So I debated on writing this for a while for a number of reasons but mostly because it takes an amazing amount of energy explain what happen.

So the other day I went to a mental examination for social security and it went really normal until I with my huge mouth asked the doctor at the end one simple question:



“So what do you think is wrong with me…?”


She then explained what I had already heard and some rather disturbing new information.

She thinks I have a mood disorder, some PTSD, GAD and …..


The “and” is what ruined my week and pretty much everything …

She said she thought I was showing the sign of a psychotic person because I questioned reality at times.

Now I can understand how that makes sense…but the thing is ….I know this is REAL…every shitty minute of it. I just feel so detached some days …

Only when I am VERY stressed or certain triggers happen have I noticed myself going in that direction of thought.

She said that there was a good chance I might end up like my mother…

For those of you who do not know…my mother is a paranoid skizo. and I have been all of my life afraid of being like her…ending up empty and damn near useless to the world because of a disorder you can do little to nothing about.

Yeah, ….so that is where I am at. I feel horrid about it. I now cannot stop thinking about it….

The doctor said just to have people watch me and always look for the signs…
Which I already so…..I already live in fear every day…and dream about it and think about it.


I have never had a doctor tell me this...I took the MMPI….I took all those test…

What if I am like my mother?....


Or is this just PTSD….


I am so confused…and hurt…and worried…I feel like someone just told me I have cancer and I am going to die….

Hi Emoxxkid,

first time I tried to post my response it didn't work. Here is attempt # 2

First, I am glad you wrote how you are feeling. Keep on talking about it.

Next, I will offer some of my own experience and opinions. The most important of which is: it is very important not to automatically swallow what anyone, especially doctors may say about who we are, or what is or is not wrong with us.

About a year ago, I got myself referred to the local expert on dissociative disorders, a psychiatrist many here hold in near god-like esteem. I went to him to gain a better understanding of my own dissociative experiences (one of which can be a sense of 'unreality', which need not have anything to do with psychosis).

This man spent an hour grilling me, at times literally referring to lists of criteria in the DSM IV he had on the table in front of him. He wanted to know next to nothing about my experiences of dissociation, and never asked to see the drawings I had brought to illustrate my internal world.

At the end of the hour he announced that I had Borderline Personality Disorder and sent me on my way. He only treats people with dissociative disorders. I was crushed and enraged. To this day I have only one word for the guy: pinhead!!

I have been mis-diagnosed with personality disorders three times now, by people unable to see past the covers of their DSM to the person sitting in great pain in front of them. The problem is really PTSD stemming from childhood abuse, of which in my case, dissociation and depression are two of the major features.

More recently I had a woman psychiatrist who engaged me as a person, express astonishment at his diagnosis and reassure me in no uncertain terms that I do not have BPD.

And no, this is not about hopping from DR to DR until I hear what I want to. I know when I am being treated like a human being and when I am being examined like a bug.

Also, it is very important when talking about things like 'a sense of unreality' to be sure that your experience of that is what is being understood, not the Doctor's book-based understanding of what that is supposed to mean.

Anyhow, I hope you feel better as time passes. You are not your mother! Try not to terrorize yourself with scenarios of disastrous futures which may never come to pass. (And probably won't).

hang in there!

DLRoss

You are not alone and it is going to be okay. If you have the ability to recognize shit still then it's okay. well, maybe not okay, but you are still with us. And don'tm think that you are the only one who questions reality. I do too. my doc gets worried about me because I get the floaty weird feeling alot when I am driving. He said it is just because the stress of awareness while driving brings on the dissociative feelings. so I pull over now and try to connect by touching the car hood (it's hot) or if there is grass by feeling it, etc.
Just try to get different nerves firing to reconnect . in any situation....not just driving.

Emoxx,


I just recently discussed something similar with Anthony through PM's. I work for a woman that is a child psychiatrist. I have know her for almost 10 yrs. She has seen me at my worst, and at my best.

She told me a few months ago, that I had Personality Disorder. I have been DX'ed by another Psychiatrist with having PTSD. I was hospitalized at the time in the shrink ward for suicide attempt. This was the third time in this ward with the same shrink, and it was he that DX'ed me. I have PTSD, NOT BPD.......

I am not a shrink, nor a dr so I can't tell you what you have or don't have. But I do think that the fear that you are carrying with you will drive you batty if you let it.

IMO.... I know how scary it must be for you....BUT there isn't a thing that you can do to prevent this IF it is going to happen. Worrying about it, will only increase your symptoms, and you will have a worse time with coping.

I would also seek out another opinion. Try and relax, and try not to dwell on what might happen. Deal with what you KNOW for fact right now.....

Hang in there........

Emoxx, that person had an opinion. That's one opinion. And everyone has one, they are just like rectums. Don't give her the power to make you sad because she said that about you. You will not turn into your mother!
Second opinions done completely without knowledge of what the first person's diagnosis might surprize you; it might be completely different. Don't give up!

diagnosing is sometimes a big damn GUESS! They see the symptoms as they are right then and are not looking at you as a whole. Don't live your life in fear of the future or you will go mad. As for reality, the other day I was sitting in my car and I was staring up at the stars and i wondered for a few moments if this was all real, is my life really like this or is this just a game. SO there, I am crazy too, or maybe just wishing that I was dealt a better hand.

Those acronyms... those labels... sometimes I just HATE those. It seems as if so many things in life, especially when dealing with the complexity of the human brain, are just plain VAGUE and we try so desperately to apply labels and order to it so that it makes some kind of sense! Especially when you get to labeling somebody with three or four different diagnoses... I wonder why we have to try to apply so many different labels to a person rather than treating them as an INDIVIDUAL with their OWN set of issues that might LOOK like a little from column A and a little from column B but is actually column Q. And a different doctor will tell you its column R. We're talking about the brain here... not something obvious like a bruise. So like the others are saying, I would agree that you shouldn't put too much energy into stressing over what one person's assessment of you is. Like you said yourself, she "THOUGHT." She does not KNOW.

I try to look at life this way: there is the future, and things will happen that I may not be able to control (there are enough scary diseases in my family I'm sure I can sit here and play "what if" with each one until I start to take each finger twitch as a sign of impending doom) but right now I am living in TODAY and I want to make that TODAY the best darn-diddly-darn day possible. So focus on what you can do for yourself today and cross tomorrow's bridge when you get to it (easier said than done, I know, but one can always try). Worrying too much will only make you ill.

Thank you for all your replies to what I wrote. I find it soothing and very helpful to here what people have to say.......

I won't lie....I am worried....I do still live in this fear...the shadow of my mother....

I am TRYING not too...that's all I can do right now.


Geneva

Trying not to is a good place to start......Hugs....