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eskielover · Aug 23, 2009, 04:14 PM

Fall is a very difficult time of the year for me, but my stress levels have been growing higher lately with the smallest of triggers & lack of sleep, that hasn't added to my ability deal with the things that are going on.

I came to the realization the other morning that it was time to go on another search to find a Therapist that would work. We had a large storm the night before & when I let my dogs out for their potty walk, I was walking around my farm. Tree branches down all over the place, the farm was looking overgrown, & an instant overwhelmed feeling hit me, knowing that I am caring for my farm by myself without the finances to really maintain it in the way it needs to be maintained & my own energy level for doing everything is not always there even though I am doing a pretty good job.

That overwhelmed feeling followed me into the grocery store that morning when I was picking up a few things & all of a sudden, I felt this really spacey floating feeling (my California pdoc called it depersonalization). It had only hit me a few times after I moved here & they were only after very stressful situations like a huge auto accident in front of my house & at Thanksgiving dinner with my friends last year which was a trigger from the last Thanksgiving dinner I had with my Mother when she was dying of cancer & before the trauma. The fall feel in the air is also a huge trigger for me.

I tried the first year to find a T, but he was too expensive even on top of my medicare coverage.....besides, all he did was sit there & listen......I spent 10 years with my California psychologist that sat there & listened too & I never seemed to get anywhere.....I mean really, my eskies are quite capable of sitting there & listening to me talk endlessly.....why should I pay someone who gives me less feedback than my eskies......at least I get slurpy kisses & warn snuggles from them.

Last year after the last time I got that spacey feeling, I tried to go to the T that my friend went to, but she was unable to handle my "complexities" & gave me the name of several other psychologists. Called them & they wouldn't even consider accepting medicare so they gave me the name of another psychologist. I went to him one time. He also wouldn't take medicare, but told me I could pay him off for the rest of my life. Not exactly in those words, but he figured he would end up seeing me enough weeks that it was going to end up around $5000......on a budget of less than $25/month...lol.....that's the rest of my life in my book. That wouldn't have been so bad except listening to his philosophy: "Life is to Live, Love, & be happy nothing else is even optional"....so he wasn't going to bother dealing what I was dealing with in my everyday life???? I sure wasn't going to spend that much money finding out.

So I have been coping as best as I could alone, through the bad time of the year with the anniversary(4 years should be getting better) of all the trauma stuff that happened with my Mother, & then through the ice storm & the battle with the electric company......along with finding out how bad I was cheated on the new heat pump system

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So, even though I probably imagined the fall feeling in the air, I put a call into the Comp Care mental health group they have here in the area. I called the one in the town next to mine.....20 minutes away.....& they put me through to the appointment people. They asked me if I would like to go to the one in my own town, but this person from the huge Los Angeles area is not willing to go to a local office where everyone in my little small town might see me & without any knowledge of what I am going through, leaves it open for nothing but gossip.....not about to go there.

With my past experiences with psychologists, I have no idea what to expect, but I am hoping for the best this time around....& also know that they do take medicare & aren't supposed to charge an arm & a leg over what medicare pays since I don't have any extra money each month for things like this......but feel I am really in need of some help getting through this year & hopefully, I will feel that I am getting enough real help for the long term.

Trying to think very positive about this.....feel I have gone through enough jerks to finally come across one good one in my life.

I had one psychologist that I went to in California while I was in my darkest depression.....she was also a dressage horse rider that showed in the same shows that I did (how much fun is that???)...think the one thing that really got me was how badly she trivialized the trauma I had gone through with the home care person & my Mothers death. She had the nerve to compare at the same level, her grandmother's home care person stealing a bottle of wine she had wanted, to my living in the situation & catching the person in several of the crimes & sort of catehing her in others along with having the police called to accuse me of abusing my mother & then having my mother OD'ed by her on the morphine. That was when I really lost my faith in her treating me while I was waiting for my other psychologist to recover from his back surgery. The nightmares were going strong at the time & that was the kind of therapy she provided

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I have to say, I don't have much faith in the psychology field from my past experiences & my pdoc wasn't much better in the fact he was telling me that those things weren't happening & that it was all in my head because I was loosing so much weight.....yea, from the stress of dealing with all of that & it really did happen.....I had never had a situation in all my time with my pdoc where I wasn't completely 100% aware of what was happening to me or around me, so how he came up with that & refused to support me in what was happening to me (like everyone else, no one could believe that something that horrible could happen to someone like my Mother who reliativly had nothing but her house & a little bit of inheritance left).

I think why I still struggle with what happened is that there wasn't the closure that there should have been (like the woman being put in prison) since APS lost the complaint from both the hospital & from me (assuming that the hospital social worker ever filed it with them). Think that fear of having something horrible happening around me & no one even paying attention is something that has really stuck with me & not easy to shake.

Hopefully I will find some help this time.,
Debbie