sidptitala
Gold Member
tomorrow i have a second appointment with a psychiatrist i have seen once. the first one was a disaster. i was a dissociated mess, because the second the assessment started i knew in my gut something was off. the dr hadn't read my referral, which he was skimming as he interviewed me. he was huffing and puffing, flustered. asking random questions about me out of sequence, as if trying to catch me out. i had only ever been interviewed like that when in detention by soldiers and a lot of the room seemed the same, the desk, the closed door, my struggle between wanting to appear compliant but also knowing some information it is wise to hold back. also the same was his questions about my personal life, he assumed i was straight and didn't apologise when i had to correct him about that to answer his questions. he also assumed that the person who abused me is not a family member and is someone i'm not in contact with, which is not true (I didn't correct him because i've already had the police come to find me for questioning about this abuse and i sincerely don't want that to happen again, which it would if i said it was a family member).
he missed the part of my referral that talked about a physical attack on me at 21 (that i believe was what led me to initially develop ptsd). i didn't realise this till afterward. he questioned me a lot, briskly, about new memories of sexual abuse from childhood, details i've never told anyone. and immediately once i told him the age i was, started talking to me about borderline personality disorder. he thinks i have that, i think, but i'm not sure why. i don't meet any of the criteria for it. he told me i was impulsive but i don't think that i am. i have after all coped with suicidal ideas for years now without ever acting on them. i also would never have been hired for or been able to work at what i have if i didn't have stellar impulse control. i over regulate my emotional expression; it takes me so long to convince myself it's ok to confess having a feeling in the abstract because i mistrust everyone. i think what makes him think i am impulsive is having lived in multiple countries and having had different jobs (which is because of poverty, immigration status and just plain needing to work). i didn't get an opportunity to respond to him with these things, just told i definitely have ptsd and maybe underlying bpd. the referral he was sent from another psychiatrist (which i have seen) asked him to assess for ptsd and cptsd. but for some reason i got assessed for bpd instead of cptsd? i looked up the dr and it seems he was educated in the US so is likely using the DSM, but even if he doesn't recognise cptsd and the only tool for complex trauma he has is bpd- i don't believe i meet the criteria for this? i'm not sure i would meet the criteria for cptsd anymore either, because i have improved at a lot of the impairments i had when i was younger (but i would like to know this for sure). what im suffering from is absolutely complex trauma but i have healed some of the attachment wound stuff that the diagnosis of cptsd seems to involve.
getting diagnosed with bpd would likely mean i could never work in my profession again, because i need to provide medical records and also certify my psychological stability before each new assignment. i really want to avoid being diagnosed with something i don't think i have, but i also understand that bpd has a history of being used as punishment for noncompliance, difficult women, abuse victims etc. im worried that passivity, dissociation etc will end up with me getting this diagnosis. and im worried that directly challenging this dr will lead to the same diagnosis as punishment.
does anyone have an experience of correcting a psychiatrist on your experiences? how did it go for you, are there strategies you wish you had followed?
he missed the part of my referral that talked about a physical attack on me at 21 (that i believe was what led me to initially develop ptsd). i didn't realise this till afterward. he questioned me a lot, briskly, about new memories of sexual abuse from childhood, details i've never told anyone. and immediately once i told him the age i was, started talking to me about borderline personality disorder. he thinks i have that, i think, but i'm not sure why. i don't meet any of the criteria for it. he told me i was impulsive but i don't think that i am. i have after all coped with suicidal ideas for years now without ever acting on them. i also would never have been hired for or been able to work at what i have if i didn't have stellar impulse control. i over regulate my emotional expression; it takes me so long to convince myself it's ok to confess having a feeling in the abstract because i mistrust everyone. i think what makes him think i am impulsive is having lived in multiple countries and having had different jobs (which is because of poverty, immigration status and just plain needing to work). i didn't get an opportunity to respond to him with these things, just told i definitely have ptsd and maybe underlying bpd. the referral he was sent from another psychiatrist (which i have seen) asked him to assess for ptsd and cptsd. but for some reason i got assessed for bpd instead of cptsd? i looked up the dr and it seems he was educated in the US so is likely using the DSM, but even if he doesn't recognise cptsd and the only tool for complex trauma he has is bpd- i don't believe i meet the criteria for this? i'm not sure i would meet the criteria for cptsd anymore either, because i have improved at a lot of the impairments i had when i was younger (but i would like to know this for sure). what im suffering from is absolutely complex trauma but i have healed some of the attachment wound stuff that the diagnosis of cptsd seems to involve.
getting diagnosed with bpd would likely mean i could never work in my profession again, because i need to provide medical records and also certify my psychological stability before each new assignment. i really want to avoid being diagnosed with something i don't think i have, but i also understand that bpd has a history of being used as punishment for noncompliance, difficult women, abuse victims etc. im worried that passivity, dissociation etc will end up with me getting this diagnosis. and im worried that directly challenging this dr will lead to the same diagnosis as punishment.
does anyone have an experience of correcting a psychiatrist on your experiences? how did it go for you, are there strategies you wish you had followed?