My Complaint

I just finished filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau with whom the DBT Center of Michigan is accredited.  While I was writing my complaint I went to the DBT Centers of Michigan website to find something and saw that they have a scrolling banner that says “Now Accepting New Clients”, wow.  Anyway, here is my complaint.  I will be writing a separate post explaining how I feel about the situation, as promised, after I post this (I tend to talk a lot, so apologies in advance if the aforementioned post ends up really long, or more than one post).

“In the Pre-Treatment Stage, the individual therapist and the client will begin to build the framework of the treatment.  This will include collaborative assessment and formulation of the treatment plan.  The therapist will review DBT and the expectations of treatment in detail with the client.  Agreements of both the therapist and client will be discussed and a mutual commitment will be made before the actual treatment begins.” Taken from the DBT Centers of Michigan website http://dbtcentermi.org/Modes_Therapy.php

The original agreement made between my therapist and I was that I would have group and individual therapy on separate days with the therapist that I was then working with. Rebecca Royston, my therapist has decided to take a leave of absence for personal reasons, which I respect even though its caused a major upheaval in my life, and I was willing to work through it.  Then I was informed that I would have to do both therapies on the same day, I have physical issues that make this impossible. My options then became to accept diminished therapy or leave. I was also talked down to and treated in a disrespectful manner.  I tried to clear this manner up with the owners and was basically told that their staff is too busy to meet my needs and that I need to go elsewhere. I feel that it was irresponsible of them to open the Grand Rapids office without being prepared or informing the clients that their business is so unstable, and to offer services that they are admittedly not able to provide, also that the whole matter was handled extremely unprofessionally. This is a business that chooses to work with a group of people who are emotionally unstable and much of the time suicidal. 8-10% of people with BPD commit suicide, feelings of abandonment and self worth issues often being the cause.  I cant speak for other clients but turning here felt like my last hope,which was conveyed to my therapist, and I feel this has reinforced those fears that this company reassured me that they would help with.

I would like to have said a lot more, and Im not all that happy with this, but I used up all of the characters aloud. (All of the original emails between me and Reed were attached)

Edit – I just received this email from the Better Business Bureau.

Dear Heather Ensign:

This message is in regard to your complaint submitted on 5/22/2012 1:38:28 PM against DBT Center of Michigan, PLLC.  Your complaint was assigned ID 9049182.

Your complaint is not of the sort handled by the Better Business Bureau as the BBB does not handle complaints raising issues concerning the competency of doctors, dentists, licensed therapists, veterinarians, and lawyers. We would handle billing disputes that do not involve underlying competency issues.

If you wish to further you complaint, you may contact:

Michigan Department of Licencing and Regulatory Affairs

http://www.michigan.gov/lara/0,4601,7-154-35299_28150_27647—,00.html

If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

I will be filing my complaint elsewhere, but probably not today.

Basically, Theres the Door

I received my reply back from Reed (one of the owners of the DBT Center of Michigan).  Ive had a long day.  Im tired and dont have a lot of time (its almost 8pm and I just got on the computer), so Im going to post the reply and my response today.  Ill be posting about how Im feeling about the situation tomorrow.  I did want to say though, that I am feeling a bit better, depression wise, not great but better, and I want to thank you guys.  I want to thank you all for all of your positive thoughts and comments, it really means a lot to me.  I  love you guys

Dear Heather,

I apologize for the delayed response to your last email.  My team and I have been looking at options that might accommodate your request regarding DBT services with us.

Under the circumstances I will be genuine and transparent with you in describing our current operating conditions.  I do not find your request to have individual therapy and group skills training on different days to be unreasonable in any way.  Your concerns are clearly valid.

I live in Coldwater, close to the Indiana border.  I see clients in Coldwater on Tuesday evenings after seeing clients in Lansing on the same day.  I also see clients in Coldwater on Fridays.  I have a caseload of approximately 40 DBT clients and am working into evening hours in Lansing Monday through Thursday.  I have a wife and two small children.

My business partner, Josh, is currently the lead DBT trainer for the State of Michigan Department of Human Services and is responsible for training community mental health staff throughout the state in DBT.  He is also currently traveling nationally to lecture on DBT for a continuing education company.  His caseload is limited to 10-15 clients in the Lansing office.  He lives in Mason and has a wife and two small children.

My colleague, Diana, lives in Adrian and heads up our child and adolescent programming while also working with adults.  Her caseload is full and she is frequently seeing clients until 9PM. 

My colleague, Patti, lives in Lansing and is currently planning and executing her own wedding, largely without support while carrying a full caseload and doing the exhaustive work necessary to be paneled with insurance companies.

We recently had a therapist retire and are currently scrambling.  We have a significant waiting list of people needing and desiring DBT services.  We are in the process of hiring a new therapist who is moving to Lansing from Livonia.  She has and infant and young child and will not be on-line for another month. 

We have two part-time clinicians, both with children, who work full-time for community mental health here in Lansing, who are very limited in the number of clients they can see here in Lansing.

