[UPDATED] Met with (new) therapist today

[Asche]

I've been feeling chronically tired and not right for almost a year now, and lately I've been noticing that I'm having trouble managing basic tasks in life.  For me, this is usually a sign of depression, especially when I feel actual aversion when I try to do anything besides lie in bed (or surf the web )  It's an effort of will to clean the apartment, or work on skirts and dresses, or make music, or call anyone, or attack my tasks at work, and most of the time I can't manage it.

This happened before, about 20 years ago, and anti-depressants helped me function, though they didn't make me exactly happy (more just anaesthetized.)  I had a regular therapist at the time, but terminated about 5 years ago.  I did not want to go back to her because I felt she was not willing to listen to what I felt about my gender issues: she knew the Right Answer, and if I didn't agree, I was just resisting and being argumentative.  I'd had the same problem with some other issues, but she was good with a lot of things.  But I'd kind of run out of issues that she was helpful with.

So I started the laborious task of finding a therapist, then a meds doctor, so I can start anti-depressants.  (My understanding is that it's not good to take meds if you're not seeing a therapist regularly.)  It took me a month to call up a therapist I know socially to get some referrals, then several weeks to actually call someone.  I finally went this morning.

It's a man, which I'm not sure about.  I'm kind of wary of people in general (each step of trust takes a long time), but especially wary of men.  (And flat-out on red alert around masculine men.)  But so far, this guy didn't trigger my defenses.

I wore a calf-length skirt and dark red tights that matched my shirt.  I've worn it out and about before.  I figured, this is who I am, so if he's going to get weird about it, better sooner than later.  We went through the usual inventory of family, marital status, kids, job, etc.  Only near the end did he ask about how I was dressed.  I told him this is how I dress most of the time when I'm not at the office.  He asked if I got much grief about it and seemed surprised that it was mostly a non-issue.  I also told about how I'd never been able to get anywhere with the 1950's-60's Southern ideal of a Real Man (Real Boy) and had kind of told it where it could go a long time ago.

When he asked me what my goals were for therapy, other than getting meds, I just said the first thing that popped into my head: that I'd like to get into an intimate relationship again, but can't figure out where to begin.  Partly that I'm still gun-shy from my marriage, which in my view almost killed me, partly that my gender presentation complicates things, and partly that I've never been very good at relating to people.

I'm not sure how this all relates to the topic of this forum (Androgyny), other than my gender presentation.  If this is the wrong place, feel free to move it.

Anyway, I'm planning to see him for a few weeks and see how it goes.  It feels funny starting again....

[Taka]

not the wrong place. we also talk about other things than just gender and presentation. (have you read the last couple of pages in the thread that can't be derailed? if not, do. you'll get to see ativan sharing some of their wisdom, about therapy and meds.)

i hope therapy will work for you this time. it doesn't always feel horrible to be depressed, but it sure isn't fun either.

[Asche]

it doesn't always feel horrible to be depressed, but it sure isn't fun either.

For me, being depressed means not feeling much of anything.  I think of it as a preview to what it's like to be dead.

It may sound strange, but I'd rather feel pain (well, maybe not extreme pain) than nothing at all.  It proves I'm alive.

[Taka]

For me, being depressed means not feeling much of anything.  I think of it as a preview to what it's like to be dead.

It may sound strange, but I'd rather feel pain (well, maybe not extreme pain) than nothing at all.  It proves I'm alive.

heh, just what i meant.
depression mixed with anxiety is horrible though. rather than feeling dead, i'll feel like i'd be better off dead. the pain from anxiety is bad. any other pain would be better than no emotions at all.

[Asche]

depression mixed with anxiety is horrible though. rather than feeling dead, i'll feel like i'd be better off dead.

I suspect that there's anxiety (along with other stuff) under my depression, but I can't feel it.

[Taka]

feeling the anxiety is horrible. it can become bad enough that i suddenly can't feel parts of my body or i forget for a moment either how to move my body or any reason why i should. it's not too fun when all i can do is stare into a wall searching for enough reason to even try to survive, and a way that i can actually manage to do so. a bit like losing my balance when standing on the edge of a cliff. combine that with depression, and it gets really difficult to decide whether or not to try to regain balance before it's way to late.

[Taka]

or maybe i'll have to take that back. examining the feeling once more make it seem like anxiety is more an expression of my will to live. thought it interferes too much with the ability to do so...

