What I refuse
What I refuse, and why.
Most people who write to me are not turned away. I offer them something else. Usually it fits their situation better, and it costs less than what they asked for. That is the normal answer and it is not a rejection.
But I do refuse people, and I would rather you knew the reasons before you write than afterwards.
I say no more often
than I say yes.
These are the reasons, and I tell you which one.
You are in acute crisis. This is not the right help and taking your money would be the wrong thing. I will say what I think you need instead.
Something you wrote needs a doctor or a psychiatrist first. Come back afterwards if you still want to.
You want to be managed. You are looking for someone to run your life better than you run it. I will not do that, and after a year of it you would be worse off than you are now.
You cannot protect the hour. Not “will try to”. A year of moved appointments is a wasted year and you will blame yourself for it.
You would be borrowing the money, or paying it would change how your family lives. No.
You want a second year before you have had the first.
You want me to make your decisions. The whole point is that by month twelve nobody makes them but you.
I would not carry you the way I would carry my own child. There is no rule for this one. I either take a person on completely or I do not take them at all, and I know which it is by the time I finish reading the application. This is the real reason I turn most people away.
If I turn you down.
I write you one paragraph telling you why. Nobody gets a form, and nobody is put on a list.
If the problem is only the timing, I will say so. I take new people a few times a year, and I will write to you myself when that happens.
Read this before you spend ninety minutes on an application.
Reading this takes five minutes. Writing the application takes ninety.