6 months ago, I started to swimm. "Swimming is the best, exercise, " So I contacted the Discover Aquatics group. I am handicapped physically and have BiPolar2 disorder and suffer from PTSD. I was up front with them about all this. They welcomed me with their hand out. I began swimming with a personal trainer. She was not nor is now licensed. I paid $35 per half hour. I have been swimming since February, twice a week. I am in over $1000.insurance gave me $220 towards it but because they were "out of network." etc.
3 month's ago this trainer told me she did not think I had Bi-Polar2. She told me she thought I might be "high strung" but that was because I was an artist. She said the alignment of stars and the pull of the planets were to blame. She felt that being type cast was something most Psychiatrists love to hear. "Once they put you on drugs, they have you hooked." She asked had I tried going without the medication? She went over and over the same information about not "really being sick, " about moving from the "illness" to "wellness" head frame.
She said her husband had to fight his way back from insanity to sanity by ignoring psychiatrists and Dr. S and not taking medications ordered for him even when he was committed and living on the ward he would not take his medications. That I should, "Think about that." Before I take my next medications. That it's a "decision to be well."
I asked her not to keep addressing what I had lived a life time dealing with, in such a flippant way. She seemed to pull away. She no longer had any time to discuss anything. She worked me harder and harder so that I couldn't speak at all. She would take clients earlier and leave me to work out on my own. She wrote me an email saying she just couldn't be a part of someone who did not wish to be well. That she could not "take" that kind of thing, and had no wish to start a relationship with me.
Around May I had began seeing an extremely large, 350#, older woman. She would be in the water when I came to work out. The further into spring we went the more often she would be there. Then one day she had gotten out of the pool with help from the same trainer. Once I even got BEHIND her to try and help the three people already pulling her out. The trainer said, "She has made some headway, but she doesn't come regularly. When I said, why can she get away with once in a while, "She's a Doctor's wife. She pays in advance."
While getting out with help, she sat down, on a plastic chair. She tried to get up to leave but the chair was too small and she pitched forward and fell! I was looking right at her. To my eye she threw herself to the floor. Everything stopped. Everyone hurried around again to try and get her upright. When they finally had some "help" (a 18 year old, 5'5", 125 pound stand in receptionist, myself, a 17 year old, 5'1,115 # life guard,) did she deny an ambulance, and finally walked out drove away under her own power.
I asked, "didn't the pool have to have a hoist?" By law? Yes we have one but the owner just doesn't want to install it. It would take more money than she had already paid too much for upkeep.
The last time she got stuck in the pool, it took 4 people to pull her out. My trainer got back in the pool, made the statement "she would not go through that again, " started my training then said, oh here's my next client, can you lap swim on your own while I take care of them? When I got out of the pool I said, that's it. I asked for a refund for that day, their policy, "No refunds."
Around this same time, I began to notice hair balls on the carpet, in the pool, and in the shower's. I noticed the life guards on a Friday come early and "clean" the blacked over indoor outdoor carpet in the locker room. I noticed big balls of hair blocking the drains, I noticed the toilets covered over with toilet paper stuck 1/2 in 1/2 out the camode. Unflushed. One day the pool would be clean the next day murky. One day the pool was shut because the "pump" just quit.
Then I contracted a rash on my private parts! I nursed it and kept it clean and dry. I looked on the net about virus, bacteria and or anything found in a pool. But by then bout two weeks had passed and the trainer said, " I have a rash on my privates." I told her about my rash and she said it may be from the pool, but I'm going to my Dr., I'll tell you the outcome. But she would not. She never spoke to me again.
About this time I had a "down-cycle." I become depressed and the PTSD kicks in. I called in to say I was going to be out and asked about refunds. I felt it was just becoming harder and harder to look past all the things that turned my stomach. I was told I would be notified by the manager
I asked who was the manager and was told it was the woman who had been pointed out by the receptionist as the "head nazi in charge!" I asked what that meant and she giggled and said, "it's funny but she is really a guard at the prison, and looks like a guard in a prison." She is about 5'9" and weighs in at 265#! Always has her thumbs on her blackberry. Never has positive things to say and I found out, is the teacher for the class I had been waiting for and been on an evolving list my number, surprisingly has changed. It was 3, then 5, then 4. Now well...
I opened my email today and found a letter from Discover Aquatics, Manager In Charge, saying I'm mailing you a refund for the last 4 weeks, don't come back. You are no longer welcome here.
Didn't give me a reason, didn't give me a choice. I have to believe the only reason she and my trainer want me to leave are the things I witnessed that I have written here, and that I have BiPolar and PTSD. I have come a long way physically. I think I was RIPPED OFF
Bottom line? The manager and the trainer decided they didn't like who it is I turned out to be, and made the decision with the blessings of the owner, because once I am gone, they have no witness to the caos that is that place. From the receptionist to the owner. Complete and utter caos. With no room for anyone that doesn't like it just the way it is.
Take a look at this place. Ask for a guided tour. You'll see the mold on the shower curtains, the hair, the dirt the mess! And they'll take all your money and if you complain about anything, they'll find a way, but you'll be out the door.
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