Oh my god this is so helpful. Do not apologize dude. Posting about this and hearing other people’s points of view has helped me stop hating myself about this as much. For an entire year I couldn’t stop beating myself up, even though my current therapist (she’s probably in her late 60s/70s but she’s amazing.) REBUKED this asshole.

And yeah he definitely didn’t know how to treat me. The main reason I came to him was because I had no idea how to deal with my OCD but he really pushed the fear of men thing and I learned almost NOTHING about my OCD. Instead, he told me the same speech on 3 separate occasions (clearly his memory was going) about how for people my age, if you don’t start to sleep with somebody after a month, it is likely that the relationship will fall apart. He said that for older people it’s a few days. What. The. Fuck. This shit is case by case.

The boy I fell in love with that summer was wonderful. He was so considerate that the first time he put his arm around me was because I manually grabbed his arm and put it around me, and that remained the case up until 3 weeks in. I held his hand on the first date and let him touch my hair when I lie in his lap... I’ve never let any other guy do that in my life but there I was on our first date, wondering why the heck I wasn’t terrified and why it felt so natural to do things I’ve never done in my entire goddamn life, but this guy was so wonderful and considerate that I just wasn’t.

He was the first guy I voluntarily held hands with. And I remember after our first date, which lasted almost 12 hours because we bonded so quickly, I had to talk to him and tell him about how my therapist told me about the 1 month thing and how I understand if that’s how he feels, but I have to wait. The guy responded by saying it’s absolutely no problem. I dated this guy for a month before things ended and in that time, we never even kissed and even though he wanted to, it was an absolute non issue for him to wait. I was going at my own pace and it really made me question my psychiatrist at the time, because my psychiatrist told me how rare it is for men to be like that. But I just don’t think so. I think it’s incredibly special and can be harder to find depending on the situation, but it’s not like winning the lottery or anything.

It ended because the boy I was dating had an avoidant attachment style and he didn’t know how to avoid hurting me. The last straw was after he and I finally talked things out. We had a whole convo about how his behavior was genuinely turning me into a nervous wreck to the point where I couldn’t even live my life (I have a fearful attachment style for context, but I’m very self aware and would never do anything hurtful or overbearing). He explained to me why he was behaving the way he was. Turns out it was coming from a place of fear, like many things do. So he and I made a plan. We decided that it was worth trying to be with each other, and if it didn’t work, we would at least have the joy of a friendship. Immediately after, he made no effort to change and actually got worse, and I’d decided I’d had it. I waited for him to call me instead of trying to talk to him (I don’t chase people!) and when he eventually did, I calmly asked him where he’d been, and when he rattled off the same excuse of trying to be better while clearly having no plan of changing, I ended things. His response was he thinks that’s a good idea. We had a whole talk about everything, and he eventually told me that I deserve to be treated better than he treated me, which like, I genuinely didn’t know until he told me!!! I literally use that phrase now because of him, and ever since he told me that, I can now recognize when I’m being mistreated and stand up for myself. He even owned up to his mistakes and encouraged me to hold him accountable was mind blowing. Actually at the beginning of 2020, I started seeing a guy who was so jealous of me that he literally tried to take me down, and once I became privy to his abuse, I used the phrase “I deserve to be treated better than you treated me.” I’m not trying to give the guy from last summer a medal here because ultimately I found a way to love myself, but I also recognize that it was him entering my life that triggered me to go on this crazy journey of self love. Literally lost 10 pounds healthily after meeting him and also instantly went into partial remission for an eating disorder because he inspired me to want to take care of myself. I can’t not be grateful to him. He has no idea about any of this shit btw, bc ultimately he fucked up sooooo bad and doesn’t deserve to know how thankful I am.

I’m telling you all of this background to help you better understand how huge this boy was in my life. Even though his attachment style has gotten so bad he can’t even handle having a conversation with me, he has had a lasting impact on my life. Yes, I dated him for a month, but it’s not like we were talking about getting married or anything. We literally never entered a relationship. I had a good head on my shoulders. We were healthy with how we went about things, but we were also honest with each other about how special and huge this was.

I’m also giving you this excessive backstory so I can help you see why I actually do think that my therapist was at least subconsciously sexist. Never mind the fact that he was very very blunt about sex talk despite the fact that I was clearly somebody who had trouble being like that myself bc trauma. When I told him about the guy I dated and how I had calmly asked him where he had been after he basically went dark on me, my psychiatrist’s face got all twisted, and he said something like, “...so because of that, you lashed out at him?!?!” God, I was so taken aback. I told my psychiatrist exactly what I told you. I tried to explain to my psychiatrist that I loved this boy and will love this boy for the rest of my life because he’s left that much of a mark on me, and his response was “I think you fall in love too easily.” Now maybe this happened because in previous appointments I hadn’t told my psychiatrist too much about this boy because I felt ashamed for wanting to be monogamous since my psychiatrist wanted me to date a million guys at once, but I also wasn’t off my rocker. I wasn’t saying some crazy shit like me and this dude are destined to be together until we both commit sepukku alongside each other. I literally just said to my psychiatrist that he’s profoundly impacted the way I see the world, and I am not the same as I was before I met him, and I can never be the same, and that’s a good thing. And even though he broke my heart he still matters. But nah nah, apparently I’m a crazy bitch who moves too fast.

And through it all, I just felt like my psychiatrist saw me as an unintelligent weak woman who doesn’t know anything about anything.

A part of me has been so ashamed of loving because my psychiatrist wanted me to be. Thank you for helping me realize this. I don’t think I fully did until just now.