(((HIC))) so sorry you're going through this situation!

Funny enough, some days ago I decided to google my T's name as well and came up with a blog he wrote a couple of years ago about one of his hobbies. Luckily he didn't write anything out of ordinary or too personal. There was a part about him getting drunk at a party, but to be honest that only made me chuckle as I can't imagine that happening at all.

I read the entire blog. I needed to know. I wouldn't have your strength to let it go. There's just something so attractive to know more about his life, who he is, how he thinks. It was like having 5 extra sessions, all in the 10 minutes it took me to read it. Even though I was really worried that I would find out something I was not ready for.

I *know* I would be really upset if I had read about his personal feelings. Eek.
I regard him as a higher entity, a guru of relationships and life in general, someone that is sorted out and that can fix me, finding out he has serious problems would feel like a stab in the heart.

I think you're angry at your T, not at yourself, but it's just easier to think you're the bad person here, not your T. As if you're protecting her. There is nothing wrong with reading info online. Honest.

I'm not sure not telling her about it is gonna work though.

*taking a deep breath*

Well, folks, my conscience just wouldn't let me sit still. I emailed T to tell her, just in case she didn't know it was public. I just couldn't stand the thought that it might be awful for her if it fell in the wrong hands. I didn't want to turn a blind eye to her being in any kind of danger.

I might find myself terminated over this. I guess I'll deal with it if so.

((Eliana))

Heard back from my T already! Here is what she said:

"Hi,
I appreciate you letting me know this about my blog.I thought I had set it up to be completely private and am distressed to see it pop up on Google! I've gone into settings and changed the setting for Blog Readers to author only. Hope I've got it done.
Thank you
T"

Phew, now I feel better about her sanity and about life in general. Thanks so much all of you for your support while I struggled through this, and especially to xoxo for having and sharing the insight to nudge me into what turns out to have been the right direction.

I wrote T back and said "Phew. Okay. Do I take it I'm not terminated?" Because I had expressed that fear in my initial email. She hasn't answered that yet which is reasonable, we should all be asleep at this hour. But I'm pretty sure she's not mad. Pretty sure I'm not terminated.


HIC

Heard back from T again. Not terminated.

Life is good.

quote:

I think you're angry at your T, not at yourself, but it's just easier to think you're the bad person here, not your T. As if you're protecting her.

This was totally on spot. Only now that I realize it was a mistake, and it's fixed, and I'm not in trouble-- I'm not mad at anyone anymore. Which is good because I don't like anger (in case anyone couldn't tell, ha). I feel so dizzy with relief. It's like everything is back in place and the world is stable again.

Wow, its cool that you were brave enough to tell her and even cooler that her response was reaffirming and not punitive. I do think that it is her responsibiltiy, not yours, to monitor her own stuff on the internet. My T is having surgery on her knee this week and she won't even let me "mother" her when I saw in session that it was swollen and I wanted her to sit with it propped up and let me get her an icepack. She told me very clearly that it is not my responsibility to take care of her. That is her job. The same thing applies to this situation I think. It is not my job, nor yours dear HIC, to take care of her because that is not why you are in therapy. But kudos to you for taking the step to tell her. I am still not there myself as I "need" to be able to have that insight and "connection" to her right now. I do feel a lot of guilt about it so I can totally relate to your angst about knowing stuff about her but I just remind myself that it is her responsibiltiy to protect herself. It may be a justification on my part, but its what she has told me over and over and I have to trust that is the truth. Thanks for sharing your personal story here.

Wow HIC! Inspiring job. I hope you guys get to talk more; I do not think she will terminate you!

Hey Hoosier,

Thanks for commenting and sharing your thoughts. I know we've both been dealing with this issue of the internet and therapy and our feelings surrounding it, so I'm always interested in hearing what you say and are thinking about it all. For what it's worth, I don't think I would have bothered with telling T if it were just the facebook stuff. This isn't exactly about confessing for the sake of obtaining absolution, either. It's more the care taking side of me manifesting "I must save T from the internet" kind of thing. I get what you say about it not being our responsibility to take care of them, in therapy it's generally a counter productive and unnecessary impulse that I try to keep from acting on usually. It's just that it seems at some point, common human decency and concern have to take over. I thought the stuff T had up there went way beyond innocuous facebook style fluff, and could potentially damage her personal and professional relationships, or at least prove to be deeply embarrassing for her. Anyway, that's why I did this. I don't think I would have otherwise.

