Chapter 13: One Time in Therapy My Therapist Asked: Say What It Is

I have spent enough time in therapy to know two things.

One, healing is apparently not a linear journey, which is very rude because I personally would have preferred a clean project plan, deliverables, and a reasonable implementation timeline.

Two, it is surprisingly hard to find someone who can get all the way to the root of whatever haunted forest is happening inside me. And I say that with love. I believe in therapy. I believe in counselling. I have done a lot of both. I also work in a field where people talk to me about hard things, complicated things, human things, and the quiet little demons that sit in the corner until someone finally asks the right question.

So I respect the work.

I also know myself well enough to admit I am not exactly an entry-level emotional spreadsheet. There are layers. There are systems. There are trauma responses wearing business casual. There are coping mechanisms with better attendance records than most staff teams. There is a whole internal committee in here, and unfortunately, several of them have strong opinions and access to Wi-Fi.

But one thing a therapist said to me once really stayed with me.

Pay attention to what hurts them more: the thought of losing you, or the thought of hurting you.

That sentence has followed me around for a while.

At first, I thought about it the way most people probably would. Relationships. Situationships. The confusing little emotional cul-de-sacs where someone wants access to you, comfort from you, loyalty from you, maybe even devotion from you, but becomes suddenly very philosophical when accountability enters the room.

Because losing you hurts their ego.

Hurting you would require them to look at themselves.

And those are not the same thing.

Then, because apparently my brain cannot simply process a normal therapy sentence like a normal person, my mind went from relationships to situationships to dictatorships.

Stay with me.

Relationships are supposed to involve mutual care. Situationships often involve mutual confusion. Dictatorships involve one party insisting everything is fine while everyone else quietly updates their exit strategy.

Different scales. Same basic tell.

In a healthy relationship, the idea of hurting you should matter. In a situationship, losing access to you often matters more. And in a dictatorship, losing control is treated like a national emergency while the harm done to people gets filed somewhere under “unfortunate but necessary.”

That is the joke, but it is also the point.

Whether it is a person, a company, an institution, or a system, you learn a lot by watching what triggers the strongest reaction.

The thought of harming people?

Or the thought of being seen harming people?

Because those are not the same thing either.

And since I know some of you are probably thinking it, let me save you the suspense: how is some tiny five-foot-four little Canadian baby out here talking about dictatorships, patterns, systems, and strategy like she has a command centre in her head?

Well, let me tell you a secret.

I do.

Or at least, spiritually.

This is the part people misunderstand about me all the time. They see the softness first. The humour. The warmth. The childlike wonder. The giggle. The fact that I can still be delighted by flowers, stupid jokes, beautiful writing, and a well-timed meme.

And they mistake that for weakness.

That is their mistake.

I hate dictatorships because I understand control when I see it. I understand the difference between care and domination, leadership and manipulation, structure and coercion. What throws people off is that I can say all of that while still sounding like someone who might stop to admire a flower on the sidewalk.

But those things are not opposites.

I can be soft and strategic. I can be playful and precise. I can giggle and still think like a wartime general when the situation requires it, surveying the terrain, tracking movements, anticipating outcomes, and making decisions without losing sight of the objective.

The ones who can still laugh after seeing the pattern are not always the ones who missed it. Sometimes they are the ones who saw the whole thing, survived the first wave of disgust, made coffee, opened the laptop, and decided to document it properly.

And this is where the dog thing comes back.

Because everybody loves loyalty when loyalty means obedience.

Everybody loves unconditional love when it means nobody asks questions. Nobody challenges the story. Nobody notices the pattern. Nobody asks why the terms changed, why the money moved that way, why the structure is so complicated, why accountability always seems to evaporate right before it reaches the people with power.

A dog is loyal. A dog loves unconditionally. A dog does not ask for governance records, payment flows, licensing claims, corporate filings, processor relationships, or why the person holding the leash keeps calling control “care.”

