Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
Find support with others who have gone through a traumatic experience. Whether you have chronic or acute PTSD, we are here for you.
Last week I got a letter that my Psych Doc of the last six or so years got a promotion and I would need a new primary care Psych doc. Today was my first meeting with the new doc.
I am of mixed feelings on this matter. On one hand, he did not scare me, which was good. On the other hand, waiting in the crowded waiting room sent me into a panic. I could see my last doc in the quieter mental health building rather than in the general practitioner area.
There was the awkward moments of "great, why are you here" and "because I was told to be here". Hubby explained that he would be doing most talking as I don't function well with doctors. Hubby also explained that as we had just come from acupuncture, this was the most pain free he would ever see me. We talked a bit about getting me on a different tranquilizer - and ended with just upping my dose of Prozac.
He has these grand plans. He wrote out a whole sheet, one copy for me one for him. It included:
1) the upping the dose of Prozac to see if I could do without a daily tranq
2) working with me on a new tranq after Prozac is at full (he wants to get to double)
3) Nutritionist - yup, I am fat
4) yogo - kewl, wanted to look into this anyway
5) therapy - kewl, not above getting better rather than just meds
And then he sort of goes left field with thoughts of getting me to start volunteering and getting back out in the community... Yeah - he missed the part where I was in full time college for the last five years until after he had made that list. I am so new out of college that my degree status still reads pending. When he asked when I finished the answer was Friday!
Ah well. I am sure we will get to know each other better. Hubby has become a shut in since my cancer, rarely interacting with other people and doing nothing but taking care of me. I don't have time to add any more to my plate. I have horse owner friends two of whom are getting married this Sat, who I made dresses for. There was no way of getting through college without socializing with people. Really, the only thing that has kept me from being more interactive with other things is my pain level, not my PTSD.
Before my pain took over my life and I had to shut down to just getting through college, I ran my own business making medieval armor and selling it at events, faires, and conventions. I was an officer in the local medieval society - in charge of teaching arts and crafts (medieval) to both new and long standing members.
I am not sure how to explain to this new doctor that it is pain that has shut down my life. Well, that and the fear of more pain.
I am feeling just numb. I see him again in five weeks.
Yadlim and critters
I am of mixed feelings on this matter. On one hand, he did not scare me, which was good. On the other hand, waiting in the crowded waiting room sent me into a panic. I could see my last doc in the quieter mental health building rather than in the general practitioner area.
There was the awkward moments of "great, why are you here" and "because I was told to be here". Hubby explained that he would be doing most talking as I don't function well with doctors. Hubby also explained that as we had just come from acupuncture, this was the most pain free he would ever see me. We talked a bit about getting me on a different tranquilizer - and ended with just upping my dose of Prozac.
He has these grand plans. He wrote out a whole sheet, one copy for me one for him. It included:
1) the upping the dose of Prozac to see if I could do without a daily tranq
2) working with me on a new tranq after Prozac is at full (he wants to get to double)
3) Nutritionist - yup, I am fat
4) yogo - kewl, wanted to look into this anyway
5) therapy - kewl, not above getting better rather than just meds
And then he sort of goes left field with thoughts of getting me to start volunteering and getting back out in the community... Yeah - he missed the part where I was in full time college for the last five years until after he had made that list. I am so new out of college that my degree status still reads pending. When he asked when I finished the answer was Friday!
Ah well. I am sure we will get to know each other better. Hubby has become a shut in since my cancer, rarely interacting with other people and doing nothing but taking care of me. I don't have time to add any more to my plate. I have horse owner friends two of whom are getting married this Sat, who I made dresses for. There was no way of getting through college without socializing with people. Really, the only thing that has kept me from being more interactive with other things is my pain level, not my PTSD.
Before my pain took over my life and I had to shut down to just getting through college, I ran my own business making medieval armor and selling it at events, faires, and conventions. I was an officer in the local medieval society - in charge of teaching arts and crafts (medieval) to both new and long standing members.
I am not sure how to explain to this new doctor that it is pain that has shut down my life. Well, that and the fear of more pain.
I am feeling just numb. I see him again in five weeks.
Yadlim and critters
Nothing in America seems to be about being constant.
If I don't have a constant in my life I lock up completely.
I am very grateful that I am receiving help from an exceptional professional that takes my mental health seriously. And for the first time in my life I understand what it means when someone else goes through the fire for you, over an over again, without stopping.
Because if you are being treated for PTSD and you have to deal with abandonment issues as I did from an abusive father, husband, wannabe partners then the last thing that I would be able to handle would be a change in therapy/therapists.
It is quite reassuring to know that there are really people out there who completely understand that.
Because I was always the one going through the fire for others and always when I needed the help they turned on me.
Therapy is teaching me that there really are people out there who really do know how to treat a person like a human being and my therapist is a prime example.
I have the best thing going for me - and that is my husband. We have been together for over 25 years and our marriage has never been stronger.
Yadlim and critters
Hopefully with time you'll get more comfortable with him. And bi symapthies on the waiting room thing. I see the GP today and am already a wreck---five hours ahead of time----and he's great but his waiting room? OMG, sooo busy-busy-come-and-go that there's just no end to the "red alerts", or so it seems to my PTSD.
Hubby and I were talking while we were in that waiting room. Usually we are by far the weirdest people around. With our medieval recreation, my HUGE white ball of fluffy Service Dog, our preoccupation with SciFi and then add my horses and Environmental Science and that we are both ex-military and we usually stick out like sore thumbs. I should also note that hubby is six and a half feet tall, about 250lbs overweight (my cancer did a number on him) and a loud and gregarious man. LOL, I have even had my Service Dog get instant hallway awards for best costume at SciFi conventions! But we did not even make the top 20 for most interesting characters in that waiting room!
Yeah, that volunteering things was really left field. He had a whole list of coping classes that I could take from the VA he would like to see me take... all I could think of was when? I still have to heal from all the damage I did to my back my just pushing through school. I have to pack my entire house and garage - we have been in this house for ten years and it is full to the ceilings in several rooms. Once I am out of the house, it gets either put up for sale or we take a mortgage out on it and tear down this house and put a new one up (it is just a mobile home). Oh, and next week the horses are moving home from the stable - not that I have a place to put them yet. So somewhere I have to get the energy to put up a fence. Hubby can't help with that as allergies are killing him with all the 6' grass blooming! I figure I have at least a weeks worth of feed for the two horses just on the overgrown grass on the 1/2 acre! Somewhere in here I have to also prove to the VA that I am doing a full time job hunt and go to a zillion "this is how to get back into the workforce" workshops.
When do I have time, during my couple hours a day of function time, to do all that plus get driven 90 minutes each way for a weekly class? Not to mention that my spine won't take it...
Now I am ranting. It is too early. I tried to find the snooze button on the dogs this morning with no luck. They got me up at 5am. The only thing on my plate today is resting, cleaning, and sending out some resumes. I could have slept in for hours!!! I think nap is in my future.
Yadlim and critters
I can't turn around twice without finding more things I have to get done.
Yadlim and critters