A little bitching about mental health

[emerybored]

So, it turns out my pshrink is a bastard. Check that. A Bastard. Capital "B." Maybe a God complex, too. Maybe he's just burned out. Either way, he's no longer the right guy to let mess with my psych meds. See, you have to put a shitload of trust into this one person. You have to trust this doc more than you do your gynecologist. And you have to trust your gyno a lot in order to let them down there. This guy? Your psychiatrist? You're letting them mess with the fundamental make-up of you. They screw up, you stand to lose who you are - your personality, possibly your life. My pshrink? Has stopped listening. Which, needless to say, is a BAD THING. As I keep trying to remind him, he's an adviser. A very learned, wise adviser, but still an adviser. It is ultimately my decision what to do, since it's my brain and life we're dealing with. His job is to take what I tell him and synthesize that with his experience to create the best possible guess (since that's all psychiatry is, unfortunately) as to the most effective course of treatment. What's happened is that equation of patient input + doc experience = treatment plan has become skewed in the wrong direction, to my way of thinking. My equation: PATIENT EXPERIENCE + doctor experience = treatment plan, where my personal experience weighs more heavily than what the general psychiatry guidelines say to do. His equation, from my experience of him today seems more like : patient experience + DOCTOR EXPERIENCE + PSYCHIATRIC GUIDELINES = treatment plan. Yeah. Not gonna work for me. Unless he's somehow psychic and knows how my life is the other 29 days of the month I don't see him, he needs to rely a hell of a lot more on what I tell him. He decided to treat me like a teenager and condescend: "I know you think this is what you need, but you don't." Yeah. I've been dealing with different psychiatrists since I hit age13 (I think, those years all kind of blend together at this point). So for 10 years longer than Iv'e been seeing this guy I've been dealing with psych meds and trying to figure out my moods. Now I do have the correct diagnosis (I had a full-fledged manic episode this week-I don't recommend it, particularly if you're a control freak like me-confirming the Bipolar diagnosis 100%), but not the correct doctor to regulate it. See, he feels like he has to control the mania before dealing with anything else. My problem? I've been on an anti-depressant since my early teen years. My body NEEDS the serotonin. I don't cope with stress without it. If I forget a day or two of my antidepressant? I start craving chocolate, and carbs, and start freaking out over very minor things, like running out of Kleenex. With it? I deal a lot better. Still depressed, but I can handle more stressful situations without turning into a complete blubbering mess...as I did today in his office for half an hour. His case is that the antidepressant didn't help the depression. Right. Because it wasn't a high enough dose to affect the depression, which is what I kept saying. He wouldn't touch it, because for "normal" bipolars, antidepressants tend to induce manic episodes. In me? Nope. So after telling him that I think he's full of shit and that I'm hurt that he's not listening, I threw down the gauntlet - I'm getting a second opinion. Actually, I had already set an appointment with another psychiatrist in the practice my sister's therapist works in. She's a female, she's newer to the game, and I hope she'll be less hardened than this guy. We'll see. I don't see this new chick until late April, so I have to keep seeing this asshole until then. I'm less than thrilled. Oh, my favorite thing? Sarah and I both see this guy. He actually confused the two of us. Started lecturing me about something that had happened to her. I told him that I really can't trust a guy to fuck with my brain chemistry that can't tell his patients apart.

So, anyway, I feel a little bit better having ranted about that. I see Dr. M (my therapist) on Thursday next week... I would be seeing him Tuesday, but he's out of town. Sucks. He'll be hearing all about this for sure. Dr. M cares. The only male doc I'll let get near me now. Fool me twice, shame on me. I just can't work with men with MDs. My experience is that I need female compassion. With my history it's just more important than even extra credentials (the Bastard is a bipolar specialist). Okay. I'm really going to stop writing now and try to take these new meds that my brain is rebelling against. ("No! Don't take them! They won't work! They'll only make you feel crappy like last time! And even if you do feel shitty he won't hear it and just tell you to stick it out so you can feel shitty longer!)