Shit My Ex-Psychiatrist Did

I am going to write a series of posts about my ex-psychiatrist. For the purpose of these posts, I’m going to call him Dr. S (“S” is for Shithead). 

Dr. S treated me when I was first diagnosed with postpartum depression. He treated me while I was in the hospital for postpartum depression and then continued to treat me after my discharge. He “treated” me from July 2013 until April 2015. By “treated,” I mean “he prescribed my medications correctly but otherwise was a shitty shithead who was toxic to my mental health.” 

This is going to be a long series.

I am embarrassed that I remained in a toxic doctor-patient relationship for as long as I did. In writing these posts, I hope to reclaim my power and heal from a ridiculously awful relationship. 

To start, I better tell you all the shitty bullshit that my ex-psychiatrist did. Then in subsequent posts, I can dig into the individual bullshit items.

Here we go:

• We first met in the hospital’s emergency room. He told me I was depressed. He did not take the time to describe what that meant.  I told him that I was anxious and had insomnia. He said I was in denial about the depression. From the start, there was something almost competitive in our patient-doctor relationship. It was about him dominating and me submitting to whatever he said without a fight.

• When I was first admitted to the psychiatric unit at my hospital, I was placed in a unit with other patients who posed a danger to themselves but not others. My fellow patients were dealing with things like schizophrenia. When I told Dr. S that I did not know how to interact with my fellow patients, he said he did not understand. He acted as if it should be easy for me to navigate a psych unit. 

• After my first night in the hospital, he came to see me in the morning. He acted groggy and kept yawning without covering his mouth. He spoke gruffly and interrupted me. He acted like treating me was a major inconvenience.  

• After about 22 hours in the hospital, I was transferred to another unit with other patients who were severely depressed but not in danger of hurting themselves. I felt like I belonged there. I told Dr. S that I felt more comfortable in this new unit. He said, “Why? The beds are the same?” What the hell? Yes, the mattresses were manufactured by the same company but hanging out with a few people battling depression is an entirely different experience from mingling with people who are severely mentally ill.  Especially when you yourself are coming to term with your own mental illness.

•  One night when I was in the hospital, he came to see me at 9:30 p.m. I had already taken the medications that would help me sleep. He said it was weird that I was going to bed so early. Because yes, it’s so weird that after five weeks of insomnia, I might need some extra sleep and not feel like watching Gone With The Wind in the common room.

• I spent four nights in the hospital. The first few days, I felt like I truly belonged there. But then my medications started to work and I wanted to leave. I wanted to be reunited with my baby. My doctor said I should stay for an entire week. Conveniently, my insurance authorized a one-week stay…

• My third morning in the hospital, something shifted in my hormones. I felt a strong compulsion to run, skip, dance, sing, and do cartwheels. (I can’t actually do cartwheels but the compulsion was still there.) I thought I was going crazy. Mid-afternoon, I had an epiphany. I realized I was feeling energized for the first time in months. I asked a nurse for a pen. He gave me a pencil. I went back to my room and wrote and wrote and wrote and finally I realized I was depressed. Later that day, I told Dr. S about my epiphany. He said, “It’s convenient that you are having this revelation now when you want to go home.” In other words, he thought I was lying. Not at all frustrating. How can you be treated for a mental illness when your doctor does not believe the things you say?

• When he finally agreed to my discharge, I asked when I could expect to go home. He put up his hand in a “stop” gesture and told me to not worry about it. I told him I needed to call home to arrange a time for my dad to pick me up. He said he had a lot of other patients and could not make any promises about when my discharge would happen. (Asshole.) 

• After I was discharged, I had my first of many appointments at his office. He ran over an hour late. This was typical. On a few occasions, he was only about twenty minutes late but most of the time, he was well over an hour late. His staff never told me when the doctor might see me. I was expected to just sit and wait in a crowded waiting room until it suited the doctor to see me. Sometimes the waiting room was so crowded, there were no more places to sit. 

• He kept a set of weights in his office. One time, he saw me about an hour later than my scheduled appointment. (See above.) Several other patients were waiting for their appointments. Instead of summoning the next patient, Dr. S went to lift his weights.

• During our sessions, Dr. S frequently answered personal phone calls.

• One time, he had a fight with his daughter on the phone while I was in the room. When he hung up, he looked at me and said, “Fucking teenagers." 

