[jean17]

I get regular mental health care and am on a lot of meds for depression and GAD. I was hospitalized for a short time in December on a suicide watch, but am feeling okay now. But, what I don't understand is that I'm functioning day to day okay and talk okay when I see my psychiatrist & psycholgist but underneath I still feel depressed and anxious. I take the test on this site and get the same result - you are exhibiting signs of severe depression and anxiety. I don't understand? Am I subconsciously trying to fool my doctors and myself, pretending that I am doing okay while really, deepdown I still feel really bad. Has anyone else felt like this?

[Sabra]

Jean,
It is so important that you tell the truth to your docs. They don't read minds. I believed my first T had that talent.....not so. Because you aren't feeling much better than you were in December, your Pdoc can work with you on meds. Sometimes it takes awhile to tweek medication. Alert your therapist concerning your feelings.
I promise you, things will get better

"When walking through hell, just keep walking." Churchill

Sabra
.

[montanan4ever]

I get like that from time to time--I go flat in my affect when I "should" be expressing my misery, especially in therapy. Because I've been with the same therapist for so long, I can comment directly about it and he gets it. He has learned to listen to the content when the affect doesn't match up.

When I get so I'm unable to express the stuff "underneath," I write it down and take it to therapy with me. That way the information gets communicated, and then we can work on it.

[Rohag]

At times a deep urge to please the doctor or therapist as a kind of authority figure has interfered with my accurate reporting of how I'm doing; I semi-consciously want to stress progress to make them happy. I find I have to struggle against those urges, and sometimes I do that by writing things down to take to the sessions.

Apart from my urge to please, I've noticed many of the mental health professionals I've seen over the years have their own "progress" or "improvement bias": they pay more attention and assign more weight to anything they can point to as improvement.

Thanks for bringing up this topic, Jean17.