Holy crap I am so nervous. But at the same time I’m so excited because maybe I can finally find a way to end what’s happening to me, or at least improve it. Aaaah I don’t know what to do or say. Where do I start?? I didn’t even realize it was tomorrow I always just saw it as this far off date but I made it! I didn’t chicken out and cancel. Tomorrow’s gonna be a big morning for me @.@
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This is your first visit with ANY psychiatrist or THIS psychiatrist?
You don’t have to tell your whole life story or every little secret, shortcoming, or embarrassing thing about yourself in a first visit.
Write a letter thing that describes whats been going on. It’ll help if you can hand it to them for them to read.
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Yes its a positive step forward - Good luck with your appointment with your new doctor. Make sure you go in with notes
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Any. I’ve been to a school counselor when I was in highschool, and then when I got to college I saw a therapist for my anxiety. (She was a grad student working with the university, but she was very nice)
I’ve never sought any help for my psychotic issues before. Most likely because most of my life I was so consumed in them I never even thought to think of them as unreal or crazy. Then when I became aware I was so embarassed and ashamed and thought I could just willingly stop experiencing everything. Which of course didn’t work. So I’m finally getting some help with this!
Notes on what exactly? Should I bring in my journal or something? Oh gosh.
Thank goodness. Although I feel like everything is embarassing. I’ve never openly talked about this stuff with ANYONE except when I was delusional and tried to involve one friend and then subsequently lost her as a friend. Not exactly encouraging me to share down the road, even if it is for the better.
I’m not sure what I’d even write in a letter. It’s so much. I’ve been through so much. I’ve filled pages and pages and countless journals with my experiences. I don’t really know how to fit it all in some kind of brief summary.
When I went to therapy at my school for my anxiety I tried to write down my experiences for her and I don’t think she even read them. Then she made me cut them down to like a few words for each, which I felt was woefully inadequate.
Like, the way I set mine up is I told how things went and what people noticed.
You could start off saying how long its been going on, how it progressed, etc.
I added in a few extra details as well
You could try that.
Again I’ve filled notebook after notebook with the progression of my experiences. Sigh. It’s so much. I think that was another reason I was always against going in. It’s just SO MUCH crap. Maybe I’ll just ask the doctor what I should talk about? Ack.
That would work. Best of luck.
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Jot down the symptoms you are having the most trouble with. Maybe add some of the limitations imposed by those symptoms. They’ll be looking to treat the symptoms, most bothersome/serious ones first.
I blank when I get to the pdoc, so writing it down beforehand helps.
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The most important thing you can do in this meeting is to be honest.
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when I say - notes, I mean some reminders. You can casually jot down your symptoms, your list of all meds you are taking, especially psych meds - your family history with mental illness etc… notes are not absolutely required, but like Malvok mentions - it is always important that you remain honest with the doctor 
Oh gotcha! Whoops didn’t think about family history. I’ll jot some things down, thanks.
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You are welcome
Yeah, I know that now. With my past two therapists I could never get up the courage to tell them any of my psychotic issues. As a result the counseling I got wasn’t very helpful because I realized it was really my episodes that occurred as a result of my anxiety rather than my anxiety itself that I needed help with. I left out a lot of important information in fear of judgement and I’ll try my best not to do that this time.
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What are your psychotic issues? What makes you think they are psychotic? How long have you had them? How disabled are you? Do you hear voices? What kind of voices? What do they say? Have you been manic or depressed?
That’s the questions for you. If you can answer them you have your note to pdoc. 
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good luck.
take care
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