Therapists of Internet, have you ever had a patient who you truly thought was “unfixable”?

I might be that guy. I have deep seeded mood disorders and chemical dependency issues and I’m sure I’ve frustrated the fuck out of some therapists. I’ve never been “fired” as a patient per se, but I’ve been “recommended for a higher level of treatment”. (Currently in therapy five days a week)

I take therapy seriously though and always have. I kinda look at it like going to see a personal trainer. They’re there to motivate and guide you but you still gotta do the work for progress to actually happen. If you just sit on the treadmill eating Big Macs you can’t really expect a positive difference.

There’s other factors too. Sometimes it’s just honestly not a good match. Different philosophies, priorities, hell even gender in my case can cause a mismatch. Finding the right support team is invaluable for a patient, so if either party needs a switch it’s not a big deal.

For confidentiality reasons I can’t go into anything particularly specific, but I can give you a general overview. I had this patient who was struggling with a rare and severe form of OCD. Let’s call her Vanessa, or Nessa for short.

At first glance, Nessa just appeared to be a greedy middle aged woman who wanted to make it big in a business environment. She was sharply dressed, and she knew how to give off an air of wealth and superiority. If you saw her, you would’ve thought she was the CEO or CFO of a top 500 corporation.

In truth though, Nessa was actually a cashier at big chain grocery store (think Walmart). She relied on her husband to pay for our sessions, and from what I understood of him, he was one of the big players in the movie production industry. From my evaluation of Nessa, I believe her reason for trying to give off an appearance of being from old money wealth was deep seated in mental illness. She was obsessed with the idea of amassing wealth, and it was the major driving force and motivation behind her actions and decisions. Every little thing she did, it was as a means to save or accrue money.

She did this through selective frugality such as eating expired food, and through less than ethical means of making additional income. Welfare fraud, misreporting hours on her time card, stealing from the “take a penny” jars, and so forth. In her mind, those were all victimless crimes that couldn’t hurt anybody. You should hopefully get the picture by now.

Now, you see… As Nessa’s therapist, it was my job to help her get the necessary cognitive behavioral therapy and work through these issues. But unfortunately, I couldn’t do much to help someone who refuses to help herself. In her mind, she was just doing what everybody was doing, but better. As a consequence of that, she wasn’t actually interested in listening to my advice or accepting my help. Yet despite this, she always took an initiative to schedule weekly appointments with me.

We would go over topics of discussion such as her home life, her relationship, and her job. She would tell me about her latest money-making scheme, and she wouldn’t have an ounce of remorse or consideration for the potential consequences of it. I think it was around the 12th session that she finally explained to me why she was showing up, despite being so adamant about her not having any issues. It turns out that her husband was paying her to show up to our therapy sessions. And the best part? He was giving her $3.50 for every session she showed up to.

And it was at that point that I realized I was giving therapy to the god darned loch ness monster. I done told that loch ness monster to scram, and that I ain’t gonna help him get his tree fiddy no more.

I need popcorn for this

This can go 0 to 100 real fucking quick

I feel like this could have used a serious tag