My Doctor Violated Me [Replay/New End]

In the original episode "Raw My Doctor Violated Me," Madelynn revealed how her psychiatrist of three years gradually started to make sexual advances. Her marriage was falling apart and she was vulnerable. How could this doctor who had provided counsel and care become inappropriate?

With humor and even wondering if his words and physical contact were some form of cutting edge therapy, her confusion and shame ran deep. Wanting to find solace with a physician after her dad died, she pushed the abuse she was suffering out of her mind. With time and therapy, she learned that this was not her fault and that psychiatric professionals have boundaries to hold. 

In this follow-up episode, I have another conversation with Madelynn. We didn't know she was going to share this story in the first episode, so I wanted to check in with her and see how it felt to hear her voice while talking about trauma. And Madelynn is tough--she learned how she was using humor during the podcast and having incomplete thoughts. And her storytelling--when it comes to trauma--is right on. We revisit ideas and learn about changes within Madelynn, in nonlinear story, which is how we work through trauma. And in this episode Madelynn finds her footing, accepting she was a victim and that this abuse should never have happened to her.

This story is ideal for anyone starting to voice their story of trauma. Or for friends and relatives that can make a space to safely talk about hard stories. We feel better and are enlightened when we repeatedly examine our trauma. Victimhood can be converted into ownership of an extremely hard time. Thank you, Madelynn, for being a rockstar and helping others learn we have to speak up.

Part 1: RAW My Doctor Violated Me on Apple Podcasts

Part 1: RAW My Doctor Violated Me on Spotify

Transcript

Introduction and Sponsor Message

Speaker 1 0:00

We are supported by the Soar with Tapping app. I've been using the Soar with Tapping app for over a year now for insomnia and I am sleeping well. Tapping is a science-backed tool that can help calm your nervous system and release emotional weight. Amy Vinsa, eft expert and friend of the show, guides each session, making it simple to start healing right from your phone. Visit the Soar with Tapping app in Apple or Google Play stores and start your journey towards freedom. We are working on our fall season and, until we kick it off, I'm revisiting a few episodes where there's a little more to say. This week, I'm replaying part of the episode Raw my Doctor Violated Me, in which Madeline has to navigate sexual advances from her psychiatrist. In today's show, I circle back and ask Madeline how it felt to tell a hard story, and hard stories don't arrive with a beginning, middle and end. Trauma disrupts linear time. Memory is fragmented. Processing is circular.

Processing Trauma and Self-Blame

Speaker 2 1:12

So thank you, madeline, for speaking up today whom I really trusted, who was sexually inappropriate with me. You know it's hard to talk about. I think psychiatry is a really important field and I know intellectually I could— it's not an intellectual thing, though. It's an emotional thing too that I have some trust issues being vulnerable and really saying what I need to say. And I—the thing that hurts most about that experience is like I hate that I was such an easy mark. You know I hate that. I was such an easy. It feels that way that I was such an easy target and there are a lot of really good psychiatrists out there who could help me.

Speaker 2 2:07

So why punish myself by not trying it with these better boundaries and information I have available to me? Now I'm scared. I guess I'm scared. I think I should listen to people I trust, like you and my therapist, and try it. Try it and if anything feels off, if any comments are made or things are done that don't feel right, I will. You know, maybe I'll feel a little more confident in trusting my gut and saying this isn't right, we're just so, or we can be so vulnerable with these conditions and it's a hard reality to accept.

Speaker 1 2:49

Well, that's a lot of trauma. Yeah, you don't need to have depression for that to be traumatizing, true, and then you end up blaming yourself. Yes, I understand that easy mark feeling very much.

Speaker 2 3:08

Because we really want to be normal or feel like we're normal, whatever that word means but it just it's like oh, you can read this on me Like you, it's visible, you know, not just my tremor, not like there's something. When you get to know me, you know and this was a psychiatrist I saw for years and it happened quite gradually. It's hard, I can't really even articulate it yet, even though it's been a number of years since I ended that relationship. So it's just painful in a lot of ways, and I know we always do this, don't we? We're like oh, it could have been so much worse and people have had it so much worse, and that is true. And also what happened to me was painful and left its mark on this easy mark.

Speaker 1 3:56

I had a creepy psychiatrist.

Speaker 2 3:58

Did you?

Speaker 1 3:59

Yeah, who said a few things to me that were upsetting.

Shared Experiences with Inappropriate Psychiatrists

Speaker 2 4:06

Yeah, he would comment on my appearance. And then some physical things started to happen and I talked to my therapist about it and she's very good at keeping a neutral face, but she had a little tell that I was like, oh, I could see just this little shift in her face that made me say, oh crap, this see, just this little shift in her face that made me say, oh crap, this is bad. Like this is bad, like it's not. So she brought me a pamphlet the next week that said you know why sex and therapy is never right? I was not raped, I will say that. But you know, and I talked to her about feeling like such an easy mark and she said well, I do want to remind you that this happens frequently enough that there is a pamphlet that's been printed that says you know why sex and therapy is not? You know, it's not my boundary to hold, it was a psychiatrist's boundary to hold. Yeah, I'm not making much sense here.

