My Midlife Awakening on the Internet for All to See
Why I share my personal life as a therapist online
I’ve recently been sharing on Tiktok about opening up my marriage, a new sexual Rumspringa and entering a midlife phase that is all about rebelliousness from family life (hello edibles, up till 3 in the am with my lover, buying a BMW). Check it out if you’d like…
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One comment I get over and over again is “how can you be doing this as a therapist?!” I also get: “Isn’t this unethical? “How do you handle clients seeing info about your personal life?” In case you’re curious, I’ve consulted my lawyer several times about sharing like this on the internet (shout out to Bruce Hillowe, who is both a lawyer and trained Psychoanalyst and has been containing my fears as a therapist for YEARS). I am allowed to make creative content as a therapist and share these details of my life - ok guys?! But WHY do so many of us in the mental health field feel like this is against the rules and use words like “unethical” in my comment section?
I believe there are unspoken rules about how we need to be out in the world after we leave the treatment room with patients. A need to uphold an image of “achieved” mental health and wellness that just isn’t realistic. And I believe this image that we carry the burden of upholding is hurting both us as therapists and our patients.
Are there patients who need to have a blank state therapist, who have had to know too much about others, felt invaded by narcissistic parents, etc who need blank state therapists? Absolutely. But I think there are just as many patients who didn’t have realistic warm connections with their parents where they could access their humanity and their fallability. These patients can feel bad about themselves in quiet blank slate treatments because they believe their therapist has it all together in a way that makes them feel a lot of shame.
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At this point, 99% of my clients find me through my social media. That means that they are signing on to work with a therapist who puts all her personal life online. Why would a client do this? I believe there are number of reasons. They know what issues I might have special knowledge of and share life experience with (PDA Autism, Ethical Non-Monogamy, BDSM etc), and that I might have ideas and wisdom that aren’t just born out of theories of the mind but also those theories put into practice in lived experience. While technically I am not allowed to promote myself as knowing about something solely from having lived through it, (thanks Bruce!) a patient is often looking for someone who gets it. There is an expectation of safety that I wouldn’t judge them or misunderstand things that are easily judged and misunderstood even by clinicians (hello, PDA Autism and BDSM). And finally, I believe what I’m doing is leveling the playing field of asymmetrical power inherent in the therapeutic relationship for the clients I see. I’m not some wise therapist up on high helping them better their life. I’m a human down in the trenches with my own life, working on myself, exploring and growing through my vulnerability, using a language, vision and insight born out of 17 years of working in the field.
How many times as a therapist, have you thought in your private life, “What if a patient saw me right now?” Why would we be afraid of being seen if we didn’t have something to hide? And what are we hiding? That we are multifaceted beings? That we are too are in therapy? Of course we are and SHOULD BE. I believe that we need more therapists (the ones that feel called to) to open up about our messes so our cultural image of the therapist and what we can achieve in mental health is realistic. Otherwise our silence is in danger of leaving our patients and others watching therapists online with the idea that there is a level of mental health achievable that just isn’t realistic. And this just creates more shame and hiding of our messes for all of us.