And listen, I love dogs.

But I am not a dog.

I am a grown woman with pattern recognition, standards, and Wi-Fi.

So if someone wants blind devotion, wrong audience. If someone wants obedience dressed up as loyalty, wrong audience. If someone wants people to sit quietly, wag their tails, and treat power like it is automatically benevolent, wrong audience.

Go ahead and worship the dictator like a dog if that is your thing.

Woof woof.

I am not built for that.

I am interested in loyalty that can survive a direct question. I am interested in trust that does not collapse under scrutiny. I am interested in love, leadership, regulation, and accountability that do not require everyone else to roll over before the conversation starts.

And that brings me to the “so what” of it all.

The “so what” is not that I had a bad experience and decided to process it publicly on the internet, although honestly, there are worse hobbies. I write daily for funzies. This is not new. Most of these posts are a little bit of a strip tease anyway. I show a shoulder of the story, then a little ankle of the evidence, then maybe a flash of the bigger structure, and everyone can decide whether they are paying attention.

That is how I write.

A little humour. A little chaos. A little “did she just say that?” A little beauty. A little bite.

But while that is happening publicly, I am working my ass off quietly.

Stealth mode is not inactivity.

It is preparation.

And right now, the preparation is the real work.

I am building an extensive, sourced, indexed, and explained report on the connectors. And when I say connectors, I mean the operators, brands, legal entities, directors, payment processors, affiliate networks, software providers, licensing bodies, corporate service providers, Canadian-facing entities, offshore entities, trademarks, terms pages, sponsorships, filings, archived material, payment flows, complaint pathways, public records, regulatory gaps, overlapping addresses, repeated names, and all the places where the same machinery appears under different lighting.

Not gossip.

Not vibes.

Not a corkboard with red string and emotional support snacks.

A report.

The kind of report I used to work on in my final years of university, when the point was not to sound dramatic. The point was to show your work. To prove you understood the structure. To take something complicated and explain it without flattening it into nonsense.

That is the part people underestimate.

They look at one person asking questions and assume it is emotional. They assume it is messy. They assume it is personal, and therefore somehow less serious.

But personal is not the opposite of serious.

Personal is often where the evidence starts.

A person notices something is wrong. A person asks a question. A person gets a non-answer. A person follows that non-answer to a footer, a filing, a descriptor, a licence, a trademark, a processor, a related company, an archived page, a regulator, a corporate address, a director, a sponsorship, a public statement, a missing term, a changed term, and suddenly the issue is no longer one person’s frustration.

It is a map.

That is what I am building.

A map.

And the map matters because the real story is rarely sitting neatly in one brand, one website, one fine, or one press release. The story lives in the connectors. It lives in how one thing points to another. It lives in how responsibility gets sliced so thin that everyone can pretend they only held one piece. It lives in how a consumer can be routed through a structure they never agreed to enter, then be told the issue is too complicated for anyone to explain clearly.

That is the part I am not accepting.

I am not accepting half-answers dressed up as accountability.

Not from myself. Not from the report. Not from the website. Not from the communications strategy. Not from the evidence. Not from the public education. Not from people who want to call this complicated because complicated is a convenient place to hide.

Anything that comes across my desk is going to be top notch.

That is not arrogance. That is standards.

I know how I work. I overthink. I overdocument. I overorganize. I read the footnotes. I check the names. I build the chart. I follow the entity. I compare the terms. I look at the address. I notice the spelling change. I keep the receipts. I separate what is confirmed from what is alleged. I do not need to inflate a claim when the structure itself is already loud enough.

That is one of the perks of being an overthinker who is constantly underestimated and polite first.

People mistake polite for passive. They mistake careful for unsure. They mistake emotional control for lack of anger. They mistake “let me verify that” for “I do not already know exactly where this is going.”

And honestly, that is fine.

I have been underestimated before.

It saves time.

