klmno
Active Member
Regarding the mental health evaluation done on me- I wrote a letter to clarify the numerous mistakes in it and hand delivered it yesterday. I might have let it go but since so many court authorities could end up reading it, I didn't want them thinking I lied to the psychiatric. Anyway, it led me to think more about this and what appears to me is that a lot of people have been blowing off things when I try to bring my concerns to them because they are assuming if I have an anxiety diagnosis, then my "concerns" are really irrational fears or worries.
I remember being treated like a neurotic fruitcake by a lot of people when I was young and first sought out a therapist who was just teaching me relaxation techniques until they all figured out that my tremors were familial tremors and not a result of anxiety, although stress can make it worse. Also, none of those relaxation techniques helped me but the intensive therapy for trauma did, even though it did include me learning different types of methods for dealing with anxiety, or at least what I would call anxiety. But I'm not so sure that my definition of anxiety is the same as a therapist's anymore.
In the situation with difficult child and the court authorities though, and as I summarized in my letter back to the psychiatric, I didn't end up unemployed because I had anxiety that interfered with my job. It was the countless times I had to go pick difficult child unexpectedly because he'd gotten into trouble, had to go take him to tdocs, PO, court, etc, that led to my unemployment. And every time difficult child got into trouble, DSS was called in (except this last time) and they had told me if difficult child gets turned over to them, he goes to my family. Period. The PO always threw out orders and threatened sanctions by the judge and blamed me for all difficult child's trouble- so did the GAL. Then, difficult child started getting physically aggressive.
So my stress level went thru the roof. If they were "threatening" all these things, then how is that an irrational worry, knowing that difficult child was continuing to get into trouble? And if there is reason to be stressed out, due to losing job and health benefits, now losing home, etc., then is that clinically anxiety or is it PTSD? Or is it something else?
Personally, I think this is PTSD but the people in the courts would probably flip out more if they saw that. In the evaluation, the psychiatric wrote that PTSD symptoms subsided as a young adult after that intensive therapy. True, but my current psychiatric problems returned after I testified about all the family problems from childhood and the PO and GAL continued with their threats and blaming me after difficult child kept getting into trouble, etc. (Although this psychiatric seems convinced that these symptoms have always been persistent even though he acknowledged current, different stressors. I hate it when tdocs/psychs make assumptions about other times in your life when they have absolutely no first hand knowledge to support that conclusion.) The psychiatric wrote what he thought my specific symptoms were and he listed the exact same ones in the sentence where he was talking about anxiety as he did in the sentence where he was talking about depression. I am aware those same symptoms could apply to both those dxs- but those specific symptoms also are on the list for PTSD.
As a side note, I had to chuckle when he wrote in there he thought I was "easily overwhelmed", right after talking about difficult child stuff I'd been dealing with, being unemployed, and now losing home. I hate to think what a person would have to live with before he'd consider it normal to get overwhelmed by it. His title on the evaluation says he is the court evaluation supervisor, which tells me that all he does is work with people ordered by the court so my guess is that he's somewhat desensitized to difficult child issues. People ITRW that I worked with and live in neighborhoods with, etc., never considered these issues typical or normal. And my therapist last year said she thought I had become too tolerable of difficult child issues.
I guess I'm wondering if the clinical definition of anxiety means it has to be an irrational worry or fear. As an example, right before difficult child started having difficult child issues, I had a mammogram that came back showing something. We had just known someone who had died after the first chemo treatment for breast cancer. It took months for me to get further testing to find out whether or not I had cancer. difficult child learned more about his father not being in his life and basicly, turned into a difficult child. I was scared I had cancer, what would happen to difficult child, trying to deal with his new-found issues, etc. Yes, I can see where my stress level was thru the roof and am sure it contribbutted to difficult child's issues. However, I had been terming that anxiety but I don't think these concerns were unfounded or irrational. So what term should I use with a therapist?
I remember being treated like a neurotic fruitcake by a lot of people when I was young and first sought out a therapist who was just teaching me relaxation techniques until they all figured out that my tremors were familial tremors and not a result of anxiety, although stress can make it worse. Also, none of those relaxation techniques helped me but the intensive therapy for trauma did, even though it did include me learning different types of methods for dealing with anxiety, or at least what I would call anxiety. But I'm not so sure that my definition of anxiety is the same as a therapist's anymore.
In the situation with difficult child and the court authorities though, and as I summarized in my letter back to the psychiatric, I didn't end up unemployed because I had anxiety that interfered with my job. It was the countless times I had to go pick difficult child unexpectedly because he'd gotten into trouble, had to go take him to tdocs, PO, court, etc, that led to my unemployment. And every time difficult child got into trouble, DSS was called in (except this last time) and they had told me if difficult child gets turned over to them, he goes to my family. Period. The PO always threw out orders and threatened sanctions by the judge and blamed me for all difficult child's trouble- so did the GAL. Then, difficult child started getting physically aggressive.
So my stress level went thru the roof. If they were "threatening" all these things, then how is that an irrational worry, knowing that difficult child was continuing to get into trouble? And if there is reason to be stressed out, due to losing job and health benefits, now losing home, etc., then is that clinically anxiety or is it PTSD? Or is it something else?
Personally, I think this is PTSD but the people in the courts would probably flip out more if they saw that. In the evaluation, the psychiatric wrote that PTSD symptoms subsided as a young adult after that intensive therapy. True, but my current psychiatric problems returned after I testified about all the family problems from childhood and the PO and GAL continued with their threats and blaming me after difficult child kept getting into trouble, etc. (Although this psychiatric seems convinced that these symptoms have always been persistent even though he acknowledged current, different stressors. I hate it when tdocs/psychs make assumptions about other times in your life when they have absolutely no first hand knowledge to support that conclusion.) The psychiatric wrote what he thought my specific symptoms were and he listed the exact same ones in the sentence where he was talking about anxiety as he did in the sentence where he was talking about depression. I am aware those same symptoms could apply to both those dxs- but those specific symptoms also are on the list for PTSD.
As a side note, I had to chuckle when he wrote in there he thought I was "easily overwhelmed", right after talking about difficult child stuff I'd been dealing with, being unemployed, and now losing home. I hate to think what a person would have to live with before he'd consider it normal to get overwhelmed by it. His title on the evaluation says he is the court evaluation supervisor, which tells me that all he does is work with people ordered by the court so my guess is that he's somewhat desensitized to difficult child issues. People ITRW that I worked with and live in neighborhoods with, etc., never considered these issues typical or normal. And my therapist last year said she thought I had become too tolerable of difficult child issues.
I guess I'm wondering if the clinical definition of anxiety means it has to be an irrational worry or fear. As an example, right before difficult child started having difficult child issues, I had a mammogram that came back showing something. We had just known someone who had died after the first chemo treatment for breast cancer. It took months for me to get further testing to find out whether or not I had cancer. difficult child learned more about his father not being in his life and basicly, turned into a difficult child. I was scared I had cancer, what would happen to difficult child, trying to deal with his new-found issues, etc. Yes, I can see where my stress level was thru the roof and am sure it contribbutted to difficult child's issues. However, I had been terming that anxiety but I don't think these concerns were unfounded or irrational. So what term should I use with a therapist?
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