so, after two sessions with my tdoc and not liking her much, i brought my hubby, and he seems to be on the same page. i want to know from some other patients, though, what i should expect from a good tdooc. maybe we're being to demanding. i don't think so, but maybe.

the first appt she was okay, but that was mostly because i spent a lot of it crying and just explaining why i was so depressed. the only thing that bothered me this time was that she wasn't very emotionally responsive to any of what i said, but i thought maybe that was because she just didn't want to feed into my emotions any more because it might just make me worse. she referred me to a pdoc, though i was hesitant at first because i did not feel that my mom and sister have been helped much by their medications. she encouraged me to go, though, so i went along with it.

(then i met with my pdoc who so far i get along great with. only one appt so far, but two phone conversations and we seem to be communicating very well)

the second appt was crappy. i was on my second week of the AD and was feeling very hypomanic. at this point i was convinced i needed to quit my job, that my boss was making me worse (which he may be, who knows, but it's definitely not all because of him!! i've got enough causes without him...but i was convinced it was his fault!), started telling the tdoc ridiculous things about him (that the guy doesn't know anything, passed on a comment that a co-worker made about every product he makes coming out looking like "hammered dog s***"...just basically acting way out of the ordinary for myself, which i realized a couple of days later. i even thought she recognized it because she asked me if my boss was good at what he does, and when i laughed a big "HA!" and said "NO!" she said "oh really?" and basically that prompted me to talk more! i was also pretty irritated about how we kept talking about some issues that i didn't think we needed to. i felt like it was wasting my session time and that we should be talking about more valuable things, like ideas for me to cope with him. the only ideas she came up with were "deep breathing" and giving neutral comments back to him when he started insulting me and going off the deep end. uhhhh...duh. one of my whole entire GOALS in treatment is to be able to be unaffected by him and give him neutral comments instead of going off the deep end myself. i need ideas on how to control things enough to get to that point!! so, i left feeling ticked off but later attributed it to my hypomania. oh, again, she was very emotionally empty.

third appt was yesterday and i brought the hubby so he could give a clear-headed person's opinion of her to me....

---first off, she basically told me i could be worse (said that other people are homeless and take their clothes off in the street). no s*** sherlock, my cousin is one of those people. what i want from her is some emotional support...i already beat myself up enough as it is to be asking for help when i know other people have it so much worse than me. she points out that since i went to college and have a career i am not doing too bad. too bad i feel like my brain is rotting out of my head...which she would have realized if she even skimmed the 10 page mood journal i gave her last week.

---secondly, and related to that topic, she told me she didn't think i behaved that strangely in the office last week...that i am coming to a tdoc office and it would be expected that i would be more "open" than with other people...uh, maybe for other people, but not in my case! i responded by telling her that the way i can tell it was weird was that i wouldn't feel right repeating those things again at this appt. she had no response.

---thirdly, my hubby asked about the traumatic events that happened around this time last year, wanting to know how they might have affected me and how to deal with future ones since those are inevitable in life...and she just said that traumatic events don't cause bp, but bp makes it harder to deal with events like that. uh, not what we asked! of course, we got sidetracked because she distracted us from the original question with this weirdo answer. this happened over and over again yesterday.

---fourth, just her emotional emptiness is a problem. just no response to anything at all. no telling me that what i feel is normal for my condition, no sympathy, no nothing.

---fifth, i feel like i have to convince her that something is wrong with me. i also feel like i have to lead the session and come up with all the solutions. i have to convince her because when i tell her something that i think i do that is weird she tries to make excuses for it. i have to lead the sessions because all she does is ask me how things are going, i tell her about something, then she does the thing about making up excuses for why i do it. then, about the solutions, my hubby asked about what he should do with my moods...should he try to let me go through them, or should he try to get me out of them...and then her answer was "well, what would you like him to do?" what the heck?!?! i don't know!! that's why we're asking!! what is generally a better idea? i can't exactly give a good answer, anyway, because i'm not in one of those moods....and i tend to be totally disconnected from them when i'm in a normal mood, so how can i answer that?? and if i am asked when i'm IN a mood, then i'm irrational and what i say won't actually work...we've tried that before i even started going to the docs!!

