I'd given my counselor permission to tell their advisor and coworkers about what happened, so they are aware and don't accidentally refer anyone to this lady, right

and apparently they all got big mad on my behalf, which was at least nice to hear

but then I was talking to my counselor and they asked me if the psych had actually entered a diagnosis on my chart, because that will carry and might mess things up later

so I checked My Chart, wondering if it would have it in there somewhere... and not only is it just listed in there, ALLLLLLLL the notes she had taken were there too

which. I guess I wasn't expecting to see several pages typed up from a single session with her.

it's very... idk... unsettling?? to see several pages of opinions written up about you, including the form she had to fill out analyzing what I was wearing, what I looked like, how I spoke, what my eye-contact was like, what my demeanor was like

I was immediately like YIKES I do not want to read this or I will get very upset.

OH dear

I still couldnt help glancing over a couple of things in the form section, which I immediately disagreed with. like saying that my eye contact was lackluster but became normal as we talked. which.... no???

That would make me So Not Okay, too, I don't blame you one bit

I would check her face because I was trying desperately to get a read on the situation but I don't... do eye contact...

YEAH IT WAS not great

and it also said I occasionally fidgeted with a fidget toy... when I almost broke it while I was there, I was messing with it so much, trying to stay calm

so just. all this invalidating stuff that could very easily hurt my chances of getting an accurate second opinion.

my counselor was pretty upset about it.

AS THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN, good lawd

People who downplay and gaslight symptoms should not be allowed to diagnose them, just sayin

🫶🏼

kinda wild that you can have many meetings and a longstanding relationship with a counselor who assesses you deeply over time and have it all just brushed aside by a stranger who's never met you

yyyyep

she was so invalidating when I'd tried to say that none of my counselors have ever considered a personality disorder like that as a possibility saying like

1) therapists are trained to treat symptoms, not really diagnose

2) if I mention this to my therapist and get a negative reaction about it, it's probably because my therapist is reacting to the stigma and unconscious bias

3) just because I like a therapist doesn't mean that they're the best one for me

and then when I was talking about how my current counselor is great, she also has ADHD and ASD, she straight up said that you cannot have ASD and be able to work as a therapist. that it's just completely incompatible.

so like, all of that, my therapist was like "not gonna lie... all of that was so invalidating that I went home and actually had a moment of... 'am I a bad therapist?' "

before she went through all of the logical reasons why this isn't true and all the things that she's been helping me with, especially related to ASD (like managing sensory things etc) have successfully been making a big impact

so yeah. a part of the session was reflecting on the notes my therapist has been taking over the years, showing concretely how my progress has gone, especially after I finally figured out the ASD thing and started restructuring my life accordingly

DOESNT HELP MY CHART but

jesus even your own therapist was invalidated lmfao wow. im glad they're all talking about how to not send people to that counselor any more

poor therapist!

yeah, couldnt believe it. but it made me feel better for how badly I'd gotten thrown by this

stick was making a good point that if everything was intense and involved enough for a one-hour session to turn into two hours, she should have like... suggested hey maybe let's break here and revisit this, schedule another appointment

or something

instead of dragging a clearly very distressed patient through two hours of this and then applying a diagnosis based on that

it just had such "wanting to win an argument" vibes to me

I don't like that energy

when my therapist ad I were talking about the actual symptoms and things that often show up with the personality disorder, I was like... "I remember her asking a couple of questions about those exact things, and I'd said no to them??"

but she still arrived at that conclusion

stick: I don't blame you, I'm ready to get on a plane to the opposite coast and throw hands myself