Also yesterday I saw the Doc again for another round of diagnostic tests. Good God.
I mean it's one thing to suspect there might be a number of things very very wrong with me. Having a psychologist read off a laundry list of diagnoses and tell me I should set up an appointment to see a psychiatrist in October because a physician would be overwhelmed trying to find the right med combination in my case? Different. Definitely an experience.
We did confirm that I'm fairly fortunate in one respect. My issues are, as a group, utterly catastrophic--but taken individually, they wouldn't be nearly as crippling. This will make treatment less of a tightrope walk, from what I gathered talking to Dr. D.
It eases my fear of going out the way Mom did, my OCD and anxiety getting worse and worse and worse until finally modern medicine can't even keep me stable during an induced coma because I'm so anxious I fight the damn ventilator no matter what magic mushroom mega mix they put in my IV.
Preventative care FTW, I reckon! (Even though I'm broke again.)
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Hey, glad to here you're dealing with whatever issues you have, but (and you've probably heard this before) most of the things you're probably being diagnosed with are mostly pointless. I had an opportunity to skin a couple pages of the reference book most psychiatrists use, and out of the 4 pages I looked at I could have been diagnosed with at least half of the issues listed. Most people have hundreds of things wrong with them, but they're so small and considered part of every-day life they don't really do anything harmful. Not saying that the things you're being diagnosed with are the same (particularly the one you were discussing in one of your previous entries [ADHD, right?]) but just a friendly warning not to take it all seriously, just sit back and look at them and ask which ones you actually think are effecting your life.
ReplyDeleteAs example, I have one of those kooky psychiatrists who's completely against diagnosing and medicating his patients, and he gave me an estimate when I asked that he could, right then based on about a month of visits, diagnose me with 50 separate problems. The only thing he actually seriously diagnosed me with was Seasonal Depression and told me to pick up some Vitamin D. Haha.
We only did testing for areas that I have trouble in--all involving anxiety and depression, basically.
ReplyDeleteThere was only one item in the list that wasn't a major source of trouble for me, but that was because I misunderstood a question and answered "yes" when asked about having random panic attacks, and ended up with Panic Disorder, when in reality the panic attacks are tied to the OCD and anxiety and don't just come out of nothing and then go away.
Everything else she hit me with was a contributing factor in my finally breaking down and going to therapy in the first place. Bleagh.
Ah, okay, I misunderstood what you said then. I thought you meant that after a couple sessions your psychiatrist listed off a lot of different things, like the ones that were in the book I was talking about. If they all explain the things that lead to your seeking a therapist/psychiatrist, then go with it. (: Just don't use it as a crutch or take everything too literally, everyone in the world probably has half a dozen problems, it only becomes a problem if you never learned how to manage them (or learned how to manage them wrong).
ReplyDeleteGood luck! I hope it all works out for you!