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Between individual, marriage, and family counseling, I'm in 250 minutes of therapy each week. At $150 a session, that's $750 per week, almost $39,000 a year. And yet I haven't spent a single cent. All my therapy has been paid for by the University of Southern California and Praesidium, the company USC partnered with to help ob-gyn George Tyndall's alleged sexual assault victims access mental health counseling.
More than 700 women have come forward with allegations against Tyndall, the only full-time gynecologist working at the USC Student Health Center between the years of 1989 and 2016. In 2018, USC agreed to pay $215 million to settle a federal class action suit and in March 2021, paid an additional $852 million to settle civil cases.
Tyndall has pleaded not guilty to 18 counts of sexual penetration and 12 counts of sexual battery by fraud, as well as five counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious person. A criminal trial is yet to take place.
I had no immediate recollections of George Tyndall when I first received notice that I had been a former patient and was included in the $215 million class action suit. While the name Tyndall sounded vaguely familiar, it wasn't until I googled his picture that I felt a deep pit in my stomach and an invisible heaviness encompass me.
Despite my guttural reaction, it would be some time before I remembered what I would share in my claim against the University: when I was 25 years old, a graduate student earning my MFA in screenwriting, Tyndall inappropriately touched me, performed an unnecessary pelvic exam, and made sexually suggestive comments.
Twenty years prior, I was assaulted by a neighborhood boy in the woods across from my house. But both memories, I buried deep. When I was looking over the exhaustive 25-page claim form, there was a question that stood out to me. The question read: "Have you had any experience prior to your visits with Dr. Tyndall that you felt constituted inappropriate sexual behavior or abuse?" In reading it over, the memory of the sexual assault in the woods resurfaced and then led to memories of Tyndall.
And still, I didn't think either assault had affected me very much. In fact, when I told my husband about reading the claim form and what happened to me as a little girl, I could have been conveying an experience I had at the car wash. That's how nonchalant I was in my retelling. That's how hard I had worked to dismiss both events of assault.
Going to therapy
When I found out I was entitled to free therapy, I wasn't sure I needed it. At 42, I thought my life was perfectly fine. But sure, I had common life stresses: marriage and parenting two young boys. Who in their right mind would pass up free therapy? Not me.
"Do we need to talk about Tyndall?" I asked my therapist during our first session. I wasn't sure how the process worked, and I wondered whether USC would stop paying if I didn't focus on Tyndall. She assured me I could talk about anything I was comfortable with, and everything I told her would be protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). I was relieved my assaults wouldn't need to be discussed.
During my first sessions, I just wanted quick fixes to my problems. My therapist picked up on my depression, anxiety, and loneliness; instead of giving me easy answers, she prompted me to think further. Where did my feelings of self-loathing and low self-esteem come from? In which areas of my life was I not present? Why did my husband and I have trouble communicating? I didn't know the answers, but I knew finding them would be hard emotional work. I was willing to keep coming back as long as it was free. Who would pay for this kind of torture?
One ten-session block was approved, then another, and so on. I began to trust my therapist, and she recommended EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) therapy to help my memories come into focus. The more I was able to face my past trauma, the more my anxiety and depression increased.
Coming to terms with my trauma
I had sessions twice a week. With such intense therapy, I finally realized I had buried my memories not because they were insignificant, but because they were too painful to process. The assaults had greatly impacted my life and all wasn't as perfectly fine as I had convinced myself. I had an inner sadness, a sadness I couldn't name but finally understood had been there all my life and stemmed from assault. Following these insights, I started to have many breakthroughs in therapy.
After being assaulted at such a young age, I developed very little inner worth. I hated the way I looked; I had curly red hair and freckles everywhere. If I wasn't teased by other children with taunts like "Let's play connect the dots on her face," I was noticed by grown men who sometimes commented, "I could eat you up with all those freckles." Tyndall performed an unnecessary full-body skin check and remarked on my freckles, too.
