My 'problem' is that every therapist I see tells a different story. They listen to what has gone before, and seem never to take anything as 'given'. So if Therapist A says X, then Therapist B says, not X, but Y. Then Therpist C says, no, actually neither X nor Y, but Z.
And all the time, what I actually want is a road to recovery. I want a diagnosis, because that helps me with planning a route.
Five years ago I had a route; get over this mountain, called Cptsd. Fine. Ok, how do I do that? All the books say, you can't do it on your own, you need a specialist t as a kind of guide to help you find the path. Fine. But how do you do that, when the first t you see after that spends 15 weeks telling you that you do not have ptsd, and have never been abused by anyone, then in the final week admits that what you have is 'trauma related', but he is discharging you.
Then the next says you live in the wrong place. Return to Go.
Then the next says you are so badly traumatised by your recent therapy that you need 6 months to recover.
Then the next says you need CBT. Then leaves. And leaves behind her a letter saying you do not have ptsd, but 'emotional issues'. Except the mountain marked 'emotional issues' is, to me, the wrong mountain; if the ptsd symptoms are taken away, I can deal with emotional issues fine; I did it for years before the ptsd, and I can do it again.
What seems to be true, is that these people find only what they are used to finding. It is like the old question; what do donkeys look for when they are reading the Bible? Stories about donkeys. Same thing. A psychiatrist who deals mostly in depression will find in me clinical depression, but will not find ptsd, because he is not a trauma specialist. (This is absolutely true, of a well respected doctor at the Priory, where I went privately right at the beginning of all this, and paid a fortune to do so. When I still had a job, and money in the bank.) He will miss the clues which are there, staring him in the face.
He asked me about my dad, and I said 'he was a bully'. He asked me about my mum. I said 'she was selfish.' He asked me to describe my childhood, and I said 'It was normal'. He said, what do you mean, and I said 'To me it was normal.'
That is all. Nothing further at all about that. Is it normal to have a bully for a dad and a selfish mother? Is it possible that problems in later life would derive from those things? This doctor didn't bother asking, and so he never found out. What he saw was that every time I saw him I was terrified of him; really scared. And he never linked that to having a bully for a dad.
His diagnosis? Depression.
Sorry, triggered into reliving that one. Must try to get out of it again, if I can, or else I will spend the next couple of days at the Priory all over again.
What I am saying I think is, that if there is an objective means of achieving a diagnosis, and therefore a route map, then why is it not used more often. And then, having that map, and having UK guidelines for the treatment of whatever it is, why not follow them?
It seems too subjective the way it is. Too ad hoc, too based on whatever the t feels like doing on the day. It is not quantified, it is not measured. Sometimes they say it will be measured, and start off with a few perameters, but these are never followed through. Sometimes they make promises about the beginning, middle and end, and again, these are not kept.
The reason I have nowhere else to go is that the social withdrawal which is a feature of my condition makes it hard for me to maintain social contacts with friends and family. I am left relying on therapy to help me to overcome this, but all it does is to reinforce the bad patterns when I am let down, or mislead, or otherwise disappointed.
Brigid says that therapy works for some people. This must be true. But perhaps those are the people who have friends around them as well, and a meaningful role in life. I used to have those things. I need to regain them, but I need help to do that. And what I want is to move onwards, instead of always coming back to the question of what is wrong, and having yet another opinion, based on what the therapist is familiar with.
Longtire says therapists are human. To be honest, I would prefer one which wasn't. I would prefer a computer based system, where I do not have to worry about the other side. Where I do not have to ask the psychiatrist if he has ever taken a/ds, and then hear him tell me about his mother, who had severe depression for years, and then work out that he thinks I am his mother. And then confirm it by asking him, when you were a child, did you have to be extra cheerful, in order to prevent your mother from falling deeper into depression. And getting the answer yes, and having to say, you are doing this with me, and it is not helping me; I am not your mother. You have to allow me to tell you how bad it is, instead of telling me it is not so bad.
That is my current psychiatrist, God help me, who I am due to see again in 2 weeks or so, and who I think will try to discharge me again unless I agree to take drugs (His role is to prescribe, and he does not understand having a patient who prefers not to be prescribed to. But I can't take what he offers, because I do not trust him. I trusted the doctor before him, and took what he suggested, until he left without notice, and I went to an appointment one day and he had gone, with no warning whatever. So I stopped taking the meds. Just stopped dead, and threw them away. Anyway it was too hard to go to the chemist to collect them. That might not be rational, but that is how it works.)
I would much prefer a computer, without transference.
Sorry, didn't mean to moan, but these are difficult issues for me. And it doesn't take a genius to work out that I am still very afraid of psychiatrists. And now it is not just because of dad.
I think I need a new strategy. In fact, I am certain I need a new strategy. Doctors make me ill, and pdocs drive me insane.
