Psychiatrists in America aren't likely to do much other than prescribe meds. They'll go through drug after drug, if there is no response. I had over 2 and 1/2 years of that, and I got completely disgusted. Some of the drugs made me feel worse.

I'm real disappointed to hear that going to a psychologist didn't help you, bootiebear. Unfortunately, there is great variability in the competency of psychologists. (I found that psychiatrists tend to be more similar to each other.) It's not necessarily true that psychiatrists go "deeper" than psychologists. It tends to be true a lot of the time just because a lot of psychiatrists are better educated than a lot of psychologists. Really top notch psychologists tend to have contracts with important clients like the federal government. That makes them unavailable to someone like you. If you look in the yellow pages, or on-line, and notice the psychologists who do formal evaluations for the courts or the government, then you are looking at the cream of the crop. What they charge, you probably can't pay.

Someone I know real well got the best evaluation of a lifetime from an excellent psychologist who was contracted by the federal government. This was part of a work up ordered by a court. Of course, the government paid a lot to have the psychologist spend a massive amount of time doing the evaluation (over 40 hours.)

What any of these docs can figure out based on one hour once a week is not that much.

I would suggest you speed up the process by asking the psychologist to allow you to sit for a lot of formal written testing . . . or at least some. Just sitting in an office across from each other, shootin' the breeze, tends to go nowhere. That has been my experience.

Ask to be given the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, as a start. Testing shouldn't cost you a fortune, since the psychologist doesn't have to sit with you, while you take it.

Basically, all any of these docs know is what we tell them. So, if you have absolutely no idea as to what damaged your self-esteem, then the docs probably will have no better idea. I'm sorry to sound negative, but I spent an awful lot of time and money to find this out.

You're not worthless. You probably need to have someone in your life who sincerely values you before you will begin to value yourself. That can be hard to find. I hope you do find it.