As an adult, I never felt I was worth spending any money on, and I was also fearful of drawing attention to myself. I hated clothes shopping. My go-to attire was sweatpants and sweatshirt, no makeup, and hair in a pony. Even for a rare night out with friends, I rarely dressed up or made much of an effort.
My therapist encouraged me to practice more self-care. She suggested I treat myself to some new clothes and challenge feelings of guilt or unworthiness.
The first outfit I bought consisted of stylish jeans, a pretty sweater, and a high-end pair of boots. I stood and looked at myself in the mirror, barely recognizing this attractive woman before me. Had she been there all along?
I was excited and wore the ensemble to my therapist's office, but then changed when I got home and put on the usual sweats before carpool. I was again too nervous to be noticed.
But over time, I became more confident and took pride in the way I dressed. I didn't feel the need to hide myself anymore. I put my sweatpants away in a drawer, and before I knew it, I had bought an entirely new wardrobe.
Working on my relationship with my family
Another important realization I had in therapy was that I wasn't the only person affected by my assaults. My most significant relationships had also been affected in major ways. Because I was so closed off and dissociative at times, my marriage suffered, and my children suffered.
While watching a family movie, my husband would snuggle with our kids, and I would sit on the other end of the couch, lost in destructive thoughts. I sent an email to Praesidium asking for marital and family therapy. I never thought they would say yes, but they did.
Our marriage therapist was shocked to learn my husband and I hadn't spent a night away together since we'd had children, and we had never used a babysitter for more than two hours. While we trusted our beloved sitter, we often stayed home when she came, choosing to finish house chores instead of spending quality time together.
It's not that we didn't enjoy each other's company, but my anxiety about leaving the kids would spur his anxiety. I superimposed my deep-rooted trauma onto worrying about them, thinking something horrible might happen. That I wouldn't be able to protect them the same way I wasn't protected. My anxieties, although unjustified, were inherently linked to my past.
I also didn't think I was deserving of a night out. My reluctance to go out made it hard for my husband to be motivated as well. We built patterns that were unhealthy for our relationship.
Our therapist gave us an assignment: we had to go on a date for three hours. We took the task seriously, and when we came back early after dinner, we sat in the car, obediently listening to a comedy special for the remaining hour. I couldn't remember the last time we had laughed so hard. More date nights followed and while I still worry about my children, my anxiety is not paralyzing, and we've decided to go on our first trip without the kids.
Family therapy has made a huge difference in our lives. While we have two family sessions a week, one of those sessions is dedicated to only my husband and me. Over the years, a lot of the parenting responsibility fell on him because I was so emotionally absent. In the evenings, when things were most chaotic, I'd retreat to my bedroom to isolate myself.
My husband was often overwhelmed and gave in to the children. As our therapist explained, there was an imbalance of power, and the boys had too much control for their own good. Not having clear boundaries made them anxious.
When I began to face my past trauma and spent even more time disengaged from my family, both my husband's and children's anxiety ballooned. The kids wanted to spend more time at home rather than play with friends or go to fun activities. My husband felt emotionally abandoned by me and built his own walls. We dismantled our walls in family therapy and have become much closer than we've ever been.
My husband and I have also learned, through family therapy, how to be a united front and share parenting duties. And now that I am happier and more present, the kids are flourishing too. We all cuddle on the couch for family movies, and both my boys play sports, enjoy spending time with friends, and have started music lessons.
Therapy has transformed my life. I will never go back to being the disconnected, lonely wife and mother of two that I was.
Sadly, my story of trauma is not unique. One out of every four women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. What is unique about my story is that I was given the opportunity to get real help. It's the exception but it shouldn't be. Assault doesn't just affect the victim. It affects the victim's loved ones too. I'm grateful my family and I have gotten the help we needed. You can't put a price on that.
Rachel Weinhaus is the author of The Claimant: A Memoir of an Historic Sexual Abuse Lawsuit and a Woman's Life Made Whole.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