[Taka]

i'm afraid that i don't trust therapists enough. when i was a student, i tried seeing a therapist because i do know i have a problem. but she just gave me this test with all kind of questions about how i'd been feeling the last week. that test doesn't work on cyclic depression and anxiety. what does the fairly good last week matter if once a month i'll withdraw to a closed space and do my best to avoid having to leave it? they still called me in to a second appointment, but i only know because i got the bill after not showing up. i didn't get their letter and nobody called me. that's how much patients matter to most of those folks, heh.
(i know there are some good ones, but they're just too hard to find and even harder to get an appointment with)

i've both walked into the street and forgotten to cross it when the cars stopped. not because it seemed like a good idea, but more like i forgot why or why not. would be interesting if therapists tried asking "have you ever...?" instead of just about the last week. being dismissed because i haven't been suicidal for a week doesn't mean a person can't get suicidal because of the dismissal.

kind of scary to read you post though, ativan. reminds me too much of personal experiences, and how close i've been to ending my life out of carelessness caused by depression rather than active suicidality. some times i think the only reason i'm doing better now is that i've found out that my symptoms are cyclic, so i can always cling to the knowledge that it will pass.

[Asche]

when i was a student, i tried seeing a therapist because i do know i have a problem. but she just gave me this test with all kind of questions about how i'd been feeling the last week.

Unfortunately, in my experience, most school therapists are not any good with anything but the routine adjustment problems lots of students have.  Confront them with a Real Mental Illness(tm), especially one that doesn't present exactly like the ones that they got in social work school, and they don't even recognize that there's anything going on.  None of the school psychologists or social workers in my son's schools recognized his Asperger Syndrome, even after we told them about it.  (They wrote it down in his records, but they didn't actually understand anything.)

My impression is that most therapists in private practice aren't much better.  The good ones that we've encountered we got from personal recommendations from other good therapists.  When I went out and interviewed therapists for my younger son (the first one we got recommended to us had the school-social-worker mentality.  Come to think of it, he was recommended by a school social worker), I went through a half-dozen, none of whom I thought were any better than what he had.

[Taka]

she was in public health care. but that didn't make the system any better.

Which brings me to a point of feeling ineffective at helping anyone here.
Which is how I feel about most of what I have to say.
[etc.]

you've helped me a lot, ativan. i won't have you doubting this fact.
i'm sorry if my occasional rants worry you or make you feel helpless. the response i get from you is worth more than what most therapists would be able to give me, and i love to read your posts. it's almost like i abuse the safety i feel at this little part of the internets to get some things off my chest and sort out my thoughts so i'm better prepared to go to the lengths i will have to go to in order to get where i want to be.
i at least, am very glad you're here.

[Asche]

I've had three appointments so far.  I'm wondering if this is the right therapist for me.  There haven't been any obvious problems, but I guess I'd hoped that somehow by now things would magically be better, and so far, we've just been plodding along, talking about my past and my present.  Sometimes I get the feeling that it's going to turn out that everything is my fault and if I would just do the Right Thing, I would have lots of friends, a girlfriend, and I would feel connected and at home everywhere.  And that I've been walking away from people and Good Things and pushing them away out of some neurotic need.  I've been able to hold myself together by reciting as a mantra, "I am what I am, and for better or worse, this is who I am."  Maybe I'm afraid if I look too closely, the mantra will stop working and I''ll fall apart and will end up spending the remaining 20-30 years of my life as just another verse in Eleanor Rigby.

Oh, a nice link I found:  Ten Lies Depression Tells You.  I believe most of them, esp. number 2.

[Edit: fix URL -- @#$%^ BB code]

[Antonia J]

Three appointments and you're still there. I'd call that a good sign.
If you are getting along, if it is getting more comfortable for you, it's going right.
The therapist works for you, that's always important to remember.
If they seem to be leading you, say so. If it doesn't correct itself, look elsewhere.
But it is a give and take kind of thing and even after three appointments, you will still be doing that.
An hour is never enough time. I could spend three hours at a time and still think I should have more time.
It does take time, but the fact that you're still there is positive, if you're getting anywhere.

