Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Beat Me

[perzephone]

No sleep today so far. Went to the regular ol' doctor - yes, I have a kidney infection. Yay. I thought maybe I had beaten the beginning of a kidney infection, but no such luck.

Go see an actual psychiatrist tonight. Fun, fun, fun. My appointment card says 'Drugs, 6pm'. I don't know how a psychiatrist could determine if I need drugs or not based on one evaluation visit, but I'm playing along for now.

In the meantime, I'm going to see if I can snatch a 2-hour nap. I've still got to go to work tonight. But, y'all know I rock the audit like a boss.

Comments

[moonvoice]

Boo kidney infection, that freaking sucks. D: I hope it doesn't interfere with the psych appointment too much, and while this might be a weird thing to hope; I hope the psych person isn't a douche.

Dr Feelgood

[perzephone]

Aw, thanks. The diagnostic guy wasn't too bad, mostly straight-forward Q&A session.

He made me feel very self-conscious about the fact that I talk fast. I'm like, wtf? I'm from the west coast & I work in a casino. We don't like to make people stand in line while we spew regulations at them. It also set off all the screening for bi-polar disorder, which is definitely not my problem.

As a Pagan with belief in the stranger bits of the natural world, I get that unique experience of answering questions like, "Do you hear voices or see things that aren't there?" with answers like, "Only when in a spiritual state of consciousness. I can discern between spiritual phenomenon and the real world, and my spiritual experiences do not cause me any interruption of my daily activities". In other words, I'm uh, not really crazy per se, just, uh, yeahhhh... don't commit me".

Anyway, his determination from my interview & the initial evaluation - major depression & 'some kind' of mood disorder. And he gave me a scrip for Celexa. Yes, drugs indeed! I see the actual therapist person next week.

The kidney infection is mostly just pain pain pain. I kinda figured I had one, but now hopefully w/the antibiotics it will go away and leave me alone for awhile.

Re: Dr Feelgood

[moonvoice]

Ah, man, the guy probably would've felt like he wasn't doing his job if he didn't prescribe you something! Are you going to take it? Or wait and see?

The way the US system does mental health confuses the hell out of me, mostly because it seems so non-conducive to mental health. Having a complete stranger get a random snapshot of you in a small amount of time and then prescribing you mind-altering drugs after a single session seems... counter-productive. Shouldn't the 'actual therapist person' make the recommendation after a few sessions, even if they're making the recommendation to someone else? That confuses me. I'm sure it works well in the US, but I'm glad they don't do it that way here.

But either way, I hope these people can help you. Particularly 'actual therapist person.'

And boo to the kidney infection. You can't catch a break!

Dr. Muppet

[perzephone]

Ah, man, the guy probably would've felt like he wasn't doing his job if he didn't prescribe you something! Are you going to take it? Or wait and see?

I did try Lexapro last year, and Celexa (citalopram) is similar to Lexapro. Lexapro (escitalopram) (due to some big science words that I've got to absorb for awhile more) is better for anxiety combined with depression, Celexa is more effective on depression alone, even though it does have anti-anxiety properties. After taking the Lexapro, it was like I was 'cured' of any anxiety I had, which was weird, because I went from "OMG we're always broke - how am I gonna pay our bills - why can't I ever get ahead - why doesn't Rob see how hard we're struggling", over & over & over again - to realizing that even though we don't have enough money for extravagant goodies, we're not really all that deep in debt. Of course, once all the worries were gone, the depression really came to the surface because nothing was masking it anymore. So I'm trying the Celexa, even though it takes it a month to kick in fully.

The way the US system does mental health confuses the hell out of me, mostly because it seems so non-conducive to mental health.

Yeah, gotta love our capitalist society. All the health care providers really want to do is get people back to work if they've been out of work, or to make them more productive while at work. I mean, we medicate the young heavily here so they will sit still for 8 hours a day in preparation for having a white-collar middle-management job once they graduate.

(I dunno if you've ever seen Farscape or not, but I happened to look at my prescription slip, & the pshrink's name is Rhigel. That cracked me up.)