Yea! Appointment day at last!

Well today was the big day. After much much extremely trying (understatement) effort these past months and with the waiting of the opening in the place I finally got in (and can pretty well afford!) I now have a local actual professional in my court! A PMHNP (Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practioner), so lesser trained than a P-doc, but it's like a two-fer as they do both meds and therapy, which is a more economical approach for me right now (no insurance, barely employed, etc).

So! Got all my stuff together yesterday and Google Mapped how to get there. Left extra time. Realized this morning that I should stop by the ATM and get $ out. It rejected my PIN! Not a good start, but only a mini-launch. Then I was right in the zone (after 1/2 hour drive) and got lost. Oh yes. I pulled over to consult my maps, but by this point, it was time to be there and I was a shaking stressing mess. Had to turn my car off because I was vibrating harder than it was! I couldn't even find where I was on the map and trying to look at it, the roads were just jumping all over the place. I was in a state. Made a call over there and got the answering machine and left a message. I just *barely* kept from crying. There was no being able to hide the meltdown in my voice or message. At all. (And this may seem funny, but I actually think I'm doing quite well now. Good grief. Maybe not so much! Lol.)

Backtracked and after driving around a couple plaza parking lots managed to get to an area it looked like it might be. Drove past the sign indicating *other* addresses in that complex when I looked over and saw her name on one of the entrances! Yea! Got in there to about a zillion pieces of paperwork. Sheesh it was hard to concentrate. My writing was all over the place, still shaking and trying to concentrate and not to eat up too much time. (And you know how they always have some of those questions where you're just thinking... holy cow, where to start! So I just put something like "too much") Some hanging around time. Breathe. And this was so weird. They haven't been able to connect via my phone! (I know it's working as others can get through.) Double checked it and even tried it while I was waiting. No go. Very weird.

Went in and talked, covered quite a bit of ground. It went very well and I quite like her. Just the right amount of verbal bounce back, where you're not left doing all the talking, and she always managed to keep the conversation focused to my experience. Good. Very personable. I was still pretty keyed up between the morning's events and general nervousness, so I'm sure it was a challenge for her to keep me somewhat on track, lol! (Or even keep up -- I'm either very quiet or a verbal hurricane! Hehe, which is probably fairly obvious by now via posts!) I confessed my self-adjusted med thing and she upped it more yet.

Sooooo, good. I'm a relieved and happy camper over this. We also spoke a bit about me trying the generic (the brand on the main one costs way more than I can actually afford). Now that I don't feel like I'm flying entirely without a net, I will give it a go. I was always so afraid to without anyone in my psych corner since the move. Too many changes and stress and no docs, so I knew that if it went bad I'd lose it altogether, and I just couldn't chance it, however economically enticing it was.

(She was picking up right away on something my old P-doc had been hinting at. ADHD. I've always resisted this as I had really good grades. Yeah, I know, but that was my logic, such as it was. Glancing over the thing I have to fill out, chuckle... oh sheesh . She'd encouraged looking up some information about it. So I thought where better to start than PC?! I pulled up the page and started in, and pretty soon found myself saying inside, "ack! I can't read all this!" It wasn't even that much. Catching myself thinking this was like a lightning bolt, and I just started laughing at the irony. Ok. Maybe they're on to something. Lol. My BF is supposed to weigh in on this questionaire too. That should be interesting.)

So glad to be able to share some good news at last with my forum buds. (and kudos to you if you actually made it through all this. I'm realizing that while I tend to write a wall o' words, in the edit, re-edit, re-edit, I can barely read it myself! )

That is great to hear Innerzone!

Wow, blueoctober, you are a fast reader!

((Innerzone))

I'm so happy for you! I get the same exact way when I get lost lol! I'm glad that things turned around once you found the place. That's awesome that you found a doc you actually like too. We all know how hard that can be.

Yes one of my many skills!

I am happy it went well for you!

SO happy for you Innerzone!!!

I will join the crowd and say I am happy for you too, though I really am. My pdoc just recently suggested I may be add as well as bipolar as well. It's an interesting idea. I too did well at school, at least until university.

Yay Inner!!! Sounds like your on the path to some recovery! I know what you mean about either completely clamming up or unleashing a verbal STORM as I do the same thing... As wells as the freaking out when lost... I hate driving period, makes me so very anxious sometimes I just have to pull over and stop until I can regroup. Anyways way to reach down and find the strength to succeed in the face of all that you are up against. Thats so very admirable, keep it up!

Good for you Innerzone!!! I'm glad it all worked out in the end despite the few mishaps. I am so happy for you.

Thanks, all! Hehe, yeah, verbal hurricane alright. Yeah, getting lost always stresses me out, but when it's combined with "late", it's at least 10x as bad. I didn't take a Xanax though, so at least she got to see a bit of the real me(!) (Though if she'd seen in the car with the maps, she'd have a *really* good idea! )

Yeah, not sure how I feel about the possibility of ADHD. It seems like it might be easily confused with some bipolar-y stuff, even if not specifically listed for DSM criteria. We'll see. It'll take some time to consider it. Like... can I not focus because of being down and not processing well? Or when up that the thoughts are just *too* plentiful to keep track? Though when I'm up, I usually feel like the synapses are firing so rapidly I sometimes feel that I might as well think for everyone else too, since they're "obviously" not up to the task(!) Not fast enough for my taste anyway(!) Could this lead me to interrupting? Almost for sure. So.... guess I'll have to think hard about how much these things come into play in the middle times. Am I impatient because I'm impulsive or it it that I tend to very much be aware of what people are about to say? Impulsive or am I in fact *so* focused that this comes easily? Hehe, don't know, but looks like I better start a list to ponder on!

I agree with you that ADD and ADHD can share symptoms with BP. It is possible that a person could have a dual diagnosis, but I would also question the diagnosis.

Yeah Innerzone for the great appointment... sorry I was off for awhile but when I saw this I remembered how long you had to wait on Aug 10th.... so glad it went well for you!

Yay for you! Think i'm about to fall into the ADHD camp soon too. Pdoc hinted in that direction...

I'm glad your appointment went so well, despite all the things happening. Sorry, I would have posted to you earlier but I was at home with migranes. I hope now since you got a nice psudo pdoc you can get the meds you need and find out for sure if you're adhd or even something else. With us and all our moods and emotions there's a lot that can add up to a whole person. I didn't know until last Feb that I had Social Anxiety Disorder too and I'm 56. Yeah, the sooner you know yourself the better life will be. Hugs, Owl.

Thanks. I'd not get anything done with migraines, totally understand. They suck. Yeah, the main med's the same, and she renewed the alprazolam, TG. We'll see about the ADHD, I'm not convinced yet. But, have to say, like you, I was diagnosed unnecessarily late (very clear symptoms for 25 years? Hello!) and strongly suspect some other stuff going on, so won't be surprised if there are new revelations. Since we've only lived in our own minds, many things seem "normal", you know? Or we just blame ourselves for not being able to "pull it together" on certain fronts. Had to almost laugh, when her phone went off and I jumped a mile. It wasn't even loud. People have made fun of me for.e.ver for that.
I've been good and working on some things for the next appt. She didn't ask me to (except to read up on the ADHD and ponder its possible relevancy) as it was an intake, so we haven't really started anything yet. Still, I want to stay ahead of it a bit this time around. I ponder a lot of things that I've not talked about, so maybe it's time.
The increase in the Lamictal seems to be a good call on her part.

I can see how hypomania or mania could seem like ADD or ADHD, but if you're bipolar, you have the major depressive episodes too. How could a doc overlook that? And how would you tell if it's ADHD + MDD vs. plain old bipolar? I think that's a difficult line to straddle, but a mood stabilizer is helpful primarily to bipolar. My p-doc prescribed me Strattera (ADD med) instead of an anti-depressant and I wanted to sleep my life away I felt so bad. So maybe if they give you ADHD meds and you respond badly to them, that will settle it in her mind. Just a thought.

Yeah, thinker. I'm pretty well leaning against the idea. She can make her case of course, but my BP is totally textbook. And when you say "how could you tell if it's ADHD and MDD vs. BP"? I'd say if it were ADHD+MDD, the symptoms (the ADHD ones) would be consistent and not coming and going for spans of time like BP. I'd think that the biggest tip off. (Also, I'm quite organized. Haha, come to think of it that tends to come and go too, as I can't be arsed to keep up when depressed.) Guess I'll be making my case too, lol!

Yeah, that makes sense. ADHD would probably continue whether your mood was up or down.