Posted by Racer on March 9, 2004, at 3:38:17
It just shouldn't have to be this hard.
The new therapist is a big one for talking about "diagnoses" -- not a big hit with me, I'd rather talk about roots and solutions to my problems, rather than help someone else tape me down into a box that I know doesn't fit me. At this point, she's really got me so distrustful of her, and by association the agency she works for, that I am really, really having trouble. The last therapist was gaining my trust, so some of this is probably a reaction to losing her so abruptly, but some of it is that this chick is just about obsessed by making that all important diagnosis. How about letting me introduce myself? I am a woman of a certain age, I have lived long enough to have experienced events which have made me who I am today, and I am not a diagnosis. If you can't see that, you're not looking at me.
To make matters worse, she's talking about 'coming to terms with an Axis II diagnosis...' Sorry, you can try, but here's a clue for you: if a patient calls the clinic for three weeks saying "I just can't tolerate these meds" with no calls returned, then finds that a request for a staff change that was promised within a specific time period did not happen because someone "forgot all about it, it totally slipped my mind," and then experiences a profoundly bad reaction to a medication she'd been taking without problems until beginning a new bottle of it, well, maybe it's not so unreasonable for that patient to be just the tiniest bit distrustful of the care she's receiving? In fact, let's go a little further and say it might not be indicative of a diagnosis of any sort of paranoia or distorted perceptions for that same patient, after being told by an office girl that the doctor says to keep taking the medications as prescribed, to start to feel as if no one were listening to her in all this.
Anyway, part of me knows that I'm right, because I am. For one thing, although I know that this chick is pushing towards borderline, that diagnosis does not fit me. Just doesn't: the only truly impulsive thing I've ever done in my life was done with a safety net, I maintain close and intimate friendships over long periods of time, I am pretty straightforward about romantic/intimate relationships, and tend towards stoic acceptance of what goes on around me. The problems start, though, when I feel as if I have to fight for myself. That's something I've been told over and over and over again is WRONG, deeply, profoundly, integrally WRONG. It's damned hard to get past that, even with help, but when the same people who are supposed to help me are telling me that they won't help me because it's wrong of me to want or need that help? C'mon! I'm crazy, not stupid.
Anyway, I can't sleep. There's a big, furry, VibroCat Deluxe Model sacked out on my side of the bed last I saw, waiting for me to climb back in with him, and I want to do so. Problem is, when I get in bed, and can't sleep, I start ruminating about all of this, and that just isn't conducive to sleep...
Thanks for paying attention to me, everyone. You know you're the dam that helps contain me, and I do appreciate it very much.
poster:Racer
thread:322327
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/2000/20040213/msgs/322327.html