Zach is a very talented massage therapist and I had planned to see him consistently, even twice a week. However, I communicated to him after the session that I was uncomfortable when he turned me face up. His hands were moving quickly up and down my torso. I mentioned that I had trauma from breast surgeries and alluded to other trauma. I said, going forward, maybe we could go slower face up and just do trigger point or stay face down. Talking about it, I started crying.
His response wasn’t what I expected. Typically, you would hope for “whatever you want.” He sort of said that but mostly he was sort of argumentative with me. And what really upset me was when he said I had to learn to trust him, and that it needed to be a “mental choice” I would make to trust him. Those were his exact words. When I said that wasn’t going to happen, he continued pushing his point
That’s not how things work, and it also made me feel unsafe. Trust is earned and not given, and it would’ve been earned by him saying “of course, I understand, thank you for sharing your thoughts and emotion, whatever you need.” And not insisting that I “choose” to just trust someone I don’t