I am dissatisfied with my psychiatrist. He’s this young guy and he isn’t really doing anything for me. We have phone visits every six weeks and I really want to tell him my problems but I know he doesn’t want to hear them. Every visit is the same. He asks me how I’m doing, if there is any issue with the medication. I say my meds are fine and I’m doing OK and that’s about it, it literally lasts three minutes.
I’m mad at myself for getting into this pattern, I just say what he wants to hear. A couple times I told him real problems and he got agitated and acted like I double-crossed him and broke our contract to keep it superficial. Now I’m at the point where I know it will embarrass him if I say I’m not doing good and it will make him look like he’s been a bad psychiatrist for the last three years. He does zero for me. I know how this sounds, I know I should be more honest and strong and say what’s really bugging me but we got into this pattern and I don’t know how to break it without one of us looking really, really bad. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Yeah I get 15 minutes tops and I’m a good patient. Still. I needed some help with some things recently and just had to go in with an agenda. It was a pain and all to disrupt that usual routine but it was necessary.
Not bad to make them work depending on what you need. I don’t go to a shrink to get therapy, for example. I go to get scripts and occasional things for the social security. If I needed that sort of help I guess I’d look for a therapist so it’s not totally out of the loop…
Saying that. With our system you sometimes need to be your own advocate. The docs will always take the path of least resistance I’ve found but it’s not a job I’d like.
Could you get a therapist and just use the pdoc for med checks? I zoom a therapist once a month for 50 minutes. Any less time than that they won’t get paid. We really work. My pdoc is once every 4 months.
Have you ever thought that maybe you keeping problems from him for as long as possible frustrates him and makes him feel bad for you? Frustration can look like anger in some cases… He may want to help you but he can’t help you unless you help yourself so tell him your problems
Really, I think I know what @77nick77 is getting at. I think I go through this with my case manager at the mental health clinic. I remember mentioning to her I was concerned about the future and I think she pretty much didn’t think it was that big of a deal. It seems mental health care has tanked, not just where I live but, the world over. It seems like mental health professionals don’t take their patients seriously enough and, it was the reason I wasn’t admitted to the psych ward after my last suicide attempt.