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Oct. 22nd, 2019
OK, this is definitely a midlife crisis.
Oct. 22nd, 2019 04:13 pmI've been on an R.E.M. kick over the past few days, so I think we can safely say that this is a midlife crisis. Because really what I am nostalgic for is the period between 1995-2005. And I've had the Monster album on loop, particularly.
I wish my life had been different.
I wish I hadn't been crippled by mental illness.
I wish the therapists I saw then had offered me more by way of therapy and coping mechanisms than "Here, just take these SSRIs and this Klonopin. That's it, that's the therapy. By the way, these are habit forming with actual withdrawal symptoms. You're welcome." I once asked my psychiatrist, who was considered the top guy to handle Pure O OCD cases in Dallas, what else I could be doing to improve my situation, and he was like "OCD doesn't respond to therapy, only drugs," and smiled sagely. But I had to come to the group therapy sessions to get the scripts for the drugs.
None of them took my previous diagnosis of ADHD into account, or its co-morbidity with the OCD, my disassociative and avoidant traits, the executive dysfunction, the anxiety, and how they all fed off each other.
None of them offered me anything in the way of constructive coping mechanisms, other than the same shit that neurotypicals usually say. ("Excersise more. Do yoga. Meditate. Take up a hobby.") When it didn't work, I just wasn't trying hard enough, and was lazy and ungrateful and a drama queen.
I wish I had been able to get a real job earlier. I wish I had already been making real money in 1996, instead of minimum wage. I wish I had gotten my shit together ten years earlier than I ended up doing.
I lost ten years of my life that I will never get back.
BUT! As I said in another post here recently, I can give myself permission to do all the things I could have been doing sooner now that I have developed coping mechanisms that work. I am making real money and I have insurance. Which brings us to the elephant in the room:
I need to get back into therapy.
I need to find a shrink who will listen, who won't be condescending or disregard my condition or my feedback.
And the terrible thing is, I am over 9000% sure that all of that went down the way it did because at the time I was (outwardly at least) a goth girl in my teens and twenties, who was told to take a seat and not to put myself too far forward when I tried to tell my therapist what I was going through - the inference at the time was very much "sit down and shut up, they're the professionals, they'll tell you what you're going through."
Back then I had to nod and smile gratefully, and take the Prozac or the Paxil or the Effexor and the Klonopin, and feel guilty when it didn't magically fix me. Now, if they try that crap, I can just go find another shrink.
It is time to be proactive about this crap, and not just power through when things get difficult.
Current Mood: https://youtu.be/sO5APfKnR50 (It's Girl Anachronism by Dresden Dolls, because of course it is.)
BONUS: Me telling my friends I am getting back into The Matrix fandom:
I wish my life had been different.
I wish I hadn't been crippled by mental illness.
I wish the therapists I saw then had offered me more by way of therapy and coping mechanisms than "Here, just take these SSRIs and this Klonopin. That's it, that's the therapy. By the way, these are habit forming with actual withdrawal symptoms. You're welcome." I once asked my psychiatrist, who was considered the top guy to handle Pure O OCD cases in Dallas, what else I could be doing to improve my situation, and he was like "OCD doesn't respond to therapy, only drugs," and smiled sagely. But I had to come to the group therapy sessions to get the scripts for the drugs.
None of them took my previous diagnosis of ADHD into account, or its co-morbidity with the OCD, my disassociative and avoidant traits, the executive dysfunction, the anxiety, and how they all fed off each other.
None of them offered me anything in the way of constructive coping mechanisms, other than the same shit that neurotypicals usually say. ("Excersise more. Do yoga. Meditate. Take up a hobby.") When it didn't work, I just wasn't trying hard enough, and was lazy and ungrateful and a drama queen.
I wish I had been able to get a real job earlier. I wish I had already been making real money in 1996, instead of minimum wage. I wish I had gotten my shit together ten years earlier than I ended up doing.
I lost ten years of my life that I will never get back.
BUT! As I said in another post here recently, I can give myself permission to do all the things I could have been doing sooner now that I have developed coping mechanisms that work. I am making real money and I have insurance. Which brings us to the elephant in the room:
I need to get back into therapy.
I need to find a shrink who will listen, who won't be condescending or disregard my condition or my feedback.
And the terrible thing is, I am over 9000% sure that all of that went down the way it did because at the time I was (outwardly at least) a goth girl in my teens and twenties, who was told to take a seat and not to put myself too far forward when I tried to tell my therapist what I was going through - the inference at the time was very much "sit down and shut up, they're the professionals, they'll tell you what you're going through."
Back then I had to nod and smile gratefully, and take the Prozac or the Paxil or the Effexor and the Klonopin, and feel guilty when it didn't magically fix me. Now, if they try that crap, I can just go find another shrink.
It is time to be proactive about this crap, and not just power through when things get difficult.
Current Mood: https://youtu.be/sO5APfKnR50 (It's Girl Anachronism by Dresden Dolls, because of course it is.)
BONUS: Me telling my friends I am getting back into The Matrix fandom: