My mom was telling me the other day that she had been to see a psychiatrist for diagnosis of her cognitive difficulties and memory-related problems (is it Alzheimers? something else?). We talked about her visit to this pdoc and since we were on the topic, I shared with her that I had recently begun seeing a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I told her my therapist had referred me to her because I had a lot of ADD-like symptoms. My mom, said, what's ADD? I said, "Attentition Deficit Disorder." She said, "Phooey, you don't have ADD." She sounded kind of angry. I said, well, my therapist didn't say I had it, just that I had symptoms consistent with it and he referred me to this specialist for help with diagnosis. My symptoms could be caused by something besides ADD and the PNP is looking into that. She is giving me tests for ADD..." As soon as I said "ADD", she interrupted me and said again forcefully, "Phooey." She was really invested in my not having ADD. I dropped the topic by trying to minimize the ADD possibility. I didn't dare tell her the PNP had prescribed medication to help with my symptoms. My mom just seemed so disturbed and rejecting of it. It made me feel kind of bad. Why should she care so much? Shouldn't she want to see me work on symptoms that are negatively affecting my life? Does she me as perfect or something?

Sheeesh, I'm never telling her anything again. It is a good thing I never mentioned to her that a couple of years ago I had major clinical depression.