When Therapists Policed My Trauma (And Why AI Wasn’t the Problem)

TLDR:

I shared a vulnerable post in a large therapists’ group on Facebook about trauma and how I use AI to clarify my thoughts. I never claimed to be a therapist. I’m an audiologist who provides counseling within my scope. I was honest. I was blocked. The original post is now pulled, all evidence of the conversation suppressed. This is the full story, for the people who are actually listening.

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Silence, Broken

This piece is about silence. The kind imposed by others, and the kind we break ourselves.

I originally shared my thoughts in a large therapists’ group on Facebook. I opened up about personal trauma and how I use AI as a tool for reflection and self-understanding. I wanted to connect with professionals in a field that once hurt me. I wanted to return to the space that caused harm, not to provoke, but to speak.

I never said I was an LPC. I never pretended to be a mental health counselor. I said I was a counselor, which I am. I provide aural rehabilitation counseling. I support people dealing with sensory dysregulation, language access, and listening fatigue. That’s part of my licensed audiology scope. I explained that openly. I used my real name. My profile was public.

Still, what followed was hostility.

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Silencing, After the Flame

What started as a few defensive replies became a full flame war. Fast, and then relentless. I was accused of world destruction. Of stealing from artists. Of promoting unethical tools. Of being mentally unfit to participate.

Angry, prying questions flooded in. They weren’t really questions. They were accusations in disguise. Projections wrapped in professional language.

Then came the private message.

“I appreciate what you provide. I am disturbed to read on LPC group you are posing as a counselor. If this is true, please stay within your licensed scope of practice. Safer for you and for clients.”

No curiosity. No attempt to ask what I actually said. Just a passive-aggressive warning based on hearsay, sent by someone I didn’t know. And then I was blocked. I couldn’t even respond.

That wasn’t about client safety. That was about control.

And now the original post is locked. No more conversation. No room for clarification. No way to speak for myself inside the group.

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Scope, Assumptions, and the Right to Speak

Let’s be clear. I’m an audiologist. I do not practice mental health therapy. I do not diagnose psychological disorders. I provide counseling within my training and licensure. I have never misrepresented that.

But in that group, I was misunderstood as claiming to be an LPC. Then I was threatened with licensure complaints. The implication was that I didn’t even have the right to be there at all.

So let’s talk about that.

This is a Facebook group. If it’s meant for licensed therapists only, say that. Require license numbers at the door. But don’t invite people in and then accuse them of deception when they speak honestly and publicly.

I didn’t sneak in. I walked in through the front door with my name on my shirt.

I didn’t show up to tear anything down. I came to cauterize. To return to the space where I once felt powerless and say, “I’m still here.”

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Projection Isn’t Ethics

There’s a stereotype that many therapists go into the field because of their own unresolved pain. I used to think that was just a generalization. I tried not to believe it.

But what I experienced in that thread didn’t feel like ethics. It felt like projection. Like unprocessed trauma wrapped in credentials. Like people who weren’t secure in their own training, trying to police someone else’s.

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Therapeutic Symbols and Unspoken Rage

To make the story visual, I also used an AI-generated image. It showed a woman in a therapy session holding a padded bat, striking the floor. The kind of expressive release I was once forced to participate in as a child.

I chose that image deliberately. It wasn’t random. That exact type of session was part of my history. I didn’t choose it then, and I don’t relive it lightly now.

That kind of therapy was supposed to help me process trauma. What it actually did was retraumatize me. I didn’t need to scream into a pillow or pound a mat. I needed someone to listen. Someone to ask me what I needed, not perform what they thought healing should look like.

The image reflected that memory. It wasn’t mockery. It was exposure.

But the use of that image, clearly generated by AI, seemed to ignite something deeper than critique. It triggered a level of undisguised rage. Not just about the content, but about the existence of AI in a therapeutic context at all.

I can’t know for sure, but I can suspect the etiology of that anger. Maybe it wasn’t just about ethics or representation. Maybe it was about fear. Maybe some saw that image and felt their field slipping through their hands.

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What AI Actually Is (and Isn’t)

Let me say this again. I never claimed AI could replace therapy. I said that it helps me reflect. That it allows me to clarify thoughts I’ve struggled to express for years. That it supports my cognition and executive functioning. That it gives me language I didn’t have access to until now.

That’s not therapy. That’s access.

I’ve lived for 32 years without therapy. Not because I hate it, but because my earliest encounters with it were not safe. I survived without it. I even thrived. I also know not everyone can. I don’t judge people who need therapy. I found another way through.

I never said AI is perfect. It isn’t. Of course I double-check anything factual. Of course I think critically about what it generates. But using AI as a reflective partner, especially for neurodivergent people like me, is not dangerous. It’s empowering.

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Fear of Replacement Isn’t My Fault

Much of the anger I received wasn’t really about me. It was about fear.

Fear of being replaced.

Fear of being irrelevant.

Fear that if a machine can help someone think, maybe their human work means less.

I get that. I do. But the fear is misplaced.

AI cannot replace good therapists. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Truly skilled therapists are priceless.

AI has no empathy. No moral compass. No deep intuition. It cannot hold pain. It cannot sit in silence and know when to speak. It has no lived experience. No trauma history. No soul.

It can reflect. It can scaffold. But it cannot guide with wisdom.

That takes a human being. A trained, grounded, emotionally attuned person.

And for now, that is the case.

At least for now, that is the case.

As Jonathan Coulton once wrote, “The future is coming soon, and things won’t always be this way.”

That doesn’t mean we should turn on each other. It means we should collaborate while we still can.

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The Real Danger

The real danger isn’t AI.

It’s the gatekeeping.

It’s the silencing.

It’s the idea that only some people are allowed to tell their stories, and the rest should sit down and stay in their scope.

You don’t have to like how I told the story.

But don’t tell me it wasn’t mine.

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Call to Action

If you’re a professional reading this, I’m not asking for agreement. I’m asking for reflection.

Before you accuse, listen.

Before you gatekeep, get curious.

Before you dismiss someone’s use of a tool, consider the system that denied them one in the first place.

I didn’t come to tear your field down. I came to survive.

I didn’t come to replace human support. I came to speak.

And no one gets to mute that.