There is also something very freeing about reaching the stage of life where you are not auditioning anymore. I do not need clout. If clout were the goal, I would be doing this very differently. I have not even fully set up the geo-tags on the website yet. I have not rolled out the communications strategy I know I am capable of. I have not started using the full machinery: targeted outreach, media framing, public education, local pressure, stakeholder mapping, QR-coded evidence, petitions, coalition-building, or direct calls to the people and institutions who should already be paying attention.

That is not because I do not know how.

It is because I have been choosing my angle carefully.

And my angle is honesty.

I started this for myself first.

That is the truth.

Before it was a website, before it was a public awareness effort, before it became a broader question about regulation, gambling harm, offshore operators, payment systems, Canadian markets, and public accountability, it was personal. It was one person trying to understand what happened, where the money went, who was involved, and why the system made basic answers so difficult to obtain.

I am not going to pretend otherwise.

I do not need to dress this up as detached civic virtue when the honest version is stronger. I started digging because something happened to me. I kept digging because what I found did not look like an isolated customer-service issue. It looked like a structure. It looked like a pattern. It looked like one of those things people survive quietly because the system is counting on them being too tired, too embarrassed, too confused, or too unsupported to map the whole thing.

Community organizing 101 is this: say what it is.

A personal issue can reveal a public problem. A consumer complaint can expose a structural weakness. A single case can point to a pattern. And once you see the pattern, you have to decide what you are going to do with it.

That is where I am now.

I am still in the documentation phase. I am still building the map. I am still indexing the connectors. I am still turning the maze into something legible. The communications strategy comes after that. The public education comes after that. The media framing comes after that. The stakeholder questions come after that. The petitions, QR codes, explainers, evidence briefs, and direct outreach come after that.

And when they come, they will not be coming from chaos.

They will be coming from documentation.

That is the difference.

I am not interested in fake closure. I am not interested in the performance of accountability. I am not interested in the quickest possible release while the actual structure remains untouched.

There is a very specific kind of loneliness that comes from realizing some people are satisfied with the quickest possible release while you are still waiting for the actual climax.

And yes, I said that on purpose.

Because that is what so much public accountability feels like now. A headline. A fine. A statement. A little institutional shiver. Everyone exhales too early and acts like the job is done. But nothing has actually been resolved. Nobody has traced the full structure. Nobody has explained the machinery. Nobody has asked who benefited, who looked away, who passed the file, who processed the payment, who held the licence, who operated the brand, and who is still sitting comfortably at the table.

That is not a climax.

That is a premature ending with better lighting.

And I am not interested in faking orgasms.

I am not going to pretend a half-answer is resolution. I am not going to pretend a polite email is accountability. I am not going to pretend a fine that barely dents the business model is justice. I am not going to pretend “we take this seriously” means anything when the structure underneath remains untouched.

And honestly, there is almost nothing I hate more than a climax with no connection.

That is true in life, and it is true in accountability.

Do not give me the performance of resolution if nothing has actually connected. Do not give me the headline without the structure. Do not give me the fine without the explanation. Do not give me the statement without the records. Do not give me the corporate apology without the names, the payment flows, the licences, the processors, the operators, the brands, and the people who benefited from the machinery.

Because without connection, it is just theatre.

And I am not here for the performance.

I am here for the truth.

This is where the “pass the salt” part comes in.

There is a very specific kind of loneliness that comes from realizing you are sitting at a table with people who are not confused. They are not uninformed. They are not waiting for more evidence. They are not struggling to understand.

They know.

They know enough.

And then they reach for the salt.

That is the part I keep coming back to. Not the evil villain part. Not the dramatic part. Not the courtroom-movie moment where someone slams a folder on a desk and gasps because the truth has finally arrived wearing heels.

No.

It is quieter than that.

It is sitting with people who can see the harm, read the report, hear the story, watch the pattern repeat, and still somehow remain emotionally moisturized.

