It's Kind of a Long Story... about THERAPY (Part II)

The series of shrinks isn't shrinking.

Hey Drama Goblins,

I can’t thank enough the folks who have upgraded to paid or bought me a a coffee. It’s not just the money, although money is always nice, it’s the effort, encouragement, and validation behind it that really matter.

One paid subscriber wrote to me to say:

“What I love is how real it is. Especially speaking women in our 50s who absolutely consider ourselves young, cute and have something to offer, but probably have become more invisible than we want to realize. 

I see SO much of those magical postings from people and we ALL know how fake it is. Life is wonderful and amazing and exciting and ugly and complicated and scary 

I read in your posts what I know is real life and what I know we all live.

I want to read more of them and feel like yes! You see me.  Because you see yourself.

That is why I’m here.

And I’m so glad you’re here,

-Lara

Follow the Bunny Stick

Short story: 

I was accompanied on my journey toward improved mental health by a series of shrinks with varying degrees of skill, most of it mostly suss.

Long story:

The day I got rid of Dr. Home Goods was the day after I had my first conversation with my Sister Ex Susan. Before our session, I thought it was highly unlikely she’d have the expertise to be able to help me through the complicated feelings and situation. Her behavior in the session confirmed it.

I was without a therapist in May and June of 2023 when I moved back into the house, when my best friend coldly dropped me like a hot potato, and as I started my Sister Ex sleuthing. I was also having family issues and a very, very hard time focusing at work and sleeping.

It was a lot.

After a couple of months, Two Chairs once again matched me with a therapist.

Dr. Goofy (July-October 2023)

I wasn’t reassured by the virtual background of a castle with a dragon perched on the turret at our first session, but Dr. Goofy turned out to be one of the better ones. She really listened and kept up with the meshugge goings-on, although she had a weird habit of placing her camera so I could only see her from the nose up. I had to ask her many times to adjust it.

She attempted a version of EMDR that was… goofy. I’d heard good things about EMDR. When I saw Kristen my grief counselor, she did it with “big, tough first responders and they say it’s ‘fucking magic!’” Friends had done it. Prince Harry did it!

For those unfamiliar, EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s primarily used on survivors of trauma to help them become less triggered and preoccupied with their intrusive thoughts and feelings.

It’s one of those therapies that some clinicians dismiss as snake oil, and others swear by. I figured it was worth a shot.

The first time, I logged into a website and sort of followed a grey dot while talking. I didn’t feel anything significant happening and it was hard to focus.

The next time, she had this stick thing she moved around that I followed while we talked. The stick was white and had kind of a bulb on one end that I first thought was a bunny. I realized it wasn’t, but I still kept thinking of it as the bunny stick, which may have impacted the efficacy of the therapy, which was negligible.

While that stuff wasn’t helpful, I will forever be grateful that when I asked her if my connection and budding friendship with Susan was healthy, she said, “It’s like siblings in a family. No one else really understands.”

She was also very supportive while I navigated my FMLA leave. She was encouraging and responsive and filled out the forms right away.

However, when it came down to trying to file for disability insurance, she wasn’t.

What I didn’t understand when I took my FMLA leave, is that pretty much any healthcare professional, or even clergy, can sign off on up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave.

However, to qualify for disability insurance in California (and probably everywhere) you need a medical doctor to fill out the forms.

Dr. Goofy and the staff at Two Chairs didn’t seem to understand that either.

It took weeks to sort through, plus some other red tape I won’t bore you with. And in the end, it was moot. About a month after I started my leave, I was laid off from my job.

How I was laid off was so poorly done it was almost funny.

The day before, the HR director texted me to ask if she could call me at 11:30 the next morning. I said I would be in the car, but sure. I assumed she was calling to check up on me. She had asked me if she could when she helped me with the FLMA paperwork.

When she called, she led with the dreaded question, “How are you?” And I told her, “I’m doing much better than the last time we talked. The leave has been really good for me.”

She responded, “That’s good…” and then proceeded to tell me mine was one of twelve positions being eliminated effective immediately. I would be given two weeks severance pay, “which you know the company doesn’t have to do.”

I had to laugh. My husband John and I used to joke about the little black cloud over his head. He once got a flat tire on the way home from the root canal. Being laid off while you’re going 70 miles an hour on the freeway a month into a mental health leave and being expected to be grateful for a two-week severance gives that a run for the money.

And thank goodness I had taken that leave and was feeling better. Someone with their head screwed on less straight than mine might have driven their car right into a tree.

Around the same time, Dr. Goofy told me she was leaving the practice to take care of some personal business of her own. Again I had to laugh. When it rains, it pours, but her special needs son needed her more than I did.

Dr. Starstruck (August and October 2023)

I honestly don’t remember how I got hooked up with Dr. Starstruck. The Kaiser system is byzantine and mysterious. But at one point I needed to see an actual psychiatrist to follow up on my medication.

Dr. Starstruck was a very pleasant man. Unlike Dr. Side Effect, he took my question about weight gain seriously and switched me from Zoloft to Wellbutrin. We had a pleasant if perfunctory appointment, with a follow-up to come in a few months.

The follow-up appointment just happened to be the day after I met Jon Hamm. When we met, he noted I was in a different place and asked how I was doing with the medication. I said, “I’m in an Airbnb and I’m doing great today! I don’t know how much of that is the meds and how much is meeting Jon Hamm last night!”

“Wow! Really? Jon Hamm!”

He asked a few questions about my meds but he really seemed much more interested in Hamm.

Meds, schmeds. A dose of Hamm will cure what ails ya’

I have no idea if the meds are working. I have had bad days and weeks and good days and weeks. I have no idea how much of my mood, outlook, or attitude I can chalk up to meds and how much to life just changing and being different.

