"You are CHOOSING to be this way" - from my psychiatrist.

Note to self:  "Avoid harmful relationships."

I didn't realize that my psychiatrist would be one of those harmful relationships.  See: What the HELL was I thinking? O, right. I wasn’t thinking. In November I had to switch psychiatrists due to the fact that my old one (Dr. C) didn't take my insurance.  My first visit with Dr. D (a.k.a. "The ASShole")  was an hour-long history report.  He went through this huge packet of papers asking me about every single aspect of my mental health/drug addiction/family history life.  "Have you ever used marijuana, mary jane, weed, pot, reefer, grass,...?"  and on and on about every single type of drug and/or alcohol or poison one can pump into their body with any name or slang that you can think of to call it (thus the MJ, weed, pot, reefer, grass, etc).   Now, I get it that he is a Dr at a substance abuse and mental health facility so the paperwork is standard, but after about the third thing I said flat-out "I do not do/use any drugs, I drink socially, which is hardly at all anymore because the last time of the 3 times I have been drunk IN MY LIFE I did something really stupid.  I don't smoke, I have occasionally in the past but never habitually, the only other "drugs" I have had in my system were prescribed FOR ME, and used accordingly or less than directed."  And right after that..."Have you ever used methamphetamines, amphetamines, uppers, speed, meth, ... !!!"  Oh wait..."Yes, I was on adderall for 3 months and Ritalin for 2 months, separately, for A.D.D. and I quit taking them because they didn't help the A.D.D. and I didn't want more drugs in my system than what is necessary."  And so on and so forth.   And then he wanted to know if I was experiencing any side effects from my present meds.  I told him that I was tired ALL THE TIME from the seroquel, but if I didn't take it I didn't sleep AT ALL.   He told me I was being lazy.  I think there may have been another blog addressing my aversion to the "lazy" title.  O, boy!  WRONG thing to say to me.  So, I left his office that day feeling like crap and thinking he was an asshole.  David asked me why and I couldn't pinpoint it exactly, but it was just this feeling that I had.  Maybe it was just the clinical nature of the visit, we'd see next month.

Re: 2nd visit with Dr. D.  December 28, 2009

Dear Diary,

This morning I had a follow-up appointment with my new psychiatrist.  I haven't been doing so well lately, Diary.  I have had a depression brewing the past month that just busted open last week and I'm not feeling too great about myself right now.  My medicines don't seem to be helping much, and I have asked myself why I am taking them, but I know I need to stay on them just to keep some kind of regulation to my system.  Maybe my psychiatrist will have better insight into why I feel like crap in spite of taking all this medicine.

So, Diary, I saw Dr. D this morning.  I waited in the waiting room for over 45 minutes and became increasingly more anxious and uncomfortable with myself the longer I waited.  I swear the man across the room was staring at me the whole time.  I wish I could have disappeared into the horrendous wallpaper.  Finally, Dr. D came out with his stupid grin on.  We proceeded into his office where he immediately asked me how I was doing.  I said "Today, not so great.  I've been having a bad couple of weeks."

"Elaborate on a 'bad couple of weeks', what's been going on?" asks Dr. D

"Well, I've been feeling very low, and I had been doing better since February with not yelling at my family for little things, but I have been having emotional outbursts a LOT, and crying at little stuff, or nothing at all.  A lot of bad stuff has happened to me, in the past, around this time of year."

"Oh, well, hmm.  I'm not going to change anything until you get out of this environmental stressors period, ok?  Have you been having any medication side effects?"

"Well, I have been sleeping a lot more than usual, mostly when my husband is home and I don't have to get up to get my daughter off to school, but I don't do it intentionally, I just don't wake up until someone wakes me."

"Well, that's not a side effect that sounds like you're CHOOSING to sleep more," says Dr.D. "We'll reevaluate next month when you come back, ok?"

At this time he stands up and starts to head for the door.  I stand up, and then I think to myself "No, that's not ok."

So, I say "Why am I still feeling depressed?  I have been taking these medications for almost a year. I thought they were supposed to help me not feel like this?"

He sits back down and says, "Well, you have to look at the long-term vs. the short-term."