finally, we asked what the goal is right now and she said to get my mood stabilized with meds. ooooookay, so why am i even seeing the tdoc? according to her we can't really work on any of my major issues until i'm stable...so why am i there?? i would think the solution would be learning some coping strategies, but if that were the case shouldn't i be getting something suggested other than "deep breathing" and basically being told to just "try harder"??? clearly that's not working when i get urges to do things like key some guy's car because he stole my parking space and the only thing that is stopping me is that my husband is there to tell me no.

so, what do you think? what should i be expecting from a tdoc at this point? is going to a tdoc even helpful at this point?

Hi cyclo,

With several appts already behind you with this tdoc, if you are not feeling a sense of comfort with her by now, change tdocs. Not all tdocs are good ones, and not all will 'click' with all people. Therapy and positive feedback is so important for all you are going thru, take the time to screen out new tdocs on the phone before scheduling an appt with someone new. A good tdoc can make all the difference!

Good luck,
4support

is it really even necessary to have a tdoc right now? i'm not really sure what i should even be getting from one right now. is it enough to just have my pdoc? what should a good tdoc be providing me with as i search for the right meds?

thank you for the response :)

It's important that a good tdoc counsel and guide you even while you are on the right meds search. Not only will your going to therapy and spending time with them help you by talking and sharing your feelings, but you will be able to develop a solid relationship, receive answers and feedback to your questions and learn coping techniques and behaviour modification, educate yourself more on the illness, learn about the latest treatments, but they will be able to have a baseline of how you are feeling now vs. the difference once you find the right meds, and they will be able to tell if there are variances. A good one really can make all the difference. My husband is BP II/ADHD and I honestly didn't see the meds alone helping as much until he started going to therapy regulary. We have an excellent therapist (he is a psychotherapist), thank goodness! He still has a long way to go, and he's been in therapy for 6 months. ;)

Take care,
4

Finding a good tdoc is not easy, so take heart! My son has been through 9 (!), but only because after giving the first few the time to see if our original impressions were correct, we now don't wait very long to change. We've been criticized for it, but we KNOW when the connection isn't there and we don't want to waste time or money.

One of the things that has been helpful (we recently started with someone new and she is the first one that all of us - my husband, son, and I - had a good feeling about when we left - is to determine before you go in what is important to you. What would you like the therapy to accomplish? How reachable is the tdoc by phone if you are having a problem? Is that important to you? (This was a big dealbreaker to us because we tried to be respectful of the therapist's time, but my son was having some challenges that we needed input on and many of them simply didn't return phone calls!) How important is it to you that they have a back-up phone number or other therapist in case of emergency?

I'm not sure what your specific concerns are, but it's especially important to have a plan if you are in a crisis or feel like you are in a crisis. Another thing to discuss upfront is whether you are willing to have a tdoc talk to your husband if you are having a crisis and whether they will. Some are very concerned about HIPAA laws and won't talk to anyone other than the patient. Again, be clear what is allowable discussion and what is not.

We never wanted to know the specifics of any discussion between my son and his therapist, but we needed him/her to know if my son was indulging in risky behavior, especially because my son would often not share that information. Our first concern is his safety and it has been difficult to get therapists who understand that.

Don't know if this helps or not, but my 2 cents is definitely find someone new!

Good luck.

Hope

I must say from our experience with our daughter, she went to 7 months of therapy while being misdiagnosed and it really didn't do anything for her....in fact he didn't even pick up that the meds were making her hypomanic despite our going to see him sometimes twice a week!!

I think that it is good in the sense that it allows you to unburden some of what you are holding inside which may make things worse in terms of an episode but the real therapy begins when you are on your way to stability because when properly medicated you can see things rationally and logically and can process the things that you need to do and use to prevent breakthroughs in the future.

