My Therapist Follows My Ex

ok PLEASE tell me you saw her story before it disappeared

she posted a photo with HIM. in the café we used to go to. with the little heart-shaped lamps. Priya tell me you saw it

...wait. you're not Priya.

oh god. I'm so sorry. please forget everything I said

...yes. but I'm not going to talk about it with a stranger, thanks 😭

thank you. sorry again for the random panic dump

ok so. weird follow-up question and you can absolutely ignore this

your instagram handle. is it @dee.makes.things?

because. and I need you to stay calm. you follow my ex.

his name is Marcus. @marcusrunscities. he posts running routes and oat milk opinions

see that is EXACTLY the kind of thing he does and it's annoyingly charming and I KNOW, I KNOW

I wasn't looking through his followers!! I was looking through mine. YOU followed ME first apparently

right. so we have a mutual account.

which one

Dee. you have three seconds

.

..

that's my THERAPIST'S account

so let me get this straight. you follow my ex, you see my ex's followers, you follow me, you text me by accident, and we share a therapist

Ok so here is what is messing with me — Dr. Chen always says, 'trust that the right connections find you,' and I always thought that was just something therapists say to sound deep? But now I'm wondering if she somehow engineered this. It's completely irrational, I know, but she follows Marcus. She follows my ex! Does she follow all her clients' exes?? Is that a thing?!

wow you sound exactly like Dr. Chen

ok I need to send you something. this is either going to make you feel better or make everything significantly worse

📷

she only follows 312 people. Marcus is one of them.

THANK YOU. validation accepted.

I have a session on Thursday. I have been thinking about nothing else for the last ten minutes.

...Dr. Chen literally said that to me. word for word. last month.

she has a script. she absolutely has a script.

you're reasonable and I don't fully trust it

I asked her.

she said she follows accounts related to urban wellness and running because she runs marathons. she found him through a running hashtag. no drama. completely innocent.

and then she asked why it bothered me so much that the boundaries between different parts of my life were overlapping. and we spent the rest of the session talking about Marcus.

which was probably the point. she's very good.

she also said — and I quote — 'it sounds like this stranger you spoke to helped you process something in a more honest way than you expected'

she knows a version of you. the version who sounds weirdly like her.

...I cannot believe you just asked me out for coffee by referencing the universe and Dr. Chen in the same breath

ok yes. coffee. yes.

not at the heart-shaped lamps café though. just to be clear.