….or I’d be dead by now. I started calling pdoc at 4:31PM yesterday, but they close at 4:30PM. I tried at 8:15AM, but they don’t open until 8:30AM. I called at 8:45AM and talked to the office manager, told her I wasn’t feeling well and that I thought I need a prescription for klonopin. She asked if I would like the pdoc to call me back, and I said yes. It is now 4:45PM and he hasn’t called. I did take one of my son’s valium at 11AM, and that seemed to do something for me. I have a lot of those, my son takes them when he gets his teeth cleaned, which he does about three times a year, and his dentist gave us a prescription for 25 of them. So we have extra. Still don’t want to dip into my klonopin stash. It’s so irrational.
Today were my meetings with my new life coach and my routine meeting with my psychiatrist who I see every three months or so. I was a bit anxious about meeting the life coach, K, since I wasn’t sure what would transpire. I had a motivated morning and ran two miles on the treadmill, then showered and got ready. I’m still in the SI mode from two days ago, however. I was fighting that urge with all my might. I decided in the shower that maybe I would just do a little, kind of like a compromise. It didn’t quite work out that way, it’s like potato chips – you can’t have just one. Actually I don’t like potato chips, but that’s what I hear about them.
So I performed my SI ritual, which is comforting in a sick demented way, and yes I realize that. Then I left to meet K. She is extremely nice and seems very positive and encouraging. I had met her through a convoluted path of twitter, blogs, and email, so I really had to trust my intuition that she would be what she claimed to be and not just any old person claiming to be a life coach. It’s not like being a neurosurgeon you know? There are no degrees and licensing boards. I had originally contacted her to have an MBTI assessment, but after we discussed that on the phone we decided that I’m fairly certain of my MBTI type and we can move forward from there. My goal in working with K is to determine what to do with the rest of the my life. Not a small feat, is it? So today we discussed the process, talked a lot about the INFJ personality type, talked about my strengths that were determined from the “Discover Your Strengths” test, and talked a bit about things I like to do. We meet again in two weeks and in the meantime she wants me to focus on how I am using my 5 strengths in my everyday life – in my work, my volunteer work, and my personal life. I felt very positive about the meeting.
Then I sat at the mall with a coffee and some magazines and books for an hour to decompress before having lunch with a friend. This is also someone I work with, who is a very empowering person to me. She is always telling me how talented, creative, smart and important I am. And it seems like she really means it when she says that. I love working for her and being her friend. So I felt even more positive after lunch.
Then I went to see the psychiatrist. He had annoyed me the last time I was there, I can’t even remember why. I just have to remember that I need him to write my prescriptions, and that is it. He has to pathologize everything, but I guess that is to be expected since he is a doctor. He thinks I should do Cognitive Behavioral Therapy – as he says “What is the point of figuring out why you feel something, the important thing is to change your thinking.” To me I think that if I went that route I would always feel like I’m missing something. Yes, for certain things I agree there is no point in searching for a reason. Generalized anxiety, for example. That is just a part of me, nothing happened in my life to cause me to be an anxious person and it is very helpful to learn coping strategies to deal with anxiety. But what about my feelings of self hate, low self esteem, poor body image, guilt, distrust, etc. I really want to know why I am this way. Sure, it would be helpful to learn how to change my thinking and my belief systems, but I think it would be easier to make those changes if I can figure out why I feel that way to begin with. Maybe I’m totally wrong though?
The psychiatrist thinks I need to talk to the psychologist and tell him I need CBT and ask if he can provide that for me. I do think it would be a good idea to discuss the type of therapy that we are doing, and what would be best for me to reach my goals.
Another thing the psychiatrist does that annoys me is asks me things like “How is your OCD?” And I always say, “I don’t have OCD.” Then we talk about intrusive thoughts and how that means I have OCD, blah blah blah. Then he says, “I just want to ask if you are depressed.” And I say, “I don’t have anything to be depressed about.” And he says, “You don’t need something to be depressed about, it’s a matter of brain chemistry.” And I say, “I’m not depressed.” And he says, “I just wanted to throw that out there.” And he starts to mention SSRI’s, and I say, “I’m not taking any SSRI’s.” And he says, “You didn’t even let me finish.” And I say, “I just want to be sure you remember – I’m not taking any SSRI’s.” And he says, “OK” and writes my rx for klonopin and says come back in three months.
I guess I’m not being very nice – he is a very nice man and very patient. I guess the whole field of psychiatry annoys me, and the fact that insurance companies would rather pay for meds than therapy annoys me, and I take it all out on him. What’s that, projection?
So it wasn’t such a bad day. Just a little bit of SI, but mostly good. It feels good to feel even a little bit good.
And for eshoe, here is a photo of my purse and what is in it:
That would be my glasses, wallet, car key (which isn’t really a key, it’s a fob), lip balm and lip gloss. If I don’t have a pocket my phone would be in there too. I’m a minimalist, I also detest carrying a purse.
This is somewhat of a lie, however, because I carry a huge tote bag with pens, pencils, meds, lotions, mints, hairbands, books, papers, notepads, etc. I leave that in the car and just carry the wristlet. Sometimes I even take the fob, wallet and phone and put them in my jacket pockets and then I don’t even carry the wristlet.
I am a guest blogger on another blog, come see: The MBTI Blog. If you’ve been reading my blog you’ve already read this, but it’s still kind of exciting to me.
Tomorrow I meet for the first time with my new life coach and I’m somewhat apprehensive about what we’ll talk about. Then in the afternoon I meet with my psychiatrist. I wish I could tell him some things that I’ve talked about with my psychologist so I can get a feel for whether he thinks my psychologist is any good, but I don’t want to reveal too much to my psychiatrist. I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do about that.
I’m feeling very flat right now. Last night I was spiraling, out of control, and I did something I shouldn’t have done. But tonight I just feel flat, like I have no affect. I’m going to bed I think.
Yesterday I saw my psychiatrist. I normally love my psychiatrist, he is a great guy. Our appointments are only 15 minutes and he gives me my prescriptions. Yesterday, though, he irritated me. No matter what I talked about he would say something like “Obsessive people tend to think like that” or “That’s a characteristic of obsessive thinking”. He believes I have OCD, and I don’t like to think so. He wants me on meds, and I don’t feel like being on meds right now. I’ve finally gotten off of all of my anti-depressants, and all I currently take is klonopin every night before bed, which I half heartedly am cutting back on. I do wake up in the middle of the night sometimes with panic attacks, so I guess I’m depending on the klonopin to prevent that.
So he is a psychiatrist and his job is to diagnose people and give them meds to make them better, and I guess that is what he is doing. But it was irritating yesterday. We talked about my therapy, and some of my issues and feelings. He would say “But, Harriet, when you think about these things rationally don’t you see that they are not true?” I practically barked at him “What the hell does rational have to do with it, when I actually believe something due to 40 years of thinking this way?” Hello? Am I daft here? He did concede that he is glad that I am in therapy and I am going even though it gives me major anxiety and that the process is slow. Well, thanks for that, Doc. Now let me go get my rx filled.