I don’t like writing stuff like this. I would prefer to use my energies to creative writing to purge the nonsensical bric-à-brac from my head into something more entertaining than a bad review for an online app. But without social media to release these issues more easily into the wild, we must work with what we have.
I must wonder if divulging that I am cut off from most of the outside world including any social media outlets had given my would-be therapist the idea that there would be no repercussions for their conduct. And certainly, if I still had the social media following I did 5 years ago, I would have at least hundreds out of tens of thousands of people ready to give her and the company she works for a stern talking to. But then, if I still had those connections, I probably wouldn’t need therapy in the first place.
It’s been a difficult week. Circumstances have been conspiring with the past days, months, and years. There’s only so much one girl with no family, money, or health care who has had to deal with Nazis trying to kill her, moving to a new country with no grasp of the language, and being immunocompromised during a plague can handle on her own. I’ve been desperate for someone to talk to. So after some encouragement from a friend, I got to the point where I was willing to pay someone to do it.
It turns out I can’t even do that.
First, when you sign up for BetterHelp, you have to fill out a long questionnaire. This includes asking what country you are in. This information is not used when matching with someone, as I am in France and was matched with someone in Texas. If you check that you are unemployed, they give you a “discount” that still amounts paying $200 upfront.
Still, I went along with it. In the midst of difficult mental health issues, many people are willing to do a lot to get help.
After you fill out this long survey including the prompt of “What brings you here?”, you are told “Please add a message to provide more information about yourself so we can find a good match for you.” So you again have to type out your personal info and issues. At this point you are probably already feeling exhausted and stressed about the thought of doing this. Actually doing it was indeed a chore and an exercise that no one in difficult mental/emotional circumstances would look forward to.
But I pressed on. I really wanted someone to talk to.
The system/app/website/whatever this is then sends you this message: “We are trying to find a counselor for you! Please write some more so counselors can get to know you better. We will email you when you are matched with a counselor. This process can take 24 to 48 hours but in most cases it is faster.”
More? Write some MORE? I had already given my life story in multiple paragraphs at this point, what the hell else does it want from me?? I do not write more.
Overnight while I am sleeping, the system matches me with a therapist and I receive a message from her that is clearly an auto-response copy/paste introducing herself. And then a second message that is seemingly a real human, telling me that she works a full time job and only has time evenings and weekends. With a 7 hour time difference, her evenings are my 2 AM. This was already information she already had, as I filled out the country I was in. But fine, I still go along. I’ll try to connect with her on a weekend. I’m not exactly going anywhere, which is one of the issues that I’m seeking therapy for in the first place.
Along with this message of how she basically has no time to speak with me, I’m sent a “therapy worksheet” to fill out. The first question? “Describe the problem(s) that led to you entering therapy.”
If your counting, this is now the fourth time I’ve been asked for this information. At this point, it’s starting to feel like I am paying a website egregious amounts of money to make me relive trauma over and over. Has anyone who works for this mental health service actually spoken to anyone with mental health issues? I am starting to worry that the answer is no.
The rest of the worksheet is other weird questions like “Imagine that while you’re sleeping, all of your problems are solved. When you wake up, how will you know that things are better?” This is asinine bullshit, and my anxiety-driven frustration has been kicked off at this point. But I keep going.
The worksheet continues, with most of the questions followed by things like “What are three broad goals you would like to work on during therapy sessions? Example: Improve my relationship with my spouse” and “For each of the goals you listed above, describe specifically how your life will be different once you’ve completed therapy. Example: My spouse and I would communicate about our problems. When we get angry at one another, we would know how to get through it without big fights“. Imagine if you were applying for therapy for divorce issues? Could they not have found a more universal example?
But whatever, I’m doing it. I’m someone who will watch an entire TV series that I don’t like just so when I tell people I don’t like it, they can’t complain that I didn’t give it a chance. I fill out the whole damn thing and submit it.
A few hours later, I receive a response: “Great. Thank you for completing this. I will respond this evening.” I assume she means her evening and not my evening due to the 7 hour time difference, and so I wait. The next day, still no response. Evening in Texas has passed. Okay, fine. Maybe something came up. Seems a bit unprofessional but we live in unprofessional times.
Next day, still no response. I continue waiting. By my bedtime, I’m ready to give up but want to give her until the the day in Texas time.
“Imagine that while you’re sleeping, all of your problems are solved. When you wake up, how will you know that things are better?” Well, for starters, I would have a message from my therapist waiting for me after being told she would respond days ago. But sadly, there is no message.
I have finally reached my limit. There is zero chance of me feeling comfortable speaking to a therapist who within a day of taking my money decided to ghost. It’s not my responsibility to hound this person into helping me. I go into the app to cancel my subscription, notifying them that I will be seeking a refund.
And then… Oh! What’s this? Within minutes of cancelling the service and demanding a refund, I get a message!
There is, of course, the possibility that this person just happened to respond to me within 3 minutes of me filing a complaint without knowing about it, but what do you think those odds are? And even if they somehow magically messaged me right after I complained and cancelled without knowing about it, they still lied about when they would respond and then didn’t even apologize for not responding when they said they would. Level of trust has reached negative numbers at this point.
BetterHelp of course did not send anything when I filed the initial complaint that would have a timestamp, but I was chatting with a friend at the time so…
All of this took place within the course of 5 days. I know there are people who claim they have had good experiences with this service, but I will not be attempting to deal with them any further and have requested a refund. I don’t know how that will go, and I’m envisioning having to go through a dispute system to get my money back. I’ll update this post with the outcome.
Meanwhile I’m back where I started, except maybe a bit worse off since I now feel like there are zero options to find help with my situation. I hope the good this company does is outweighing the bad and that I am in a minority of people experiencing BetterHelp’s lack of help.
UPDATE – 26/4/2021: As I expected, they are playing a run-around game with refunding me. I was told I could have a refund and I emailed them back confirming that I wanted a refund on the 23rd. A day later, I get another email asking how my therapy was going and I responded asking where my refund was. I was told this time they really will process the refund this time. Since I have no reason to believe them, I’ve filed a complaint with my card’s fraud department.
UPDATE- 1/5/2021: Refund finally processed.