Catalyst,
Why, thank you. I'm not sure that anyone has ever used the word inspiring in connection with me before, lol. It *was* difficult to get to the place of sending the email, that's for sure. But I'm glad I did. I wonder if T and I will talk about this more. It'll be interesting to see if she says anything at my next session. Maybe she'll just think it's best to pass over the incident, I dunno. I'm curious how she'll be, though. I don't think she would terminate me out of anger, but I could conceivably see how she might legitimately feel she couldn't continue therapy with someone who had seen her diary, just because it changes the balance of things too much. However, she says she's not going to do that (terminate). Which is a relief, for sure.

Hmm, I think the coolest thing about all of this was going back and forth over email with T at midnight on a Sunday. Definitely not the normal time, style, or subject of our interactions generally! This must have shaken her up a bit or she wouldn't have been emailing me at such crazy hours, I think. It's not like it couldn't have waited till the morning.That was kind of fun. Hopefully boundaries aren't getting to messy here, though. I feel like it's all okay, but I just never know with my perceptions. I often have a hard time knowing if I'm minimizing or blowing things out of proportion or what. Don't I love anxiety and self doubt.

(((HIC))))

So glad everything worked out okay. It was an emotional topic for her as well and that's probably why you and she were emailing at an unusual time.

I was wondering if this whole internet thing isn't just a new form of "gossip". Humans have gossiped for ages. And while we all say it's bad, we all do it. On top of that, to some extent, it almost seems like we have to if we want to stay in the loop and stay connected with what's going on in our environment. Could we function if we stayed out of the loop all the time? What would life be like?



Liese

Not sure if anybody besides me actually cares about this anymore, but I've decided to update my thread again now that I've seen T, just to give it all a sense of completion. Hopefully you guys aren't getting tired of all this, but hey, you don't have to read it.

I brought Baby with me to therapy as is usual now. He happened to be awake, and happily kicking and cooing while we were in the waiting room, which is not so usual (he likes to sleep through therapy generally, lol). Well, when T waltzed into the waiting room to call us in, she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him and plopped down next to us. "Ohhh! I've never seen him this awake!" She spent the next few minutes extolling Baby's charms and talking to him. I thought, "Okay, this is her way of evading the embarrassment of facing me directly for the first time after the blog incident. Very well, babies are good ice breakers."

We proceeded into her office and she asked about my week and a few things that had come up, as well as some stuff left over from my last session. All good things to talk about. After about 20 minutes I sort of spaced out and she asked me what I was thinking about. I confessed that I was wondering if my email was all right. She looked a bit confused. (It's true I had emailed several times that week so I guess she wondered which one.) I told her, "You know, the one about your. . . blog thing. I've been stressing a little bit over the composition of that email. I wasn't quite sure how to handle it. I wondered if I said everything right."

This unmistakeable oh-duh-how-on-earth-could-i-have-forgotten look crossed her face and she began to thank me, most effusively, for bringing the blog security to her attention, and she expressed how very horrified and mortified she had been to discover the lapse. She also assured me that my email was fine, very appropriate, and etc.

It would have been nice to leave things there, but my anxiety was clearly mounting and I found I couldn't avoid it. So we began to go into my reactions concerning it all. I couldn't believe it was me speaking, but I actually told her how it had made me angry to see that she had this out there, that I had thought, "Oh, great, my therapist doesn't know how to use the internet," and felt responsible to save her, but that it wasn't something I had wanted to deal with or that I felt I knew how to deal with, so I was annoyed, plus fearful of termination, and angry that I had to put myself on the line and risk termination because this clearly needed to be taken care of, and I felt I had to do it despite my fears and reluctance.

Well, T took it all like a trooper. It is true she blushed a few times but she told me she wasn't mad and I believed her. This led into a really interesting conversation of how I view care taking actions, basically that care taking role with my Mom that I felt forced into in the past had been stressful and damaging, so I experienced a care taking action towards my T (for whom I have tons of maternal transference) as threatening, but really, there was no threat here. T is not a needy person who was going to take over my life. Also, what I had done was safe, appropriate, acceptable, and appreciated. There was no anger and no question of termination, and it probably wouldn't have felt so huge to me if it weren't for the "Mommy issues."

That's just a synopsis. It was a long conversation. Some of the observations were mine and some were T's, but I was astounded at how in sync we were as we tore into the subject and how comfortable it was to do so. The fragile side of T that I had unwittingly stumbled across online just wasn't there. Shew was her sturdy self, mentally sharp, clear eyed, quick witted and thoroughly on top of her game. It helped. . . a lot, I think on many levels. Hard to describe but I felt things clicking into place as we talked and as I experienced her as the same as ever, strong and safe.

