u/Fireman19952013

I had AI help me put this together via audio to condense it because i couldn't bring myself to write it all out myself (sorry for any weird structural errors).

I'm hoping for insight and empathy. I’m grieving, confused, and traumatized after losing the only therapist I ever trusted after a single mistake. Please, if you have any experience, help make sense of this.

My History:

• I have a non-verbal learning disability (NVLD), PTSD, Bipolar Type 2, etc. I often miss social cues and need boundaries spelled out - but I can fake it really well for a while.
• In therapy, I’m always working on boundaries and social skills because of this, mainly to help with building relationships.
• My past includes severe betrayal trauma: multiple therapists have referred me out for high complexity reasons, and I had a boundary-violating relationship years ago with another therapist that left deep wounds and she got in big trouble.
• I'm especially sensitive to abandonment and have lost several friends to death and other mental health issues.

Amy Gave Me Hope:

• I met "Amy" (not her real name) in July 2025, pre-licensed (MSW), and I quickly became one of her first clients.
• For seven months, she helped me rebuild after the betrayal that cost me my job and best friend. My mother, who’s seen me struggle for years, said, "Amy is the only therapist who’s really helped you."
• My psychiatrist Jessica, who’s been in my corner for five years, wrote directly to Amy that under Amy’s care, I was, "The best she's ever seen me in 5 years."
• Amy taught me life skills, helped me approach and interact with women (a huge step for me with NVLD), and even told me "You look very approachable" which really helped give me courage to do things I had never done before.
• Even guided me through my first ever experience with solo travel, which changed my life. I went to Barcelona and could never have done so well if Amy hadn't instructed me on how to navigate, buy a plane ticket, go through security, etc.
• In session, there was real connection—she’d even appropriately share about her own setbacks (like being fired after someone lied about her too years ago), which helped me trust her more.

But I had a subtle bad feelings about the system:

• Amy once told me her supervisors called "cluster B" clients "the crazy ones." I wasn’t offended; I got her nuance. She suspected me of having BPD traits.
• But my psychiatrist said that's an extremely unprofessional way for supervisors to talk to their clinicians, proof of a judgmental, risk-averse clinic culture.
• One session in particular I could sense she was EXTREMELY anxious and I couldn't tell why - but it concerned me. Because of this, I once asked Amy directly, "Do you think your supervisors are just waiting to get rid of me?" She assured me they weren’t, which calmed me, but I still always felt on edge after that.
• After I came home from Spain I gave Amy a Thank You card that said, "Some people make your day better, some people make your life better, thanks for being someone who does both." And she said, "That's so sweet! I'm gonna keep it right here." I made sure to just give a card and NOT a gift because gifts are a grey zone. It was also very easy to make her laugh (but not jokes I make with friends) and she seemed like the gold standard for therapists. I really liked that she would sit right next to me occasionally also to help explain things better.
• I took every measure possible to make her feel safe and comfortable because I always fear coming across as scary.

Where it all fell apart:

• One weekend, a string of triggers hit, my unemployment checks were 4 months late, I also experienced severe "skin hunger" which is basically psychosomatic pain from a lack of affectionate (the pain turned out to be partially from a vitamin deficiency confirmed via a blood test). This caused an intense mood swing and I was also very anxious about having trouble finding work.
• I sent Amy an intense email (NOT suicidal, but very distressed), and a similar message via the patient portal mentioning the skin hunger.
• And, due to my NVLD and poor understanding of boundaries on digital platforms, I also sent her a message on LinkedIn asking for help, not realizing LinkedIn was considered social media/off-limits in the therapy world. I thought it was more/less like Psychology Today

If anyone had ever told me, "LinkedIn isn’t okay," I would NEVER have done it again. The whole reason I was in therapy was to learn these boundaries.

The Emergency Session & Discharge:

• Amy saw me quickly after the messages. She sat down right next to me—close physically, arms crossed, eyes averted, clearly heartbroken and (I think) on the verge of tears. She said I'm discharging you and I lost it and said "Please don't do this."
• During that session, she almost seemed like she was reading from a script and said "we can make some phone calls to IOPs" I was really confused and told her how those are useless for people with my specific one-on-one problem solving needs.
• She told me specifically "I know you've been referred out a lot so I'm not doing that to you. Do an IOP and we can revisit this later" I initially refused but after I got home reconsidered if it meant seeing her again.
• I went through IOP (which I found useless but did anyway, just to be able to possibly see her again).

