So I spent most of the night grinding over the visit to the shrink.
I am currently waiting on a callback from the team. My intention is to tell them their services are no longer required as I have lost what little faith in their abilities I ever had.
The problem is that yesterday during conversation the shrink mentioned her diagnosis of longer term issues would likely include narcissistic as a characterisation. Quite how someone with self esteem as low as mine, with a history of continually putting others first, sacrificing career, standing and health to support others etc. can qualify for that is an interesting leap of mental gymnastics.
During the sessions of contact with the team I have rehearsed the basic problem. I am asocial, but lack a peer group. My brain functions in an idiosyncratic way at very high speed. I read faster than I think, have an IQ in the dubious range where the measurement is so high it is meaningless (IQ only measures IQ though) and if I relax and speak at my ease only 3 people I am aware of stand a hope of keeping up. The boss who just sacked me will cheerfully refer to me as the brightest person he has ever met (He has worked for decades in Universities classed as top ten in the world) and the guys at Cambridge refused to do pop quizzes with me in the room because my brain was cheating. My peer group in the intellectual aspect ( emotionally I am a stunted toddler and physically...my 9 year old daughter can whup my ass at 10 pin bowling) is a disparate group of similar hermits scattered by the vagaries of genetics.
Of course the shrink sees this and instead of trusting me, believing what I am saying as simple truth I can back up with evidence and helping me cope with the grinding loneliness assumes that this is an exaggeration, that I am self aggrandising.
This is so much like every other interaction I have had with psychologists and psychiatrists and so disappointing. Time after time I reach out honestly and display the problem, to find them treating me through a prism of their own distrust and limitation and trying to label me as something that denies what I am so that I fit into their world.
Enough. No more.
The truth is that a long term diagnosis would be career useful but I dont have a career. The shrinks short term diagnosis of adjustment disorder is plausible, but there is no treatment beyond "taking it day by day" which I have been doing for 34 years so fuck that.
It was foolish of me to expect more.
RantingScienceZebra The rantings of a bitter, twisted, sometimes crippled and rather mad scientist
It's simply not true that there is no appropriate psychological treatment for adjustment disorder other than 'getting on with it'. See this local NHS information (from http://icope.nhs.uk/disorder-specific-information/are-you-feeling-low-or-depressed/adjustment-disorder/).
ReplyDeletePsychological Therapy
Different types of Therapies are available for people with adjustment difficulties. These include:
Counselling. Counselling may be offered within our service or by one of our partner organisations in Camden (if you have a Camden GP), or we may direct you to charitable organizations in your local community.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy involves looking at the way in which your thinking and behaviour may affect your mood. Treatment can be offered in one-to-one sessions or in a group.
Interpersonal Therapy is a time-limited and structured approach to the treatment of depression. Its central idea is that psychological symptoms, such as depressed mood, can be understood as a response to current difficulties in relationships and can affect the quality of those relationships. By addressing interpersonal situations, improvements to both relationships and depressive mood can be made.
Behavioural Couples Therapy for people who have a regular partner and where the relationship may be linked to the depression, or where involving the partner may be of potential therapeutic benefit.
Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy helps you understand the connection between your depression symptoms and what is happening in your relationships by looking at patterns that can be traced back to your childhood.
***
Was the psychiatrist talking about narcissistic traits or a 'proper' personality disorder - this is the NHS definition:
Narcissistic personality disorder
A person with narcissistic personality disorder swings between seeing themselves as special and fearing they are worthless. They may act as if they have an inflated sense of their own importance and show an intense need for other people to look up to them.
Other symptoms include:
exaggerating their own achievements and abilities
thinking they are entitled to be treated better than other people
exploiting other people for their own personal gain
lacking empathy for other people's weaknesses
looking down on people they feel are "beneath" them, while feeling deeply envious of people they see as being "above" them.
I don't personally attach any stigma to someone having a personality disorder - I know several people in this category.
***
I don't know you of course, and don't know if the diagnostic labels you have been offered have any validity, but I would be very cautious about rejecting out of hand the services of the psychiatrist. Very cautious.
Cathy
I think tenencies though even that is hurtful. It hutrts that soneone could talk to me and think that.
ReplyDeleteI should have said no demonstrably effective treatments rather than no treatments. They all are equieffective and all are supported by weak evidence of a non placebo response.
Having the personality disorder label thrown at you is always going to hurt (Even to us enlightened types who wouldn't dream of judging someone for being ill in any other respect, and who probably wouldn't even judge someone *else* as harshly as we'd judge ourself).
DeletePlay along with the headpokes - I find that even if the therapy itself isn't helpful, the routine of going and doing a thing every day/week that isn't physically challenging or a particular emotional investment can help keep some semblance of reality. It's pretty much the mental equivalent of always buying the morning paper and a packet of tabs at the same time every day, then smoking them in the park. But provided by the NHS.
A great perspective, bitey.
DeleteBut your diagnostic label is neither hurtful nor unhurtful in truth. I have obsessive tendencies, officially. I wash my hands a lot; I get very agitated about whether other people have washed their hands. This doesn't make me a 'bad' person, though it does mean I get through an awful lot of soap.
Similarly, suppose you DO have narcissistic tendencies. That doesn't equate with 'bad' person to me. It's just a description for your difficulties in day to day life. Please don't feel stigmatised, though I know some patients fight tooth and nail to get a personality disorder diagnosis removed from their records because they hate it so much.
Lots of love, and listen to bitey and harmless. They speak well in this matter. I'm just a mad house-mother adding my pennyworth! Cathy xxx
Very glad that you are here today. Even if the psychiatric team are not as bright as you, they can still help you improve your life. For the love of sweet sugary fuck, please do stick with them. For my part, I'm shit at 10 pin bowling, and am willing to come along as a patsy if you'd like to come second last on your next escapade.
ReplyDeleteGood to see you posting on BS again, inky!
ReplyDeleteGoya has two famous quite contrasting views of doctors:
ReplyDeleteDr Ass sniffing the patient and asking "What will he die of?" versus Dr Arrieta supporting and helping the ill Goya:
http://hoocher.com/Francisco_de_Goya/Caprichos_Plate40_Of_What_Ill_Will_he_Die.jpg
vs.
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/goya/8/806goya.jpg
If you identify the doctor vs inky situation with the assdoc image and the doctor identifies with the supportive one there may be difficulties in finding common ground.
Looking at troubledinky as artist may lead other people to a more tolerant and probably closer to true view of inky. Many have some idea about the driven and striving artist lonely with his ideas/truth that wil be praised later. Few have similar concepts about a narrowflow-and-chemistry expert.
Your writing lately will confirm your artist's standing.
Just standing here for now. Quietly. Thoughtfully. Supportively. Listeningilily...
ReplyDeleteLys x