The Lies— Part 1: US Navy Base Therapists Lie to Inspector General
- Author
- Sep 16, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 8, 2024
🎶It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, It’s me.🎶 — Taylor Swift
Looking at my issues with the Navy through my lens, I see so many questions, policy breaks, and regulation breaks. Experiencing institutional bullying at the hands of the Navy doesn’t seem necessary or reasonable. Therapists lying to the CNIC OIG, does not seem heroic—
Yet, Vice Admiral Lindsey has deemed all therapists working for the Navy, “heroes” while their responses sat with the IG for seven months with no forward movement.
To me this is institutional bullying, bullying by the highest ranking person at CNIC, and it worsened any efforts for me to seek any kind of restorative justice from the U.S. Navy.
The lies below are the gentle ones, the easier ones to read. The lies of the next post on the therapists’ lies are more difficult to read, to write, to share…
After losing our second baby, a girl, Adeline Rae, in 2019, I sought therapy on the Navy base where my husband was on Active Duty orders. It was free and advertised on the Navy’s social media and in newsletters as serving spouses in addition to Sailors. When I called and spoke to one of the therapists, she said that actually I was unable to receive therapy on my own and I could only be seen if my Sailor was present, in couple’s therapy.
**This point - that I could only be seen with my Sailor- I would like to explore more, but this is what she said. Her name was Treeci. She became our therapist. We would see her five times over the course of three months at the NAS Patuxent River Fleet and Family Services Center (Pax FFSC).
The lies from the Navy listed below are from:
My therapy “case record” in the Fleet and Family Services Information Management Systems (FFSIMS).
Treeci’s statements to the CNIC Inspector General (IG) in April 2022.
A “narrative” put together by the Director of the Pax FFSC and Treeci’s direct Supervisor in response to the CNIC IG. The “narrative” written by the Director and the Supervisor was based on Treeci’s account of our sessions as well as the “case record” of our therapy sessions.
These statements were sent to the highest ranking civilians of CNIC, and several high ranking military officers in the Navy‘s Leadership in the Washington, DC, Navy Yard.
Also in receipt of the statements was someone whose title contains “LCSW.” This individual with power and authority in DC responded to these statements with—
“Thank you for the thorough review and response to this action, for our awareness.”
“For our awareness,”…I struggle deeply with this phrase. These statements made by our therapist and her two bosses (who we never saw for therapy,) were taken as truth, and those in DC with authority, with power, believed the statements were for them, for their “awareness.”
The Inspector General Office requested CNIC view my complaint and respond as deemed appropriate TO THE INSPECTOR GENERAL — not to unnamed upper echelon Navy Leadership for their ”awareness.”
When I signed the consent form, I was only under the impression that my identity could be revealed, not my private, personal medical and therapy details to this group of unnamed individuals.
Navy Therapists Lie to Inspector General—The Lies:
LIE #1: Treeci wrote in my therapy case record that she gave “clients” a video about vulnerability to watch.
In actuality, on February 5, 2020, she asked Colter for his personal email address and said she had to look for a video she wanted only him to watch, and she would email it to him. Treeci looked at me and said only, “You can’t watch it.” Then she continued her conversation with Colter.
Why is this significant?
The case record does not match the action taken in therapy.
Per the State of Maryland Ethical Responsibility for Professional Counselors and Therapists, #7 “Maintain accurate records.”
This created uneven ground between my spouse and I, and Treeci placed herself on the plateau with Colter. It was the commencement of a dual relationship outside of the boundaries of our therapy sessions.
Colter’s email address was on our intake form. Why did she need to have him write it down on a Post-it for her? (Later, after the onslaught of Covid, she emailed us both without asking for our email addresses…)
Why wasn’t this act documented HONESTLY, ACCURATELY? Why lie?
Treeci was a young widow. Colter had been a young widower.
My complaint to the IG included statements accusing Treeci of unfairly siding with Colter in sessions because they shared this commonality. I stated that she often undermined me in therapy because of her loss. I feel our relationship issues went unaddressed as a result of Treeci projecting her recent loss on our relationship. Allison had been dead for 11 years after being married for seven months. Treeci’s late husband had been dead for a little over two years at this juncture, and they had three small children. While it wasn’t a lie, it was a violation of ethics for her to not transfer our care to a different professional.