I would hang in there for a bit....I noticed in your post that it seems that you want to have a set plan on how to fix everything but it is all a learning process of changing behaviors and situations that bring on your episodes and ways of avoiding them as well as gaining new insight in terms of identifying what is going on before it worstens.

One thing that I notice with my daughter and many BPers confirm is how easily information is distorted or the way that things are perceived or misinterpreted that aren't even happening such as the way somebody smiles or whispers something to another or stares at you perhaps envying your new shoes or hair color and instead you are feeling that they are thinking badly about you. Sometimes what you internally feel is projected upon yourself when interacting with your environment.

Having some understanding of how these things are part of BP and how you can use your thoughts to remind yourself that something that you are interpreting at any given time is not necessarily valid. I hope this makes some sense.

After the meds are in place you will be successful at putting this all into action....your tdoc is accurate that these things are not going to happen without the meds in place. For now she just wants to help you minimize your stress levels and that is mostly done by your releasing some of your anger and upsetment and her mirroring it back in a way that you might be able to understand but probably won't until you are more stable.

Don't make too many drastic changes....that in itself may only make things worse. But if you are really feeling worse with the therapy and it is only the beginning perhaps you might want to make a change before getting too much into it. YOu don't want to feel as if you are starting all over and over again and not getting anywhere so if you are going to make a change now might be the best time. And if you feel the same way with the next one perhaps you should hang in there until you are stabilized realizing that the goal until then is to let it out and not hold it in so that the meds can start working.

Keep talking and being patient....it will happen but it isn't going to happen overnight like we all would like it too. IT takes at least a year sometimes more depending on how you work with your team to get you there.

Hope this helps in someway ~ Goody:angel: :wave:

I'd find a new tdoc if you're not clicking with this one. Luckily, my tdoc of two years and I totally click. We're about the same age and I look forward to going to therapy even when I don't have any issues. I had a few sessions with others throughout the years but I felt like I would be wasting my time. I don't like when they give you breathing exercizes either. I'd try to stick with therapy, though. It helped me a great deal. I was a mess and now my issues are minor. Sometimes I just go to bulls*#t.

In the meantime, here's a little tip for stress management.

Picture yourself near a stream.
Birds are singing in the crisp, cool mountain air.
Nothing can bother you here.
No one knows this secret place.
You are in total seclusion from that place called the world.
The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.
The water is clear.
You can easily make out the face of the person whose head you're holding under the water.
There now, feeling better?

lol, nice tip! :-P

i'm seeing my pdoc and i'm going to see if she has any suggestions for a different tdoc. i get along really well with my pdoc so far, and it seems like she already "gets" my personality, so she might know of someone. the sucky thing is that when i told her who my tdoc is she said "oh she's good" and i was just like, uhhh, i guess, and just replied, "yeah, she seems like a nice lady." who knows though, that's what i say about my boss to our patients even though i don't always believe it! haha

i want to stick with therapy, at least now i know what i want from it. i read a bipolar book last night and it was super helpful to just have questions answered...made me feel a ton better. and if someone does give me breathing exercises, that's fine...my problem with it is how my tdoc just left it at telling me to deep breathe and didn't elaborate or even give me actual exercises. uh, yeah. whatever.

that bipolar book named and explained the different types of psychotherapy, too, so i'll have to read up on it before my next appointment with the pdoc on thursday!

thanks for the support!!

Hello cyclo--

I would guess that your pdoc was just responding in a nice, socially acceptable manner, not really wanting to influence you one way or another. This time I would specifically ask if she could make a recommendation now that she knows you a bit. Therapy is expensive and there's no point wasting your time and money if you don't relate well to the therapist.

At least that's my two cents for today!!

How are you feeling otherwise??

xx Tsohl :wave:

Another thought:

If you have an idea what you want, you might want to look into NAMI. Perhaps you could find a support group that would be of help to you. Are you familiar with that organization?