OMG! OMG! OMG! Today has been a nightmare! Or a joke, perhaps that is it, a giant cosmic joke! OMG!
1st - intake was at 8am, but that actually meant I sat there until 9:30 till the PA called me back for the intake interview which consisted of my respelling my name several times despite the fact it was on the form in front of her. She took the history, then told me I could leave for an hour and the Dr. may be in when I came back. He may be there by then. Seriously.
But I am trying to remain positive right?
Go get some tea, have a bit to eat since I hadn't actually eaten since noon yesterday. Come back sit for another hour.
Get called back to waiting room #2. Now, the offices are in an old classic house, but they are filthy! seriously, filthy. WR#2 is a dirty table with miss matched chairs and old Ladies Home Journals. Did I mention I am a bit OCD? Ok, maybe more then a bit. This does not help my anxiety level.
Finally get called into PA's office, (which is also filthy - there are 3 chairs to choose from, an old rocking chair that has this crack down the middle of the seat, an old leather office chair with tape over the arms, or an old folding chair, I took the office chair, my arms are still sticky. also there are a bunch of dirty adn broken toys - they must do therapy with kids but the toys are dirty, it's gross.) T is there, he doesn't even introduce himself. Just starts in on how he has to record the session and do I want a copy to go to my Physician (no - a statement I will repeat several times) and then the PA starts reading the notes from the intake interview and he repeats them into the tape recorder and I am kinda wondering WTF am I doing there. Other then correcting them on my personal history (education and work) and because I am not depressed - the depression was a side effect of the drug the doc put me on that we have now reduced the dosage for so I am not depressed now, just anxiety and stress. And all of a sudden without even asking me a question he starts dictating a diagnosis into the tape player and looking to me for confirmation. I was taken aback. I actually said "How can you say that when you haven't even asked me anything?' Apperantly I am agoraphobic now. WTF!!??
I asked him what his approach to therapy was, how would a session with him look. His response was flip "you kinda have to see it to believe it." It was all I could do not to reply that I couldn't believe what I was seeing right now. then we were interupted do to an emergency so I sat there for another 1/2 an hour trying to reason myself into not just bolting for the door. They return (yes, the entire session was with the PA there, who has a cold and was blowing her nose the whole time) I stated that I knew I was triggering due to the last guy and was working on getting my panic attacks under control and that I recognized that I had been triggered and he asked what I meant by "triggered". Yup - this is not the T for me.
Did I mention he is also older then God?
This is the part about living in the sticks that really really really sucks. Not only are there a limited number of options on avaiable Ts but you can't find out anything about them ahead of time!
It was all I could do not to bolt out of there - he was so old school he actually scared me that he would be the type to institutionalize a person for no good reason and that I needed to be very careful.
I know I need to be in therapy right now, this is not going to get better without some help, it is going to get worse and if I don't start dealing soon, worse could get really ugly and I don't want that. Also, worse could get me to the point I don't want to go to therapy. I have a call out to one more and hope I will hear back soon.
I am trying to focus on how ridiculous this whole day was and not on how scary part of it was.
But OMG! For goodness sake! What the Hey happened to professionalism? OMG!