We have been reaching out to other agencies trying to identify people who have at least some degree of training and experience in DBT who would be interested in seeing clients in Grand Rapids.  This is a work in progress and to date, we have yet to identify anyone.

Our office in Grand Rapids is a new endeavor and was originally set up to be staffed and managed by Becky who lives in Grand Rapids.  Her need to take a leave of absence of unidentified duration was unforeseeable and is regrettable, yet totally supported by us as we need to practice what we preach, engaging in self-care and observing our limits in order to be able to treat our clientele in the most effective ways possible.  

We are currently scrambling to adequately staff our Lansing office as referrals have sky-rocketed concurrent with a therapist retiring and Becky going on indefinite leave.  We all have every desire to accommodate you and treat you effectively while validating your concerns and needs.  Unfortunately, my team and I are drawing a blank as we identify that we, as individuals, are not currently in positions to travel to Grand Rapids nor is Patti currently able to be there on days other than Friday.

Becky emailed me the menu of options you discussed together and they look pretty exhaustive and detailed.  If you are identifying that none of these work for you, I am hesitant to ask you to choose to do any of them temporarily when I can’t give you a solid timeline of when it could change. 

As much as I hate to say it, it seems that you might be better served by a different agency at this point in time.  We are all sorry that you got caught up in the staffing difficulty of our new Grand Rapids endeavor.  As previously stated, Becky’s current circumstances were unforeseeable. 

One of the dialectical strategies outlined by Marsha Linehan is to allow for natural change to occur rather than attempting to provide artificial stability.  This may be a case that is representative of natural change in reality.  Despite our desire to meet your request, it may turn out to be most empowering and most effective in terms of exposure for us all to accept reality just as it is.

If you would like a formal referral to another agency, we will be more than happy to accommodate you.

Thank you again for your honest feedback.

Sincerely,

Reed M. Stewart, MSW, LMSW, BCD

Founder/Co-Owner

The DBT Center of Michigan.

My response -

I understand the circumstances, and while Im trying not to, all I can see is how all of your therapist problems matter more than your clients.  Which would be fine had we  been informed that this was the situation from the go, but we werent.  I understand that options are limited but I do feel the need to let you know that I will be filing a complaint.  You chose to start a business in which you work with a group of people that are emotionally unstable, and a much of the time suicidal.  8-10% of individuals with BPD commit suicide, and a major contributing factor is feelings of abandonment, and issues with self worth.  I feel that it was irresponsible to open the Grand Rapids office without a back up plan in place should something like this happen, or at least informing the clients that the basis of the office was so unstable.

Heather

PLEASE READ! I Need YOUR Help!

Reblogged from ...But She's Crazy:

I have a crazy, wild idea — just bear with me and give it some thought because I need you guys involved to actually make it happen. (If you’re an impatient reader, feel free to skip the next couple explanatory paragraphs.)

Thanks to posts by and comment conversations with Pride In Madness and Sarah at bi curious, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the struggles of the mentally ill as a social class and the desperate need for a worldwide conversation about and realistic understanding of mental illness.

Read more… 1,227 more words

30 Day Challenge: Day 6

Day 6: Pet peeves.

Um, people cracking there bones.  Its like nails on a chalkboard to me.  It makes my skin crawl.

Anything that makes me feel disrespected (or that anyone I care about has been disrespected).

People who get pets because they think it makes them cool and then dont take care of them or make them live outside, grrr.

People who go out in public when theyre sick.

Any censorship.

Ignorance.

When people say things like lol, or omg out loud.

Greeting cards. I dont believe in them.  I dont like it when other people get them for me and I dont like it that Im expected to get them for other people and that if I dont I look like an asshole.  If you want to say something to someone, say it.  Dont spend $5 for someone else to say it on a piece of paper.  Frankly, Id be happier to get the 5 bucks, or if you had to have something formally in writing to give, make it yourself, even just some writing that you wrote on a blank piece of paper.

When people say sorry too much, or when they dont mean it, it loses its meaning.

Typing ‘s.  I havent a clue why but it seems to offend me.  They dont bother me when other people type them, or writing them.  I do write them, but for some reason, I can not type them.  Just typing the one above is making my skin crawl.  Its an OCD type thing but its not one that I understand, at all.

I know that there are more, but for some reason Im having a really hard time thinking of anything.

Update and Depression

If you recall, after the initial response to My Email to the Owners, I hadnt heard anything back and it was driving me a bit nutty (Random Quick Update).  So, on Thursday I forwarded my original  response and added this.

I just wanted to verify that you received this email.  I havent heard anything back from you and I just wanted to make sure that you got my response.

Heather

Today, I received this.

Heather, finishing final checks related to who might be available in grand rapids on days other than Friday.  I’ll know more Monday.  Sorry for the delay.  Reed

Good to know, except that now Im really depressed and I no longer want to go to therapy.  I told Toast last night that I give up.  Not only do I not trust the DBT Center of Michigan but I dont trust that anyone will actually care about me.  I feel like Im just a number and I now see them the same as doctors.  Great.  Also, like I said before, Im afraid that whoever does my therapy will now be biased against me because of this whole situation.  I know that Im not thinking rationally.  Depression tends to do that to me, but I dont want to try anymore.

