Patient Confidentiality

My eyes were peeled open, glued to the ceiling. I was deep in thought about the events that led to my current circumstances. The mere cold alone was enough to make me regret my decision. The decision that led me here, the same psychiatric ward that I referred my clients to when they were having some sort of mental health breakdown. My psychiatrist entered the cold, stale room, and roared, “Well hello Mrs.Gilbert! Oh, I’m sorry, Dr. Gilbert. How are you feeling?”

I looked at him with hopeful eyes, knowing that he was the gatekeeper to my freedom at that moment, and I said, “I’m doing well Dr. Smith, I’m ready to go home.” He looked at me as if I was out of my mind. He asked, “Can you tell me where you are?” Again with the pointless questions. I told him what he wanted to hear and awaited yet another silly request for me to prove myself worthy of readmittance into society. He then encouraged me to tell my story again in effort of identifying whether my reasoning for admission was based on reality or if it was acute psychosis. So I began again explaining how ME, a licensed psychotherapist, with a thriving private practice and a generally good life ended up attempting suicide for the first time in my life.

It all started one evening while I was doing some book-keeping. I realized that although I was seeing nearly 30 clients per day, I was still barely making due after overhead and paying out my employees. I think I left the office that evening a bit later than usual. As I was walking to my car I discovered a diaper bag that I assumed may have fallen out of a client’s car. I picked it up and took it home with me with the intention of identifying who if anyone from my caseload it belonged to. I got home, poured a glass of red wine, made a few calls. Nothing. So now I’m stuck with this cute little bag.

While walking past the bag later that evening in pursuit of the last drops of wine in my bottle, I decided to open it and take a look inside. To my surprise, there was a load of cash inside. The sheer weight of the bag alone was baffling now that I was aware it was only filled with cash. I dumped it out on my counter to get a better look at it and noticed that a little black book was neatly tucked away at the bottom of the bag. I began to peruse the contents of this book and quickly took my attention off of it because it only consisted of a bunch of random male names. I was more concerned with the money and whether my Christian beliefs would guide me to turn it in, or if my broke, not-enough-money-at-the-end-of-the-month-having flesh would figure out a way to keep this money and act as if nothing had ever happened. I thought, let me sleep on it. I attempted to sleep that night but could not. It’s a little hard to sleep knowing that there were potentially millions of dollars sitting on my kitchen island. I thought about all of the movies and examples that I had seen where people laundered money and began to wonder if I were capable of such acts.

The next morning, I had managed to make myself believe this was a gift from God. I thought, “God doesn't want me to struggle for the rest of my life. He wants me to be happy and He has blessed me with this money for that very reason.” Now, I’m no fool. So naturally, I began to think of ways that I could get away with claiming this money as mine. When I went into my office the next day to meet a client, instead of billing for her session as usual, when she left the office I took $120 out of the bag and placed it in my safe, labeled it as a payment, and documented her session as private pay. I remember thinking, I have officially entered the danger zone and the point of no return.

Time went by and I grew more comfortable each day with being a newfound money launderer. I had managed to successfully clean $21,000 in a little under six weeks. In the grand scheme of things, there was no way that the millions of dollars in that bag would be cleaned without suspicions while coming through my small private practice. However, that wasn’t my concern. I was enjoying myself and doing whatever I wanted. I mean, I deserved it, right?

Well, after I had been thoroughly enjoying my newfound financial freedom for a bit, I met a new client who showed up to my office unannounced while in a highly emotional state. She introduced herself as Candace, told me that she would like to be a private payer and would greatly appreciate my services if I were to take her on as a client. I agreed to do so because of the sheer torment that was on her face at the time. We sat, I offered her tea and gave her free range to begin expressing whatever she felt would help her healing process.

"So, how can I help you?" I asked. She replied, "Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I'm having a bit of a dilemma and I need to talk to someone about it. This is confidential, right?" Her tears stopped abruptly and a sinister smile fell upon her face. She continued, "I have to decide whether or not to dispose of you or to retain you and I'm kind of torn." She then laughed inappropriately as I gave my best attempt to process that information. I stuttered, “I- I’m sorry, can you please explain that comment?" She went on by revealing that she was well aware of my decision to take the money that she had left for someone else. Turned out, the money I thought was a gift from God was a bad drop this entire time.