LIE #2: In an Administrative note by Treeci on March 2, 2020 my case record for the date of February 27, 2020, reads, “Appointment cancelled, clients did not yet reschedule.” However, according to the ”narrative” created by Treeci’s Supervisor and the Director of the Pax FFSC after talking with Treeci:
“Additionally, on 2/27/2020 the couple cancelled the appointment and did not reschedule.”
Why is this significant?
It is not true.
Treeci cancelled it. Why did she lie? Why did the Supervisor and Director lie? Why didn’t the CNIC IG check them on anything they said?
The case record does not assign who cancelled. Why did these two Licensed Clinical Social Workers (#stateofmaryland) in their narrative write this? Where did this information come from?
At our February 5 session, Treeci asked for Colter’s personal email to send only him something that I was not allowed to know what it was.
At our February 11 session, when I found out not only what the video was, but how Colter responded to the video, and seeing how it was not addressed by Treeci—despite her causing it—I felt overwhelmingly certain that I needed to stop seeing Treeci. She was making life harder for me at home.
On February 26, 2020, the night before what would have been our final appointment with Treeci, I asserted to Colter that tomorrow would be my last session with Treeci. Colter was aware that I found Treeci manipulative, one sided, and undermining.
On February 26, 2020 I confessed to him that I had been seeing a therapist on my own since the start of January. I confessed additional secrets to him as well— but we will get to those later…
I waited until the night before therapy because I knew sharing this info would make our home tense. I also fully expected to have our therapy session at lunchtime the next day. I wanted Colter to know what I was going to say before we went.
I wanted Colter to know the extent of what I said in case she derailed the conversation away from what I needed to say to her, and so Colter was not caught off guard. I could handle the tension for one night.
Until the next day, when Treeci called and I listened to her voicemail—
And then I emailed Colter because he didn’t have cell reception at work. He otherwise wouldn’t know until he arrived at the appointment.
Again— why did Treeci, her Supervisor, the Pax FFSC Director all lie to the IG in their statements which was also sent to the upper echelon Leadership, civilians and officers, of the U.S. Navy?
LIE #3: Below is a screen capture of the lie told by Treeci, and included as part of the “narrative” formulated by the Supervisor and the Director—
I told Colter and the therapist I had been seeing by myself since January, that I had never felt more demeaned in our session than when I apologized to them both of them for their losses in order to go on with the point I was making.
Lest we forget, I originally set out to seek help in dealing with the loss of two babies— Jack and Adeline— which I never received. My pain was made worse as a result of our therapy onboard Pax. There are more lies to divulge and share, but they are much harder to write, they are much more invasive, harmful, demeaning, undermining— and they were all taken as truth by the Navy, the IG, and those on the email chain who took the responses as “thorough,” and thanked the three therapists for the “awareness.”
LIE #4
In early February 2022, I received an email and a phone call from Treeci's "Supervisor" as a result of broaching the wrong-doing with the Navy. When I spoke with the Supervisor regarding my complaints about our therapy with Treeci, she was empathetic, kind, warm, and receptive of the private details about my life I was telling her. I felt relieved, heard, understood. She apologized to me.
She was the catalyst to submitting my complaint to IG on 18 February 2022, see below.
In July 2023 when I received my Responsive Documents from my complaint, I was devastated, gutted by what she along with the Pax River FFSC Director, wrote in their "narrative" for the IG. She changed her tone, her sentiment and her facts from when she and I spoke on the phone in early February 2022.
Suddenly and with no other cause than what Treeci, said, she changed everything about her opinions. The image below is a screen shot of her email to me in early February 2022 BEFORE I submitted my complaint. Read for yourself:
What changed for her between what I said to her and what the therapist said? Why did Navy Therapists Lie to Inspector General aboard Command, Navy Installations Command?
🎶 It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me. It's me, hi, everybody agrees, everybody agrees…🎶— Taylor Swift, again.
To be continued in a later post—
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