By far the strangest appointment I've had. If I wasn't educated I'd have likely gone into a…read moretrigger response. I should have known to just walk out when he said not to worry, that the aliens would soon be back to get humanity back on the right track.
Look there's no way to prove what my experience was like and I'm not going to even entertain or counter how he'll come in to attempt to diminish my experience. So, I'll just leave these quick thoughts. It's been a months, but I thought about it and decided that yes, I did want to leave a little warning for other women. So, if you are a woman who has had any kind of gaslighting or manipulation or DARVO type relations in the past, this probably is NOT the place for you. If you've experienced in your past unhealed men that cannot take any kind of question or pushback and will instead be reactionary then this isn't the place for you. If I hadn't had a pretty recent revelatory education in this bologna I'd have likely had a hard time once I got to the parking lot. But, I self-talked my way down the elevator and to the car and got back on track from the surreal experience.
1. I explained my current situation, which includes visual vertigo and some pretty horrific tinnitis, that made it very difficult to fall asleep and often woke me up. He ran around the explanation of what tinnitis is in such a way that I was completely confused. First saying it's like missing limb syndrome, to which I ask, so is it just like phantom pain that's in my head? to then saying when I mentioned mine his started up. Huh? So, is it real or not? He hoovered over me and pressed me to load an app onto my phone that he wanted me to use. I asked him about some previous treatment thaty 'd received and it sounded like they were attempting similar things. He expressed frustration at that. Not sure why. Felt like he was wanting to be the end all maybe. I was mostly just trying to understand how it worked, how it helped, what was the idea behind it. When I was trying to ask question to grasp some measure of clarity he ended up triggered. It was unprofessional and while I didn't feel frightened for my personal safety, my nervous system was extremely uncomfortable behind that closed door.
2. Listening to how he can't keep the place staffed, losing at least 30 people since Covid, which is a red flag because the office appears very small. Later, I asked for my results and was told they already sent them, but ugh, they'd send them again. I never received the first results. Felt like his lack of accountability and capacity was mirrored by his staff in that later interaction.
3. I had flinched during the hearing test because some of it was just irritatingly painful. I figured it was my extreme lack of sleep due to my CPTSD, etc. I had explained at the top that I'd just safely exited a DV marriage and knew that stress could exacerbate the tinnitis. At the end of my appointment and with no small amount of disgust he said that he'd only seen people that haven't had sleep or are in some kind of serious stress flinch like I did, to which I said, oh, like me. After I figured he must have surmised it was overacting or dramatic on my part, though I fit the exact description he gave. That left me feeling like he hadn't heard a word I'd said. The way he looked at me when I said, oh like me, made me super uncomfortable. Felt like I was in trouble. Super weird. There were plenty of moments that I wanted to get up and walk out of the room without a word. I didn't, mostly due to my trauma. I would encourage anyone, male or female, to do that immediately. If you aren't comfortable you should just bail. I wish I would have.
4. It was a lot of personal discourse and then at the end he jumped up and said, hey, I've done what I can to help you and basically 86ed me. I left feeling confused and frustrated that I'd been sitting there patiently while he freely roamed off topic.
5. I paid the bill I received in the mail. Asked for the hearing test results, which I finally got. I never received any follow-up, the plan he said he'd email me nor did I ever ask for it. Instead I raised my concern with the person that referred him and said, maybe think twice about this guy for women. His manner was relaxed and conversational when he was off-topic or promoting his education or experience or how he needs to be a teacher now instructing those worthy to follow if he could find someone, but it changed to impatience and almost disgust when you tried to keep him on topic and to be specific about what he was trying to express so that you could grasp the word salad. There was no way you could trust the diagnosis because he was so sketchy. It appeared he owned the franchise, but who knows. You couldn't pay me to go back and after really mulling it over it felt irresponsible to not leave a review about how I spent my two hours there.