Pastoral Counselor
I
thought time and pouring myself into ministry would help me heal, but it
didn't. I hold in sadness and am not one to tell
people, especially strangers, about it. But I felt that I may be suffering from post-traumatic stress
disorder and that the pain in my chest could
be a precursor to a heart attack,
so I reached out to another expat Christian counseling center in town.
After having dealt with the young counselor
who had refused to call Kristin, I asked for an experienced counselor
who is also a pastor and older than me, and actually was
provided one who met all three criteria.
The pastoral counselor greeted me with warmth and confidence, but as we continued to meet weekly and I shared more and more of my journey with Kristin, his confidence seemed to wane and he seemed increasingly weighed down. After a couple of months, he began to drop increasingly strong hints that my case is more than he can deal with and he doesn't want to continue to see me. So I stopped going to see him.
About that time, Kristin suddenly messaged me via Skype and did in writing what she used to say in person: she wrote and sent a series of one liner insults and false accusations so fast and for so long that I couldn't address any of them. To try to stem the torrent of lies, hatred and anger pouring through the screen, I repeatedly messaged her to "Stop writing!" but she continued for a while, and then logged off without replying when I asked her where she is and how she is doing. I suspected the protector alter had lashed out after getting herself into another chaotic situation and again blaming me for it.
A few months thereafter, she suddenly lashed out again via Skype, and this time claimed that she is broke because I don't provide for her and have never helped her financially.
To educate the protector alter, I replied that for five years, including the first four years during which she had rarely surfaced, I had paid for everything Kristin ate, drank, wore, and in which she slept, rode, and flew. She or another alter had asked me to pay off her delinquent student loans so I had paid if off, and also paid for her tuition, room, board and other expenses at another college, as well as all of her medical bills, phones, laptops, and a car, which she had sold without my knowledge and kept the proceeds. Lest her borderline personality disorder continue to twist her memory in the years ahead, I dug through old bank statements and sent her an itemized spreadsheet with the amounts and dates of the bank transfers from my account to hers and the other expenditures over the years just for her needs.
I reminded her that the six figure total did not come from a rich man but from a missionary who first depleted his small savings and then worked in a challenging environment to provide for her. And that man wasn't even her husband, and for the first four years wasn't even her fiancé. He was someone under no obligation to provide for her but who loved and took care of her as a wounded lamb of Jesus and sought nothing in return. Even in the sixth and seventh years, she had continued to ask for financial help and I had continued to provide it, even though she was by then making more money that I was. So how could she now claim that I never helped her financially? She wasn't just lying about money; she was disparaging the sacrificial love behind that provision, as well as putting my life and ministry on hold to care for her. She didn't even reply, let alone apologize.
About six months thereafter, she suddenly called me on Skype. When I didn't answer, she asked me to answer the call as she needs to talk to me. I told her to write. She said she needs to talk. I thought she may launch into another one of her abusive tirades, so I insisted that she write and added that she is to write things that are polite and factual. If she writes any more insults or false accusations, I will delete her from my contact list and never correspond with her again.
Instead of writing what she wanted to talk about, she paused, and then simply bid me farewell, so I messaged her and told her again to write, but she didn't.