I suppose I ought to explain.
This may possibly have been the worst and longest February of my life. It certainly felt longer that 75% of them.
The Puget Sound had an attack of Neo-Black-Death. Which I managed to grab hold of. More correctly it grabbed hold of me. And everyone in the household. Unfortunately, in my case it grabbed a bit too tightly.
I wound up with a fairly bad case of Bronchitis. I lost about 2 weeks from work. I also got to walk through a veritable cornucopia of pharmacopeia. Among this list were anti-biotics, expectorants, steroids, amphetamines and narcotics.
So for about a week I was going to work, getting breakfast and then taking speed, juicing, and popping downers.
My mood was… um… to call me tetchy would be polite. To say that I was having raw, painful, near-psychotic mood swings… might be a touch more accurate.
Amazingly (though at times I’m not sure how) I’m still happily married.
As this ended I felt it was time to consult a shrink. Yes… I’m not as sane as I don’t really project.
Unfortunately, the guy I found was a clinical psychiatrist. What that means is that in his eyes, “Everyone is sick and we need to medicate first and analyze later.” Actually, his clipboard made it obvious that it was going to be medicate and I could go find a counselor for analysis. Throughout the office waiting room was literature on the latest miracle drug for bi-polar disorder. The side effect list was about the same as the special effect list on the 5th season of Angel.
So, I go in and talk about my taboo topics that never get discussed. I am not a 14 year old emo girl; so I don’t typically drip my personal stuff onto LJ. At least not anymore.
So… family, dealing with my first toddler, work…
Well, he was certain of it. Genetically, I’ve obviously inherited paranoid schizophrenia and we need to start the anti-psychotics immediately. He paralleled behaviour patterns of my father and emphasised that if I were completely healthy I’d be aware of how much I was in danger of being like him.
It was amazing. I didn’t mention that I’d been a Theatre major. So it was fun taking apart his, ‘presentation’ and seeing where he was using pathos as a tool to try to make me sympathise with a very rushed judgment. He would only use the occasional scientific term when it seemed like I was following logic. In general, I felt like I was watching a snake-oil-salesman roll his pitch.
To be blunt. He played dirty pool and when it was done he handed me a bag of samples for… Oh look. The drug advertised out front for bi-polar issues. I could almost here the ding from the drug company saying, “Congrats; you made your 10th customer of the week, you get the next level prize. An autographed Freud bust”
I’ve been to psychologists and psychiatrists in the past 15 years. And I have never seen any rush to medicate on so strong a diagnosis in 25 minutes.
I walked out knowing two facts. 1) I am getting a 2nd, 3rd, and hell 4th opinion. 2) I am not popping my sample anti-psychotics until I have a much stronger faith in who I am interacting with.
I know I have a paranoid streak. But it took me 5 minutes to be absolutely uncomfortable with the man. And if you are in a position where you are in fact dealing with people who need to confront and acknowledge the line of “reality” (the definition of schizophrenia)… then perhaps you need to be more genuine, and not use persuasion and manipulation in your first 10 minutes with the patient.
I’m looking for references. I’d like to find a non-clinical psychiatrist to discuss things with. But right now… very unhappy with how that went.
And then there was the pain. Something under my belly on the right side. Oooh! Appendix? Hernia? No… it looks like it’s just the IBS we all thought I might have. So my new family doctor is starting me on several organic natural enzyme treatments. The pain is subsiding and meals are actually becoming less challenging.
At least it’s March now. I am feeling mostly healthy again. As shimmeringjemmy and I discussed. It’s just the pressure of taking care of an 18 month old and occasionally looking out for a 479 month old. Well both of those are 2 days off. Yes there will be pictures; at 18 months it’s time for another compare the genetics pict.
So.. that’s where things are.
Enh, February didn’t suck all together. I acquired another house denizen and made my first filk in several years.
