So this new T I got stuck with asked me to agree that I'd call him before SH-ing. I was skeptical about this, and said to him, "I only ever SH at night, usually pretty late; do you really want me to call you at 2 in the morning?" And he was totally aghast and said, "oh no, I don't answer the phone after 10pm." Sp I was never really sure what the hell I was supposed to do--call him 12 hours in advance and be like, "hey there T, I'm like 88% sure I'll be in crisis at around 2:15am, wanna talk me down in advance?" (Stupid stupid stupid.)

Anyway I've been feeling really awful in a SH-ish kind of way so today at noonish I texted him and said: "Hi [t], this is [c]. I’m not feeling great. Could you call/text when you have a moment? I’m in clinic 2p-5p but am free before or after that." His response was: "Hi [c], I am back to back today but will call at 1:53! Have some time between appts." That also seemed stupid to me because when I say I'm in clinic from 2-5, I mean that I have a patient who is expecting me to walk in the door at 2pm (something that I thought was self-evident but apparently not.) It also means that at 1:53pm I am physically at work and can't really get into deep psychological crap b/c a) I don't necessarily have access to any kind of private space (it's a clinic at a safety net hospital so rooms are at a premium) b) I can't like be vulnerable and talk about all of my terrible crap and then immediately put on my doctor face and be 100% attentive to my patient one minute later c) what *exactly* did he think we were going to accomplish in seven minutes? (Stupid stupid stupid).

At 1:57 he hadn't called and my MA paged me to say that my 2pm patient was ready so I left the office I'd cloistered myself in and headed over to find my patient. But of course he called at 1:58 and was like, "hey there sorry to call late. I'm just so very busy. Tell me what's going on." And at that point I was annoyed and frazzled and was like, "I can't talk right now, I have a patient waiting." And he was all, "oh no well can you at least tell me what's going on?" to which I answered, "I'm standing outside my patient's room, I can't really get into it right now." And he said some crap about like, "oh are you sure it can wait blah blah blah," to which I responded, "whatever, I'll just deal until tomorrow" (we have a scheduled appt tomorrow) and he said "okay well do call if something urgent comes up" and I agreed to do that and hung up.

I dunno, y'all--did I mis-handle this? I suppose I could have texted back and said that 1:53 wasn't a good time. I guess what stopped me is that it seemed like such an effing stupid suggestion in the first place that I assumed that it meant he wasn't willing to talk after 5. I also could have not answered the phone at 1:58 I guess, but I was afraid that I'd get labeled as a help-seeking-help-rejector (also shrinks get freaked out when you don't answer the phone--learned that one from experience).

I dunno if he is stupid or of I am stupid but the situation is DEFINITELY STUPID and I'm really annoyed about the whole stupid thing.