There is a lot of questions you both have, theirs is pretty much the standard stuff.
Don't be afraid to push the conversation in the direction you want. It does make their job a little easier.
They don't have to ask questions to get information. Take the lead when you're comfortable doing so.
Ask your questions and state if you're satisfied with their answer.
All this kind of stuff makes it easier to get where you want to be in therapy.
It's difficult, and it takes time.
I see my therapist weekly, and my new one is pretty good after a couple months.
Therapy isn't a test of wills and there isn't going to be any magic words from them.
They are there to guide you along in your quest to understand.
Sounds like you're doing good.
Just what you posted is the kind of stuff your therapist is there for.
Your mantra should be more of 'Yes I Am.' You have the answers and the knowledge to move forward.
You just need to find it and your therapist is there to help you do just that.
The link didn't work for me, but I think I have a pretty good idea about those lies.
I have to deal with them on a regular basis. They are hard to get past.
It's not really all that hard, but it does take effort, sometimes a lot of effort.
You get out what you put into it. So hang in there, it does get better.
It really does.
Ativan

Ativan - I am at a low point today and opened this thread by accident on my mobile.  Your last two posts really touched and connected with me.  Thanks for taking the time to share thoughts.  You said a few things I really needed to hear.  I  identify female/genderqueer, and while femme am very non-binary. Thanks for being you.

[Asche]

The link didn't work for me,

Fixed.  BB code was inserting junk, due to quotes (I can never tell when quotes are mandatory and when forbidden.)

So hang in there, it does get better.
It really does.
Ativan

So they say.  But I only have so many years left for that to happen.

And I've known too many people for whom time ran out before things improved.  (Whether they improved afterwards is a theological question.)

[Taka]

just a little something about things getting better...

i recently had an epiphany. did you read about it?
the funny thing about this, is that it made me something like 1000% happier than before. or maybe that is totally wrong, because it's more like i found happiness where earlier i only saw misery.
but my life hasn't changed at all. everything is still the same. i get sad and angry and happy about all the same things. people stress me out, work is hell (but will luckily become much better very soon now).
but i'm happy. happier than i've been for years.

happiness, i learned, is not as much about the situation you're in, as in your outlook on life. i always suspected that might be it, but suddenly experiencing it was weird.

here i was thinking that everything would get better if i could just get this and that or change something or whatever.
what actually made things better was the deep realization that i am. and all my prior misery became worth living through for this single moment. i could never have experienced this epiphany if i didn't have all the other experiences that led up to the moment where everything made sense.

i don't know what will make everything better for you. just please try to believe me when i say that it can get better. and that "better" is so different from the previous state that you're likely to find it worth all your struggles to get there.

there are people who've found happiness at the end of their life too. i think they were truly happy when that happened.

[Lo]

Oh, a nice link I found:  Ten Lies Depression Tells You.  I believe most of them, esp. number 2.

[Edit: fix URL -- @#$%^ BB code]

That was refreshing to read, thanks. Those lies are so easy to swallow. :\

I've been to 6 therapists in my life-- the first was because I was having suicidal ideations when I was 8. The rest were because things ever felt right. I'd always just felt like I was alive, just an organic mass managing to get by somehow. I figured there had to be more than that. So the last 3 I've sat down during the first session and said "I have depression". And I keep telling them that throughout my time with them, but it always seems to fall on deaf ears somehow. All of them wanted to pin my unhappiness on something else or just ignore the problems altogether. I grew up thinking that getting a diagnosis for anything mood and mind-related was extremely difficult, that the system was against you, that the people who got diagnosed were a lucky few who saw a rare sort of doctor I didn't have access to. It has occurred to me, literally this year, that it shouldn't be that hard, and that I have a right to treatment that doesn't involve talking in circles.

Anyways, this thread gives me hope.

I've got an appointment with my GP next friday, so I'm coming at this from an angle I've never thought to try before. I hope I don't get a referral... I can't quite afford to see someone on a regular basis, and I can't really afford to put off getting medication for much longer. My job's on the line.

[Asche]

I got a recommendation for a meds MD and went in yesterday for a consultation.  We talked for an hour, and he prescribed wellbutrin.  He thought that what I'd been taking before (serzone) wasn't the medication category he would have chosen for me.  I took my first dose this morning, I hope to have some idea in a week or two whether it helps.  My impression is that there's a lot of trial-and-error in this.

