[chimera17]

After realizing I needed help last winter and joining this community, I *finally* managed to go through intake for a local behavioral health clinic. It was a positive experience, and I'm setup with a psychiatrist (I think, might be a counselor... I don't know), and I meet this week for the first time.

I am wondering if I should mention the research I've done myself, and doing the sanity score, and whatnot. I feel pretty sure I've been struggling with bipolar issues - but I'm not sure if it just annoys mental health folks if someone walks in thinking they already know what their problem is, or if it is a useful insight into my mind.

I'm at the cusp of a pretty dark depression AND a super anxious period full of racing thoughts, insomnia, twitchiness, and I'm REALLY stressing out about this whole appointment this week. I am pretty much overwhelmed by everything all the time right now that I can't even figure out if I should maybe bring some of my sanity scores with me, or just mentioned this stuff, or just not say anything and see where the conversation goes. ARG!

That's great that you've made it through the intake interview. I go to a local behavioral health clinic, and I remember waiting for the intake appointment for a few weeks and then answering a ton of questions.

You can always call the clinic to ask if your upcoming appt. is with a meds prescriber or with a therapist.

As far as mentioning the research that you've done yourself, my opinion (and it's just my opinion) would be not to mention it. I would write down a list of your symptoms so you don't forget any and just explain your situation, your thoughts and emotions that are concerning you, your sleep problems, etc.

It really depends on the personality/mindset of the person that you're speaking with whether they would welcome your thoughts about what your diagnosis might be. If you get into the first meeting with them and find that they seem to want to know, then you may decide to go for it and tell them.

You could write down some info. about how long your problems have been going on and if you typically have periods of "good days" then "bad days" or if the symptoms are pretty constant.

If you notice that I keep saying "write down", that's because I often find that I get nervous or distracted during an appt. and so I usually take a list in with me to refer to in case everything I wanted to say suddenly leaves my head.

By suggesting that you just talk about symptoms and not about research you've done or self-tests that you've taken, I'm suggesting the play-it-safe path. If you tell them about your symptoms and the duration and severity of the symptoms, you will cover most of what the tests cover without risking getting off to a bad start if you end up with one of those "just the symptoms, please & let me do the diagnosing" people.

When I had my first meeting with my meds provider, it lasted about 45 minutes and he asked me a lot of the same sort of questions that I'd been asked in my intake interview, but with more of an emphasis on medical symptoms - sleep patterns, appetite, weight loss or gain, any meds I'd taken in the past, things like that. It was pretty matter-of-fact.

Oh - another good thing to think about beforehand is what kind of questions you'll want to ask about any meds that are prescribed. I didn't do that and ended up coming away from my first visit with a sample bottle of an antipsychotic med and no memory of why the pdoc said I should take it. (I ended up not taking it.)

[chimera17]

I went with the safe route. I have some specific issues happening right now, and our conversation centered around those. I am DREADING work tomorrow, but looking forward to my next appointment on Tuesday, so I guess it is positive so far since I'm looking forward to it and not dreading it. Trying to find anything to be positive about this week

this is great about the update. so often I find myself on here left hanging.

I'm glad it went well enough to look forward to your next appt.