Six Ways to be The Persecutory Therapist *cue the thunder and lightning*

[ms spock]

The one thing that my psychiatrist was really good at was helping my keep BS alive and navigating his complex health problems through multiple specialists and medical systems. What words to use to get the important tests to be done. How to make sure all his hernias didn't go off with those consequences.

She got angry at me for not insisting that BS did exercise every day. She told me to be like a Sargent Major. I could not do this. She hammered on me for months about that. It was such a waste of therapy time.

I cannot control BS.

 

[ms spock]

I have tried I have put the effort in.

I realised that I was not making progress with my psychiatrist. So I took courses, read books and did a ton of other things.

I enrolled in a Diploma in Counselling and a Masters degree in Counselling because I thought if I could learn to communicate her way maybe I could communicate in a way my psychiatrist would hear.

I went to see a trauma informed counsellor.

When I started with my trauma informed counsellor. Her approach was the opposite to my psychiatrist's approach.

My trauma informed counsellor wanted me to be and connect with my body.

She talked a lot about our relationship so I could be honest with her.

She let B me email her. We have a connection.

She wanted me to stop doing all the courses I was doing. There were a few not available in Australia so I would get up at 3am in the morning to do them. Or 2am or 5am.

Not good for sleep hygiene but I was desperately seeking to be understood.

I was desperately trying to get things together.

I felt so terribly guilty for resting. So I didn't tell my psychiatrist because I just couldn't cope with her criticisms, denigration and attitude I was being lazy for not doing more. I did really try but I couldn't do things that I couldn't do.

And bit by bit with my trauma informed counsellor and I have connected, and bit by bit I connected to myself.

I just can't tolerate any more disdain from my psychiatrist.

I don't think my psychiatrist understood that if you are so profoundly dissociated into a lot of your bparts, that you can't feel yourself, it doesn't matter how much you do or run around. You don't make progress. Because you aren't there. Or only one part of you is there.

I was not lazy. I am not lazy. I really put effort into my recovery.

 

[ms spock]

This thread has been useful for me. Folks responded and I found that grounding and the validation helped me be less anxious and panicky. I didn't feel so alone and isolated. And ashamed. She's into shaming in a substantial way at this time.
My PTSD cup is overflowing about other things. I don't have time for this shite.

I wrote an email to my psychiatrist, in great detail, because she is a boomer who can't keep her email together.

(rough example but you get the idea).

Drug 1
How many I have - no repeats.

Drug 2
Have four boxes left - authority script finished. No repeats.

Drug 3
How many nights left - one repeat left

Drug 4
How many I have left - one repeat.

I was pretty detailed in providing her the exact amount of medication I have left.

And this situation continues to be bewildering.

She sent me a letter saying:

Hi XXXX,

Not sure I really understood what scripts you needed. Will sort out later.

Kind regards,
Your Psychiatrist
______________________

So the two things that I can do is send her

Drug name - one email.
How much left
How many days that covers
Repeat status

Drug name - second email.
How much left
How many days that covers
Repeat status

Drug name - third email.
How much left
How many days that covers
Repeat status

Drug name - fourth email.
How much left
How many days that covers
Repeat status

I have not had to do throughout the last two decades. But as a lot of other rules have changed without notice. I will just give it my best shot.

The days covered by the medication I have is the only information that I didn't provide. So I will do that tonight.

And after that I give up I guess.

Or come up with another strategy.

I am resilient and creative.

I will find a way to manage this.

My partner is really ill. So I need to focus on that.

There are other things to do.

 

[gorgonzola]

I'd suggest doing the calculation of the dates you start dying for want of a new script for each medication as well. Just to possibly save a snail mail go-around cycle.

 

[Dark.Green.Feathers]

And this situation continues to be bewildering.

She sent me a letter saying:

Hi XXXX,

Not sure I really understood what scripts you needed. Will sort out later.

Kind regards,
Your Psychiatrist

I’ve had this from professionals before, making efforts to spell out exactly what I need, and getting this kind of response. It’s very demoralising, especially when self-advicacy takes as much energy and effort as it does.

 

[ms spock]

I'd suggest doing the calculation of the dates you start dying for want of a new script for each medication as well. Just to possibly save a snail mail go-around cycle.

This is a great suggestion. I appreciate your brainstorming.

I only send her emails.

(Except for a Xmas Card)

This means that up to 95% of our communication is via email.

She snail mails my scripts to me.

Confusingly, she recently emailed me that she would no longer send me scripts.

Then she emailed me to let me know she had sent scripts on the 7th of August.

