Suki22 - Thank you.

Thank you for your post about getting things done in "small increments." I feel encouraged just to read that another person knows how this state of mind can be. The putting of one foot in front of the other seems a monumental task to me right now. I have to break it down, somehow, in order to not be unbearably overwhelmed. It so helps to have someone besides me articulate the feeling. I will be adding your "commercial" technique to my little bag of tricks. Yes, I have to "trick" myself into not thinking about all that I could think about, because then I will not even try. Just what the doctor accused me of. He has no conception of the amount of "trying" that went into putting my shoes on today to get ready to keep my appointment with him. Like others who have been kind enough to post replies here, I do believe that you, Suki22, don't need me to draw you a picture. You know how it can get. You've been here and done this. There is no explaining this to someone who hasn't gone through it. And there double-sure is no way of explaining to the uninitiated what it is like to have this as a recurring feature of one's life. I am very grateful to feel heard and understood. Why that should feel so gratifying I can't explain either, but it helps a lot.

Thank you for your second post, which is a much needed kindness, coming to me as I am licking my wounds, into which the pdoc managed to pour some salt. I don't think he's a bad guy. I do think that the facility he's in is majorly dysfunctional and that the standard of care there is abysmally low.

I was rude to him. It seems that I am expected to be a shining model of tolerance in the face of highly disorganized treatment. He is the 3rd pdoc assigned to me over the past 18 months. I guess the outgoing pdocs don't talk to the incoming pdocs. So I start from square one with each new pdoc. I used to be a nurse. When I would turn over the care of a patient to an on-coming nurse, it would be expected that I would inform her of anything important that I had learned that might be of use to her in planning the care that she would give. I don't understand the seeming absence of accountability that I am finding is the norm in the way this place conducts its care of clients. During my career, I could have been (and more or less was) crucified for less. They live such privileged existences - these apprentice physicians - unencumbered by much responsibility to be answerable for much of anything. This seems to be peculiarly an issue with docs doing residencies in psychiatry. (Maybe things are better elsewhere, but this is where I am.) I am exhausted with explaining the same things over and over . . . and hearing the same shallow banalities repeatedly . . . about what would be good for a person with depression.

If I could be the person that they want me to be, then I don't think I would need to be going to a psychiatric care center.

The understanding offered by peers is a blessing that never ceases to amaze me. I only hope that, once in a while, I make some similar kind of sense to another in need of empathy and compassion.