And so I ask, "Well what's the long-term?"   "Lifetime" he says.  "Ok, well then, what's the short-term?"  "Two to three years"

Now, I understood this as I have to be on the meds for two to three years before they will start to prevent me from feeling depressed or manic. (The depression is mostly what I'm concerned with)

Then he says "You're probably asking yourself why you're taking the medications.  It's a choice that you have to make.  Whether or not you want to be on them."

I responded, "Working in the healthcare field and knowing what I know, NOT being on medication isn't an option for me.  But I thought that even if I didn't feel BETTER all the time, that at least I shouldn't be this depressed on the medication... because right now, on them, I'm no better than I was NOT on them."

And then, (and this shouldn't have come as such a surprise) he says to me, "Well, you're making that choice.  You're making the choice to sleep all day, and be sad, and not feel well.  You have to make a choice to not feel depressed."

Wait!  Back up there....  I'm making the CHOICE to be depressed????  No lie, he seriously said that, and then smiled his stupid smug smile at me.

And then proceeded with he'd like to see me back next month and we'll see how I am then, and got up and opened the door to his office.  Meanwhile, I was shell-shocked, nodded my head and walked out of the office, went to the front desk and scheduled my appt. for next month.

I got in the car, and started driving home.  Got about halfway home and I guess I had processed it enough to start crying and feeling angry.  So I called David.  And I started blubbering at him what had happened.  Before I even got through the whole explanation he told me that I needed to find a different psychiatrist.  Because even he, David, knew that I wasn't choosing to be like this/ feel like this.  And the fact that my PSYCHIATRIST, who went to school to diagnose and treat mental health disorders, is telling me that I AM CHOOSING to be this way is just plain BULLSHIT.  David said that even if he thought that I was making a choice when I first had issues when he and I were together, over the years he KNOWS that I'm not CHOOSING this.  I'm not doing it on purpose.

So, I am on the lookout for a new psychiatrist.  Of all the dr's to have to change this has to be one of the hardest.  They're not there to mend a broken bone, or run blood tests.  They're there to try to help you put your head on straight.  So, when they kick your head in... you never really know if it's just your perception or if it really is them.   Today, I realized how sorry I am for those people out there that don't have a partner or medical surrogate to help them to decide when it's just their perception and when it truly is the dr. being a BAD dr.  Talk about kicking someone when they're down.

*Sigh*  So, that was my morning.

Angelina had a follow-up appointment at the allergists to go over her test results and whatnot with the dr.  The dr. we saw today was a different dr than who she and I had seen when I first took her to that office.  I was COMPLETELY blown away by this doctor.  He was AWESOME!  It's actually making me cry right now to compare side by side the asshole that is my now (hopefully previous) psychiatrist, and the awesome allergist that is Angelina's.  David liked him a lot as well.  He was very warm and friendly and sat and talked with us a while.  Answered any questions we had, went above and beyond and gave us follow-up materials, recommended a wonderful allergy website, got her prescriptions, was completely agreeable when we told him that Angelina doesn't tolerate nose sprays or shots.  Told us to call, YES CALL, if we needed anything else, and that most anything could be handled over the phone and wouldn't require us to drive down there or pay a copay. (of course we don't with her insurance anyway)  And, seriously, I have NEVER had a doctor tell me to just call if I had any question or needed meds or anything... Hell, I've had doctors make me come into the office, pay my copay, and wait an hour, just for them to tell me that my blood work was normal.   I wish I was still a kid.  Kid doctors seem to me SO MUCH NICER and cooperative and accommodating than adult doctors.  Her current pediatricians are AWESOME, her allergist is AWESOME, the place she is going through for counseling seemed really AWESOME (although that has yet to be seen once we start with the actual therapist)

Again, I ask, when will life be simple?  Why do I have to be so complicated, in turn making my life complicated?  Icing on the cake?  I have to find a new psychiatrist.  I have decided I have crap luck with male mental health "professionals" so I want a woman.  Guess how many are on our insurance within 50 miles?  2.  Yes, TWO.  And one is in Vero, the other in Palm Beach.  FML!