Oh, GAWD.
Another fight with my sister this morning. If you can call it a fight when one person stands there and yells for 10 minutes nonstop and the other just stands there, shifting from foot to foot, waiting for the onslaught to stop, then walks away.
Someone said to me that she couldn't believe I'm really a professional communicator, because I seem to have zero assertiveness skills.
I didn't have good communication modeled for me as a child. My parents' method of normal conversation was to scream angrily at each other at the top of their lungs. Periodically it escalated into violence. On the occasions I attempted to stand up for myself, I either got hit or cussed out and told I was a worthless piece of ***** and how dare I talk back to my parents, you ungrateful, disrespectful little snot.
Consequently, I don't like speaking up.
I'm afraid of it causing more problems than it starts. I'm also never quite sure that I have the RIGHT to speak up.
Case in point: My pdoc switched one of my meds Tuesday. He has taken me off the Risperdal before. I have been on it for 7 years. I like it. It works. I have never had side effects from it. I have been taking 2 mg at bedtime forever. He told me to, effective immediately, take .5 mg at bedtime for one week, then pitch anything I had left, because I wasn't going to be taking it anymore. In the meantime, I am taking what I have come to find out is double the amount of Geodon that people usually start at, and soon to be quadruple (tonight is my last night at 40 mg).
I am on the Geodon because I miss the Lamictal's mood stabilizing properties, but I can't have true mood stabilizers anymore. Risperdal has more antidepressant properties than mood stabilizing ones, even though both meds are really antipsychotics in the first place.
A couple of years ago, he decided he was going to take me off Risperdal and put me on Zyprexa instead. He did the same thing, told me to take .5 mg for a week and then stop it completely. I followed directions. 36 hours after having taken my last Risperdal, I was actively suicidal. I called and told him so. He put me back on and said, and I remember this clearly, "Well, I've learned 2 things from this. One is that we were wrong that it wasn't working anymore. The other is, next time I try to take you off it, I'm going to do it a helluva lot more slowly!"
Hesitantly, Tuesday, I reminded him of what happened the last time I went off Risperdal. His response was, then take .5 mg for TWO weeks, and stop it. Just stop it in enough time before your next appointment so that we can tell if the Geodon's working.
I've been here before. I should have argued. But internally, I said, "WTF, he's the guy with the MD," and let it go. We will see what happens when I cut out the Risperdal, although I already have a pretty good guess.
My sister's name is on the mortgage to this house. She buys the food, pays the electric bill, etc. I am a guest. Consequently, she is in a position of "authority," as I apparently see it at some level. (And she becomes more our mother every day!)
She said something this morning that was SO typical of something my mom would have (and has) said to me, and it just cut me to the quick. Did I say anything? No. I went downstairs, waited for her to leave the house, and have cried most of the rest of the day. I have thought and thought about sending her an email, because I prefer to communicate in writing after I've had time to process my thoughts and feelings. But it probably won't happen, because I'm pretty sure she doesn't want to hear what I have to say, even though I know myself way better than she does.
It's not that I wouldn't like to be assertive, it's that ultimately, I assume my opinion means nothing. And usually that turns out to be the case. So why bother?
I am mildly more assertive with my friends, though for the most part, especially since I've been without a job, since they pay my way to whatever we do, I sit down and shut up and let them make all the decisions, figuring I don't really deserve a say in the matter.
Anybody else struggle with this?
Candy