I found myself arguing with my pdoc yesterday. It wasn’t heated or anything, I actually really like her and find it easy to stay pretty chill even when disagreeing with her or getting one of my ideas shot down. She must have amazing diplomacy skills.
Talking about stuff online seems buffered in a way, but when I’m trying to talk about it in person, I find it hard not to argue that I definitely don’t have SZ/A.
I tried to argue that I really have Borderline PD and she gently navigated through all that. She said she can see that I seem to have some traits but that it’s not full-blown for a diagnosis and not the main problem.
I tried to get her to let me try an anti-depressant instead and she nicely shot me down, explaining that it’s not the right type of med and she wants me on anti-psychotic.
I can’t really pinpoint exactly or what all it is about her, it makes such a huge difference to have a pdoc who can actually argue and be firm with me and yet I don’t feel defensive, threatened or upset when I leave the session.
If I try to pinpoint it I think it’s because she respects me, that’s just the overall vibe I get from her. She can disagree and be firm without condescending me, making me feel like a kid in trouble or without making it a power struggle or a drawn-out stupid argument.
I think that’s really a gift, honestly. I know I’m not very good at it most of the time, myself, and I’ve had plenty of professionals who had just awful people skills and no real compassion or respect in their work.
I also have a really good Pdoc, she is amazing, when I ended up in the ER last July after a car accident (I wasn’t hurt bad, just some bad whiplash and a cut on my head that needed 31 staples which sounds bad but really isn’t) she was the first one there, before my mom, before my best friend and before my roommate. She made sure that the ER docs knew my allergies and what meds I was on, so that I wouldn’t end up with any bad reactions.
She also comes to my home once a month to talk to my GF and Roommate, to help them with my care plan, which involves them both…and she does off the clock. I think it helps that she only has 30 clients total…She also helped me with some issues from my past that came, like the family of the person I hurt most when I was 14…I wont talk about that, because no matter how forgiving you all might be, you would never forgive that act, even though my Pdoc says that what happened may not have been what everyone thought it was.
She thinks I may have had a ‘pre trigger psychosis’ an episode of psychosis that occurs BEFORE you actually fully develop the illness, like when someone who develops diabetes sometimes has a hypoglycemic event sometimes YEARS before they actually develop the disease.
Anyway, it is definitely helpful to have a Pdoc who respects you and can treat you like a person, not a child or invalid.
Are you unable to shop around? I know some mental health systems make it impossible to shop around and I think that’s horrible. If there isn’t threat of competition a lot of doctors get lazy and cocky. There is plenty of competition (relatively) where I live and I still have been through some bad apples. I’m glad I did shop around to discover a good one. I feel for people who don’t have the luxury.
No option to shop around unfortunately. I did make a written complaint about them and now I never see them. I just get to see their minions, which suits me much better.
My pdoc and I are both kind of sneaky and manipulative in our own ways (but not with evil intentions), so I think it allows my own anxieties and insecurities to get dispersed in polite sparring. Like she also indicated that she thinks I’m on the autism spectrum, which kind of surprised me but oh well, and then on the wiki page I noticed the med she prescribed is currently being studied to see if it can help improve communication skills for those on the spectrum. Was the same thing as when I told her I didn’t want to take Abilify because it’s activating, so she said okay, let’s try Latuda. Go home and look up reviews. It’s activating.
My doctor thinks that Latuda would be too stimulating/activating for me.
From what Ive researched, Akathisia and Anxiety are common side effects from taking Latuda.
Abilify is also very stimulating, but from what I understand a lot of the newer Antipsychotics lke Rexulti and Vraylar are also activating.
Saphris and Geodon can be activating for many as well.
I have to switch meds - APs soon and I really am stuck.
I dont want the added Anxiety and Akathisia of the newer meds, and I have been on most of the older, tried and true Antipsychotics - they did not work out for me.
Well the propranolol she gave me did seem to work, not sure if it’d be worth it to discuss with your pdoc. They are tiny little pills and paying totally out of pocket with no insurance or medicaid or anything, it would have been $20-something dollars for a month’s supply at the CVS. There was a problem with my insurance (not really but I think it was a new pharm tech and they were being ridiculous), but they made it up to me by putting it on some CVS discount card and then it was only $8.
Just sucks that beta blocker did not work for you, and even Admin had not heard of using it for anything SZ-related before. So I wonder if it was really for anxiety.
I’ve only met my new pdoc once, I have to reschedule it till I get my cast off. its really hard to get up and down the stairs with my cast. she seemed nice but I only talked with her through Skype she lives somewhere in PA.
