No, I’m Not Asking you to do a Favor for Me, or for One of My Clients…

Wednesday, April 16, 2025 Thank you Reid! Sophie! Vivian! and many others.

Dear clients, former clients, gentle readers on my contact list, and anyone who’s ever thought, “Wow, therapy with Daniel is cheaper than a nervous breakdown,”

Let me interrupt your regularly scheduled existential dread to clear up a little nonsense: I did not ask you for money via a sketchy hushmail.com address.

I did not go off-grid, fake my own death, and start a new life as a low-budget Nigerian prince. I’m still here. And still me.

The offending address was:
danieldashnew@hushmail.com

I know. It sounds like me after a few glasses of Malbec and a rebrand.


But it is not me.

It’s some imposter bot in a basement somewhere, trying to make a quick buck off the trust you and I built over months of crying in chairs.

What Actually Happened

Some of you received emails that looked like this:

”Hi ( insert you first name here) Can you do me a favor?

(Or something equally poetic and vague.)

Naturally, some of you panicked.

Others immediately hit delete and went back to your regularly scheduled micromance. A few of you even asked, “Are you okay?” Which, honestly, was very sweet. Emotionally attuned.

Good work. That’s how I found out!

It then goes on to ask you to, of course, wire money to rescue one of my clients.

But rest assured:

  • I’m fine.

  • I’m not in Bulgaria (although I have fans there).

  • I’m not starting a crypto cult.

  • And I’m not emailing anyone from a hushmail account asking for money.

What Did Hushmail Do About It?

Thankfully, Hushmail’s own internal security flagged and silenced the account before it could do more than throw a few digital stink bombs.

The bogus address is now as dead as my enthusiasm for daylight saving time.

They shut it down. Zapped it. Sent it to the Great Spam Filter in the Sky.

And no, they don’t tell me who did it or why—because that would be responsible digital security, and we love that for them.

But Let’s Talk About the Real Issue

You know what’s more concerning than spam?

The fact that we live in a world where receiving an email from your therapist asking for emergency funds feels almost plausible.

That’s not on you.

That’s on late-stage capitalism, pandemic fatigue, and the lingering ghost of every therapy podcast that told you “healing isn’t linear” but didn’t mention how often it includes getting phishing emails from fake healers.

Let me make it simple:

If I ever ask you for money,

  • it will be on an official invoice,

  • via a secure portal,

  • and it will never include phrases like “urgent remittance” or “wire now or the shadow work dies.”

In Conclusion

The email was fake.
The address was deleted.
And I remain your loyal, very human therapist—not a hologram, not a financial grifter, and not a bot moonlighting as me.

But honestly? This is a good moment to remind all of us:

  • Don’t click weird links.

  • Never wire money because someone vaguely says they’re “in trouble.”

  • And if you get an email that sounds like me, but also sounds like I’ve joined a pyramid scheme, email me directly to check.

Still here. Still sane.
Still not in need of Bitcoin.

Warmly (and securely),
Daniel Dashnaw

Marriage & Family Therapist, Human,
Not Currently Trapped in the Blockchain

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When They Don’t Want to Heal: The Quiet Crisis of Uneven Growth in Families

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What Is a Micromance?