Quote:
Originally Posted by LydiaB
My psychiatrist does some psychotherapy with me and it's really ineffective and I've expressed concern that he should stop. All he wants are quick fixes. I understand that this comes from him wanting me to be well, but I've been through a lot and I deserve the time to heal. So this ends in him pushing me to do stuff I don't want to.
Yesterday he told me that I am 23 and most people my age are going to movies, going out on dates and going out with their friends and that I SHOULD too. But I'm not into that stuff. I haven't been to a movie theatre in 4 or 5 years and if going out with my friends involves "bars" like my friends do, then I'm not into that either. I'm very artsy and I'm sort of a loner. I would appreciate for him to tell me express myself in those ways. Go to an art class or join a book club. Something more quiet and reserved. I didn't really think of all this till after the session or I would have told him how I felt. Although I have told him in the past with other things.
He'll tell me things like "you need to move from your apartment, because it's too isolated, move into town, so you can do more". I'll tell him that even if I moved into town I would just be more scared to walk outside. That me and my dog have fun where we live and we don't need to be in the middle of a large town. That just because a majority of the society likes it doesn't mean I am comfortable with it. I like it here. But he'll continue on about how that's part of my problem and we need to fix it.
It's like he's not listening at all and doesn't really want to. After every hour I spend with him I come home much more upset then I was before, because he's attempting to control me in some way. I don't need him to counsel me, because I do have a therapist. But am I allowed to just not talk when he asks me questions? Wouldn't that make me look like a brat? Like he's my psychiatrist and OF COURSE I have to trust him he signed the hippocratic oath.  And if I told anyone otherwise they'd label me unruly or "lacking trust". I used to not talk all the time to psychiatrists and some would become very angry about it. One even stood up and screamed at me "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!? DIDN'T MOMMY SPOON FEED YOU ENOUGH!?" |
RE: Psychiatrists getting angry - some (most that I have dealt with) have a God complex. I refuse to see them - I go to an Internist for my meds.
As to your particular issue, I wish I had known myself as well as you do when I was 23. I did go out to bars, etc, and I was miserable. It has only been in the last several years that I realized I was happiest sitting in my own house reading a good book!
Not that it was easy for me to get this across to my T. We spent a whole session deconstructing the word "loner". I thought he had finally gotten it when I went abroad on vacation by myself. But he didn't. He just mentioned in the last session that I was "social". He seems to have grabbed onto my behavior of my talking to my neighbors. This seems to have "checked off the box" to him that I am not a loner! ROFLOL! (He really does crack me up at times!)
The other thing that I realized with him was if he didn't find something enjoyable then he saw it as a chore! I really got into painting things last year and he was always tutting it as just me doing chores. Finally a neighbor (yes a neighbor!) said "he just doesn't like to paint", which helped me explain it to my T. Now when I talk about sewing (or mending as T calls it), he doesn't tut-tut it as a chore, but
law it took a long time for him to understand that my enjoyments wasn't the same as his.
Unfortunately with your PDoc, your age
is an issue. He's probably 20 years older than you, at least, and sees you as a "kid". You may want to tell him that while going to bars in his twenties was his be-all-end-all, it's not for you. But I expect his God complex will rear it's head, if you deign to talk back.