• On several occasions, in the middle of our session, he interrupted me and said, “Excuse me,” and then he would get up, open the door, and start shouting commands to his staff. 

• His poor staff. He treated them like shit. They all looked at me with tortured eyes. Every month or two, new people would show up for Dr. S’s abuse. 

• This is probably the worst thing he did: Dr. S wanted me to run a peer support group through his office. I would still be his patient. He would show up at the beginning of the meetings so we could charge the insurance companies. I would get a 30% cut.

• I did not want to run a for-profit support group with my doctor. But he pressured me to run the group, implying my mental health depended on it. 

• Sometimes he invited staff members into his office during my session and expected me to talk in front of them. Hello, Confidentiality??

• He ate his lunch during our sessions.

• He told me that there were some negative reviews about him online but they were fake. He said there are companies that will “fix your online reputation” but first, the companies destroy your reputation.

• He said he would waive my co-pay if I wrote positive reviews for him online and brought in copies of the reviews. 

• I said, “Sure sure” but never wrote an online review.

• He mentioned the reviews frequently and reminded to write positive ones. He told staff members, in front of me, that I was going to write positive reviews.

• He urged me to go back to work. When I said I wanted to eventually be a writer, he said that was a tough profession. He encouraged me to go back to being a lawyer even though I told him I hated that line of work.

• He asked me what my calling in life was. I said, “I am a mother. I am a writer.” He said, “No. You like to help people.” Then he made this big pitch about why I needed to run a support group through his office.

• Are you beginning to see why I’ve named him Dr. S is for Shithead?

• Sometimes, he was good cop and would give me high fives and praise me for doing so well.  Other times, he was bad cop and acted like I was fucking up my entire life. Sometimes I left my appointment feeling high on life. Other times, I felt like shit and vowed to find a new psychiatrist.

• He pressured me to talk about my sex life. I told him it was fine and he pressed me for details. I finally told him a few things because I was afraid. I was afraid that if I did not answer his questions, he might think I was having a relapse and needed a medication change. I felt so dirty and violated after answering his questions.

• At our very last session, I was pregnant and nauseous. He started harassing me again about the support group. I told him I was too sick to take on a new venture. He told me I needed to run the support group. “Think about how much you will help other women,” he said. I felt like I was being backed into a corner so I finally said, “I’m in the first trimester. I puke throughout the day. Just this morning my doctor told me I have placenta previa and can’t have sex.” Well, my bad. Never use the word “sex” in front of Dr. S. He said, “Wait a minute. There is always anal and oral sex.” Then he lectured me about sex for over five minutes and trust me, I will write about this more. And soon.

• During our final session, he spent the entire time standing up on a couch while hanging up his diplomas. I forget whether he was using a drill or hammer but he was being noisy as fuck.

• At the end of our final session, he escorted me to his assistant and stood there and made me pick a date for the first support group while he watched.

• Oh my goodness, I could go on…

• I will. 

• He told me that a local hospital was starting a support group for moms with postpartum depression and we were going to “kick their ass.” Ick. I want to help moms with postpartum depression. I think there should be tons of resources out there so everyone can get the help they need. I’m not looking to kick anyone’s ass!

• After I was stabilized and doing great, he still kept seeing me every month. This made me feel like a patient who needed close monitoring. After I fired his ass, I started seeing a new psychiatrist. She is glorious. After our first appointment, she said she did not need to see me again for a few months. That made me feel healthy. Sometimes I see her every month, like right after I gave birth and was having some emotional hiccups. But right now, I’m not scheduled to see her for another three months.  

• On multiple occasions, I called my doctor because of an issue I was having. He never returned my calls. NEVER. At our next session, I would ask him why he had not called me back. He would say, “You need to insist that you stay on the line and refuse to hang up until I speak to you.” Nevermind the fact that I saw him, on multiple occasions, tell his staff to brush off a call from a patient. ASSHOLE.

• Man it feels good to write this list!

• Dr. S often draped his arm over my shoulder and pulled me close as if we were besties. This always creeped me the fuck out. 

• He told that staff that I was a VIP patient because I was going to run the support group. Hello, manipulative enough?

• Ok, there’s more but this lists feels long enough, yes?

I cannot tell you how good it feels to finally write this down and share it with the Internet. Thank you, Internet.