Day 4 Most harmful thing said by a doctor

I think that the most troubling thing I have heard from a doctor had to do with my mental health, not my physical health.
Prior to seeing the therapist, I had three episodes of clinical depression which I recovered from. I was concerned about the possibility of having more. She said that some people are predisposed to depression and based on my history I seem to be one of them.
This had the unintended consequence of making me afraid of my sadness and bad moods. Whenever I had a bad mood, I would worry that I would slide into depression. So that fear was always there in the background, sometimes consciously but I think sometimes unconsciously as well.
I did do healthy things to improve my mood, but I think I this compounded my pre-existing tendency to repress my sadness. Or maybe not so much prepress it, but muffle it a little bit. For example, very sad might come through as just a little sad.
I have a tendency to be afraid of my feelings. I am coming to realize that there is a grand irony to repressing emotions and emotional strength. When you repress emotions, when one finally escapes and goes public, it is pretty strong, sometimes overwhelming. When they come out people often accuse me of over-reacting or blowing things out proportion or inappropriate outburst or something similar. So then I think, I really need to keep my emotions clamped down because they are so strong and almost out of control. The irony is that if I did not repress them, I probably would not get overly emotional.

 

I had a shrink write in my file that i would most likely have depression all my life. i read it when i needed a copy of my file trying to get health insurance. I thought to myself "no I will not". I was right, and he was dead wrong.

Violent outbursts are one of the personality traits not the expression of healthy disagreement or healthy anger. I have made progress on expressing healthy disagreement. I have not been able to express healthy anger because I don't feel it until it becomes volcanic. It turns into physical pain or the dark cloud floating into my head. Journaling helps me find the buried anger.

 

I too don't often notice I am angry about something until later, when I can think up numerous responses I could have given. As I missed my chance to vent, scenes have played over and over in my head, sometimes for years. More recently I have been working on noticing what gets my back up (now there's a pun) and working out a response suited to the situation and the person. I recognise that it is okay to get angry and that a person or situation is just pressing one of those buttons/triggers that stem from my past. For instance one of my biggest triggers is being accused of something I didn't do. Whoa, watch out if you do this to me. Talk about volcanic. This one needs some major tuning.

If doctors are thought to be guessing about physical conditions based on MRI scans, it stands to reason they along with therapists would take guesses about one's mental health too. Years ago my brother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and he was actually having psychotic episodes. However my mother, with no medical or mental health training whatsoever, read some books, decided this was a misdiagnosis, took brother off to another shrink where he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, put on more appropriate drug and was finally stabilised. I appreciate it is difficult to make these diagnoses but to say to someone that they are predisposed to depression is like saying to someone that they will always be in pain whatever they do. Plenty of people have experienced this response from doctors and other professionals. Fortunately they have ended up here to heal for real.

 

I still think about writing this Shrink Doctor a letter saying "see, you SOB, you were wrong about everything." Thanks goodness I only saw him a few times.

 

Although Ive seen a few therapists over the years..I had to eventually come to the conclusion that they are only people... adding up the pieces and trying to predict the outcomes for various patients. In the end I took what I wanted... and dumped the stuff I felt was wrong... that way I didnt carry away anything prickly.

 

My main gripe was....maybe 30 years ago..once my migrain doc read that I was seeing a therapist his comments were..... "I think we will leave you with the therapist now" I took that to mean.... youre nuts so you dont need us anymore.... Just the way he said it..with a half yawn as he put my file away.
:*( that made me take a different view and really killed a lot of my trust in doctors.