[Edited 1/7/22 to clean up various things in here and add some further clarification, now I am less ill than when I originally wrote this]
[Edited 12/20/2021 to add: the original title was “Being Wrong Hurts People!” but I wanted to back off the certainty in that title.]
Yesterday turned out to be a fine day, but before that I was really struggling. (From about last Saturday. I’m not saying I felt terrible all the time. I didn’t; but I did have hours and half-hours, here and there, in emotional hell. Which scared me a lot because I had no idea if this was going to be my life from now on [edited on 1/7 to add: that’s happened in all three acute episodes – fear that I might have to live with searing emotional pain from now on] I thought, well maybe having this pain might truly be a judgment from God: something I will now have to live with because I married someone who wasn’t a Christian.
On Wednesday I went into a nose dive /tail spin after our 2 hour intro session with the latest psychiatrist. I really hoped I’d like this one (this was how my last new psychiatrist visit went in October) Before coming on Wednesday they’d sent my husband a 26 (i) page form for me to fill in. I was convinced it was a joke – meaning, I thought the doctor would use it to point out to the accompanying family member – in my case, my husband – see how hard it is to fill in long intake forms when ill. But the form didnt even get mentioned in that visit. [Edited 1/7 to add, I did ask about the intake form in subsequent visits and was told it was only given to the administrative assistant to enter values into the computer; it was not used in sessions. Which didn’t exactly make sense to me given what was on it. But that’s what I was told]
So on the way to the appointment – I was literally crying in the Uber about the holocaust. (Which significantly is part of my lineage – both my maternal grandparents fled Germany in the 1930s.)
I am finding I have strong emotions at times but mostly they are on behalf of someone other than me. [Edited 1/7 to add: when I wrote this I was somewhat psychotic and believed I was crying on behalf of other people. It was sort of like an emotional version of praying for them, perhaps.
Anyway so the doctor and his resident usher us into the room. I feel like the thing to do is not talk and to go back to crying over the holocaust. The Dr asks me what do I want, how can they help? I say no to water and everything then reconsider and say “ok yes, I’d like the pillow to hug”. Which was a good choice! Anyway I still mostly felt I should not talk so I indicated they should talk with my husband. Who was a significant reason for me being there, after all, since his concerns had led to this appointment being set.
[Edited on 1/7 to add: in the room the resident was to my left, just looking at me, not saying anything, but nodding reassuringly if I looked at him. The doctor was doing all the talking and was to my right. It was bothering me having to look in two different directions depending whether I wanted to look at the resident or the doctor. So I asked if they could move so they were sitting next to each other. The doctor moved over to sit next to the resident. I also asked them if they would switch chairs because I preferred the resident to the doctor and didn’t like that the doctor was in a higher up chair; but the doctor said no they couldn’t switch chairs. (I don’t know why; this also is a theme that when I’ve been psychotic, people seem unreasonably unwilling to do small things that I feel would be helpful to me) ]
After a while the resident takes me to a separate room. I do talk to him for a while but he says nothing, he just indicates “I’m listening. You can trust us” Which was very frustrating.
At magically the same time he said we should reconvene, the doctor came and knocked on the door. At the time that one moment was a thing that helped me to believe they were going to be awesome and were just being ‘covertly’ useless. But later on my husband said a 10 minute gap had been decided upon beforehand, meaning that they both knew when we were going to reconvene (I had no memory of hearing that)
So the rest of the session, blah blah blah, “Helen take meds” – so I am listening and try to ask questions. The doctor seemingly can tell me nothing about this med! He eventually says it’s an ‘atypical anti psychotic’. My husband later told me he had tried to tell the doctor (while I had been out of the room) that I was not a typical patient and would have questions about the meds. So it should not have been a surprise that I had questions. The doctor’s failure to answer them well was a great disappointment to me.
In the evening after dinner I felt myself getting very angry. It was sort of directed at my hsuband, actually, but/yet not him exactly. At men? No, not that either. I am so angry I want to yell at my husband “I want to go, anywere else!” I would go to a hotel, just get away from – I’m not even sure. This? Now? And yet, this is and isn’t my pain. Edited to add 1/7 here again I am thinking I am feeling someone else’s pain which helps me handle it somewhat, but not entirely since it was so intense]
[My thoughts at the time] I maybe am feeling some one’s anger in the same way I feel sorry for others. It’s really for me as well though. I am so scared, lost, despairing. My husband is bewildered, sort of smiles a bit that hurts so much, I am not kidding about this – but maybe I get it, it’s not him, it’s an intercession for someone
So fortunately my husband isn’t feeling as bad as I am right then. [Edited to add 1/7, I was glad he was in less of a nosedive than me right then] We call my Mum and put her on speakerphone. She does a good job of asking me what happened and giving me space to say that. I know by now it’s about how I am being forced onto meds again. [Edited to add – being forced onto meds again made me so angry – it was bad enough the first time; I had never wanted that to happen again!!]