Speaker 1 5:03

No, you are making sense. I had a psychiatrist, never went that far and it was confusing because I really he was very respected in the community and I thought he really cared for me. So it was hard for me to parse it out. Oh, yes, same same.

Speaker 2 5:24

I had a very uh I my dad had died not long before I started seeing him and physically he looked a bit like my dad, you know, his body was about the same size and and he did care about me. You know he did care about me, and so it was particularly hurtful when he would start making comments about my breasts and, um, you know, he would start hugging me after sessions and then start whispering things in my ear that were not, you know. So it was. And then I was concerned about him is does he have dementia? What's you know?

Speaker 2 6:01

And it became about me justifying what was happening or or saying, oh, he's just eccentric, you know, but I have a really great therapist who helped me under, you know it's it's like I needed. I needed to get a therapist to talk about my relationship with my psychiatrist, so, but she really helped me see that it was not my boundary to hold like that. A mental health professional shouldn't be initiating physical contact with you. You shouldn't have to set boundaries about them not touching you without your consent. And I mean he also offered to do a breast exam for me because you know, and I did say no, thank you. Yeah, it was pretty messed up and the fact that I it took me so long to really acknowledge and I ended up writing him a letter saying you know, I don't think that you should talk to your patients in that way and I believe that you really care about me and I care about you.

Speaker 2 7:07

But this has been so confusing and I realized through working with the therapist, this was not my boundary to hold, it was yours to hold as a, you know, as a medical professional, as a psychiatric professional. So, please, I don't want any more contact with you. I didn't have I'm still like I didn't have the wherewithal to report him. I had real shame about it. I still felt protective of him. So my hope is he retires soon. He probably will. He's an older doctor, but I do have some guilt about that, like I hope it's not happening to anybody else and I wish I were stronger to like. If my friend told me this story, I'd be like hell. Yeah, you've got to report them and this is crazy, but somehow I couldn't get there.

Speaker 1 7:58

I think that's tough. You kind of have to give up at some point and say I'm not going to. This isn't my battle to take to somebody else. Yes, I'm just going to protect myself here and that's what I can do. You don't have to go out and fight the fight.

Speaker 2 8:17

I just couldn't, you know, even talking about it now I feel such shame about it. But I do very much trust my therapist, very much trust my therapist, and I believe I can find a psychiatrist whom I trust and whom I can vet a little, you know, from a place of some more experience and more understanding, like I can end it sooner if those red flags come up. Hopefully they won't, but it has been a barrier for me to getting better or, you know, feeling better or getting interventions that might help me feel better.

The Difficulty of Speaking Up

Speaker 1 8:58

Was it hard to listen to it?

Speaker 2 9:00

was, and it also was clarifying, because I could see how I would start to say something and then I wouldn't finish the thought. I could see how it's still alive in me, if that makes sense, and maybe I need to find a way to be a little more disciplined about looking at it and seeing what I'm so afraid of. To me it was interesting that I could, with a little distance, with hearing the conversation. Interesting that I could, with a little distance with hearing the conversation. I thought, huh, I can't even finish my thought about what he did and about so that it felt to me still like I feel protective of him and I feel unsure that this really was any kind of you know or I'm not unsure, but that I don't want it to have happened. But it did.

Speaker 1 9:52

Yeah, I think sometimes I've been working through an issue similar we'll just say a sexual assault and I felt like I was never allowed to process it or talk about it, and nobody initiated any conversation about it, that's for sure. No one suggested to go to a group and talk about it. It just got totally swept under the rug and I feel like unless we have some encouragement to start talking about it, it's very easy to start questioning yourself and not allowing you those words right, I mean it should be like firm in you. This happened, this is what it's called. I've got this down. This happened, this is what it's called. I've got this down. I deserve to own it and I, you know, deserve to acknowledge it. And sometimes I just feel like we don't have that friend or that relative or someone that gives us permission in a way.

Speaker 2 11:03

Yeah, that's a really good observation. You know, how did you get to a place then where you felt like you could? Did it come from inside of you? Was it just get to a point where you had to deal with it or it was going to take over?

Speaker 1 11:18

yeah, I mean, it was just through private therapy, I think, and some of this is really old, old, old trauma that all of a sudden you go, oh my, my gosh, it's still there and I still. Yeah, I was, you know, it was suggested that I stay quiet. Oh, oh okay. Have you talked about this experience with anyone beyond just a therapist?

Speaker 2 11:51

this experience with anyone beyond just a therapist.

Speaker 2 11:53

I kind of dropped little tidbits because I think part of me knew this was messed up and it wasn't just because another justification I had was maybe this is some kind of therapy. I haven't heard about where he's seeing if I'll assert myself, you know, and I would drop little tidbits like oh, doctor, said this about my breasts, or like made this joke about my breasts, or said you know, when I was concerned about anybody ever wanting to be with me again, he would say like I can't believe everybody doesn't want to have sex with you and I'd get some. Looks like your psychiatrist said that you know that's weird. And then I'd immediately kind of say oh well, he's, you know, eccentric, it's, that's, that's all that, you know. He said he cares about me, blah, blah. You know I would protect him. So I would both like chum the waters of is this weird? And then go to defending him, because I guess at the same time I knew it was messed up and I didn't want to look at it and I didn't feel like I could lose him.

