Heya all! It occurred to me that this forum I'd heard so much about might be the right place to bring this question I've been struggling with. I've gotten sympathy but no ideas from my friend group, and advice ranging from less-than-helpful to outright condescending from various 'helpful' internet places like sevencupsoftea. I'm 26 years old. I've been living with a major depression diagnosis for eight years, and been more in than out of therapy most of that time up until the last year. I've been on medication more than off for the last two years. I have strong reasons to suspect I'm dealing with PTSD and some autism-spectrum things as well, but finding a diagnosis is hard and kind of overwhelming to contemplate at this point. I'm also dealing with a spectrum of physical health things including the wide and wonderful world of PCOS and permanent nerve damage to my hands (carpal tunnel and ulnar nerve). I feel like a therapist could, in theory, be super useful. Talking to my friends and partners helps some, but a lot of them have their own brainweird to deal with and only so many spoons in a day. But the last two mental health specific professionals I saw were 1) overwhelmed by my history and my complicated living situation, and 2) cherrypicked issues that they wanted to focus on and didn't really respect my goals for therapy at all. The last therapist was also super duper uncool about talking over me, and managed to, while I was in therapy specifically to unpack baggage from an emotionally abusive and manipulative relationship, emotionally manipulate me up down and sideways until I had regular shutdown-meltdowns in her office and just refused to go back. I'm scared to keep starting over. I'm also having to find a new family practice doc since my super trusted and awesome one who's been managing my brainmeds and is in general THE standard of patient and understanding about my complex medical history is moving out of state, so I'm double overwhelmed by needing to find new medical professionals. I know I can't get any further in my recovery process on my own, but finding more help feels less and less useful the more I try - like, is there a way to tell a therapist "no really I *mean* it when I say I am not starting at baby therapy level here"? And how do you navigate finding trustworthy medical professionals when your already extant fear of not being taken seriously in general has been validated by previous therapists in particular? Sorry about the ramble. I'm trying to keep it short, but... yeah, that's part of the problem. If anyone needs things clarified I'm totally okay with explaining more.
sounds like a hella tricky and suboptimal situation you're in, and your las therapist was a grade a asshole. -offers hugs- now that i've gotten my sympathy reaction outta the way, some stuff that might be helpful: If your friends live in your general area: can any of them recommend doctors for you? are any of them currently on the lookout for therapists? you could team up. if not, or in general: it seems looking up stuff for other people is a bit less draining than looking up stuff for yourself. can you ask one of your friends to help you looking up doctors in your area and cross-checking patient opinions?
thanks for the sympathy *takes hugs* I do have a good friend support network in the area. None of them can recommend mental healthcare practitioners, as I know none of them have had great luck with that in this area either, but they CAN help with medical care stuff - I should ask around after that. And at least my moirail is looking for a therapist, although his health insurance is a lot more limiting in that area than mine is. When my sister gets HER insurance sorted, though, she and I could therapist shop together, probably. Thanks for suggesting teaming up. I tend to feel very alone in this, because although most of my network has brainweird of their own, I'm kind of the special monkey in the history/convolution department. But just because none of them are at that point themselves doesn't mean that they don't all pretty much KNOW my history and can help me double check, or that they don't know enough to ask the right questions when cross-checking options.
