Sometimes it is good to rave and rant. So go ahead!

I also think that if you are not happy with your therapist, you either need to talk it out, or if you strongly feel that you are not taken seriously, find someone else. I feel for you as I have been in that situation too, where I was not believed. It is very painful. Consequently I stopped sharing the important deeper things. Soon I stopped going. Trust is one of the most if not thè most important thing in a therapist-client relationship. You need to find that trust, otherwise it's not going to help you much.

Now I have a great therapist whom I can trust, it makes all the difference, even though it took me one and a half years to really start to open up.

Hope you can get it resolved, one way or another!

Take care of yourself!!

hsurp

3/24/10 6:19pm

Thank you guys for your support.  I saw my psychologist today.  She was very exasperated with me.  She thinks that my meds are making me the way I am.  My new psychiatrist also does feel I am on too many meds (a total of 10 every day for Bipolar, Depression, and other things).  I tried to tell her in that case then I need time to see my psychiatrist and start things over.  She thinks I am not getting any better, but worse.  That I am spiraling.  Yet, she tells my work I can work!  I don't get it.  I told her today that I wish I could just tell some people that they should walk in my shoes for a week and then they would understand how I feel EVERY day.  She says I am all over the place.  Well, DUH!  My lawyer, for Social Security, says her notes for them was excellent for Social Security benefits so I don't know why she is telling my work differently.  My lawyer thinks I should continue until I get a better repoire with my new pdoc before I let her loose. 

Pushok4me

3/24/10 6:33pm

Are you on ten different meds?!?! That is a lot.... it is worth looking at it very seriously, because every med brings it's own set of side effects too. It is very important to get your meds sort out and unfortuntely for some it can take quite a while since each of us respond differently to the same med. I am sorry you have to go thru this....  

 

Are you sure your psychologist has experience with BP's? Mine does and I am oh so grateful since he can explain to me what is going on with me! Our brains are different from those who don't have BP (seriously, the neuroogist have made pictures of all sorts of brains and seen this). It's not just our chemical imbalance for which we take the meds.

 

Hang in there while things get sorted out! Keep telling your docs what you are going thru. And do talk about all the meds with your pdoc.

hsurp

3/24/10 6:39pm

Yeah, I am on 10 different meds.  I see my pdoc on 4/1 so we shall see.  He is a pdoc at a nearby hospital also and does this on the side.  He also studied neurology so I think I have a good one.  Thanks.

a veteran psych nurse, spiritual director, and mental health advocate (vowed) speaks to this question: as August T. Piper, M.D. psychiatrist/psychopharmacologist/author says, "...the psychiatrist ALWAYS has to listen to the patient".

Following a harrowing and grueling involuntary hospitalization under the misdiagnosis of "mania"... when "spiritual emergency" (a non-pathologic DSM category) was the issue... the treatment methods employed caused such disruption (and for some in these shoes, suicide), I now have to employ my skills in "digging psychiatry out of its lethargy" with numerous other good professionals.

Listen to the words of that psychologist!  She may very well be correct. From personal experience I know the effects of poly-pharmacy: severe pain (this is documented well in the literature), heart arrhythmias (and angina), and worse--fatalities.  Psychiatric medicines affect all systems of the body-after all, they work in the brain indisciminately.  Furthermore, have someone do a good spiritual assessment on you!  (human beings are "wired" for spirituality)... something most therapists are not able to do because of lack of training.  The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology has amazing statistics on the percentage of persons who are undergoing spirtual crisis, instead of being merely "mentally-ill".  They also have the evidence that wrongful psychotherapy in these instances can lead to suicide.

The human is not subject to the brain amines, nor past life experiences, nor genetics... and is capable of transformation "like a butterfly coming out of a crysalis" says Dr. Hyla Cass.  It takes the correct psychotherapy and combinations of whatever is needed (not necessarily medicines--although some ARE improved and helped by them), including spiritual guidance from a "master".

We are NOT victims!  God intended only Jesus as "victim" (after all, God gave Himself as sacrifice of atonement for our wrongdoings--the "greatest gift a human can give for another is his life"!)  Find meaning and purpose to your sufferings/agony... and give the lessons learned to others!

peace to you all!