Scared new therapist will give meds

Hi - I don't know if this belongs in drugs forum so ok to move it.
I have to see a T in January, who is a real and authorized T. My impression is that most people on here are on some kind of medication.
I'm terrified of meds, I can't even make my self take vitamins, or cough meds.
I'm realy scared this new T can force me to take meds, and that if I tell her about sleeping problems she will give sleep meds. Can she do this?
Are there ways to get well without meds?, and does anybody here have any experience with this?

Usually only doctors, psychiatrists prescribe meds, not T's. You can't be forced to do anything/take meds. Your T might advise you to or even not want to see you if you have problems that meds might help (for example, if you're always late because you oversleep because you can't get to sleep "normally" or something and you can't change your behavior without "help" from meds) but mostly T's just talk with you and look at problems that way. Meds help a great many people and lots of people have both a Pdoc and a T but some just have a Pdoc and some just have a T, etc. I only ever had a T, didn't ever have meds and I turned out fine :-)

Psychotherapists can't give meds. Let them know you are notso sure you want meds and that you areafraid of them. Good luck!

I think that some psychologists have the ability to prescribe certain kinds of psychiatric medication. I could be wrong, but I thought that was the case with psisci. That being said, that is a very recent change and by far the majority of therapists (who aren't psychiatrists) do not prescribe medication.

I understand some of your reluctance to take medications. I personally think of them as very much a last resort. Don't get me wrong I have certainly tried them at various points in my life when I really felt like I couldn't cope with what was happening. But nothing worked particularly well and that in conjunction with the side effects meant that it simply wasn't worth it to me.

I think it is wise to try not to take medications for sleeping, in particular. The medications that work well for sleep tend to be addictive and even the ones that aren't addictive have tolerance associated with them. If you start taking sleeping medications then quite often it turns out to be the case that you need more to achieve the same effect, you don't get a good quality of sleep (hence you still feel tired) and after a while they don't seem to be effective at all. But if you stop taking them you can end up with a worse problem than you had to start with.

There are a variety of things that one can do to try and get a better nights sleep. I'll run through a few (you may have heard of these already):

- Save your bedroom / bed for sleeping. Try not to watch TV or study there etc.
- Don't drink coffee / tea (any stimulants) after 6pm. Maybe even earlier if you are sensitive to caffene.
- Try to get up at a regular time. Sometimes people have trouble getting to sleep and then they sleep until midday. If you sleep until midday then you are going to have trouble getting to sleep that evening because you won't be tired yet.
- Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) can be useful...
- As can mindfulness meditation (slowing the breathing) exercises.
- Getting exercise during the day can help tire out your body so you are ready for sleep
- I'm not too sure on food... If there are some to avoid... I've heard mixed reports about dairy
- Heat can help you feel sleepy. A hot bath before bed and a cup of relaxing tea like chamomile can help
- If you have rituals around bedtime that can help. E.g., cup of relaxing tea, hot bath, PMR...

There are a whole heap of ways to approach the problem. Your t should be able to help you with this. Hope you find some relief soon :-)

I'm meeting a psychologist. Do't know if a T is the same. This one can pescribe meds, I know that, and she has permission to force me into treatment at a clinic. This gets me a little frightened, since I don't want to be forced into anything. And I've already been forced to go there, and I'm sick of not knowing the rules, because I feel like I'm being pushed into so many things and I just want to make sure they don't do that anymore, so isn't there some kind of law for psychologists I can read about what they can do and what they can't? Or is this different for every country and if so does anybody know where to find it?

Alexandre; thanks for all the tips on sleeping, I've tried some of them, but a few were new. Maybe they will help I'm not sure what PMR is though?, and how do you learn meditation?

What sort of a clinic did you have to go to?

My experience...

I think in NZ psychologists don't have the power to involountarily admit a person or make them attend treatment. Courts do. Psychiatrists do. I also think, however, that psychiatrists talk to psychologists and thus if the psychologist reccomended a treatment order the psychiatrist might take that very seriously indeed.

I'm wondering what kind of treatment you think you might be forced into.

I mean... For what?

They are only supposed to intervene (by force) if they have good reason to believe you are a danger to someone else or, (more controversially) a danger to yourself.

Typically they try to get volountary consent... But with the threat of 'volontary or involontary'...

In some countries you can, and in some that is still under desicion.

Well I can't help being scared that maybe I am a danger to myself and others because of some very disturbing thoughts that I have, so I realy want to figure out how much I can tell them. I don't want to hurt others. I'm just so confused. I want to know when they say you are dangerous, or you need meds. I just want them to help me, but I don't want to be locked up and drugged.

Maybe you can express your concerns with them? Maybe you could say that you are afraid that you might say something that would make them feel like they need to place you somewhere or give you meds.
I used to be the same way about taking meds, but now (for me at least) I am glad I am on them because it made such a difference in my outlook (most of the time). I am more positive than I was.
I am not saying that you should/shouldn't take them, just giving you my experience.

I hope you feel better.

I have very violent thoughts at times. But they stay at the level of thoughts. Sometimes I feel really very %#@&#! mad and I have mental pictures of all kinds of stuff (though I won't go into the details).

There is a difference between thoughts and action urges.

