When Everyone Wants Something From You, Trust Gets Complicated

I’ve become known among some of my colleagues as a therapist who works particularly well with professional athletes and other people who live with bright lights—and a lot of eyes—on them.

I enjoy this work tremendously. I also find it incredibly fulfilling.

Here’s the thing: professional athletes, performers, and other high-profile people often don’t know whom they can trust. And for good reason.

People want things from them. Money. Autographs. Selfies. Access. Connections. Sometimes even the sneakers on their feet or the shirt off their back.

I once read an interview with a well-known celebrity—obviously not one of my clients—who said that her therapist had sold information from their sessions to a news outlet.

My heart sank.

It was unethical, astonishing, and a profound violation of the confidentiality that therapy is supposed to provide. But beyond that, it was deeply unfair.

Therapy might have been the only place in this person’s life where she could talk honestly about what was happening to her. It may have taken months, or even years, for her to feel safe enough to open up. Then the person entrusted with that information used it against her.

She may never seek therapy again. I can understand why. I’m not sure I would trust another therapist after an experience like that either.

And that is a tragedy—not because therapists are entitled to her trust, but because she deserved to have one place where she didn’t have to wonder what someone wanted from her.

You can’t build trust without vulnerability

People who live in the public eye often need to be skeptical to protect themselves. They have to think carefully about who gets access to them, what they share, and how that information could be used.

That skepticism makes sense.

The problem is that a strategy designed to keep you safe can also make it difficult to build the close relationships you want. Deep relationships require vulnerability. But vulnerability requires trust.

You can’t have one without the other.

So how do you allow someone to know you when experience has taught you that being known can be dangerous? How do you figure out who is trustworthy without taking any emotional risks? How do you stop protecting yourself long enough to develop the kind of connection you actually want?

There aren’t simple answers to those questions.

I know something about standing out

I’m not a professional athlete or celebrity, and I would never pretend that my experience is the same. But I do understand something about standing out everywhere you go and questioning what people want from you.

A long time ago, I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. I was the only gringa for miles, and I was noticeable almost everywhere I went.

People assumed I had much more money than they did. They asked me for money and sometimes sent their children to my house for groceries after seeing me return from shopping. I was charged more than other passengers on buses and more than other customers in stores. People asked to take pictures with me.

The community partners I was supposed to work alongside became frustrated when they learned I didn’t have easy access to grant money. Eventually, they left me to do much of the work alone.

Sometimes I felt as though I had started to blend into the community. Then something would happen that reminded me that I hadn’t.

It was lonely.

Being accepted into the Peace Corps was an enormous accomplishment. The selection process was demanding, and I was proud of the work I was there to do. But that work also came with scrutiny.

Even something as ordinary as having a glass of wine at home felt complicated. I would close my doors and windows so no one could see me. I worried that being perceived as a “party girl” could damage my reputation and interfere with the work I cared deeply about.

I felt watched. I felt responsible for how I was perceived. And I often felt alone.

Again, that is not the same as being famous. I wasn’t followed by photographers, discussed by strangers online, or responsible for a career involving millions of dollars. But that experience gave me a small window into what it feels like when you cannot simply disappear into a crowd—and when other people’s assumptions about you affect your ability to live and work.

Therapy should be one place where you don’t have to perform

When athletes and other high-profile people talk to me about feeling watched, isolated, or unsure of other people’s motives, I don’t dismiss those concerns as paranoia or tell them they simply need to “open up.”

Their caution developed for a reason.

Our work isn’t about forcing vulnerability or handing out trust to people who haven’t earned it. It’s about learning how to protect yourself without shutting everyone out. It’s about recognizing the difference between privacy and isolation—and figuring out when caution is keeping you safe and when it is keeping you lonely.

Therapy should be one place where you don’t have to perform.

You shouldn’t have to impress your therapist, take care of your therapist, or wonder whether your private experiences will become someone else’s story.

You get to be a person—not a name, a career, a source of access, or an opportunity.

And you deserve at least one relationship in which no one is asking you for anything except honesty.