Im feeling completely empty again, and like I have no control over anything.  I forced myself to take a shower and get dressed today and Im going to go out to eat with my family.  The whole opposite action thing, but its not helping.  I spent last night feeling suicidal.  I had been depressed all day.  I stayed busy, so as to not let myself get this low, but I think it was somewhat inevitable at this point, Ive been holding it off for weeks.

Wed been watching Friends every night for the past few weeks, which was helping more than I had realized.  Thursday we finished the whole show.  Last night, all I wanted to do was watch Friends.  Toast told me that we could start them over and that we could watch a couple last night (we had already watched Gremlins that wed gotten from Netflix).  I said no because I feel ridiculous.  We just watched them all, we dont need to watch them again (although its not like weve never done that before.  When I was really depressed in Arizona, I think we watched Dirty Dancing 3 times in a row, and Benny and Joon twice).

I ended up in a chair in the living room bawling my fucking eyes out because I felt like I needed to watch Friends.  The feeling isnt any different from addiction.  No different from the need I feel to self harm, or binge, or in the past have sex with people I should not be, alcohol, cocaine…  It hit me just how incredibly empty I still am.  I dont know how to survive without something to fill this hole in my soul.

Anyway, I dont think theres really much I can do to improve my mood.  Not that Im going to quit trying to find things that at least help a little, make me smile, laugh whatever, but I am depressed.  Im trying to just accept that and give myself permission to be depressed, but that scares me.  I know its better for me to stop trying to fight against it, and just let it runs its course but I scare me when I get here.  It becomes so easy for me to not give a fuck about anything, especially myself.  So, send me positive thoughts and stuff, I need it.

30 Day Challenge: Day 5

Day 5: A song that inspires you.

A song that inspires me?  Why must everyone always insist that I narrow things down to just one?  Ever the rebel *giggles*, Im going to break the rules and make this songs that inspire me.  Enjoy

A Perfect Circle – Rose

A Perfect Circle – Gravity

Tool – Lateralus

Tool -Reflection

Nine Inch Nails - In This Twilight

Nickelback – If Today Was Your Last Day

Christina Aguilera – Fighter

Blind Melon - Change

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Running Down a Dream

Im sure there are many more, this is just off the top of my head.

Take Me Away

My mood has been bouncing all over the place over the past few days, alternating between feeling inspired and motivated, depressed and anxious/overwhelmed.  Ive been trying to do things like listen to music and read more and weve been watching a lot of Friends (one of my go to depression shows), in an effort to keep me from falling back into the pit full force.  I still find my mind wandering to the therapy situation and becoming depressed, although I have managed to keep myself from staying there.

Initially, not having therapy (for the time being) was kind of a relief.  I have time, I never have any time.  But last night I started to become extremely overwhelmed by this.  I keep thinking of everything that I want/need to do, and then I realize that I dont have enough time, and I also dont have enough money, space, privacy, or skills to do everything on that huge list.  I became overwhelmed by the reality of my life and situation.  I dont know how to manage my life, or even myself on my own.  I started to feel like I dont know how to be a real person again.  I thought that feeling had gone away for the most part, but as it turns out, I think I was just too preoccupied with therapy, too busy to feel it.

This got me thinking about how I still havent a clue as to how to regulate my emotions on my own.  I need other people to do it for me.  Apparently, I was using my relationship with Becky to do this without even realizing it.  Now I feel lost.  I decided to listen to music and I listened to Take Me Away by Seether.  I keep my mp3 player on shuffle, pretty much all of the time and it never seizes to amaze me how often it plays songs that either describe how Im feeling while Im feeling it, or that are what I need in the moment (I can feel myself starting to slip into depression and it plays songs that put me in a good mood, songs that make me wanna dance or are inspiring to me.  Or Im depressed and numb, and it plays sad songs that make it easier to feel the emotions that Im having a hard time accessing.  Or Im in a good mood and it plays only good mood songs).  Anyway, to me this song is all about someone who needs others to regulate their emotions for them.  I mean, “you fuel the lost desire, I no longer wanna die”, “I need to find a purpose, I need to feel you needing me”, or “I want you to stay, you take the pain away.  I want you to stay, I need you here to keep me sane”.

I ended up in bed panicking, not able to sleep (Toast was getting pissed at me because I kept turning on the light to write things down).  I decided to try to focus on my breath to calm myself down and it actually worked.  Its been a long time since Ive been able to do that when Im that dysregulated.  I started feeling positive and motivated again.  This constant up and down shit is exhausting.  Even doing better, my mood is still all over the place but I think Id forgotten just how labile it can get sometimes.  Im tired, but Jen and Ava are coming over.  Im hoping that will help keep my mood more positive.