Sabotage

I’ve been trying to find a new psychiatrist lately. I don’t really like the one my therapist referred me to and I hate paying $300 per session when I have insurance. I’ve been looking for someone that my plan will cover and found three possible options. 

I made one appointment with a psychiatric nurse practitioner, but the customer service from her office manager was so abysmal, I could not see myself getting adequate care. If you can’t even get patient care right from the very first interaction, I’m not going to trust you with my mental health.

Then I found a DO (doctor of osteopathy) and he seems better, but he’s more of an addiction specialist. However he’s also trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy, so I sense that he’d have better interpersonal skills than my current shrink. I also found a female doctor who does psychotherapy as well. She’s not offering those services at the moment, but I don’t need them so that’s not a factor.

When I was trying to set up appointments, the female doctor didn’t have any openings for consultations, so I just made an appointment with the DO. When I checked her availability again, she had an opening for Monday at 4pm and then nothing else for the month. I talked it over with Wife and we decided it was best for me to take the consultation appointment since we didn’t know when this doctor would have another opening in her schedule. I can see both prescribers for consults and have a couple of possible options moving forward. 

Unfortunately, Monday at 4pm is also exactly when I have therapy.

I emailed my therapist on Saturday and explained that I’d needed to make a doctor’s appointment and the only time available within the next month was during our Monday session. I didn’t tell her it was with a psychiatrist because I don’t want her to know I bailed on the other guy. I offered some times before and after 4pm to demonstrate responsibility and investment, but I assumed she wouldn’t have anything open on such late notice. We’ve already had to reschedule my Thursday appointment this week to Wednesday morning because of a mandatory meeting regarding one of my scholarships, which was really stressing me out, especially since she doesn’t normally work on Wednesday mornings.

She wrote me back an hour later and said she had no other times available on Monday so she would see me on Wednesday morning. Alright, fine. That’s a little disappointing, but not disastrous. I did, however, start to worry she was pissed that I blew off her appointment for another one, but whatever. Nothing we couldn’t talk about next session.

But then this morning I got another email from her that just says,

I will see you on Friday.

WTF?! What happened to Wednesday?? 

I was freaking out, wondering why she’d pulled that session. Then, once my heart rate slowed down and I could actually think, I realized it seemed a bit strange that she sent such a short, vague email about something very important. IF she WAS pulling my session, she probably would have called to explain why. I doubt she’d behave in this manner, so I could not figure out what the hell was going on. I was so upset and my mind was just spinning.

Then I scrolled down.

In the email thread attachment, I found a message sent to her later yesterday evening, apparently in response to her saying she didn’t have a time for Monday:

No problem, I figured as much with such a late cancellation. I don’t want to do a Wednesday session. Friday is still fine though.

Well that certainly explains her confusing email; she was responding to my second email. There’s only one problem with that:

I did not send that second email. 

This is a mess. I have no idea what to do. I should probably talk to her about this, but I can’t bring myself to reach out again. I am not sure she’ll believe me. I’m not even sure I believe me. I keep wracking my brain, trying to remember if I wrote her back. I know I was very dissociative yesterday and, as I mentioned, anxious about her coming in for a Wednesday morning session, but I still wanted the damn session. 

Now it’s gone and I can’t help but feel like this is all part of a greater plan to sabotage my therapy.