My Most Embarrassing Therapist Moment

I always thought being a Therapist meant I had to be perfect all of the time. I was completing my Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling in a state far away from my family at a time when my life was anything but “perfect.” I worked 60-70 hours a week and didn’t know how to take care of myself.

It’s hard to be perfect when working 16-17 hour days six days a week, especially when you constantly give your all to taking care of other people but not filling up your cup first. I was exhausted, coping poorly, and couldn’t relax.

Household responsibilities seemed increasingly overwhelming, in addition to all the other tasks on my schedule. I worked full-time as a group counselor at a substance abuse treatment center, completed internship hours at an LGBTQ+ community center, and had taken on a full master’s caseload. Graduation could not come soon enough! Household chores were last on my list of things I wanted to do. My life was never-ending piles of laundry and dishes, and my apartment looked like a massive natural disaster had hit.

On a typical Tuesday morning, I had been up late writing papers and catching up on work when I headed into the LGBT Community Center to work towards my internship hours. My internship at this facility allowed me to work with members of a community that I passionately advocated for and was one of the main motivating factors for becoming a Therapist.

This particular Tuesday, I had mindlessly thrown on an outfit out of my dryer that morning, as I barely had time for anything, including hanging up laundry. I was wearing a pair of black slacks, a nice blouse, and a cardigan as I often did for the days of seeing clients professionally.

My first clients were a couple I had worked with for several sessions before, so we had already established an excellent professional relationship. I ended the session, scheduled them for the next week, and as I stood up, one of my clients said, “Hey, I think you have something stuck to your back; let me grab that for you.”

Hoping it was just a dryer sheet from the mornings’ laundry stuck to my cardigan, I let my client pull something off my back, and we examined it. He was just as mortified as I to discover that it was a pair of underwear, and not just any underwear, a thong! The static electricity from my dryer had made it stick to my cardigan.

My face was now beet red, as I tried to play it off,

“That must’ve just stuck to me from the laundry!”

We laughed about it as I silently threw my underwear into my purse in my office. Mortified and determined not to tell anyone else the mishap of my day, I kept this a secret.

My clients have seen my underwear! This is embarrassing! What are they going to think of me now?!

I burdened myself for years with trying to be perfect. I tried to present as perfect. If I wasn’t perfect, I was automatically a failure. Pairing my perfectionistic tendencies with my career as a Therapist was a double whammy. My brain would constantly spew false narratives of perfectionism my way.

“Perfectionism is not a way to avoid shame; perfectionism is a form of shame.”- Brene Brown

Having underwear stuck to my back and letting my clients see me vulnerable allowed them to view me in an insanely human way that they hadn’t before. I was more mortified than my clients were. They never brought it up again. Since then, I’ve learned a great deal about perfectionism, humility, patience, and the importance of hanging up my laundry.

Showing our humanity and learning from our mistakes helps promote growth. It also helps us form relationships and connections with one another. In my embarrassing clinical moments, I now use those experiences to relate and help others rather than shy away from them. There’s beauty in life’s imperfections, even the ones where your underwear is on display for the whole world to see.