Fat white psychiatrist blues

[bubblegumsleaze.livejournal.com]

I I'm a little worried that my friend seems to understand more about my mental state than the doctor I'm paying enormous amounts of money to, does.

This man's job is to understand more about what's going on in peoples heads than they do themselves, and to help them sort it out, deal with it, and make it work.  Instead he doesn't even seem to know who he's talking to at any given time, let alone what's wrong with them or how to help them fix it.

I went in today and in the middle of asking me about my issues with interpersonal relationships, of which I have many (issues, not relationships) he broke in with "Why do you have so much trouble trusting people? You have serious trust issues."

I have a couple of concerns about this, and several thoughts rapid fired through m brain, the first one being hello!? You do know who I am, don't you? You do know why I'm here? And what my diagnosis is? Did you really just ask the paranoid schizophrenic man why he has trouble trusting people?
This is a big concern because if paranoia is part of my diagnosis, it would stand to reason that suspicion would be part and parcel of my makeup. Shouldn't a man with a PHD know this? He's taking my money, and he's supposed to be helping me figure things out, I'd like to feel sure that he knows who I am and what my issues are at any given time.

On top of that, if I did have trust issues with people that question would have been stupid enough, but the fact is, I really don't have any special trust issues, at least not with other people. I've never had any trouble trusting people. In fact, I've lived most of my life trusting entirely in the other people in it to maintain that very life! I've had to trust in and rely on people to take care of me, to act in my best interest and care for my wellbeing, to advocate for me, to make sure I'm able to make my own choices and decisions to the best of my ability, to be certain that I'm well taken care of and come to no harm when I'm at my most vulnerable and unable to take care of myself, to keep me grounded in reality, protect me from the effects of my illness as much as possible, defend me, provide for me...to completely ensure my survival on more occasions than I can count.  My entire life has been entrusted to the hands of other people. I don't have any trust issues. With them.
With myself, yes. Many. I don't trust myself to be able to understand reality, to know what's going on at any given time, to maintain, to manage my life, and I certainly don't trust MYSELF around other people. I don't trust myself not to hurt them. Not to make them miserable. Not to wreck their lives.
I don't trust myself.
But I do trust them.

And there he was, the psychiatrist I pay huge amounts of change, totally off in left field and asking me questions unrelated to my situation and inappropriate to my condition.

I mean come on, what the fuck.

Then there's the whole multiple reality issue.
For more than a year I've had an increasingly serious problem with clearly remembering vastly different versions of reality.
I experience something and almost immediately am confused about what actually happened, because I'll remember different scenerios as all being actual.
For instance, say a friend of mine invites me to see his band play, and maybe stand in on keyboards for a minute. I'll go, and do just that. Hang out, watch them play, maybe join him for a couple minutes, drink too much, go home. After just a little while I'll be totally confused because while I remember doing that, I will also remember playing the whole show with him, playing none of the show with him, not going at all, and being thrown out and arrested.
It's as if my mind sees every possible outcome and makes each of them into a memory, memories I then can't differentiate between. After enough time has gone by I won't be able to tell you which of those things, if any, actually happened.
They'll all seem real to me.

This is something relatively new and increasing. I've always mistaken realities, it's part of the nature of my disease. My thoughts are disordered, I'm dillusional, I hallucinate, I get confused.  I mix things up. I remember things wrong.
But I've never had multiple realities swimming around in my head.  At first this happened really infrequently, but it's becoming more and more frequent. I've reached a point where I write things down as they happen so that I can refer back to them. I make sure my friends know where I am and what I'm doing and what's going on with me at all times, so that if I start to think things are other than they are, they can put me back on track, or try to.

I've been after my doctor about this for half the year because it's beginning to be a real problem. I was a lot more functional six months ago than I am now, because I'm too confused about what's real.

All he's been able to tell me is that it's the result of the new meds, and the new  program I'm in that's geared to help me think my way through my disordered thoughts.
His standard line has been "It'll pass." He says he's not entirely sure what it is, but it'll pass.
I've spent a long time wondering why I'm getting sicker, instead of better. Why my doctor doesn't seem to understand what's going on or know what to do about it.

I was bitching to Dominic today about it, and he looked at me like I was stupid, and said "Ryan, I haven't known you all year, but I really think you're just refusing to see this. In no way are you getting sicker. This is obviously you getting healthier."
Really?
He said that if I thought about it, the last real  full on mistake in reality I made was thinking Zack had died. There was no alternate version, that was it.  And of course as he pointed out,  if my friends and family , and myself, were to be believed, that was always the way it was. I remembered things wrong, but I didn't have any idea what the actual reality of the situation was.  The deluded thought was the only thought.

Now, while I still of course have deluded thoughts and ideas, REALITY IS SUPERIMPOSED OVER THE DELUSION! And of course my illness is such that once reality asserts itself, another delusion will come to try to take it's place.

Dominic says that to him it's looked like I'm like the psychiatric equivalent of  that flu bug in "The Stand"
A deluded reality presents itself,  the healthy part of my mind shifts it back to reality, and the disease simply shifts right back at it and presents another deluded reality. My healthy mind shifts it back and it retaliates and finally I'm just lost in confusion. He said that to him, the ability to recognize reality is a sign of stronger health, not an indication of illness. And that it seems to him that my goal should be to strengthen that part of my mind that IS healthy, and eliminate the symptoms that are getting in the way. And that I should seek out ways to do that.

That seems pretty reasonable, rational, and practical to me. It really does.

So......I asked my psychiatrist about that today.
I told him what I'd thought, and what Dominic said, and then I asked him what he thought. I really really wanted to know what he thought.
His exact words were "Well...that does make a certain amount of sense, Ryan. I suppose that's a possibility. Yes...yes it certainly could be."

He was very surprised and interested in that possibility.

I asked him what he thought we could do to work out the delusions to a more functional level.

He said, and I quote; "Oh well.....well we'll have to....er....we'll have to see about that."

Thanks. That's swell.

What am I paying him for again?

(no subject)

[suburbanitespy.livejournal.com]

My life ( Suicidal Rant... )

(no subject)

[stillbourne.livejournal.com]

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