I was 20 years old, the perpetrator was a general physician (doctor) with a counselling practice alongside his medical one.  I sought his help for post traumatic distress symptoms relating to childhood sexual abuse. 

At first things seemed okay.  Perhaps they even were at first.  I gradually revealed personal information as my trust grew.  It was a good feeling to be able to say my feelings out loud and to have someone bear witness.  The first few hugs, offered at the end of an emotionally draining session, seemed consoling rather than intrusive.  I began to have hope again.  Hope that the painful past would be set aside and I could 'live' rather than 'survive' my life.

The changes were subtle.  As things gradually shifted, hugs became more intrusive, more manipulative, more disquieting and uncomfortable.   It is difficult to put to words the difference between a 'good' hug and an 'intrusive' one.  Those who have been there will know the queasy, sick, pit of the stomach feeling I speak of.   In hindsight this is clear.  In the moment, I found it hard to distinguish the 'good' parts (i.e. the feeling heard, being respectfully comforted, having support) from the bad parts (inappropriate touching).  Dr. B. took advantage of that confusion. 

He would verbally badger me about the child abuse.  He blamed me for the assaults of the past, telling me how I must have asked to be abused as a child, that I wanted it, wanted the attention, dressed for it etc.  He would keep up this badgering until I got quite emotionally distraught, at which point he would rise from his seat and come to where I was to "comfort" me.  My heart stopped when I heard his office chair roll back as he rose.  I crawled as far inside myself as I could to escape the worst of the intrusion.  The intrusions during counselling sessions took many forms and included touching me sexually.

When I spoke aloud my misgivings, when I voiced the pain and confusion about his touching me, I was told those feelings were not of his doing, but rather shades of the past - feelings I had to feel to get better - did I not want to get better? - not all men hurt, he would not hurt me, he was helping me, I was sick and needed his help etc.  He would tell me how he would never hurt me, to trust him, that he would show me that sex wasn't always bad.  There was always a rational that played on the lessons learned in childhood.  His advice was that the culprit responsible for the pain I felt was within me, from the past, never from him.  That I had to feel that pain to get better.  Everything he did, he said, was to help me get well.  The confusion and chaos kept me off balance, and away from listening to my inner misgivings.

The visits where I had received appropriate care also added to my confusion.  In my head I wanted to believe he was trying to help me, even when I felt harmed.  Like a child who relies on a parent for life needs, I relied on this practitioner to help me survive the memories. I needed to believe I could be helped, that the pain would end, that there was more to life than surviving memories.  To recognize and acknowledge the harm he was now causing was to take away the possibility of a refuge in the storm, and the possibility of healing.  It was to lose hope.

When his 'help' was entirely unbearable for me, I would quit going.  When the hopelessness led to suicidal or self-harm thoughts I went back for help.  Again, desperately seeking the right kind of help, the good kind, the support and caring person he had been initially.  I see now it was a gamble whether I would get appropriate care or be harmed in the name of care. 

I struggled for a long time with the growing knot inside.   It was a small thing that helped me listen.  He would make obscene calls to my home, telling me how he thought of me, and asking through heavy breathing, did I know what he was doing just then.  He would tell me to 'say it', to say what he was doing.  I could hear the movement and the groaning.  I knew what he was doing.  My tears fell as I sat frozen on the phone, enduring - unable as yet to escape him, even over the phone.  Eventually, as the calls continued, although unable to hang up altogether I did manage to put the phone under a cushion so I didn't have to listen.  It began to dawn on me that these calls in no way could be construed as beneficial to healing.  This small piece of logic somehow allowed me to start to 'hear' the voice inside and to know that ultimately I was being harmed even if there were helpful appointments mixed in.

My life circumstances changed, I went back to University.  Over the next 12 months my appointments, and the abuse became less and less frequent.  I eventually stopped the counselling sessions.  However he remained my medical doctor for 7 years thereafter.  Such was my need to believe that I still could not find it in myself to walk away from him entirely.  I still wanted to believe that he had just been some misguided professional with the best of intentions to help me.

It was still years before I told anyone.  The secrecy voice, the shame voice, the "I should have stopped it" voice, the I caused it message he had instilled, all worked to keep the words deep within.  I re-focused, concentrated on my studies to keep myself away from the feelings.

As those of you who have tried to burry feelings will know, it doesn't work for very long. Years later I felt the past nudging its way back in to my life again despite my best repression efforts.   I asked Dr. B for a referral to a psychiatrist.  There seemed something particularly awful about having to ask Dr. B. for a referral, but where I live, a general practitioner referral was required to see a specialist.   I obtained a referral and saw this psychiatrist on and off for a year or so.  I even told him I had been abused by a doctor.  His response was to reassure me that any time touching became involved he felt the therapeutic bond had been broken.  I felt reassured.  The past was interfering with my life again and I needed help processing my feelings. 

Between the ages of 28 and 32, I was hospitalized many times on psychiatric wards due to the overwhelming stress and distress that came with the memories.   After being discharged from a particularly lengthy stay, I tried to contact the psychiatrist again.  His old number had been disconnected, and his hospital affiliations were no longer.  I learned through my inquiries that he had been charged by his professional association.  With what? I unsuccessfully tried to find out from the Association involved.  I found out about a year later when an article appeared in the newspaper.  He had been charged and plead guilty to sexually inappropriate behaviour with a client.   Behaviour that took place in part, at the same time I had been his client.

I felt ill.  I had confided in him about Dr. B.'s abuse.  To think that he had sat there and listened to my account and then harmed another client in a similar fashion.  To think I had believed him, trusted his words.   To suspect that he had gone back to Dr. B. with my words!   My naïveté crumbled.   It finally dawned on me that it hadn't been Dr. B's. inexperience that led him to harm instead of help, it had been deliberate.  Just as this psychiatrist deliberately harmed his patients, even as he listened to the distress caused by such violations.   

Similarly, with other doctors I have tried, I was once offered a "beer" during my first visit, and one doctor throw out the comment "I know the reason you are shy is because you have breasts".  Fortunately, by then, I had enough awareness to walk out an not go back.  It's scary that these people exist and seem easily willing to take advantage of those seeking their help.

The fact that abuses have come in the guise of helpers specially trained to understand the workings of the mind and spirit, and how to help with psychological pain, who instead choose to use that knowledge to harm, makes this form of abuse particularly awful.  Perpetrators come in all walks of life, regardless of education, status, or any special awareness of the sanctity of their power.

The impact is still with me today as I try once again to negotiate the minefield of counselling -  "Terrorpy" - as I now call it.   Psychotherapy on some level, each and every session, now "feels" like harm.   The ghosts of a process that was used to sexually manipulate and repeatedly psychologically rape me are with me each session.   I am once again working towards trust, while simultaneously fearing it.  I am trying to believe this therapist is different, while trying not to let that need to believe blind me to any warning signs.

I am frustrated that I am now, all these years later seeking help for the same issues I first sought help from Dr. B with, to which he added therapy abuse issues, AND, that in order to get help I must engage the very process that brought such harm.  Hoping, despite all experience, that this time will be different.  Praying, this time I will be safe.

It is frustrating that while I do this work, I am as yet unable to go to a doctor even for medical concerns.   "Help" has become a four letter word in the worst sense.  It has become equated with harm.

Unfortunately, my story is not unique or infrequent.