I have an idea: I want to wait 24 hours and then take the medication if I’m not better. But that doesn’t seem acceptable to my husband. [Edited to add 1/7, of course it would not have been acceptable to my husband to wait another 24 hours, after that anger outburst! But the anger was over the meds! Catch 22??]
Then in a genius move my husband says “hey I’ll take it with you”. And that’s enough. I thought I was mostly upset because I hadn’t been asked to consent, and, I was upset about that. However in that moment I felt that it was also about the horrible aloneness of having to go though taking unknown meds by myself, with no-one seemingly even understanding what it was like to be forced onto them. With him saying he’d take it too, the aloneness and fear at least, were taken care of. He was in it with me. That was huge, for me.
Anyway like I said, genious move. He later said he doesn’t even know what happened there, that he’d been at his wit’s end. [Edited to add: he’s an atheist, yet if there is a God I would say that idea came from God, it was so perfect in a situation where none of us knew what to do next]
So my husband took me in to the kitchen, got out glasses of water, got out 2 pills, took one, said “See?” and gave me the other, which I was now happy to talk although little nervous about side effects. He didn’t seem angry, although the evening had thrown him. It went ok between us after that, until Friday morning.
On Friday morning I was thinking, ok this is the day when they’ll validate me at the doctor’s office. But I realized, actually no I have no guarantee of this in fact it’s more likely it will be just the same. So that upsets me a lot. My husband asks what’s wrong. Then he gets really upset because he’s afraid of me resisting treatment.
Anyway he helps me come up iwth my list of things to say at this appointment. First and foremost I want to ask about the form. At the office the doctor goes to get the form and says he hasn’t seen it beacuse it’s just for intake. Anyway the visit is again very invalidating for me. I get angry at not being understood by the dr which he and Steve then see as proof of my messed up mental state.
In that appointment this was a ‘lowlight’ ie I was very disappointed – that when I asked the dr what the half life of my med (Olanzapine) was, he said “Ok I’ll tell you but why do you want to know?” Gee I wonder why anyone would be so dumb as to want to know how long a med is in their body? Anyway he doesn’t know it , he had to look it up!!!!
Have you ever been here? For most of you, no, and that’s the problem, presumably. [Edited to add 1/7, this was in my original write up, I’m leaving it as is]
Another lowlight of the appointment was when I realized that rather than helping me by connecting, he keeps mansplaining me about his extensive experience. This makes me so so so angry – but I suppress it because more emotion=I am diagnosed as worse.
Other lowlight – dr incites more fear in my husband but saing “If she gets more agitated you can give her more meds/take her to the ER”
I cannot look this man in the eye. For my own protection.
In the waiting room where he’s saying goodbye he touches my arm deliberately, in a way to be reassuring, I think? He starts saying again “if she gets worse” “OMGOMGOMG stop putting these negative thoughts in my husband’s mind!!!” I think. I push him away and try to get my husband out of there as soon as possible. We are both in terrible shape emotionally at this point but I took heart a little in that Steve said “I did hear the dr say you’re getting better”. *sigh*
The good news is that since Friday afternoon, away from that doctor from hell (to me) things have been getting slowly better, and yesterday’s evening felt ‘normal’ – not completely but so much better than recent days. I’m continuing on Olanzapine aka Zyprexa 7.5mg daily, in the evening, and we’ll be back there on Monday.
Edited to add 1/7 at the Monday visit I determined to be calm and respectful and it went relatively well. The doctor and my husband were impressed how much I’d improved since my first visit there. They attribute it completely to the med and see it as having a miraculous effect, but as far as I am concerned I have also worked hard at returning to normal. Which is in fact what I do, every day, I work hard at being normal. Some days I need to work harder at it than others.
At present I am still looking for a psychiatrist that I feel understands me better but until then I will be continuing to see this doctor. The next visit with him will be on 1/13/22.