Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Breaking news

I've been prevented from writing for a few days due to illness and travel. In that time, I experienced something I've heard about, but never encountered first-hand in the land of mental health treatment. I've had therapists that will give you false hope, that will continue treatment that is going no where with you for years but never one who simply gives up. Maybe that's because this is the first therapist I've seen while on Medicaid, so they have no money to lose, or maybe I'm just being cynical. If you asked her, my therapist would tell you I'm wrong, that she has no intention of giving up on me. I don't care what words she thinks would be appropriate, that's what happened.
Up til now, our therapy sessions have consisted of this woman trying to sell me on the benefits of giving up being angry and sad. This is really like watching a commercial for the show you're currently watching. I wanted to scream "I'm HERE, Lady! I'm in the building, I'm AT THERAPY! I've already reached the conclusion that what I'm doing is not working or I'd be on line to see the Mighty Boosh right now." But I didn't do that. Instead I asked her how; how do I give up negative emotions? What do I actually do? What skills can I practice? Because as most people who've been in love would know I think, you can't just will yourself not to feel. I mean, the harder you try not to think about a pink hippopotamus, the more pink hippos become your internal screen saver. And yet that was her only suggestion. "You just have to try, Joanna." Ignoring the fact that this completely invalidated eight years of very hard work, of poisoning myself with medications, of answering absurd questions, of sharing every detail about myself with complete strangers, I simply told her that I was trying. The bitch told me to try harder. Try what? I asked, Tell me what to do, and I'll do it! She had no specific ideas for me. She just continued to tell me to try. I asked what she thought I was doing, if I wasn't trying. She suggested that maybe I was malingering, or seeking attention. After all, she said, that's what she had done when she had been depressed.
And just like that, I came up against what I believe to be the most common problem with mental health professionals. They think they fucking know. Either because of personal experience with mental illness or because of their education, they think they know what's going on with you, sometimes just from reading your chart, before they even talk to you. You have a very small window of time before they decide who you are, and what your problem is and then stop hearing you. In my case, this therapist had had experience with depression, and alcoholism in her family and decided based on these similarities that I was a "mini-her", and that since she had enjoyed the attention it got her, that must be what was going on with me. She stopped trying to help me, and started trying to help her idea of me, someone who doesn't really exist. And since I'm the crazy one, she'll never have a reason to consider that maybe her opinion needs revising because everything I say is suspect. I watched it happen. And there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

No comments:

Post a Comment