As part of my attempt to dig out of my emotional (and to some extent physical) midden, I up and bought a new couch.  (It's not actually here yet, they'll deliver in a week and a half.)  The old one was one that had been banished to a friend's kids' playroom and did double duty as a cat scratching post and they were otherwise going to throw out -- 20 years ago.  It went instead to my home office and then was where I slept for the last 1 1/2 years of my marriage (and came with me when I moved out.)  The bracing under the cushions has broken, so you're almost sitting on the floor.  I actually went with the kids to look for couches last summer (2013? 2012?  can't remember), but lost the will to actually buy one.  It will be nice to have at least something in my apartment that I wouldn't be ashamed to have guests see.

Now all I have to do is to vacuum -- and pick up enough that the vacuum cleaner won't jam.  Maybe someday I might -- dare I dream so high? -- clean the bathroom.  I'm not yet ready to even think about the piles of papers and junk.

I'm reminded of a comment in "Hyperbole and a Half"'s post Adventures in Depression where she says she spent weeks surfing the web on a pile of dirty laundry because she couldn't motivate herself to take it to the washing machine.  (Be sure and see Part Two)

[LordKAT]

It took closer to 3 weeks for wellbutrin to reach levels that helped. I hope it works for you.

[Asche]

Update on my "new" therapist.

Back in October, I posted: I'm wondering if this is the right therapist for me.

I've basically decided he is not and that today's session will be my last (with him.)  It's my policy to sleep on any important decision, but I don't think I'll feel any different tomorrow.  As I see it, I'm not terminating a theraputic relationship, because I never had one in the first place.

I've realized that I need some emotional feedback, some sense that the therapist is on my side and empathizes with what I'm going through.  This one responded to anything I brought up (or even things he brought up) in an emotionally sterile, analytic and skeptical way.  I already don't trust myself -- my abilities or my perceptions -- and every time he opened his mouth, it contributed to my sense of self-distrust.  (Like the experience I described in Losing Either Way)  It doesn't help that I feel like I'm nearing the end of my rope.  I don't have the emotional resources to look past the way he alienates me from him and myself.

I brought this up today -- that I felt no emotional connection, that I couldn't say anything important because I couldn't trust him, that I always felt like I was a frog he was dissecting -- and as always he simply turned it into my problem, in his detached way.  He said that I seemed to want a "supportive" relationship (well, duh!), but he believed a "neutral position" (I'd say emotionally detached) was the "most helpful" to the patient, and in particular to me.  He said that I was always looking for people who would understand me and being disappointed when they don't understand me perfectly.  (Once again, the problem is that Something Is Wrong with me.)  We left it that I would let him know in a day or two if I will continue, but in my mind, I knew what I'd say.

On the drive home, I shifted out of defensive mode and realized that I was relieved at the idea of never seeing him again and never having to defend myself against him again.  I have a hard time letting go of anything that has the appearance of a relationship, regardless of how empty or harmful it is, so IMHO the fact that I can walk away from this without a twinge of regret tells me how wrong he was for me.  My only regret is that I wasted four months seeing him.

So it's time to try out the next therapist on the list I got back in September.  I also realize that I have to figure out how to tell whether a therapist is someone I can trust or not in less than four months.

[ativan]

Trust being the issue. If you don't feel any within a few minutes of meeting them, move on to the next.
Therapists should be there for you, not some stupid set of standards.
If I don't feel comfortable within say ten minutes, why would I expect to feel any different in the next ten?
Cold clinical is not therapy. I left one for the same reason's.
Hope you find the therapist you deserve and want.
Ativan

[Taka]

the first appointment exists for you to find out whether or not you even like the therapist.
if you feel uncomfortable in any way, then... you should leave.
if you have seriously bad trust issues, it might be a point to meet someone a second time even if you didn't feel like you could trust them particularly much the first time. i know that ten minutes is nowhere near enough for me to know whether or not i can start trusting a person for real.

though, if i tried trusting my instinct that might change. thinking back, i realize that the only people i've found it in me to trust a little were people i liked from the first time our eyes met. for one person, the feeling i got after barely greeting him, was something like "thank god, i can trust this person!" he was sitting right net to a person who looked like couldn't be trusted in the least. my instinct proved right, and the he turned out to be the nicest guy i've ever met.

so... this is kinda funny, because you just made me realize how to shop for therapists. heh, i might be able to do this thing now. or maybe not, it's not like there's any abundance to choose from in these tiny communities...