Iāve been thinking about writing this post for weeks, but then I get nervous and I donāt. Todayās the day.
Itās about one of my past mentors. Iāve been thinking about him- I rarely gender identify actual people but in this case itās important that he is a he ā Iāve been thinking about him a lot, lately.
Because Iāve had some pretty huge successes this last year. Because he didnāt think I would. And maybe I thought that if I just got to this point- this assistant professor point, this not needing his approval or his letter of recommendation ever again point, this actually-I-can-care-about-real-people-and-do-good-science point āif I just made it here, he would fade away and I would never think about him again or seethe about the way he treated me while secretly hoping he would fall all over himself congratulating me again. I would just be and he would disappear. But he didnāt, and just this morning I was reading his twitter feed, seething and hoping.
I met him in undergrad. He invited me to be one of his RAs, and later, his TA. He gave me responsibilities that most undergrads donāt get. He wrote me a letter of recommendation for graduate school and then got another faculty member to write one too when I didnāt have enough. I babysat and dog-sat for him. We met on campus, and off campus- usually in groups, but not always. He bought me dinner and wine. After I received an offer to attend the program where he had received his PhD, he tearfully told me the program wasnāt good enough for me and he knew I would accept a better offer. Once, he surprised me- I have a strong startle reflex and didnāt see him coming āand he apologized profusely for days.
He openly discussed the strengths and weaknesses of his students, and which he liked best, which seemed to be based on who obeyed him and agreed with him the most. He told me- explicitly āthat I should try harder to be one of his favorites. He criticized everything I did. He called me on a major holiday to complain about a draft Iād sent him and demand immediate revisions. He watched the tapes of me collecting data for our studies, and saved sections he didnāt like so he could show them to me. He didnāt like my facial expression (too mean) or my tone of voice (too flat, which contrasts weirdly with a later supervisor who thought I talked like a āvalley girlā). He expected more from me. When it was time for my evaluation, instead of giving me feedback on my performance, he gave me feedback on my personality. He thought I was directionless, overly ambitious, ālost.ā He thought I was wasting my talents on clinical psychology, because āaccording to him āit was total bullshit, a pseudointellectual exercise that makes therapists feel good but doesnāt actually help anyone, although he also didnāt really believe that mental health mattered enough to study either. A real scientist would pursue something else, like data science. I cried. I told him something nearly no one knows, a deep hurt from my past. He told me something similar. It might have been intended to make me feel better, this sharing of secrets, but I felt exposed and ripped open and burdened.
A number of the people in my life at that time- my ex-boyfriend, my parents āthought we were having an affair. We werenāt, and I donāt remember any moment I thought he was testing the waters in that direction. But years later, I was looking at a list of signs of emotional abuse, and it all fit. We had that up-and-down, toxic-but-dedicated relationship you expect out of people who are in love even though theyāre terrible for each other. I probably did love him, but I also hated him. My friends and family got used to me complaining about the latest frustrating or mean thing heād done. Eventually they stopped asking why I continued to work with him. My mother told me that the number one reason she was excited for my upcoming graduation from college was that it meant I would never have to work with him again.
And I havenāt. I moved on. We talked occasionally at first and met up once, which was an awkward disaster that lead to a long text chat where he, possibly drunk and definitely emotional, apologized for not valuing me more. I didnāt know what to say. I felt invaded. We didnāt talk for years after that. Every once in awhile he made an overture- āwhen you visit next, letās get a drink!ā āand I was carefully polite but non-committal. Which isnāt to say I didnāt want to see him- I did ābut something had changed for me in that strange meeting after I started graduate school. He was still talking about favorite students and what I should do to be one of them, and I felt disdainful. Why does he think I want to be one of them? I had a new mentor, who believed that mental health care, science, and social justice were intricately connected, has never commented on my appearance or my voice, and treats all of their students like they matter. Since then, I have had many mentors and supervisors- most good to excellent. I have had conflicts with mentors, but was mostly able to resolve them in ways where I felt respected and heard. I was not reliant on his approval anymore.
And yet, here I am, about a decade later, and I want his approval. Maybe more than that- I want him to acknowledge the scale of my success and that I achieved it despite him. I want to know that he knows that he treated me poorly, and not in some soppy, in-my-feelings way. Possibly perversely, it reminds me of that same ex-boyfriend, another toxic relationship that tore me down even in the good moments, that relied on me undervaluing myself and so not expecting any better from him. I donāt miss that ex-boyfriend, but I find myself in some moments wishing that he would recognize what he did wrong and sincerely apologize for it- not because he wants me back (heās apologized in a āthings will be different!ā sort of way before, and it rings hollow), but because itās the right thing to do. Neither of these things will happen.
The last time I was in therapy, my therapist and I talked about closure. She said something I think about a lot: sometimes you need to create your own closure, because the person you want it from isnāt going to do it for you. I hoped reaching this point in my career would be my closure: I had proved him wrong. But I donāt feel it yet.