A person loses money. A complaint disappears. A company gives a polished answer that answers nothing. A regulator issues a fine that feels like a parking ticket for a machine printing millions. A vulnerable person gets folded into a system designed to keep them clicking, depositing, chasing, explaining, apologizing, and blaming themselves.

And the room stays calm.

Someone says, “That’s complicated.” Someone says, “There are two sides.” Someone says, “Well, people have personal responsibility.” Someone says, “You have to be careful what you say.” Someone says, “Have you tried moving on?”

And then, without trembling, they reach for the salt.

That is the violence nobody wants to name. Not because it is loud, but because it is socially acceptable. Because it wears work clothes. Because it has a LinkedIn profile. Because it says “due process” when it means delay. Because it says “responsible gaming” when it means a banner on a website. Because it says “we take this seriously” while forwarding you into the same inbox where accountability goes to die.

Because it says “we are unable to comment on individual cases” while the individual case is sitting right there with dates, amounts, screenshots, descriptors, emails, terms pages, licensing claims, corporate records, and a nervous system that has been through enough.

That is why the report matters.

This is not yelling into the void. This is making the issue legible. Community development is not just communications. It is education. It is translation. It is taking something that has been made deliberately confusing and making it understandable enough that regular people, decision-makers, journalists, regulators, and other affected consumers can see the same structure at the same time.

That is the work people love to dismiss until it starts working.

You identify the issue. You gather the evidence. You explain the pattern. You separate confirmed facts from reasonable questions. You show your sources. You make the structure visible. You give people language. You give people a map. You make silence more expensive than response.

That is not clout.

That is organizing.

And no, I do not want any more thank-you emails. I mean that sincerely. I am not doing this to be thanked. I am not doing this to become the patron saint of people who have been ignored by offshore casinos, payment processors, complaint desks, or politely useless corporate inboxes.

I am doing this because I know what happened to me. I know what I found when I started looking. And I know enough about systems to understand that when one person finds a maze, there are usually other people still trapped inside it.

So the website is only the beginning. The report is coming. The communications strategy is coming. The public education is coming. The questions are coming. And when they do, they will not be coming from a place of chaos. They will be coming from documentation. From indexed records. From sourced claims. From carefully explained connections. From a person who tried polite first.

That part should matter.

Because I did try polite first.

I asked questions. I looked for answers. I followed the process. I gave people room to respond like adults in responsible systems. And what I learned is that some systems are very comfortable with politeness because they assume politeness means containment.

It does not.

Sometimes politeness is just the first draft. Sometimes it is the calm before the report. Sometimes it is the part where you give people every opportunity to do the right thing before you start explaining, publicly and carefully, what they chose instead.

I used to think the hardest part was proving things.

Now I think the hardest part is watching people not care after you do.

That changes you.

It makes you sharper. Funnier, maybe. More dangerous at 2:00 a.m. with screenshots and insomnia. Less willing to perform softness for people who confuse politeness with truth.

Because some of us are not built to watch harm happen on a screen and then pass the salt. Some of us tremble. Some of us remember. Some of us start writing things down. Some of us build the index.

And some of us eventually realize that the trembling was never weakness.

It was evidence that something in us was still alive.

So yes, I am tired of the polished version. I am tired of the pretty language. I am tired of the corporate lighting, the responsible-gaming wallpaper, the clean conference photos, the strategic partnerships, the “we take this seriously” replies, and the endless institutional ability to look directly at the mess and somehow call it complicated.

I am tired of the soft-focus version where everyone gets to look professional while the public is left trying to decode the machinery from fragments.

I am tired of the premature ending.

I want the full accountability arc.

The build. The evidence. The structure. The names. The connectors. The map. The part where the room stops reaching for the salt because suddenly everyone understands exactly what is sitting on the table.

Or, to borrow the only line that really says it properly:

“I’m so fuckin’ sick and tired of the Photoshop.”