It seems like every time a dr of any sort finds out I have depression, I have to go to yet another flipping specialist. I wouldn't mind that so much ( they know better than the PCPs what works, what won't, who responds to what, etc.), save that the insurance copay is higher (minor issue) and they ALWAYS, ALWAYS want to send me to yet another G.D. therapist. I've been to more than I can count, told the same histories nad triggers a million nad one times. I'm past those freakin' issues, at least as far as I can. They always give me the same freaking advice, which I'm sure works wonderfully in their happy little office and their wonderful little worlds, but you can't follow that advice and survive in the real world. It's always deal with your emotions, any and all of hem when they are triggered; don't play happy for the outside world; allow yourself to feel your emotions rather than locking them away to sort out later. I can't show all of my emotions right when they're triggered, otherwise I'd hurt those I love, I'd lose my job, and I might do something I'll later regret. It might work in happy, faery tale land, but I'd like to stay out of the nice, soft, padded, rooms and keep my loved ones close to me. While I realize that they probably meant to just not lock them away, it's better (at least for me that I can decipher) to file them away for future review when comfortable with the idea and alone. I realize that may not be the best idea in the world, but it works, gods.....it. Last I checked, if you acted like your naturally depressed self (dysthymia) in the real world, you get patronizing looks,"there, there"s, "cheer up, already"s, "what do you have to be deopresssed about
?", not to mention people bending over backwards to make your life happy, crying every few hours, and enerally being treated like you escaped from the nice men in the white coats. I dare any therapist who advises this to display the classic symptoms of it in public and see if they can deal with the problems that come with it. I get tired of being treated like I could break at any moment, or worse, like a child just coming out of a temper tantrum, all the FREAKING time. That's why I put on a happy face for the world that doesn't know me personally. I abhor being treated like I could break with a bad look or being patronized. I'm sure it's a wonderful theory to completely feel and deal with your emotions upon first apparition, and I do. To a certain extent. However, you can't just haul off and slug you boss the arsewipe for being a patronizing misogynist. I take out any..."bad"... emotions later on, when I'm alone and don't have to worry about
my life going to hell in a handbasket for dealing with my emotions. I deal with what is appropriate to deal with in public right then and there. But there's some stuff you just can't do in public. You can't cry in your cubicle when you boss has made you so angry you're in tears, you can't let the higher- ups see tears or anything that construes weakness if you want to get ahead in the company, you can't tell off a 3 year old who just happened to do the wrong thing at the wrong time, you can't go into a maelstrom of fury, tears, screaming, and wailing in public. It's bad enough that I live in The South, where depression is a character defect, antidepresssants are for Yankees and a crutch for those who can't deal with life,the glass ceiling is no myth fora female in any male dominated field, and exuding aything other than a plastic, happy or drunken, brawling personality is heavily frowned upon. I also have a boss who can't stand the idea that a female is likely to one day take his place and does a better job than him. I also get the man who keeps the world concrete nad tolerable yanked from me across the fricking state by a GD company who said he would be working here in town for a week at a time, starting at 4AM Monday and generally coming home hhome at 11PM Friday, only to leave again on Monday. I have to live with his family (who I do love) while he's away, with his moody, catty sister, his terrible two's neice, and have to make merry with thhem when all I want to do is come back here and be alone. Alone so I can deal with my emotions, alone so I don't become an irritable b... from hell because I have to be around people that know what buttons to push and when to push them, alone so I can have some F...ing privacy. Unfortunately, the only real and effective alone time I get is an hour before sleep. I love them, more than I love some of my blood family, but GD it, I need some me time. I don't need another specialist to give me the same song and dance. I'm pretty much past my past. The places where I'm not are locked up in a cage, I deal with them as I feel I can. A person with fancy letters after their name won't make me ready to face those any earlier. The monster in the cage has shrunk significantly since I've been examining the events as I'm ready to. He won't ever go away. That's a fact. No therapist, drug, hospital, or person could change that. He may shrink to a point that he's the size of an amoeba, but those things are a part of who I am, they won't go away. I don't like being forced to talk to some therapist about
feelings and being made to cry because he ripped
open an old, healed wound again just to watch me bleed so he knew what made me tick. I don't like my happy little corner of oblivion being turned upside down and shaken because he thinks that's the way to get to the monster in the cage and kill it. If I had to have all those old wounds ripped
open yet again so he could pour salt in them to create larger scars in the name of healing, if I had to face some of those other tihings before I was ready, If I had to tell the same d..n stories with the same d..n emotions that I've long since gotten over to yet another ijit, I might just break and be ready for that padded room in the psych ward. Just let me explain the situation, the family history, what works, and what doesn't to the doc. If I never find a med that works (like my mother), I'll figure something out. But for the love of the cosmos, I don't need yet another shrink trying to tell me that my logical, reasoning, engineering perspective on the world is wrong and I need to become an emotional trainwreck like everyone else he's (successfully?!) treated. If I get another shrink, I want one that has worked with engineers and skeptics before, I want one that realizes that rationalizing my emotions away and filing them away for later action is a part of my personality. I wouldn't mind one that could help me stop rationalizing my emotions away, but all the ones who would do that are the ones who want to turn me into a sobbing, gibbering trainwreck of a [opposite of engineer] person. That's not who I am. I will question your ulterior motives if you try to do something I don't want to do. I will fight you tooth and claw if I know, or believe, that whatever you're forcing me to do won't work. I saw what one of those so called "therapists" did to my momma while she was in the hospital. They hopped her up on so many drugs, forced her into so many "therapy" sessions, and took away everything that had ever given her pleasure in the name of "healing" that not only was she not herself at all, but it caused some trauma that she's still trying to get over. The woman in the hospital that was supposed to be my mother was a scarecrow, a shadow of the woman that taught me to read when I was 3, gave me my love of music, taught me the love of roller coasters. IT WASN'T HER!! I've talked her out of
before. The ijits at the hospital only drugged her into submission. They didn't do jack to help her solve her problems, they just ripped
open old wounds. Everytime I saw her, she begged me to help her get out. It broke my heart to leave her there with the vampires and banshees. And Every shrink/ therapist I've ever been to must have gone the same school of quackery: rip it
open for some sadist joy in watching them bleed, turn them into someone they're not, make them into a Stepford smile. I'd love to find one, just one, who'd prove me wrong about
the schooling they recieve, but I won't. It's just the way my life goes. Even if by some freak chance miracle I do get one, my insurance will drop them, or they'll retire, or I'll be able to add them to the already long list of people I gave a mental breakdown. It's better for me and the world if I just deal with this without a therapist. That way, I won't have my personality ripped to shreds in the name of therapy and the world won't have to deal with a backlash of Jen-rage against yet another useless therapist.