It reminds me of when Max was little and his moods would be attributed to teething. Kids are teething for about two and a half years. I can’t blame all of his fussiness on teething.

Or menopause. From peri- through the full year you go without a period and even for a few years after can be up to 15 years. That’s a very long time. During that time anyone will gain and lose weight, have trouble sleeping, and be irritable or forgetful. I have no idea how to ascribe those things to menopause or just to life.

But, the pills don’t seem to be hurting so I’ll keep poppin’ em.

Dr. Messy Bun (November 2023)

I’ll let my email to Two Chairs sum up the sitch with Dr. Messy Bun:

… she never impressed me as being especially professional or skilled. She giggled at some of my stories that were not funny. She seemed incredulous that as a 9 year old I didn't talk back to my alcoholic, bombastic father. She came to session in a tank top with her hair in a messy bun that she took down and shook out while we were talking. Of course, I understand that online therapy is more casual than in-office, it did not set a tone of professionalism or that she was aware of the impression she was making.

She also conducted session rocking in a rocking chair, which was very unnerving. She did stop when I asked her to. It was very concerning to me that she was unaware of how distracting that would be. 

This morning she greeted me with a giggly "Happy Wednesday!" which is a very inappropriate way to start a session. I'm in therapy, and while I'm doing better than I was previously, there have been many, many unhappy Wednesdays.

She then asked me, "How are you feeling today?" I had explained to her in our first session that being asked "How are you?" is a very difficult question to answer and to me inappropriate way to open a session. I understand that when you see a friend on the street it's the expected casual greeting, but a clinical environment is not casual. It does not indicate the therapist is skilled at setting the tone for the session. And, I specifically asked her not to.

I gave the example of when my husband died, I had a lot of people ask "How are you?" and it was impossible to answer. I want to be open, honest, and authentic, but I could not put so many complex feelings into a brief answer. It put the onus on me to be able to do so. I advise everyone I know to NOT ask anyone in transition, crisis, or grief, "How are you?" 

I stopped her then and there and reminded her that I had asked her not to start that way. She said, "How would you like to be greeted?" I told her that I didn't have a script for her, I can only tell her how the question impacted me.

She asked me several times how I wanted to be greeted. It was very frustrating. She claimed she literally had no other words or way to start a session. I said, "I'd hoped your skills and training would have given you strategies for how to start a session. Esther Perel famously asks, 'Where should we begin?’"

She giggled and said, "Ok, where should we begin?"

Like Dr. Home Goods, she was failing Communication 101. She didn't mirror back my concerns. She didn't take responsibility for contributing to the situation.

I said, "It's about more than the words. It's about feeling confident that you have the skills and empathy to guide the session. You surely understand the power differential between us. A client is often anxious about session, especially with a new therapist. We come to session very vulnerable, and to be greeted with all of the care and empathy of anyone you'd run into on the street doesn't ease that anxiety. It adds to it."

I asked her if she understood what I was saying. She said she didn't. I repeated myself and she again went back to, "I don't know any other way to start a session."

After our session I Googled it and found lots of examples of ways to start a session. This is just one of many good articles and posts with both words to say and explanations about why you would use them.

I asked, "Am I being unreasonable?"

She said, no (although it looked like she was holding back a "yes") and said, "You may be over-analyzing."

I said, "Well, this is therapy, so analyzing is why we're here, and yes. I am analyzing every detail for cues and clues that we are a good match. Just like I would if I were on a date. I look at how you present yourself, the background of your office, your demeanor, and your word choice.  I need all of the information I can get to feel confident that my mental health is in capable hands." 

She, like Dr. Home Goods, fell back on her self-reported claim that none of her other clients have ever brought this up to her before. Which had the impact of putting the "blame" on me. 

I ended the session by saying, "I hope this feedback is helpful. There may be other clients of yours who are thinking the same thing but don't have the vocabulary I do or are intimidated by the power differential and don't say anything"

I don't think I'm unreasonable. But I am an articulate adult who needs to be matched with a skilled, experienced therapist. I'm honestly astounded that a therapist was so ill-prepared for getting constructive feedback from a client and that they defaulted to communication tactics that would be called out as unhelpful and quickly corrected in a couples therapy session.

After that, Two Chairs fired me.

To be continued…

Know someone who would get something out of that story? Please share.

Lara sez…

Listen!

80s Deep Cut of the Week! Literary types will note that the band’s name comes from A Clockwork Orange.

Read!

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the book I’m… closest to. I’m not sure how else to say it. I read it many times as a girl and felt so seen and understood. I read it as an adult and every paragraph was like an old friend.

Buy!

Freud famously asked, “What do women want?” I have often answered, “The perfect black flats and red lipstick.” I finally found the perfect flats, but I had to McGuyver my own perfect red lipstick.

Maybelline Stay Matte Ink Liquid in Exhilerator under, with ELF Velvet Matte Blushing Brown over. I have a stash of three or four of each and will be devistated if they are every discontinued.

Drink!

I found Remedy kombucha on sale for just $.50 a can at Grocery Outlet (which I affectionaltely call “Gross Out”)

There’s no sugar, only 5 calories, and if you drink it in a wine glass like I’ve been doing, you can pretend it’s Processo!

Before I let you go…

Win a note book with the Drama Goblin Urban Dictionary entry!

“Someone who gleefully and unashamedly welcomes and shares (relatively) harmless gossip.”

Two ways to win!

1. Comment below or reply to the email with a thought, suggestion, or words of encouragement.

2. Share this post with someone you think would like it. Either hit the green button or forward the email and “cc” me: lara@larastarr.com