I spent years in therapy slowly learning how to feel safe with another human being. My therapist—let’s call him Eugene—was steady, calm, and kind. He didn’t flinch when I cried, when I dissociated, or when I struggled to believe I was real. He listened with compassion to the parts of me that emerged, each holding different memories of my childhood abuse. For a long time, I believed we had built something strong enough to hold the weight of all I carried.

But then came the rupture.

It happened during an online session in early February 2021. I was sitting at my laptop, expectant, a little anxious. I had something important to ask, and something even more important to offer.

What happened in that session left me gutted.

In hindsight, the rupture had been coming for a while. From October through January, I had been secretly recording our sessions. I didn’t do it out of malice or disrespect—I did it because the recordings anchored me. I used them to revisit Eugene’s words when I was overwhelmed, to ground myself in his tone and pacing when I dissociated, and to help integrate my fragmented parts. But eventually, the secrecy weighed on me. So, in a session in late January, I told him. I came clean and asked if I could begin recording the sessions openly, with his consent. I also asked if I could give him a pair of hand-knit socks—something deeply symbolic to me.

He said he’d need to consult with his supervisor and would give me his answer the following week.

I spent the next few days anxious but hopeful. I had already dropped the socks off at his office, trusting the outcome would be positive. I didn’t expect a warm embrace or effusive thanks. I just hoped he’d receive the gesture in the spirit it was given: as a symbol of trust, care, and gratitude. For someone like me—a survivor of profound relational trauma—offering a gift like that was more than personal. It was sacred.

When the session arrived, I was hopeful. But Eugene’s demeanor was different—flatter, more distant.

First, he told me I couldn’t continue recording our sessions. Not even with consent. He said I needed to delete all prior recordings. His tone was firm, matter-of-fact. There was no discussion. No curiosity about why the recordings mattered so much to me. No questions about what they helped me cope with. Just a directive.

Before I could fully absorb that loss, I asked about the socks. I already knew something was wrong, but I pushed forward—surely this, at least, would land.

“I can’t accept them,” he said. “It’s too convoluted.”

Those four words landed like a blow.

Convoluted. That’s what he called it. Not “meaningful,” not “complicated,” not “intimate.” Convoluted. As if my gesture was somehow tangled, manipulative, or inappropriate. He didn’t say it unkindly—but he also didn’t explain. He just told me I would have to return to his office to pick them up.

And that was it. No invitation to explore what it meant. No curiosity about the significance of the gesture. Just a closed door. All this occurred within the first fifteen minutes of the session. It’s entirely possible that Eugene might have posed those questions, had I been able to finish the session. But I couldn’t speak and quickly ended the call.

What “Too Convoluted” Meant to Me

I have complex PTSD, shaped by years of betrayal and abuse in early childhood. My mind is structured dissociatively—parts of me carry different memories and functions, and therapy was the first place many of those parts ever felt safe.

For one part of me—a young, developmentally frozen aspect of self—Eugene represented something she never had: consistent, safe care. She trusted him. She believed he cared. The socks were her way of saying, “I see you. You matter to me.”

For that part, and for others, the rejection of the socks was not about wool or boundaries. It was about something much deeper. It was about being unwanted.

And when the recordings were taken away in the same session—tools that helped me reorient to his presence when I fragmented—it was like being stripped of the last anchor I had.

I spiraled. Within days, I was severely dissociated and psychotic. I couldn’t sleep, eat, or track reality. I was hospitalized soon after. The rupture had touched something primal—something my nervous system interpreted as abandonment and betrayal.

The Cost of Silence

What hurt most wasn’t the decisions Eugene made—it was how he made them. There was no process. No curiosity. No attempt to understand what the socks or the recordings meant to me. When I tried to revisit it later, he shut down. Sometimes he got defensive. Sometimes he remembered it completely differently from me. It was disorienting. At times, I felt like I was arguing with a brick wall—or worse, being subtly gaslit.

The most devastating part of it all was this: he didn’t stay. Not emotionally. Not relationally. He couldn’t or wouldn’t join me in unpacking what happened. And that’s what broke me.

In trauma therapy, rupture is inevitable. But repair is not. And when it doesn’t come—especially for survivors of betrayal trauma—it’s not just a therapeutic failure. It’s a reenactment of the original wound.

Understanding the Reenactment

Many trauma survivors, especially those with complex trauma, develop a deep sensitivity to relational signals. Polyvagal theory helps us understand this: when the nervous system is constantly scanning for threat, even subtle cues of disconnection or dismissal can trigger a full-body survival response.

When Eugene told me to delete the recordings without asking why I’d made them…

When he said the socks were “too convoluted” and declined them without discussion…

When he shut down attempts to revisit the rupture in later sessions…

All of that felt like a collapse in connection. A dorsal vagal freeze. A withdrawal of attunement. My body interpreted it as danger. Not metaphorical danger—real, lived, existential danger.

In betrayal trauma, the wound isn’t just what was done to us—it’s that it was done by someone we depended on. The therapist-client relationship can recreate that dynamic, especially when the therapist becomes an attachment figure.

That’s what happened with Eugene. And when the rupture came, and no repair followed, my nervous system responded as if the past had returned.

Therapists Hold Power—Even When They Don’t Feel It

I’m not writing this to vilify Eugene. I believe he cared. I believe he wanted to help. But good intentions don’t shield clients from harm. And therapists often underestimate the power they hold—not because they’re controlling, but because they matter so deeply.

They become lifelines.

When a therapist declines a gift, or says no to a request, it doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Boundaries are essential. But how those boundaries are communicated makes all the difference. Are they spoken with curiosity? With care? With room for the client’s meaning to unfold? Or are they delivered flatly, with no relational invitation?

For me, the abruptness of Eugene’s boundary-setting turned a moment of potential growth into one of trauma. The moment cried out for co-regulation—for attunement, exploration, and repair. What I got instead was distance.

Why This Story Matters

Too often, therapists are trained to focus on techniques and interventions. But for survivors of relational trauma, the therapy relationship is the intervention. It’s where the injury happened, and it’s where healing must occur.

If you’re a therapist reading this, please understand: when your client offers a gift, or makes a request that seems unusual, it’s rarely about what it seems. It’s about testing safety. It’s about memory. It’s about whether you’ll stay.

If you flinch, or freeze, or say “it’s too convoluted” without exploring what it means—you may unknowingly reenact the very thing your client is trying to heal from.

You don’t have to say yes to everything. But you do have to stay in the room. Emotionally. Relationally. You have to be willing to bear witness to your client’s meaning, not just enforce your own.

The Invitation

So here’s my invitation: when rupture happens—and it will—lean in.

Ask what it meant to your client. Share what it brought up in you. Be honest. Be human. You don’t have to fix it all. You just have to stay.

Because for many of us, the staying is the healing.

***

Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.