Page 105 of Borrowed Pain
Playing therapist. The phrase stripped away years of education, training, and genuine care for my clients. She reduced my identity to a psychological defense mechanism.
"I help people," I said.
"You attempt to help people using methods that don't work. That's not noble—that's narcissistic."
My professional foundation cracked under her systematic assault. Maybe she was right. Perhaps I had chosen my career to feel important rather than to help others genuinely.
The fuzz in my brain made her words seem reasonable, even compassionate. She wasn't attacking me—she was trying to help me become a better therapist. Everything she'd said was designed to help me see the truth about my inadequate methods.
My brain fog made everything feel true and false simultaneously. Part of me recognized manipulation, but another part—drowning in professional doubt—absorbed her words like poison soaking through skin.
Everything I believed about my training, calling, and ability to help others collapsed into rubble. Maybe I'd never been good at my work. Perhaps graduate school had been a mistake.
"The families," I whispered. "Iris's sister… she called after the funeral. She asked if there were warning signs she had missed. I told her it wasn't her fault—" my tongue stuck, my mouth cottony and dry "—but it was mine. My inadequate treatment… drove her to suicide."
"Because you used techniques that strengthened trauma responses rather than resolving them," Harrow confirmed.
The chemical fog thickened, making thoughts heavy and movements sluggish. Underneath, something deeper was breaking—the core belief that I belonged in rooms with suffering people and could offer comfort rather than harm.
"Dr. McCabe, this recognition is painful but necessary. Traditional therapy has failed trauma survivors for decades."
"What can I do?" The question felt like it emerged from an unfamiliar part of my brain. "How do I fix what I've broken?"
"You begin by accepting that everything you've learned is wrong," she said.
Her recorder's red light blinked steadily, documenting my professional collapse for whatever purpose she had planned. Part of me wanted to stop talking, but the medications made resistance feel petty and self-serving.
"I've been lying to clients," I continued. "Telling them trauma heals slowly when the truth is my methods don't work at all."
"Excellent insight," Harrow murmured, making notes. "Your honesty about therapeutic fraud demonstrates genuine potential for professional growth."
Growth. It sounded like my salvation.
She consulted her tablet. "We can teach you methods that provide genuine resolution. Techniques that eliminate trauma responses instead of merely managing them. Would you like to learn how real therapy works?"
"Yes," I said without hesitation. "Please teach me how to help them properly."
This wasn't torture. It was education.
The IV drip made it feel like I had cotton stuffed into my skull, but somewhere beneath the chemical haze, a memory surfaced. Not recent trauma—something older, foundational.
I was twelve, standing in Sacred Heart's sanctuary while Father McKenzie's voice echoed off the stone walls. I saw my father's casket draped in the Seattle Fire Department flag, brass fittings catching sunlight shining through stained glass. The air smelled of lilies and Ma's rose hand cream as she gripped my hand tight enough to leave marks.
"Why do people have to hurt so much?" I'd whispered during the service.
She'd leaned down, her breath warm against my ear. "Because hurt is part of loving, Miles. And someone has to witness it.Someone has to sit with people when the hurt gets too big to carry alone."
Not fix it. Not cure it. Witness it.
That was the foundation. And somewhere beyond the haze, I remembered Rowan's voice, steady and uncompromising, like he'd seen that part of me before I remembered it myself.
"Dr. McCabe?" Harrow's voice seemed to come from one hundred yards away. "You've gone quiet. Are you processing your professional inadequacies?"
My breathing slowed. The memory brought me real grounding, connecting me to purpose instead of pathology.
"My first client," I said, voice steadier than it had been in hours. "Gladys Langley. Sixty-three years old, lost her husband in a construction accident."
"Another therapeutic failure?" Harrow prompted, pen ready.
