FOAD Thursday: Catherine, So-Called Therapist

“Catherine” is the name I’ll use for the Program Coordinator in charge of the IOP I went to last summer. I briefly wrote about this when it happened, and said I’d go into more detail but never did. So here it is.

On my first day, Catherine should have called my health insurance to see how many outpatient mental health benefits I had left in my plan. She did not. Most of the patients were told that they would be in IOP for two weeks, probably because that’s the amount of time their plans covered; I was never given a time period. I thought it was because I was in such bad shape that I’d be there for months like some of my other co-patients, and I figured that I had enough insurance to cover it since I was never told otherwise.

Near the end of August, when she and the staff doctor decided that I was ready to cut my visits back to three days a week, I was fine with that because I was doing really well. I was just surprised that my three-day weeks were to start immediately. Although this raised my anxiety, I dealt with it because I thought I would still be there for another few weeks. This was on a Monday. On Tuesday, my first day “off,” Catherine called Brian at work to tell him I had maxed out my benefits quite a while back, it turned out. Fine. But that isn’t what pisses me off.

Throughout my stay in IOP, Catherine always insisted that I take responsibility for myself, my actions, my recovery. Like, on the days I didn’t feel like going, I’d ask Brian to call her because I was afraid to call, irrationally thinking she’d be mad at me. Though it would have been better for me to be there, on the days I just couldn’t get myself to go, I eventually began calling her myself.

So that Tuesday, why the fuck did she call Brian instead of me about the insurance, and to say that Wednesday would be my last day? She wanted to meet with me at the end of groups on Wednesday to give me some referrals. I calmly asked her why she didn’t call me. “Well,” she replied, “I didn’t want to upset you.” At the time, I accepted her explanation.

When I told my pdoc about it, he blew his top! “I can accept people making mistakes–that happens,” he said. “But for her to give you that bullshit answer? Like you would be less upset hearing the news from your husband? She lied to you to cover up her mistake. That’s bullshit! I’m calling [the shock doc]!”

I know my pdoc called the shock doc, who’s his good friend and the one who conducted my ECTs, as well as head of the psych department at the hospital where I went for IOP. I doubt anything came out of the incident. I’m sure Catherine still has her job.

So Catherine, FUCK OFF AND DIE. You are a motherfucking hypocrite, and I don’t know how you can even call yourself a psychotherapist. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s hypocrites. You shouldn’t be in the mental health field if you’re going to lie to patients and can’t even take responsibility for your mistakes like you tell us to do, you fucking whore. FUCK OFF AND DIE.

Brian and I are still suffering from the financial, and for me–emotional–fallout of your fuck-up. Because you didn’t check my insurance and plan my discharge accordingly, I’ve only seen my individual therpist sporadically rather than once a week since August. In fact, once I was discharged from your joke of an IOP, I was supposed to be see her twice a week. But those benefits that you didn’t bother to check, which is part of your fucking job, included visits to my therapist and pdoc, and even though my therapist has given me a discount on office visits, it’s still more than twice as much as a $20 co-pay. I couldn’t go without seeing the pdoc and have had to pay the full amount each time.

Catherine, FUCK OFF AND DIE. I wish to God you were fired, but since you probably weren’t, FUCK OFF AND DIE. How dare you tell me to take responsibility for myself when you can’t do the same thing, you fucking bitch.

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