OK—huge sigh of relief. I expected and anticipated issues with both therapy and my pdoc appointment. Oddly, I left both feeling 100% better than when I went in. With my therapist, she expressed to me that I don’t need to worry about these sessions, especially early on, being super structured or defined goals and monitoring progress. She said she’s happy to adopt that for me, but her style doesn’t rely so heavily on that. She wants to build a rapport. It’s kind of a misunderstanding on my part of her actions – she’s been pretty upfront about using DBT workbook and X Y and Z, but it’s so I can begin to see change and help as soon as I can, not pushing me. She’s not gonna be disappointed if I come into a session, stressed out over family drama (like recently) and not having a clear defined motive or progress to show. If talking helps, talk. If you can’t find the words- that’s ok, let’s explore it. Done deal. So, as far as going into therapy or trying to cancel it out of fear, is not something I need to worry about. She’s there to help, and that’s the only goal. She’s just wanting to make sure I have resources when I need them.

The new psychiatrist is kind of a god send in reassuring me about medicine. I told her my apprehension and my laundry list of meds that I have tried. It was really a unique experience for me to have a conversation with a psychiatrist. My (oldest) psychiatrist literally after the initial intake was a 2-3min session tops. “How are you? Suicidal? Panic attacks? Ok. [insert modest change if I wasn’t feeling great], Give this to the receptionist.” – the next one, while a little more thorough was a hard pill swallow. His attitude was a bit weird and judgmental.
The woman I am seeing now literally took time to walk me through why she thinks my other meds didn’t work, or why I had partial benefit from X Y Z, and walked me through her own thought process, including family history, why it’s taken so long to maybe go this route etc. She even explained why she thinks some of my combinations were exacerbating some issues based on my struggles with them. She even noticed patterns of specific meds (on a lighter end of the spectrum, for specific functions) have given me partial benefit. She really seemed to know what she was talking about and had a gameplan. Her philosophy, while others may take issue with it, I am honestly very relieved about. She’s gonna come at this aggressively. I’ve suffered long enough, and it still is a game of finding the right meds, but we are gonna work something a bit different than previous.

The gameplan is to basically do a combination of Latuda/Trileptal, but we are gonna stagger it, so that I can A) define which is probably giving any side effects that may be untolerable and B) to only add the second med if necessary. She said Latuda is really good for Bipolar type depression, and the best part is I should see benefit within 5-7 days, not having to wait out months to see improvement like with typical antidepressants. I can add the Trileptal if after that time frame I feel it may help. I have a follow-up in two weeks to see how it is going, and of course can reach out if side effects or issues arise. She told me it’s awful to suffer through mental health and you deserve to feel better. It shows real concern for me, and her want to help me find what I need. She did warn me these are “heavier duty” than other meds I’ve taken in the class, so expect benefit, hopefully, but also be considerate of the side effects being a bit more pronounced.
I just feel relieved someone is saying “We are not gonna do more of the same expecting different.” We are gonna approach this another way and hopefully see some hope.

**Off on a side note, she seems to really want to push brand-name this round. My insurance seems to cover it, so it’s not an issue. I just found that interesting. She also mentioned we can also look into other issues/reasons why these meds may not work. Perhaps its about metabolizing the meds. [Point being, she’s looking all around this problem to figure it out. It was refreshing]