When people who are supposed to fix your crazy make you crazy

A Rilli Tho moment I frequently encounter is that wherein a mental health professional fucks up, whether it be a missed appointment or just being an asshole. This is problematic for me because, as a crazy person, I am consistently aware that my sanity is on trial with any therapist/psychiatrist/other; if I demonstrate any behavior even remnant of mania or psychosis, my chart is DOOMED to an Axis II perpetual hell. Even though neither of those is in my repertoire of crazy, diagnoses loom at every moment. A stare that goes a second too long could go from hypervigilance right into paranoia-land. An idea too big, delusions of grandiosity.

I apologize in advance if I am unjustly stealing this image, but it is HILARIOUS. Or sad, if you have no sense of humor. Seriously, it's like the DSM reaper. ...HILARIOUS.

So, it is possible that I am employing hyperbole to draw the reader, but the point is that I am very aware of how I act around mental health professionals (MHPs). Today, my therapist canceled approximately an hour before my appointment via text. I had already gotten to her office. It's one of our first formal appointments, so I'm still not sure how to assess her; we don't have the familiarity for me to gauge her level of responsibility.

However, she has a weird verbal affectation and manner of dress lying somewhere in the range between Lady GaGa and my best friend in high school, so I decided to let the irritability pass as I put back on my OD ridiculous winter hat (it's like that Russian shit that's built for Siberia so I'm prepared just in case they reinstate sending prisoners there somehow except from the US and I get LITERALLY sent up north somehow on what would obviously be a bullshit charge because I am a model citizen except for those reasons listed above and also because I believe in preferential voting and who knows if that could somehow come back to bite me in the ass because I am a radical thinker even though you won't catch my ass at Occupy Wall Street even if they had all the Cuban sandwiches and pink icees [they are THE BEST ONES. The blue ones are equitable, tho] in the world. But more on preferential voting later) and head back to work. I was mostly upset because I had--like the asshole yuppie I feign being during the week--because I had explained to her the demanding nature of my job (reading about how people can't breathe good and should buy this medicine all day).

How do you deal with MHPs who fuck up? I choose a combination of the waiting game and silence because I don't want to give the impression that I'm unreasonable or have unnatural reactions. Even though MHPs should take human response into consideration when making judgment calls as such, they are also human. To add to that, they are always thinking about things that are crazy because that is what they deal with all day. So, I have to completely restrain myself at all times, which unfortunately sometimes--in some cases, unbeknownst to the MHPs themselves--becomes an enabling system.

I left my last therapist because I felt pressured to tell him the fantastical stories of my childhood and adolescence; as things in my adult life became more stable, I felt like he was trying to change the channel from regular-ass Discovery Channel to Discovery Channel Psych Week. BTW, fuck shark week; live every week like it's psych week. I had also created a system wherein I could tell that he wanted me to engage in personal issues about his life, because I imagine I was probably one of the only patients to rationally and reasonably inquire (albeit out of 80% courtesy, 20% interest) about him as a person. Admittedly, he should have been more attuned to the fact that he has degrees to be an MPH; I am a patient; I am a paying patient; and he has OD degrees; but I do see my part (see the Family Systems model of psychology for an expanded explanation of this. It is likely that addiction support groups also elaborate on this model [ie, enabling], but I think most models of AA are a cult). Ultimately, in going with my hypervigilant attitude, I said nothing and gradually phased out of sessions with him.

Other mental health offenses of the past:
1. Anyone Freudian. This goes without too much explanation. If in 2011, you are a mental health professional who is not only using only one theory of practice in the vast array of psychological theorems, but are using psychoanalytic practices SOLELY, you need to get your ass to some continuing medical education (CME) conference shit immediately.

2. I once had a psychiatrist whose waiting room was hideous. HIDEOUS. It was clear that she didn't know what to do with all the money she had somehow made, and so decided to bombard her wall with what can only be described as an absolute cacophony of art: cubism juxtaposed surrealism juxtaposed 18th-century traditionalist Chinese art juxtaposed modern art. It was the worst. Every time I sat in her waiting room, I wondered how her crazier patients could sit there and look at that bullshit and not become instantly crazier for the experience.

3. Fat guy who just sat there. (See Number 1. He was a caricature of a therapist: he had a leather couch and an affinity for awkward, extended periods of silence.)

4. This one time my parents were in divorce court and I had to go to a court-appointed MHP. Let's just say I had to play a board game on divorce...divorce. Who makes this shit? That is also the question I asked when I was 9. (Not gonna lie though, that would make a FANTASTIC Christmas present to passive-aggressively, anonymously send to a couple you know should break up.)

5. Same psychiatrist with the cacophony of art asked me if I'd be down for taking Lexapro (an SSRI for major depressive disorder). She goes to her closet, takes out 8 boxes of samples (which had expired 3 years before, I should note), and says, "Wait, you're not suicidal, are you?" AS IF THE WAY I WAS GONNA GO OUT WAS TO STUFF MY FACE WITH ESCITALOPRAM OXALATE...NAH, SON.

6. Yes, believe it or not, cacophony-of-art psychiatrist ALSO could not get my name right. I saw her for probably 2 years. She thought there was a "ford" at the end of my name. MY NAME SOUNDS NOTHING LIKE ANYTHING THAT WOULD POSSIBLY RESEMBLE THAT EVER.