So I received this (weird) letter and a couple of scripts from her.

I have no idea of what she will do next. She is saying one thing but doing another

I am just not going to think or worry about (as much as possible).

 

[ms spock]

I’ve had this from professionals before, making efforts to spell out exactly what I need, and getting this kind of response.

It is so frustrating. She set up my medication regime. I meticulously document and report back to her and then she can't do it, then she can do it and etc.

It’s very demoralising, especially when self-advicacy takes as much energy and effort as it does.

The self advocacy takes up so much of my
energy. It is so exhausting. I feel that too.

I do feel demoralised by it.

I wrote the same email I always write, suddenly she cannot understand it.

It is really helping that folks have shared their similar experiences. I feel understood.

 

[ms spock]

I sent two emails to my psychiatrist.

One email cancelling next week's appointment due to my partner struggling to walk/collapsing and under going medical testing. I don't know if my partner will be in hospital next week. So I can't deal with anything extra.

Second email referring to the letter and two scripts that she sent and her confusion about what scripts I require.

So I outlined the current state of the last authority script which has had been filed. (So I need a need script), Need a script for X etc. As clear as possible.

It happens or is doesn't happen. I will find away around the situation.

 

[ms spock]

She has written me another email, that I got last night, to tell me, once again, that she has just posted me some more scripts, and she told me that she won't provide any more scripts without a consultation. Which is what she has previously emailed me the last time she sent scripts to me.

She keeps saying one thing and doing what she said she would not do.

She is being inconsistent.

When she had knee operations, gone on holidays, taken time off over Xmas and when I was out sick for several months from a severe heat stroke, etc all those times she prescribed exactly the same medication.

This will pass.

 

[ms spock]

She is a woman who has a great intellectual intelligence.

 

[ms spock]

My psychiatrist is right on one thing. I am doing a repetition of past endings. I am aware that this is true. But I don't care.

She's kept continuously kept changing the dates of her retirement. In "3-6 months, when the practice building she owns is demolished" that went on for a couple of years. Then it could have happened in a month but council blocked the building plans. I would have been left on my own, on large dosages of medication without a referral or a copy of my notes. She's made no arrangements for contact after she retires and I am not to worry because she will take care of it all before she leaves anyway.

So yes I am doing repeating previous endings of cutting off. It's not the best. I just don't care any more. I cannot endure any more from her. I just want it all to be finished. It's so weird but it feels like I am leaving an abusive relationship in some ways. The gaslighting she said "that she would do a deep dive, find a good replacement, that I could trust her, that she would take good care of me, I don't have to worry" to "you find someone, make an appointment, and I will write a referral for you" (not possible to make an appointment to see a psychiatrist without a referral) to "I can't assist you finding a replacement psychiatrist as there is a shortage of psychiatrists in your area". "Just use the local ones".

I had been telling her of the long list waits etc for a long time. I wrote her emails requesting that we only focus on transferring to another psychiatrist in our sessions. She kept insisting that she would take care of me and it all.

 

[ms spock]

I have already sent my psychiatrist two very clear emails.

I put a lot of time and effort as well as consideration in to writing those two emails.

The first one was probably a bit too long.

I thought about her education, interests, she, and life experiences and I wrote both emails in a way that was brutally honest but also tailored to her sensibilities as a professional.

I owned my parts of what I see as some of our problems of the break down of our therapeutic relationship.

We had an agreement re emails. After 20 years it seems that email agreement has changed.

She told me off for sending an email on one of the three days she explicitly told me to send one about my medication.

If her boundaries change that happens, but she needs to explicitly outline those changes to me after two decades.

My psychiatrist didn't respond to my long email. So I pared it down to a much shorter email. I tried to speak to her directly and she didn't listen to me. Emails have been an agreed upon mode of communication for two decades.

She didn't respond to the shorter email either. I put in a lot of effort into both of those emails.

I kept waiting for a reply. Even one sentence saying she had received them.

This week she sent me an email that mocked my emails and called them a denigrating name, belittling them.

If I give my best and that's not good enough or worthy of consideration. There's nothing further that I can do.

There was no acknowledgement from her that our therapeutic relationship is an important and foundational issue to discuss.

Or that she plays some part in the huge rupture in our relationship. I tried to own my part.

She is engaging in Derogation. I have just learnt that "Derogation is a term used to cover various ways in which a therapist can denigrate his or her client, seriously damaging their self-esteem." Link to Six Ways to be The Persecutory Therapist *cue the thunder and lightning* by Shawn Ee.