| |
We are human. Why is it so hard to find mental health professionals who can see that? My name is Iris, and I live as an out map. The story of my “outing” is, unfortunately, too long to tell, and frankly, it’s exhausting even thinking about telling it. I’ve given the full account many times to my core group of friends. The short of it: I had a troubled childhood followed by a troubled adulthood. In my adulthood, I was a truly vile and repugnant person, and I got my much overdue comeuppance. I admitted to being a map publicly after a lengthy and thorough public cancellation.
You might be asking yourself why on earth someone would admit to being a pedophile on social media? I did that because I was clinically insane at the time. The window of my psychosis was short, but no one cared about any psychological distinctions once the hysteria set in. Just existing is a threat to the innocent, sane or not. You see, during my outing, I was dealing with severe drug-induced psychosis and CPTSD from my experiences as a CSA survivor.
Out in the wild
Pretty soon, the death threats, the stalking, being publicly scorned, doxxed, swatted, and my home vandalized regularly, profoundly exacerbated my mental health issues. I so desperately needed a therapist. The journey to find a therapist who treated me like a human being was long and arduous, and it really shouldn’t have been.
Sadly, the people committed to destroying my life (I will refer to this group as “they”). They went so far as to call and/or email every psychiatric practice in my city. These individuals would show them the “receipts,” proving that I did indeed admit to being a map online, and I was, in fact, disgusting. My alleged behavior was viewed as so severe that I suppose everyone decided I was too detestable to treat. As a result, I was rejected outright many times during my search. I was also forced out of a halfway house and rejected by all local AA and NA meetings. The first few therapists I contacted made excuses for why they couldn’t make an appointment for me. I was out of network; they weren’t accepting new clients. Even when I could prove they were in my network, and they were indeed taking new clients.
Searching for shelter, lashed by a storm
But after a time, some therapists agreed to work with me. One insisted I sign myself into a psychiatric facility indefinitely. She wouldn’t let it go either. She kept telling me I needed to admit that I was dangerous and to take accountability for my alleged crimes. I was there to deal with my drug addiction, my husband, who hit me, my suicidal ideation, and my CPTSD symptoms. She didn’t see those things as important in light of the pedophilia. Go figure. Everything was talked about with this sense of urgency and the idea that I was an immediate threat to any child that might cross my path. Even in my most unhinged moments of psychosis, I never experienced any overwhelming urge to touch or otherwise harm a child. I was never this ticking time bomb archetype that people made me out to be. But it was assumed that if I had such a profound mental illness, then surely, I was capable of anything.
Another woman agreed to treat me, but she told me I had to come in every week. That was very expensive and unnecessary, but I was desperate and unmedicated. In the total of maybe 5 or 6 sessions, she didn’t look at me once. She would look down at her little notebook the majority of the time. She never looked me in the eye. I can’t tell you how degrading that was. It ended up reinforcing a lot of my shame and self-loathing. As if I needed help making those things more painful to deal with.
Then, I had a male therapist who, at first, seemed promising. He was trained in drug addiction. He looked me in the eye, and he seemed to really listen to me. He also didn’t make my pedophilia the main event of our sessions. That was nice. However, he had a different approach to “treating” my pedophilia. He decided medication was the way to go. And I was compliant because I wanted medication the entire time. This man proceeded to put me on an astronomical amount of medication.
He put me on 600mg of Seroquel, 400mg of trazadone, and 2,400mg of gabapentin. I have been told by my current therapist that 600mg of seroquel was a dangerously high and ethically irresponsible dosage for a doctor to prescribe. Within four months, I had gained a ton of weight, my memory got bad, the brain fog was debilitating, I could barely stay awake during the day, I slept 10 hours at night, I was numb, a zombie. I also couldn’t feel anything from the waist down either. That was the real goal. He thought that medicating me into a coma would set me straight. No longer would I be a threat because I couldn’t muster the energy to speak in complete sentences. After repeatedly asking to adjust my medication, I simply stopped going.
The land I don't talk about
The next one was by far the worst. I went to a clinic for drug addicts. I can’t speak in too much detail about this clinic because I was forced to sign an NDA upon my exit. That’s how badly I was treated. There’s one very mild incident I can tell you about—Once, I was asked to get blood work done in-house. Both my arms were strapped down, and the woman stuck a needle into my arm over and over and over again. She would say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.” I writhed in my seat, unable to move my arms. Finally, the other nurse in the room said, “Okay, come on, we gotta get this done.” Only then did the technician finally stick me and draw the blood.
I left there without any psych meds or a referral to a psychiatrist. I also left there with a DID diagnosis. Mind you, there was no psychiatrist on site at this place. Some drug clinic. This confounds me to this day. I have never claimed to be sane. I have several serious mental illnesses. I am a degenerate by all social standards. But the abuse I was subjected to there was utterly without justification. Every time I get blood drawn, I expect the same needless torment. Fortunately, I have never had an incident like that since.
In from the cold?
After that, I saw a woman whom I liked very much. She was very kind, and she laughed at my bleakest, darkest jokes. But once I told her how I was canceled and I lived as a pariah, she suddenly refocused her diagnosis–she quickly told me I was POCD. I had to roll my eyes. I understand that what I told her about my past does sound an awful lot like POCD. But I did not have it. Sure, I had some OCD-like symptoms, but that was mostly trauma-related. It was almost a little offensive to me.
I was not living in some delusion where I was so paranoid and confused that I thought everyone around me knew I was a pedophile. I wish. I tried to explain to her that she couldn’t be more wrong. I ended up getting so frustrated that I stood up and started shouting at her about how much I was attracted to kids. I was as crude as possible. This had zero effect on her. No matter what I said, she wouldn’t believe me. She would look at me with pity in her eyes and this smirk that said “you poor thing, you’re so confused”. I stopped going once I realized she wouldn't be convinced. That whole thing is humorous to me, after the fact. She was a talented therapist, but I think the real issue was that she just refused to accept that I, as a woman, could be a pedophile.
I ended up getting lucky, though; after being jerked around for those few years, I finally met my current therapist. I decided to pick a therapist at random because it seemed pointless to me to hunt for a specialist or do research on a psychiatrist. I was too exhausted. The odds of finding a decent therapist that way are slim, but I found her.
She doesn’t mistreat me; she’s been wonderful with medication management, and I finally feel like I’m balanced and whole mentally. Very recently, I felt the urge to tell her I was a MAP. I had held off for long enough. She couldn’t have reacted any better. It was so surreal as to be almost impossible to believe. She continues to treat me like a human being. She told me I wasn’t even the only MAP she worked with. It fills me with hope for the future of MAP mental health support.
We are human. Why is it so hard to find mental health professionals who can see that? This is a sentiment echoed by many in the map community, and it fills me with hot anguish some days. But then I remember I came out of this horrible situation with my life still intact, and I finally get to live an authentic life, as scary as it can be sometimes. There are people out there who get it. Some therapists have compassion and rationality. Never give up, or they win.
| |
