I've just had such a surreal experience and I need a bit of talking down.
We rescued a cat last year. She was used for breeding (not as a pet) and never fully domesticated. We accepted when we got her that she'd never be a lap cat and were perfectly fine with that. We fell in love, she needed a home, we gave her one.
Fast forward a year. It turns out she's actually much more eager to be a 'pet' than we ever thought. She loves a cuddle, comes to you when you call her, follows you around the house, etc. which is great because we worked so hard to get her to trust us. She's still timid though and ridiculously timid with strangers (hides from them mostly). She won't be picked up and she hates being brushed on a specific spot near her tail (but otherwise ok with brushing).
Last week we noticed that she had a matt on that spot. Think 'oh well, time to get the professionals in'. Google experienced groomers, ones who specialise in timid cats, read the reviews on her site, book her.
Today she turns up and I can't even describe what happened...
We spoke on the phone before the big day and groomer tells me cat needs to be in the cat box, which I dutifully do. The cat then sits in the box for an hour because groomer is 45mins late. Groomer finally arrives. I warn her that the cat will just want to run and hide if given the chance, the groomer opens the cat box. The cat obviously scarpers. Groomer is surprised.
Groomer tells me to pick her up and bring her to the table. Tell groomer that she's so timid she won't be picked up. Groomer is surprised. Tells us to do it anyway. 'Fair enough' we think 'we have to get her to the table somehow'. Pick up cat. Cat hates it. Take cat to table. Cat hates it. Hold cat down onto table. Cat hates it. Groomer shears off all her back fur. Cat hates it. Has now taken out wedges of my dining table that we're pressing her into. Cat screams. Cat wees. Cat finally gets loose and hides in a corner.
Cat groomer basically blames us for not being enough in charge of our cat. She tells me off for looking like I'm about to cry. Lectures offers advice for a bit such as 'the best way to get cats used to being picked up is to put them in a bag and carry the bag around for an hour a night'. Finally packs her shears back into her bag, takes £40 payment and leaves.
I know that at the end of the day it's just a cat I'm getting upset about but this woman was supposed to be a specialist and I'm now left with an even more timid cat, cat piss clothes and carpet and my wallet short £40. I'm so angry I'm shaking.
AIBU?
To punch the cat groomer in the face
awsomer · 17/08/2014 20:40
Fucking hell she sounds ridiculous!
Be sure to leave an accurate review 
Poor little cat! I would leave a review on the stupid groomer's website detailing all this - if I had a timid cat there's no way I'd want to risk this sort of experience!
Am also 
that you paid her, but presumably you were more focused on the hysterical cat by that point.
She is not just a cat!! 
Definitely complain about the groomer. Tell EVERYONE including the vet what happened and hopefully she won't get any more people and animals to be horrible to.
How about
I hired X to come to my home to groom cats on the assumption she had worked with timid cats before. When she got to my house, I had my cat in a carrier as requested. I warned her my cat was timid and a flight risk. When she opened the carrier she proved to be very inexperienced with cats. She allowed my cat to escape from the kennel when she opened the door, got verbally aggressive when my timid cat didn't want to be held down. She stressed my cat to the point of urinating in fear, and yelled at me because my timid cat was indeed timid. The actual grooming job came out haphazard and unprofessional looking. I'm now left with an even more timid cat, cat piss clothes and carpet and my wallet short £40. I expect more out of someone that calls themselves a specialist. I would not recommend her around any animal, timid or not.
On a side note, my dog always had to be sedated just to get his nails trimmed. We tried with him awake and it sounded like we were murdering the poor guy the way he was yelping and howling. It was one of those "parenting to other parents" moments where I loudly over explained it to "the dog" that we were just trimming his nails and we weren't actually hurting him. 
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Your poor mog! That groomer sounds awful, I think my cat (also nervous about being picked up) would cause some serious injury about my person if I put him in a bag!
op your post brought back some awful memories. a few years ago our (rescued) cat had a couple of mats in areas she doesn't like being brushed so i took her to the local cat groomer who charged 85 QUID.....shocking place, long story but to summarise, the cat got ring worm a couple of weeks later which we are sure she got from being shaved (in the mat areas). long and short of it we spent hundreds getting her skin treated (two different vets, first was shite) all because (probably) of this cat groomer. stil can't get over the 80 QUID. our poor cat, she had to be shaved totally in the end, she looked really pathetic but her sking was in a terrible way. the groomer asked us when we collected her what colour we wanted her nails painted.....
I didn't even know you could get professional cat groomers!
She sounds terrible. Your poor cat was very good to be held down at all, my cat would have had the groomer's face off (seriously, his name flags up a warning on the vet's computer).
If she's ok with brushing apart from that specific area I'd look for other alternatives before going down the sedation route. For example she might let you stroke her with one of those grooming mitt things. Or with my previous long-haired (also timid) cat I found I could gently snip off the occasional matted lump with a pair of babies' nail scissors without her really noticing. The blunt ends meant I didn't have to worry about causing any injury but they cut through the hair surprisingly well as long as I snipped a little bit at a time.
I'm not surprised you are upset, I hope your cat recovers soon 
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