In the months after she learned about the hack, Auer requested a hard copy of her records from Vastaamo.
Her notes sit in a thick stack on the table between us as she tells me what happened.
Even though their records were released more than five years ago, Vastaamo patients continue to be victimised. Someone has even built a search engine that allows users to find records on the dark web just by typing in a person’s name.
Auer agrees to share some of her leaked therapy records with me.
“The patient is mostly angry, impulsive, bitter,” she says, reading some of the first notes her therapist wrote about their sessions. “The patient recounts their past in a rambling manner. There is some interpersonal difficulty stemming from the patient’s weak-tempered nature, typical for their age.”
When she read them for the first time she was heartbroken, Auer says. “I was hurt by how he had described me. It made me feel sorry for the person I had been.”
She says the data breach has eroded patient trust. “There are a lot of people who were Vastaamo clients who had gone to therapy for years but are now never going to book another therapy session.”
The lawyer representing Vastaamo’s victims in a civil case against the hacker has told me she knows of at least two cases where people have taken their own lives after learning their therapy notes had been stolen.
Auer decided to confront her fears head on. She posted on social media about the hack, letting everyone know that she had been one of the victims.
“It was a a lot easier for me to know that everyone who knew me already knew,” she says. She spoke to her family about what was in her leaked records, including the secret relationship she had never told them about before. “People were very supportive.”
Finally, she chose to take back control of her story by publishing a book about her experiences. Loosely translated, the title is Everyone Gets to Know.
“I crafted it into a narrative. At least I can tell my side of the story – the one that’s not visible in the patient records.”
Auer has come to accept that her secrets will always be out there.
“For my own wellbeing, it’s just better not to think about it.”