Dealing with Dr. Dickhead

A few posts ago I wrote about was what I was thinking before my appointment with my psychiatrist in February, when it had first been brought up that I might have Bipolar Disorder. That appointment was a turning point in my treatment.

For the worse.

This is what I wrote in my journal afterwards;

Cried a lot after meeting with Dr **** because he was dismissive and very disrespectful. I cried on the way to work and tried to text G and when she gave me a very PC answer and said she couldn't talk I cried more because it seemed like no one was treating me like a human being. At least the girls in the psych office were nice and helpful. I was so frustrated. Dr **** just wanted to write me a script for lithium and not listen to anything I had to say. But I sat in my car when I got to work, waited until I could speak clearly, and called my insurance company and got a referral for a new psychiatrist. I called their intake line and hopefully they will call back soon. I will not see Dr **** anymore and I want a second opinion on my diagnosis from someone who won't tell me “I don't want to talk about that anymore” when I’m trying to list my symptoms, or “you're OCD, people with OCD tend to worry a lot about new medications but you'll just have to trust me” and “every medication for bipolar causes weight gain, do you want me to give you a different medication that causes weight gain?” when I brought up legitimate concerns about the lithium.

I'm an intelligent person and OCD or not, I deserve to be listened to when I ask questions, not dismissed! And no, I will not just trust you, you old, white dinosaur!

…..

He constantly interrupted me, told me to stop talking, and raised his voice to me several times. Here I thought psychiatrists were supposed to be good listeners or at least caring individuals. Not Dr Dumbass. I got the feeling I didn’t even need to be there really except to pick up whatever script he had decided on for me. I basically had to shove information down his throat, but trying to force him to hear my symptoms was like trying to search for extraterrestrial life by hiding under a blanket and trying to ‘think’ my message to the stars.

After talking to my friend and some people from my online support group, I decided it was best to go with Dr Fucktard’s treatment plan for the time being, although I dropped my Cymbalta dose more slowly than he said to. Cymbalta has little white beads packaged in a capsule and there are 200 beads in each one. I took 60mg and I needed to taper off to 30mg, so every 5 days I took a few more of the beads out of the capsules. I went down an eighth of the capsule at a time, and then once I got to 30mg, I started taking the Lithium. 

I have a mail-order pharmacy but I wanted to be sure to talk to a pharmacist when I got the Lithium because there are some warnings online about it that worried me; such as the weight gain, making sure to eat salt, drinking more water, and not sweating??

Since I could get a sixty-day supply from Target for $10, I just went to Target and not through my insurance for at least the first supply of pills I got, so that I would be able to talk to the pharmacist. I suppose I could have called my mail-order pharmacist but I’ve never really done that before and I preferred something this important be discussed face-to-face.

So far, officially, I have Bipolar Disorder, OCD and Social Phobia. 

I also believe I have Anxiety, Dermatillomania and Binge Eating Disorder, although I wasn’t able to talk these over with Dr Loser, since he was done talking to me.

I think when I fall hard into depressions it’s usually because I’ve slipped and there was no one to catch me. I talk a lot about how lonely am I and it’s really key to my disorder. When the people who are supposed to care for me and help me fall through, that’s when I fall down hard.

 

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