Problems with one of the office staff

Hey Hope, try not to get ahead of yourself. Hang in there. Sometimes it takes people a while to respond to their emails....sometimes the server goes down, or something happens out of their control. And it is Thursday so that means there is only a day and a few hours left in the week so they might not have had cancellations this week. Try not to get in the cycle of emailing, then emailing something else, then emailing something else. This cycle only seems to make you feel worse. Try to not go to the worst conclusions such as: it is probably over. There are many possibilities and there are many reasons why someone has or has not responded to you. Maybe look back at some of your previous posts and remember how good your T has been for you. I doubt your T is going to get rid of you just because someone on staff was rude to you. If anything, the person on staff should be talked to about how their behavior towards clients affects them.


I once had called my former T's office (when she was still my T) worried because she had not responded to my emails all week which was uncharacteristic. I was worried that perhaps she was sick, or had died, or gotten into an accident. In other words--my imagination and my fears got away from me! The receptionist told me, she's just been busy. And did not even tell the therapist that I had called. When I relayed this to T in session about how I was worried and called the office and the response I got, T was surprised because she had told the receptionist to always let her know if someone calls (unless it was just about rescheduling or something). T was not upset with me, and I don't think she was necessarily upset with the receptionist but I think she was irked that her instructions to her staff had not been carried out. And T assured me that yes she had been busy that week, but she was also contemplating how she wanted to respond to my emails, and in fact had ended up emailing me the night before our session. Lesson learned for me in that one.

Just try to not let your fears carry you away. I'm sorry you are having SUI thoughts. If you don't think you can keep yourself safe, please go to the emergency room or call a hotline. You are cared about Hope. Hang in there. You can do this. HUGS Kit

Hope, somehow you will find more peace in life if you can develop a bit more patience. You've done this a few times over the years: sent an email or left a message or spoke to someone about something, and when they didn't respond fast enough in your eyes, you cancelled everything, then begged to come back, then were sure they hate you, etc.

My guess is that you are on the cancellation list, but they generally don't contact you to let you know they did what you asked. They just do it and will contact you if an opening occurs and they have an appointment time available for you.

Patience.

This happened not because of the rudeness, but because you have a pattern of finding reasons to cancel. It's understandable that push-pull of needing support but being scared to accept support or scared to talk about whatever issues are bothering us. But people do have their limits to their own patience, particularly office workers. They aren't therapists. And clients who request something, then get angry when they office staff can't quickly fill that request, then get angry and cancel after they've gone to the trouble to try to meet your request, and beg for forgiveness for being inconsistent about what you want, etc. will eventually manage to get on their nerves. They are human. Busy humans.

Slow yourself down. Request to be on the cancellation list. And then stop. They will contact you if and when an opening is available. They aren't not contacting you because they are trying to make your life difficult or because they don't like you or something. They simply are waiting until and when something comes available and will contact you then. Yes, we want it to happen faster, but they can't make it happen faster.

I don’t think psychiatrists can just throw patients out. And office staff doesn’t have the kind of power anyways.

hasn't your T told the staff not to cancel your appointments when you call and tell them to? I suspect you still have your appointments.

I think my big problem is my racing mind. It helps when I take my ADHD medicine but I wasn’t able to afford it until next week.

Also, I was kind of annoyed because I wanted to take a month off but they gave me a hard time about that idea.

I’m so angry at my T right now that I don’t care if I don’t see him for a month.

I begged him to put me on Depakote to stop these symptoms. I’m suffering. He doesn’t understand. He can go home to his perfect life and I have to stay awake battling these stupid symptoms all night.

Honestly, I really wish I wasn’t alive right now. How am I going to make it through this night of agony. And on top of it, I’m burning up with the fever.

HUGS @hopealwayz your T is able to prescribe you meds? That's cool. I have to go to a Pdoc for that. Did he tell you why he wouldn't put you on Depakote? I don't think he is doing it to punish you. I'm sure there is a medical reason. I'm so sorry you are suffering. I hope you can get a bit of relief soon. HUGS Kit

He is a pdoc. That’s why he prescribes

Did he explain why those meds aren’t a good idea?

I think that he believes Seroquel would do the same thing. But they are different med classes so I don’t know why he isn’t willing to try.

Depakote is usually for bipolar disorder. Have you been actually diagnosed with bipolar disorder by this doctor?

He mentioned it to me recently following some incident.

There could be many reasons why he prefers Seroquel. One option being that Depakote can cause liver problems? From what I see at work pdocs often put A LOT of thought into what they prescribe..they consider other medical issues, potential side effect, other medications the person is taking, cost, and other off label symptoms the medications may help

Usually doctors wouldn’t just try all kind of meds on patients. That’s not the way to go as they can’t just experiment on people. They give “do not harm” oath. Now of course they make mistakes but they shouldn’t deliberately do whatever. If depakote is used on patients with BD and you aren’t specifically diagnosed with BIpolar disorder he can’t just prescribe it because you want him to. It doesn’t work this way

We can’t just decide what we think we should take. We can’t make doctors prescribe meds that aren’t suitable.

If you have bipolar disorder, one possible option (of course after talking with your pdoc) is ECT or rTMS. You might want to ask him about both treatments if you have bipolar disorder.

I don't believe she has been officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder by her treating psychiatrist.

I think I just had a manic episode for 3 days but I don’t want to tell my doctor.

You want your doctor to treat you for bipolar disorder, but you don't want to talk to him about your symptoms that might indicate bipolar disorder? You do see how illogical that is, right?

When you see him next, talk to him about the symptoms you have been experiencing. The only way he can diagnose you properly is if he has the full picture. The only way he can competently treat you for bipolar disorder is if he has a clear diagnosis based on very specific criteria that he has to see over a period of time.

Have you considered keeping a mood diary of your symptoms? Here is a link to one you can print off and use, or you can find other ones out there - even free apps for your phone: http://www.cqaimh.org/pdf/tool_edu_moodchart.pdf

I haven’t been keeping track of it but it may be difficult to explain everything that happened in those 3 days.

It was scary.

Bipolar does run in my family.

I’m also scared that he won’t take me seriously.