I used to worry about this considerably... Worry about whether ruminating on those kinds of thoughts might make it more likely that I'd act on it (which I would be absolutely mortified about in hindsight).

Like when I was getting a hard time with some of the %#@&#! ups in community mental health I used to envisage getting a big %#@&#! knife and going to find p-doc... Or explosives or something... I'm not joking... Thinking about this stuff... Well... I don't know if it helped, but I used to think about it.

But I never went out and brought a knife. I never tried to obtain explosives. I really don't think I would ever act on such thoughts.

But I do think that it is fairly normal to have violent thoughts at time. Because we see so much of it in the movies and on the news etc... And what we experience... We tend to think about.

Are these the kinds of thoughts you mean?

Health professionals are typically fairly good at assessing risk. They are typically pretty good at knowing that there is a difference between ideation (thoughts) of suicide and / or harming others and urges where there is a risk that the person might act on their desires.

The biggest factor... Is likely to be history of harming others or oneself.

Are you talking about an anger management program or something like that?

I've always had a very bad temper. get so mad I totally lose my mind. I have learned to control it now, but sometimes I still get it. I don't want to do those things but sometimes I completely lose control. I swear I don't want to hurt anybody, but yeah I keep having thoughts like the ones you describe alexandre, problem is I have quite a lot of them and they are very mean.
Fear that I would actually hurt somebody, was one of my main reason for getting help, because I don't want to do that. And I realy believe I could learn since I haven't done anything bad for a realy long time. I'm just scared the psychologist won't think so and just judge me without knowing anything about me. And that she won't realy want to help me becuase putting me in an institution and drugging me is easier.

hey.

are you volountarily going to see the t? because if you are then that should count for something. i would make sure that when you see the person you emphasise that you haven't acted on your thoughts for a long time and that you want some help with things so that you don't have so many of those thoughts anymore.

i guess... it often takes me a while to trust someone. therapists especially. because you are supposed to tell them all this stuff... but therapists are people too and some therapists are fine for dealing with some issues but not so fine dealing with others. i guess i would take it slowly and see how they respond to you. if they are okay with your having those kinds of thoughts then work with that for a while. in time you could disclose more about just how bad your temper has been.

that might not be the most honest strategy, but i think you need to take care of you. unfortunately... involountary committment is something that happens sometimes :-( i'd take it slow and see how it goes. if you are going volountarily and they don't respond so well to your having those kinds of thoughts (if they seem a bit scared or something) then it might be better to find somebody else to talk to about them. i wish i could say that it will be okay but therapists are people too...

i hope it goes well for you.

Thanks alexandre, I'll do that. and thanks for the support. I'll take it slow see where it goes.

I'm seeing the psychologist volutarily, but only because they said I had to or they'd make me, so I didn't realy have much choice right. Actually I was ok with it in the beginning, but I've been a little scared that they'll make me do things I don't want to. I the beginning they were realy nice, saying that I only had to tell them what I wanted to and they wouldn't push me, and I had a few interviews with my students counselor who just did things to make school easier for me, and now it's just as if they are rushing me into all kinds of things, and that wasn't what they told me in the beginning. I know they are just trying to help, but since it's me they want to help I think they should ask me about it.

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Are there ways to get well without meds?

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It depends on your definition of wellness. What do you hope to achieve in therapy? What do you hope to achieve in life? What's your potential? Do you have others supporting you?

Only you can answer these questions for yourself. No one can answer these questions but you.

If you can with the help of therapy (talk therapy or group therapy, etc.) and friends/family support start feeling better and doing things in life that you love, then you have answered your question about needing medications (you don't need meds).

No physician or therapist can predict the future for you. Neither can he or she knows with a satistically significant percentage of certainty how you will respond on a particular med. He or she cannot predict if (and how long) a med will make you feel better.

Can people get better without meds? I think most people can! That's if they have good support.

With the help of my hubby and my counselor, I've been med-free for over 2 years! Meds never helped me feel better (long-term). I chose to initially take meds because I had a lot of anxiety and didn't know how to cope. I thought I might hurt myself (which I never even tried). I was diagnosed with depression and PTSD. I had support but felt my problems were too petty or insignificant compared to others' problems or I needed just to get over it, deal with my problems on my own. It created a lot of guilt and shame inside of me. I hid behind meds. Meds were my excuse to not try to be happy. Meds incapacitated me, and I figured it was better than being so anxious all the time.

But, me on meds . . . it's not living.

I think when I began to accept that I was different, that after 2001 I was forever changed, then I was able to work on my own issues without meds.

Wellness for me is defined as being med-free and living my life the best way I know how. I don't have to find everything in this world easy. I know I'm an anxious person. I know I have panic attacks.

Some people injure their backs and have pain for the rest of their lives. I've seen people work through their pain. Those few that want to work through their pain do it because they choose to persevere.

Mental illness is not so different from physical illnesses.

I choose to persevere. I have learned how to cope without meds. I'm so glad did.

No one can predict for you and say "if you do this ____ then you'll feel better." What works for me may not work for you.

My point is . . . I don't believe psych medications transform people's lives; people transform their own lives.

I hope you find your own answers and do what's right for you. (((((huggs)))))))