Suddenly, everything changed:

• I got a cold, impersonal discharge letter—full of words like "emotional dysregulation",  "multiple boundary violations," "treatment non-compliant"
• On the clinic's internal notes (visible to other therapists via the portal), Amy described my strengths: "kindness, humor, willingness to change, engagement in treatment."
• The discharge and the internal portal completely contradicted each other and how Amy treated me in real life.

Felicia, the Clinic Director, Steps In:

• I received a call from Felicia, the director, who told me: "You will never see Amy again because Amy already told you you were crossing boundaries in her office."
• When I asked, "What boundaries are you talking about?" she said, "I don’t have to tell you that information."
• When I pushed back, saying "Amy told me that if I did IOP, I could possibly come back," Felicia replied, "You shouldn’t be doing an IOP to see your therapist again. You should do IOP because YOU want to do it." - Like, okay Socrates.
• The call was robotic—flat, cold, no emotion—even when I told Felicia, "Can you see how traumatic this is for someone like me?" she said, "Yes," but without any humanity. It felt gaslighting and bizarre.

Trying to Find Repair:

• Six weeks after this discharge and after the director's bizarre call, I emailed Amy directly asking:
  • Would she consider seeing me for remote sessions on her private practice platform (on Headway)? I also apologized if I crossed any boundaries and that it's a struggle to see the obvious sometimes. I also let her know that I had finally secured my unemployment backpay and a new job and completed the IOP at her request.
  • Would she be open to collaborating with my psychiatrist to set up written boundary rules or contracts so nothing like this could happen again?
• My psychiatrist supported this outreach plan.
• Again, all I wanted was to learn and repair, not to bother or disrespect anyone. In my eyes, I was extremely professional.

Then: Police and Permanent Ban—Followed by More Questions:

• After my respectful, boundary-focused email to Amy, I got a call from the police saying: "Amy wants you to leave her alone."
• Next, the regional director personally called to tell me I was permanently banned from the entire clinic—I can’t ever come back. He didn't just sound serious - he sounded gleeful. As if he was taking great joy in it.
• Two weeks after the police report, I noticed Amy had removed any reference to that clinic on her Facebook, but without changing privacy settings.
• This, plus her last session with me, makes me think she didn’t want this outcome. Everyone I’ve spoken to agrees it looks forced, not something she’d have chosen, very sketchy, over-the-top and inappropriate to do to someone so vulnerable who had been doing so well. This was totally out of character for her and makes me wonder if she was coerced.

The Aftermath:

• I lost Amy, then two weeks post police report, tragically lost another close friend to a freak drowning accident.
• I had a panic attack so severe I went to the ER, and since then I’ve been trying to survive on benzos and the support of my psychiatrist.
• A former out-of-pocket EMDR therapist I've seen sporadically since 2022 told me we can see each other in the near future to talk about what happened (and she just had her 3RD child 6 WEEKS ago AND sent me pictures of him which really warmed my heart). So I don't think Amy was truly afraid of me if Zoe feels this level of comfort with me and saw me at my worst years back.
• For what it’s worth, both Jessica, Zoe, AND my IOP DIRECTOR told me they would never have handled a single boundary mistake this way—their response would have been to set a limit, help me understand, and move forward, especially in a moment of deep pain with my NVLD. Another clinician said this seems "heavily influenced by a third party" and that it's the kind of thing that might make Amy want to leave the clinic.
• I still haven’t received my therapy records or treatment summary from the clinic even after requesting a month ago—it feels like stonewalling.

My questions:

• Does it really sound to you like Amy wanted to end things this way, or does this scream clinic policy/risk-aversion/lawyer panic forced her hand?
• Have you ever repaired or reconnected after a clinic/police/CYA ban? Is there any real hope? Not a restraining order. It was "just for documentation purposes only."
• What power would a therapist like Zoe have here? If “do no harm” matters, can a trusted therapist ever reach out to a former colleague (Amy) for a client’s sake, even after a system incident like this?
• Is the clinic’s refusal to send my records normal, or is it more evidence that something shady is happening?
• What should someone like me actually do after being abandoned for a single, understandable mistake?

IMPORTANT: This is a private equity clinic that had to settle with the state for $940,000 in 2023 for 'Billing fraud' and 'improperly supervising unlicensed clinicians.'

If you read all this, thank you. Everything I worked for has been ripped away over one error that I was in therapy to learn how to prevent. Please be gentle—this is some of the worst pain I’ve ever lived through.