Posted by wendy b. on March 12, 2003, at 14:58:30
In reply to Hiya Wendy, posted by Miller on March 11, 2003, at 11:08:28
> Thank you for thinking of me.
Lots of people have you in their thoughts, not just me...
>Not much is happening right now. Believe it or not, I am considering ending all my shrinks.
Believe it or not?!? Ask anyone on this board who's been in therapy, there comes a time when you just have HAD IT up to here (gestures to forehead)! One gets tired of examining everything everything everything to death, wondering about your motivations, beating yourself up over the past, etc., etc., and thinking: "Shit, how come I'm the only one doing this?" (as opposed to my mother, my sister, my spouse, and whomever else is driving me nuts)... We have all had this feeling where the box is full, already...
> My pdoc makes me uncomfortable beyond belief. I see him for 15 minutes (if I am lucky). He asks so many personal questions. I guess it would be different if he was providing therapy, but he isn't.
Sometimes I wonder if some of them live vicariously through us... I have a good pdoc (who's actually a family med MD, but specializes in ADHD), who just asks about my symptoms and my responses to the meds. That's all. He doesn't want to know all the latest details about my personal life... I like this approach.
> So, I have an appointment with my family doctor to see if she will take over the meds. It should be no problem. I wouldn;t care if she asked me personal questions since I have known her for years.
That's the nice thing about family med drs, once you establish a relationship with one, and it feels right, you don't have to go around to three different people and explain your symptoms over and over again...
> My therapist is also disappointing me. I don't know what I will do about him yet. I have seen him well over a year and he just "doesn't get it" when it comes to me.
Time for a new therapist? If they don't get it, it's not your job to make them "see;" either they have insight into your situation or they don't. I had a tough-love therapist (last one), when what I really needed was empathy and support, dammit, not somebody who made me feel worse when I walked out the door... She had no clue about the ADHD symptoms I was having, and just made me feel lazy and apathetic.
> As far as my marriage counselor goes, I have only seen him twice, so I will give him some time.That's a good idea, I think. Do you have any reactions yet at all - pro or con? What kinds of things is he telling you and your husband?
> I haven't had a chance to research groups in the area because of my never-ending shrink appointments.
Well, maybe if you just stick with the marriage counselor and the family doc for a while, that's enough. You can't do everything all at once. It all takes the time it takes, and your timeline for absorbing the insights you gain, and then changing your life for the better, is yours alone - don't let anybody rush you.
> I hope you are not as frustrated as I am. :)
Well, like I said, the last therapist was a bomb. She also did meds (a nurse practitioner specializing in psychiatry), and for a while I liked the "one-stop shopping." But as I told the new guy, maybe you need at least two people helping you. Last one almost withheld prescriptions unless you kept to a strict schedule of therapy sessions. I guess that finally did it for me; I thought it was unethical. Like, if I didn't wanna look at my belly-button this week, it didn't mean I was recalcitrant or hostile, or whatever she thought. Most recent time I e-mailed her to ask to see her for a meds check (before I bailed), she e-mailed back and said I should pay my outstanding bill. So I replied that she should tell me what I owed her... and wrote her again a week later to remind her. Still haven't heard back from her for months and months... Lucky for me I have a new pdoc to write scrips - what if I didn't and had run out of meds? I guess she never thought of that! "Frustrated" didn't even come close...
And then, of course, there are all the other frustrations in my life... (Dreamer, I know what you're thinking - and you're right! Partly...)
Miller, write back when you can, and keep on fighting the good fight, as they say,
with a hug,Wendy
poster:wendy b.
thread:206465
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030308/msgs/208468.html