The Doctor I Wish I’d Never Met

As Originally Posted on Medium

A good doctor is hard to come by, and I’ve met my fair share of wrong doctors in my life. But there are some mental health providers out there who simply should not be seeing patients.

I went to see a new doctor before the COVID-19 pandemic had even begun. I was anxious, scared, and overall feeling uncomfortable in my skin. I wanted to feel normal, so I reached out for help.

It was challenging to find a provider accepting new patients, and it wasn’t going to be too expensive. I managed to get seen by this telehealth provider who worked in a different state; he was a telehealth provider.

This doctor provided weekend telehealth services for a local clinic. I didn’t seem to mind this, as I couldn't find any available provider. If I needed to only talk to my doctor through a computer screen, then so be it — I was desperate to be seen.

Once I began seeing this doctor, I would come in once every two weeks and have a telehealth visit with him. I would sit in a chair across the room from him, and he would be on a computer screen talking to me.

Things seemed to be going well initially, that was until I noticed how he was treating me as a patient.

Office staff told me to fill out a questionnaire for depression and anxiety. I was then asked to do the same questionnaire again, but verbally. I found this very odd, but I thought it was a simple clinic error; maybe he never got a copy scanned to him.

My first impression of this doctor was slightly lackluster. All we seemed to be doing was him asking me questions from different questionnaires and having me rate my answers verbally.

There wasn’t much of him getting to know me aside from the basics: career, home life, and how I felt that day.

But I walked out with a diagnosis of depression and anxiety, which seemed correct to me. I hoped things would get better from here.

I could stop this aching feeling that the doctor did not see me as a person but as another patient with a mental health issue. The treatment plan he made seemed like it was a one size fits all approach.

But I gave him the benefit of the doubt because I was desperate. I began to start taking the medication he prescribed. I had some reserves around him, but I kept quiet. I wasn’t the professional — he was.

I had to trust this doctor with my mental health because I had no other choice. I needed to make sure that I was being seen by a provider because there were no other providers.

Loss of trust in my doctor

As time progressed, I noticed that I didn’t feel as confident with my provider as hoped.

The doctor prescribed me anti-depressants and a sedating medication for sleep. As time went on, I felt better, but I was having some new symptoms arise.

I was experiencing immense feelings of guilt and shame. I wasn’t guilty or shameful of anything at all; to be exact, it was just the feeling. It would hit me out of the blue and make it hard for me to get up in the morning.

This was a new symptom for me, so I was concerned. I had depressive symptoms, of course, but none of them came close to this insane amount of guilt and shame I felt throughout my body. It was hard to explain. I mentioned this to my doctor at our next visit, and he stated,

“Well, Jennifer, you see, with depression, we can get so used to those feelings of guilt and shame that they become comfortable to us…so we have to force ourselves to think differently.”

And that was all he said. His statement rubbed me the wrong way and left me feeling dismissed. I couldn’t just think differently when it was my body that was making me have these feelings.

From his statement, all I could gather was, “change your mentality, and it will go away.”

But I can’t just flip a switch and feel better. I needed guidance and help; that’s why I was in his care.

How can a provider properly treat me if he won’t listen and understand my needs?

A few more months into my treatment, I decided to tell him how I felt about my anxiety. I noticed my obsessions around the health, safety, and wellbeing of my family were skyrocketing due to the pandemic.

But I have always had this worry, but now it was so difficult for me to calm down from it. My mental health was teetering, and I tried to stay calm and be alive through it all.

I wanted to share these feelings with my doctor because I had realized that they were not expected. The feelings I had were detrimental to my health and severely impacted my functioning.

At our following, and last appointment, I felt suicidal, and I needed him to understand what was wrong with me. I wanted to give him a third chance so I could share this vital information.

I didn’t feel safe telling him the truth.

I told the doctor that my anxiety was worse, and I was stuck in these obsessive thoughts. I also stated how I felt ‘stuck’ when it came to my mental health; I didn’t know what was wrong.

My doctor replied with the same statement he had said earlier.

“Jennifer, sometimes we have to get our minds out of thinking the same way; it’s hard, but you’ll get there.”

Being forgetful and obsessive to the point of insanity is not something I can work through on my own.

He said that everything seemed reasonable, and we could check back in 6 months. He hadn’t listened to a word I said.

I confronted him about this and stated how I was feeling. I can’t remember what happened next.

I felt so horrible; I wanted nothing more than to tell him that I had awful thoughts about ending my own life. But I kept it a secret as I didn’t like him to do anything drastic — I did not feel safe with him.

I sat there doubting my own emotions because my doctor didn’t see anything wrong with me.

If I was normal and better, then why was I still feeling like this?

Turning point

Every time I visited this doctor, he made me fill out the same depression and anxiety questionnaire. And again, I would have to answer the questions verbally to my doctor.

I began to notice that the doctor was not listening to me. He was listening to the symptoms I checked off for depression and anxiety.

Instead of listening to me and my own unique story, he only cared about my score for each questionnaire.

At one point, my depression was better, but my anxiety was still wrong. But he saw me go from severe depression to moderate depression. Since I was dropping on his rating scale, he wanted to start the process of weaning me off of medication.

Now, of course, medical questionnaires are a helpful clinical tool for patients and providers. But questionnaires cannot be the only diagnostic tools to work off of.

Mental health is a delicate balance of knowing the patient, their struggles, history, and what they are presenting with.

Just because a patient ranks high on a depression questionnaire does not mean that the patient only has depression.

Sometimes patients can have a different diagnosis altogether, but the provider can not know that without talking.

I finally had enough with this doctor because check-ins were supposed to be quick, but he made them into a matter of minutes. This provider always dismissed my concerns, and I was left feeling worse than before.

I had my best friend tell me that I needed to see a different provider, so that’s what I did. I got a recommendation from her to see another provider across town.

I met this new doctor, and my life changed completely. She listened to me for 2 hours, trying to understand my history. She asked me many probing questions, and yes, I did get a questionnaire, but she put that in my file instead of reading off of it.

From there, I was able to get a diagnosis that was more fitting to my circumstance: ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, depression, PTSD, and OCD.

It sounds so odd that I have three new diagnoses, all from a simple doctor switch. Now that I am being treated as a whole, I am feeling better.

I got put on a new medication that helped me with my obsessions; I’m on a good path.

All of the symptoms I was having was that I tried to get my previous doctor to listen to were linked to my OCD, ADHD, and PTSD.

The impact my new doctor has made on my life pushed me to believe in myself. I was unsure of my feelings, but I chose to believe in myself.

Now I am seen by a great provider who listens to me.

I feel heard and understood — and you should, too.