I care, HIC

I'm glad you and your T got a little warm up time even if it kinda seems like your T had a mental block at first til you reminded her!!

I'm so glad she was thankful, like I said I think what you did was very awesome and very difficult.

I'm glad you got to talk about what you thought and felt... that's EXACTLY what these kinds of moments are for.

Thank you very much for updating, I was wondering how it went.

I care too! I haven't replied yet, but I had been following this thread. I'm so glad it worked out so well for you HIC. Sounds like you have a great T!

(((catalyst))) (((joie)))

((((HIC)))))

Very interesting conversation. And, yes, good thing you had the baby with you and he was awake. That was a good distraction!

I think you were so brave to bring it up and continue on with the conversation. It's great that it was so fruitful.

Thanks for updating. I didn't lose interest at all either.



Liese

(((xoxo))) (((liese))) (((dragonfly)))

Thanks all of you.

((((HIC))))

I have been in your shoes and know how it feels - that shock of finding something you weren't supposed to, the momentary excitement of finding more out about our mysterious Ts, the horror of finding out more than you expected, the terror of holding on to it or telling T, the paranoia of being terminated because of what happened...

Your T sounds pretty amazing - she took it quite well, like a trooper, as you said, which in my mind shows her caliber as a T. You did right in letting her know what was up, and I'm envious that you were able to via email! My T doesn't do electronic communication, so I had to personally face her when telling her what I found! It was excruciating leading up to the day I had to confess! She handled it amazingly.

It takes a strong, brave person to do what you did. Good work!

Great to hear the next chapter of the story. What a great T. You were so incredibly brave and open to discuss your feelings around it. Well done. I don't think I could have done it as well as you did. It certainly gave you and T a platform to talk about deep feelings.
SD

I'm so glad that it worked out for you and your T was so great with the situation. Good for you, you are very brave!

Good job HIC. I think you did the decent thing. You made someone you care about aware of an issue that could potentially come back to hurt her. just becauswe it happened to be your T is I think a minor point. It could have been a friend or relative that you would want to protect. It shows you are a caring human being.

I'm glad you discussed this with her in your session. It takes courage and I think that it can help you in being able to communicate in a healthy and productive way with your T and others in you life. KUDOS to you.

km

Thanks for the kind words, km, blanketgirl.

Now that some time has passed, I can still say I'm glad I did it, but that's it's something I'd only ever want to do once, lol.

I was a little afraid that T would be embarrassed by the whole thing and withdraw a little, that it would introduce some distance between us. But I think on the whole, the opposite has been the case. If anything, she's been more affectionate and seemed more at ease. I feel closer to her and I believe she really appreciated it and it has made her like me a bit more. At least that is my interpretation of events.

I think the most negative effect of it all was reading what I did about her marriage. Now often when we talk about *my* marriage in therapy I have the thought in the back of mind, "right T, it's not like you've got this figured out any better than I do." I also sometimes feel randomly sad that her H doesn't appreciate her more. I mean, she is clearly so wonderful, right? Anyway, I guess this is the reason why it's better not to know this stuff about your T, better not to read their diaries if you can avoid it.

Really such a bizarre thing to have happened. Ah, life.

quote:

Now often when we talk about *my* marriage in therapy I have the thought in the back of mind, "right T, it's not like you've got this figured out any better than I do."

Hi HIC,

It seems like the incident did bring you and your T closer together in a good way. I suspect that she sincerely appreciated what you did. I think it's important to remember that our T's are human beings too and they also have their issues and problems. I think the important thing is that this is your therapy and the focus remains on you. It sounds like your therapist has been able to do this.

HIC, I think our individual needs/reasons for therapy are different. For me to be better able to relate to my T, and feel she could relate and understand me, I wanted to know more about my T. I didn't want to google but ask if I felt it important. At one point in one of our discussions, my T did say I could ask her questions about her. It took a few more sessions but I did and she has shared and been open and honest with me. I respected her for this. I did not ask her to go into detail as I wanted to respect her boundries not only as a therapist but as a person. It has helped me open up to her and share things that I may not have otherwise. Plus I feel that she can relate/understand and that she really does care. So I think sometimes it can help to know a little about your T. Especially when you have a good T and you both keep in mind who's therapy it is.

You did a good thing and that will come back to you!

km