I went to the "intake consult" with a doc and was declared as having PTSD ... duh!

I was so scared going in and was way nervous while in the discussion, broke down crying many times. Mostly told the truth. Told some lies.

I had a list of things that are symptomatic of ptsd, but i didn't give it to her when i found this was just intake. She really didn't care about all the details, just wanted me to give her yes/no answers or answer from a list of never, sometimes, often, very often, always ... or something like that.

When i asked about the confidentiality, she said no one could go into that part of my file unless they had a reason to do so. So I asked specifics. She said anyone accessing my records could see that I had a mental health section that required special access, but only if they felt like it was important to their work would they go into it. Dermatology or eye clinic, for example wouldn't go in there, but my primary care doctor could if he wanted. So what it boils down to is that anyone who has access to my medical records can access it based upon their own determination as to whether it is important to their work ... so I suppose I'll only be giving partial information as we go along

She asked why I cared about this and i told her i didn't trust anyone, especially people who can access my medical records. She asked if i trusted her, and i told her especially not her.

One of the questions was about whether I have thoughts of suicide. I delayed my response and then said i didn't want to answer because she had already told me that she would have to report only two things of our discussion, one if I was a threat to others or a threat to myself.

She explained that there are two kinds of suicide thoughts, active and passive. The active is what she would have to report, if I had thoughts of immediate suicide and the noose was already hanging and waiting. The other is passive where I had sometimes thought that maybe suicide would solve some of these problems. i told her passive.

She is so young and her only experience with ppl like me is in the class room or on her computer ... I couldn't tell her what is inside me. I'll only be working with her as she meets to update progress; otherwise, it will be other shrinks.

Scheduled for many weeks of therapy individual and group ... I promised that I'd try to go. If I worked up the courage to go to the intake, perhaps I can get the courage up to go to the therapy.

I left there with a feeling of elation. I was almost ecstatic that I'd finally started this process. And the feeling stuck with me until I was answering my wife's questions about the meeting. I told almost everything, but eventually her continuing questions turned that elation into that well-know feeling of distress. I had to compartmentalize my emotions so i could continue answering her questions. She is very supportive of all of this, and it isn't her fault that I had that mood shift.

The interval in my mood swings is becoming shorter and shorter. I find that I can now go in 5 min from the happy side of the pendulum to the distressed side. Several times since the meeting with the intake doc, I've almost broken down in tears. Last night sleep was the worst I've had in years. I was awake about every 30 min with distressing thoughts. We talked a little about this in the meeting yesterday, and doc said that the shrink would prescribe for me something to help control those mood swings and nightmares, but I won't even see that shrink for a couple months.

I wonder whether I should call back the intake doc and see if she can go ahead and prescribe something in the interim.

Thanks (I think) to all of you who have encouraged me over the years to go for Therapy... I still feel in my bones that this is the beginning of the end, that it might be of some help to me, but that it will damage our family some way. i feel like it is surrendering to the enemy.