Wholeheartedly

"Sometimes I think you don't want to meet with me," the case manager says as she's reaching for her paper calender from the trunk of the Civic.

"It's not you. It's not your fault," I tell her, which is mostly true. Sometimes I'm just in a bad mood for other reasons, like today, dealing with back pain, or sometimes she just says something that I disagree with wholeheartedly.

Earlier, I was eating my salad at a local cafe when she told me that since I had refused therapy in the past, I needed a current history of being in psychotherapy in order for the county to recommend me to a therapist once I leave this program, which immediately didn't make sense to me.

"Why would that matter? What if I refused therapy and then later because of growing self-awareness, I want to attend. Why would anyone hold that against me?"

The case manager gave a lame explanation that the county has financial restrictions, that they're just doing their job.

"Why should that be my concern?" I answer honestly. "The care of the patient should always come first."

"I agree with you," she says.

I was irritated. Issues with county mental health tend to do that to me, especially when someone defends their ill practices. My epic battle with them over allocating the funds from Medi-Cal to pay for my residential treatment program was just the largest of many. County, as disclosed decreetly to me, doesn't like being told what to do by Stanford University Hospital. They refused to give me access to treatment even when a team of doctors said it was in my best interest. Why? No one ever gave a decent answer, even after Stanford hired a lawyer to talk to them about my problem. One county employee told me that it had to do with spending county funds on programs outside the county--and for someone who is not seen regularly under their local hospital system.

But I lost the battle, even after hiring a lawyer of my own to straighten the issue out. Since then, I've had little faith that county mental health has my best interests at heart.

So, I didn't want to discuss the topic with my case manager, whose program is closely tied with the county mental health. I tried to leave our meeting after I had finished my salad. My case manager asked me to stay.

I explained to her my feelings, and then I left.