I would give no stars if I could. Some time ago, I would see her. At some point, she diagnosed me as having psychosomatic disorder for insisting there was something wrong with multiple systems in my body. It turns out that I was absolutely right: I was subsequently diagnosed with two multi-systemic disorders, one a connective-tissue disorder and another a mast-cell disorder (plus an autoimmune disorder of the skin). But I left her "care" before I was diagnosed with the disorders. Since then, I have been under the care of a compassionate psychiatrist who is nonplussed to think of how I have been treated in the medical and psychiatric field, or was, until I found the right help and finally had all my diagnoses. I have so questioned myself, thanks to providers like Dr. Dieperink, that I have asked him if it's possible I have some kind of issue beyond depression. The answer is an emphatic no.
Though I did not have any of my diagnoses while seeing Dr. Dieperink, I did tell her that one seemed likely and that I was returning to the specialty clinic for further testing. Nonetheless, she judged me to have a psychosomatic disorder and then, after I argued with her about it, a diagnosis of a personality disorder showed up in my records.
I believe it's thanks to her diagnoses that, until I received these other diagnoses, less curious or imaginative doctors, probably biased doctors, read my record, and her diagnoses, and stopped there. I had to actually go out of systems that had access to her records to start over. That's when I started to receive actual, real help.
I remember clearly how she insisted that she knew something about the congenital disorder I was being assessed for, and how it could not possibly cause all my symptoms. In the first place, according to my primary doctor, doctors without a specialty in that disorder receive a half-day of education about that and related disorders during their medical degrees. What could Dr. Dieperink actually know? In fact, this disorder causes many symptoms throughout the body, since it effects the very building blocks of skin, organs, and even bones. In the second place, having one diagnosis didn't mean the picture was complete, such that I didn't have an additional disorder. As it turned out, I did have another disorder.
Dr. Dieperink's condescension, arrogance, and judgmental comportment in those sessions are something I have had difficulty forgetting for affecting my subsequent treatment. I consider her a poor psychiatrist. Since these disorders affect my ability to tolerate medication (for depression), I have seen many. She truly stands out as a poor doctor among them all.
By the way, she was also passive-aggressive. She was frequently very late for our sessions, yet when I was fifteen-twenty minutes late for one, she pointedly looked at the clock and pursed her lips, but said nothing. Just continued through the session with a tone and energy. That, to me, says much about her. She never told me that she had diagnosed me with the disorders she did. I saw them by looking at the sheets she'd hand me at the end of sessions. Toxic. read more