Speaker 1 12:54

How long were you seeing him before this started to happen?

Confronting and Processing the Experience

Speaker 2 12:59

I think I was seeing him for at least three years before these comments started to happen. It's a little hazy, and it wasn't every visit, you know, like that. I do remember the first time it happened, because he also wrote poetry. Should have been my first clue, right? But he told me he was going to take part in this poetry slam. And I said his last name starts with the letter C, as in cat. So I said, oh, I'll start calling you Dr C-Slam, is that okay? And he said, oh, only if I can start calling you Magnificent Chest or, you know, magnificent Breast. And I was like ha ha, ha, you know, laughed, laughed it off. I thought, well, that was just a weird thing that hopefully he immediately regretted after saying Then he would make other. You know, he kept making comments about my breasts, about my body, that what the sexiest part of my body was, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 13:57

And I found myself wearing looser and looser clothing to the sessions. You know, I was really sort of trying to hide myself, but it continued, you know, and he took to hugging me after sessions and they got a little longer and a little longer and like at first it was so nice because I really miss my father and he had that kind of paternal energy and he was a similar body shape to my dad. He was like about the same size, he had a little bit of a belly, he was soft, you know, like. So it was so comforting and then it just turned into something else that was not comforting, that just felt like had my father been alive he would have kicked this guy's ass, you know. And when I found a new therapist, she knew I was seeing him for meds and I started to again I would bring it up jokingly. I did notice too how much I laughed in that episode, you know, from discomfort, and I would bring it up to her and I would laugh like, oh, this eccentric, you know psychiatrist I've been seeing for many, many years. Eccentric, you know, psychiatrist I've been seeing for many, many years. And she said you know, do you have another appointment scheduled? And then this last, the last time I saw him, he hugged me way too long and he then he slid his hands down my body and pressed down on my hips and said this is the sexiest part of your body where your hips flare out. And I remember just getting all red and leaving that session. Your hips flare out and I remember just getting all red and leaving that session and being so upset and I told her about it and she said do you have another session scheduled? And I said I do. And she said I'd really like to firmly encourage you to postpone that visit until you and I have a chance to process this together. Talk about this. And that's when she brought me in the pamphlet about how sex and therapy don't mix, or whatever it was called. And yeah, so that was the last time I saw him in person.

Speaker 2 16:00

And then he did continue to call me to check in to see if I wanted to have wanted to schedule an appointment. He called me I don't know, maybe four or five times and I didn't answer. And then I finally wrote him that letter along with a check for money I owed him. I think I struggled with whether to pay him or not, but part of me just wanted to put it behind me and I also kind of knew if he cashed the check. He got the letter, like I would know that he read it or somebody read it. Yeah, I should find that letter and get the timeline straight in my head, because it really was going on for a long time, way too long. And he, yeah, I think I mentioned the breast exam. He, I had been to the doctor and I had to go in.

Speaker 2 16:47

I had a lump in my breasts. It turned out to be benign, but I was talking to him about it and how I was concerned and you know, but hopeful that it would just be benign maths. And he said, well, I, if you'd like, I can, you know I can check that for you. And I said, no, thank you, I'll wait. Know I can check that for you. And I said, no, thank you, I'll wait.

Finding Closure and Moving Forward

Speaker 2 17:08

Yeah, so it was just all very confusing and I think I haven't fully looked at it and fully the writing, the letter, was helpful to processing it. But I think I have a lot of anger I haven't really expressed. I mean, I was struggling when I first saw him, but I was struggling in a different way and I was, you know, my marriage was falling apart and I was lost and I just I was maybe particularly vulnerable when this started and I was feeling very insecure about how I looked and if anybody would ever be attracted to me again and that's why I thought, well, maybe this is just some kind of unusual therapy. Yeah, but I didn't ask him and I didn't say what the fuck, don't, please don't talk about my body like that, like that's not okay with me. I just, I just let it happen. And I paid him for the privilege.

Speaker 1 18:05

No, and he cash him for the privilege and he cashed the last check. He cashed it.

Speaker 2 18:11

Yeah, and I didn't hear from him, but I asked him to please, not that I didn't want to be in contact with him and he did. Respect that.

Speaker 1 18:19

Well, I hope that letter was more for you it was Than for him.

Speaker 2 18:24

Yeah, no, it was. It was at least to say this happened. We both know this happened and it was really confusing and I really trusted you and it hurts. I don't think you should speak to your patients like that and I don't want to be in contact with you anymore. Yeah, I mean, that was the gist of it, but mainly about how he abused my trust.

Episode Closing and Call to Action

Speaker 1 18:51

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I have to confess, I gave Bipolar she five stars today and we've been going for 30 plus episodes, but the rate and review on Apple Podcast wasn't clear to me, I guess. So please take a second to rate and review With Apple. It's on the podcast homepage and you just scroll down. We need to reach more listeners so these stories can help normalize mental illness. Please share an episode with someone who it may help. Again, rate, review and share. That's how we're going to keep this podcast alive and, as always, thank you.