Reviews (1)

Do you know how hard it is to find a culturally intelligent, queer-friendly, trauma-informed, BIPOC therapist in Texas who specializes in trauma, PTSD, and grief? Someone who is capable of doing therapy around inner child healing? It's darn near impossible.

At 38, I'd finally reached a place where I had done so much work on myself on my own and processed and coped with the complex trauma that I've endured, and navigated suicidal ideation, depression, grief, and sexual abuse trauma, and I was TIRED. I knew that I'd gone as far as I could carry myself and it was time to seek help.

COVID had done a number on so very many of us, and I'd been laid off, in March of 2020, and had been applying like a fiend for jobs left and right with zero luck. I was on the last stretch of my savings and I knew I had to save as much as I could, but I desperately needed help. So, I said, forget it. I'll go donate plasma to bring in the money to afford the help I needed.

I will say this - BetterHelp was AMAZING. They worked with me to get me a reduced rate for therapy that was like $40/week. Which was life-saving for someone like me. And for that...I will be forever grateful to them.

I'd been on BetterHelp for the better part of a month trying to pair with a therapist that could meet me in a place where I didn't feel like I was going to have to provide education for the experiences I bring to the table, but who already was familiar, culturally speaking, and well-versed in the type of work I was needing.

Ultimately, this proved to be far too challenging of a task and here are a handful of examples of what I had to go through.

I scheduled a session with a fourth counselor over a week in advance, and the day of, at 3:50 am, she canceled our 11 am appt. No apology and flippantly said, "You can reschedule for a later date (her next available date that aligned with my schedule was another 2 weeks out), or you can just pick another counselor. Either or." Let's break this down:

1) "Either or"? She actually said, "either or." I don't care who you are...that response is far too flippant. It's not either or. This isn't a coffee date. This isn't an Instagram Live demonstration. This is a therapy session. Most often, people reaching out for help are not in the best place. So, it's not "either or." A lot of people reaching out for therapy have major issues with people letting them down or not following through in their life, so this is super irresponsible of a counselor with zero acknowledgment of how disappointing that would be.

2) "You can switch to a different therapist." Please refer back to the part of this review where I lay out why as a queer, WOC, whose needs fall smack at the intersection of PTSD and grief, "matching with another therapist" isn't just as cavalier and simple as that.

3) Contacted at 3:50 am to cancel an appointment at 11 am on the same day, especially when most people wake up a little later on weekends, and aren't going to see that so readily, is just cutting it far too close. Now I know things happen, family emergencies are real, you have zero control over this stuff, and the family emergency very well may have blown up at 3:45 am that day and 5 minutes later she was canceling appointments.

All I'm saying is, there's got to be a better way to communicate this. The message had no apology, no empathy for how jarring it may be for someone reaching out for help to be canceled on last minute for an initial session with a therapist, it was just...what it was.

The other thing about BetterHelp is, I understand that for many therapists, BetterHelp may just be a supplemental income source in addition to their own practices, but, the people on here reaching out are real people. With real needs. And we do deserve more.

The second therapist I matched with didn't listen to anything I was saying, kept mispronouncing my name, kept looking offscreen as though something was in the room with her (issues of a session being private).

The third therapist I matched with told me verbatim, "It sounds like you need to learn how to compartmentalize what you've been through and relegate it to the far corner of your mind." Um, no ma'am, that sort of strategy is what has brought me to this point in my life.

She was overly aggressive, was talking about non-therapeutic strategies (like ritual writing things down and burning them to release them) on the first session before we'd even attempted to tackle any issues. What? When I told her I wholeheartedly disagreed with her "compartmentalizing" suggestion, and that I believed it was possible to address the problems and exist in peace with them, she told me I was being combative with her and rejecting all her suggestions and that I was putting a wall up with her. Sigh.

All in all, the process was super draining. Super demoralizing. And left me feeling like counseling is trash and that if I am ever going to move through my grief and pain, it's gonna have to be on my own. Which is a very lonely thought.