She went on, “Yeah, process that a bit Doc. You stole from a Boss, a very upset Boss who now has very upset clients that still need to be made happy. I’m sure you are aware of who my clients are by now, right?” Confused, I responded, “I really have no idea what you are referring to.” She stood and yelled, “STOP LYING, where is my black book and where is my money?!” A tear fell from my face as I tried to utter anything that I felt would settle her at that moment. “What are you the boss of exactly?” “What the hell do you think Doc? I’m the reason you even get to lease this cute little office of yours. Let’s just say I know some pretty… unforgiving people… who would be very angry once they learn about what you have been up to with my money.”

By now, I was afraid for my life. I asked her, “How can I make this right?” She replied, “Well it seems that you’ve been doing a pretty good job cleaning my money already, so I think I’ll spare your life and give you the rare opportunity of working for me. You’ll be cleaning my money until I'm able to finally get out of this godforsaken business.” Daringly, and stupidly too might I add, I asked her, “Why are you getting out?"

With the most heartbreaking expression upon her face, she said, “Wouldn’t you want to find a way out of something that you never had a choice to be a part of in the first place? I could kill you right now you know, and have no remorse. That is what this business has done to me. I want out. But, there’s a slight problem. You see, I owe some people a lot of money. Money that I still don't have. Money that my staff was collecting for me. Unfortunately, when your entitled ass decided to take my money, it spooked my staff and now they are backing out like flies. This means that you now have the pleasure of continuing to clean my money as well as learn a new skill.

I didn’t want to ask but I had to know. “What skill might that be?” She explained that she had a team of mothers who worked for her. They provided sketchy cleaning services to the rich. They would gain entry into their homes and somehow find their safes and rob them blind, and they would do this by whatever means necessary. Only to disappear and to never be viewed as a suspect because they were moms. They would take a small cut from each job, give her the rest and move on to the next. As you could imagine, I was totally against these types of behaviors and had no interest in becoming a criminal. Still curious, I asked her, “What’s the deal with the black book?" “Oh, that's just a list of the big scary men that I - I mean, we, owe. My apologies. So, I’ll need you to go on a slight hiatus from this therapy gig because we got houses to clean. You start right now.” She gave me instructions on where to find the next mark’s information in the black book and instructed me to call her from a burner phone no later than 8 pm with an update.

Assignments such as my first one would randomly pop up via text and because I feared for my life, I would act accordingly. It was always a terrifying experience. My last assignment is what led me here. The owner of this home turned out to be the husband of one of my clients. She always told me how much she hated her husband but remained married to him because he was so loaded. I could understand that much better after seeing their home. I went to their home at the scheduled appointment time to introduce myself as the maid. At this time, the husband was home alone. He gave me a tour and I got to work. As I was cleaning and sneakily searching for the safe, in walked his wife. We both stared at each other for a bit and she said, “Dr. Gilbert, umm what are you doing here, and cleaning my house nonetheless?” I told her that I was working a part-time job to make ends meet and always loved cleaning. She gave a questioning look, but it was settling enough for me to feel that she ate my lie up. I left, gave The Boss the update, and went home.

Once I got home, I began to contemplate life because I felt I had no options. This also came after I polished off two bottles of wine. The Boss would kill me If I ran, so I did what I thought was the best option at the time. In my drunken state, I attempted to take my life by slitting my wrists. You can tell I was serious because I did it correctly. However, God wasn’t ready for me. And now, I’m here. But I swear, I am not experiencing psychosis. This is real.

Dr. Smith responded after taking a slight pause. “Well, it seems your story hasn’t changed much and maybe you’re not quite ready to head out. Pesky psychosis, right?” I quickly replied, “What do I need to do to prove to you that The Boss is real and that I’m a dead woman when I get out of here? Dr. Smith boldly requested, “How about this. You give us her name and number and we’ll see if she can confirm your story." I looked at him in disbelief and uttered the words, “I Can't." Perplexed, Dr. Smith asked, "Why not?" I responded, “Patient confidentiality.”