0 (out of five)

What can I say about this one?  Sigh.  When I first met her, she literally did not introduce herself, talk about what kind of therapy we were going to do, nor did she ask me any questions about myself.  I mean it, she was literally silent our entire first meeting.  She said absolutely NOTHING.  So, I get anxious, and have diarrhea of the mouth.  But she just sat there, and eventually only commented on my sickness and gave me some ideas on gut health...she's not a freaking nutritionist, so why is she giving out nutrition advice?  

I saw her a second time and she talked a little bit more, but mostly about my diet and how my body's been messed up since a year prior when I got sick.  Which only partly has to do with my anxiety, as it when it acts up, my anxiety can get worse.  But did she give me coping skills for when this happens?  Teach me some sort of anything for my mental health?  No, she just gave me diet advice...again, not a nutritionist!  So, when I told her, I had finally realized, after over 20 years of only having panic disorder and GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) be my diagnoses, I realized I had pretty severe OCD (and have for my entire life) and agoraphobia.  Now, I have been diagnosed with agoraphobia before, but it comes and goes, but I've definitely been agoraphobic for most of my adult life.  I had felt this sort of relief finally realizing what my issues were and I thought therapy would help me with both of those.  But did you think she cared?  Nope.  All she said was "So, what I am hearing is that you looked some stuff up and you think you have those things" in a very monotone voice, as though I was annoying her.

Um, what?  How dismissive is that.  I am almost fifty.  Dani looks like she's in her early 30's, hardly older than my oldest son.  She has no idea what I know and what I don't know.  I've been researching anxiety longer than she's been alive, as I've had it since birth.  I also have ASD, so I hyperfocus on things I am interested in and anxiety disorders are some of those things.  To tell me that I just "looked some stuff up and thought it applied to me" is just laughable.  I've run many anxiety support groups myself and I've been writing about it for years.  But did she know that?  Nope.  Because she's silent.  She says NOTHING to you at all.  And she sure doesn't ask you any questions, much less give you any therapy (how can she when she doesn't speak to you?).  

In between my two visits to her, I went to their resident art therapist who was holding an art therapy class.  It was freaking stressful to go to this class because I had to go alone, as I have moderate agoraphobia (meaning I can't go places alone without my "safe people").  I was already super freaking anxious (but more on this under her name--Donna Addison).  And I had a horrible experience there, which caused me to go into a horrible bout of RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria) and my OCD went insane with negative thoughts.  I came back to tell her about this at session two, but just like what I said before, her reply was "So, it sounds like you had an expectation, and it didn't go as you planned" in a deadpan voice, again, like I was annoying her.  So, I stood up for myself to her (which is super hard for me to do) and said "No, I was promised I wouldn't have to do these things in class, and she made me do them anyways...it was not a safe space, not for mentally ill people, which is who the class is for."  I told her I was not going back, she said she'd remove me from the class, but didn't, as I kept getting text messages about going to it. 

So, rather than tell me about how to manage my RSD or my OCD thoughts to help me when something like this happens, she just shamed me into believing I was overreacting, because she added nothing to her comment.  I will tell you, I talk a lot when I am nervous, but when I am being treated badly, I get really quiet.  So she had a LOT of space to help me feel better or give me advice, but she chose to just be weird and sit in silence, like usual.

I keep saying this, but who on earth is training these people?  And how on earth are they being paid hundreds of dollars an hour to just sit there and stare at you?  Sigh.  

I give her a SOLID ZERO out of five stars and a big fat F grade as therapist. 

We did in person visits only.