Once, I had a therapist for depression who assumed that I had binge-eating disorder because I am fat.

It took me over a year to realize this. Right from the beginning, I made it clear that I was not there to talk about my weight, and it was off-limits as a topic. So, for over a year, I paid her lots of money and we never talked about my weight.

Then, while I was still in therapy for depression, I began to see a dietitian who specialized in treating eating disorders. My eating was all chaotic and out-of-whack and I was unhappy about it. She assessed me and told me that I did not have an eating disorder, binge or otherwise, though she agreed that my one weight-loss dieting episode, years previously, was on “the slippery slope” of anorexia nervosa.

It was funny; after a few weeks, I felt more comfortable talking to the dietitian than the therapist. We talked about body image stuff, which had been off-limits in therapy since I did not feel like paying by the hour to educate my therapist about fat prejudice, and the topic of sexual harassment came up. It rattled me with surprising force. The dietitian looked at me and said, “I think you need to talk about this in therapy.”

So, I went to the therapist and told her I wanted to talk about body image and sexual harassment, as a corollary to the work I was doing with a dietitian. She told me she was not terribly experienced in this area, but she checked with the head therapist of centre, who was, and who gave her the go-ahead to proceed, with indirect supervision.

We talked about body image stuff. Then we talked a little bit about eating, as I tried to explain to her why I was seeing a dietitian. She started to say, “Now, when you binge…”"

I stopped her. “I don’t binge. I don’t have an eating disorder.” She nodded. We talked a little more about eating. Again, she started to say something about psychological techniques to use when the urge to “binge” came up. I told her again that I didn’t binge, I did not have an eating disorder, and I’d been assessed by a dietitian who specialized in eating disorders.

She kept an even, professional tone. She explained to me that, while she was sure a dietitian knew a lot about nutrition and possibly even had some counseling skills, it was not wise to depend solely on a dietitian when it came to psychological matters, like eating disorders. I left feeling funny.

I’d known this woman for a long time. I paid her money, but in a way, we were almost friends. We were of similar ages, similar cultural backgrounds, and both interested in the same academic fields. Sometimes she told me brief, personal stories from her own life to illustrate a point. I liked hearing them. At the end of a session, I’d write her a cheque and she’d print up my receipt, laughing and chatting easily all the while.

I went home. We’d booked another appointment for a few weeks hence, as usual. After a day or two, I called her voicemail and canceled it. I told her I’d reschedule, probably the following month. I never called her again.

This has bothered me for a long time, but I’ve never written it down before. Lately, the memory has been intruding on me when I’m minding my own business. It makes me furious, sad, and ashamed all at once. Tonight, I was reading “Fat Lady” by Irvin Yalom in the book Scoot Over, Skinny: The Fat Nonfiction Anthology. It’s his story of being a therapist to a fat woman he finds repulsive. It is beyond painful to read, but I can’t look away. I come up for air after a while, gasping, thinking, “So this is how people really see me?”

And I can’t stop thinking about how I had a caring, trusting, professional relationship with a person who, all along, just saw me as the fat lady.