After my therapy session but before my ninth and final acute Ketamine session on Friday, October 31, 2025, I responded to a voicemail from a Vice President in my organizational hierarchy. She bluntly told me that the “large national insurance company that owns the outpatient agency” I transferred to from a remote home-based position in November 2024 has made the decision, based on “multiple considerations” (corporate speak for “these outpatient clinics are not making a profit or at least not a large enough profit”) so all of these agencies will close permanently on Friday, December 5, 2025.
There are three agencies in Wisconsin that are closing: in De Pere where I work full time, in Appleton where we have a prescribing nurse practitioner, and the Oshkosh office where two clinicians were recently hired.
Granted, it was/somewhat still is a cluster fuck where I work. Because there are only two full-time LPCs in the office we have no admin support on site. We started out with one, but she was let go “due to down-sizing” shortly after January 1, 2025. So that leaves A LOT of shit for the two of us to do. Because I’ve been at the De Pere location the longest, the toiletry supply/carpet cleaning company thinks I’m in some sort of managerial role and their sales rep regularly calls me or stops into the office unexpectedly and thinks talking with me will result in additional services we will purchase from them. The last time he called me, I finally told him, “Dude, I am not a decision maker here. I’m a therapist, that’s it. Here is my director’s email address. She’s based on the south side of Chicago. Good luck.”
One of the situations I hate most about any employment environment is having to fix another department’s mistakes. We have a “central scheduling department” whose location is completely unknown to me. When new hires are going through the on-boarding process, we submit our schedules to a different department that creates our schedule which includes our preferences such as not working with telehealth clients, not working with couples and/or families via telehealth, the age range of clients’ counselors feel comfortable working with and that sort of thing. Then the mystical schedulers who receive calls from new clients are supposed to follow the clinician-created availability…but sometimes they don’t.
And if a new Intake gets scheduled outside of the parameters I’ve provided, it’s up to me to contact these clients and explain why I can’t see them and provide them with next steps, so they are seen by a clinician who meets their scheduling preferences.
That drives me ABSOLUTELY CRAZY.
I have enough work to do and spending time talking with clients, apologizing profusely for a mistake I DID NOT make, but I am held responsible for fixing makes me want to scream.
These are some examples of how I got burned out at work, only to be compiled by home stressors, that led to my recent FMLA for Ketamine therapy. I have gained significant insight into what leads up to burn out for me and am starting to better manage my perfectionism, maladaptive beliefs that I am independent to the point that “I don’t need any help or support” to get through life while increasing my insight that I didn’t get this far in life without the help and support of family and friends, and that I do the best I can with the information/skills/resources available to me at the time.
This is a much more balanced way of living, which I’ve secretly craved for so long that sometimes I have to double check the validity/reality that I can truly live this way.
In my therapy session on 11/07/25, I suddenly came up with this concept of “Kristine 2.0” which involves getting in touch with core beliefs and values that can propel my life forward, which will likely involve cutting off some of my previous beliefs and values that served me at the time, but are no longer useful or effective.
Despite the nervousness and support of my husband, parents, and siblings, to name a few, I feel good about taking some time in December to keep exploring my beliefs and values, keeping what I need and leaving the rest. The last three Holiday seasons have ranged from totally shitty to barely tolerable at best. I want this season to be filled with hope, love and peace, and I truly believe I can make it so.
