Intro

[SteveVanSik]

Hi, my name is not actually Steve and I'm a .. well, not quite sure, I suppose.

About two years ago now I took a vacation from about 15 years of _relative_ mental stability and decided to go a bit suicidal. As a result of that, I ended up seeing my family doctor, then a psychiatrist. The result was that about maybe 15 months ago now I got my diagnosis (schizoid personality, ADHD) and then about six months after that accepted some meds for the attention issues. Since then things have become both better and worse. I'm hoping that here I can find some answers on the 'what to do next' front. My efforts so far have all been directed towards refining my understanding of where my mental processes go off the rails and where my behaviours are maladaptive. I've made some progress (enough to start doubting schizoid as a diagnosis) but if I can't actually make changes or adapt my life to suit, there isn't much point in any of it. I'm hoping that people here with expertise in psychiatry and/or life wrangling may provide some useful insights.

 

[Retired]

Hello and welcome to Psychlinks!

Hi, my name is not actually Steve

OK, but mine really is

Hope you find the information and support you need here on the Forum.

if I can't actually make changes or adapt my life to suit, there isn't much point in any of it

Sorry to hear you feel that way, but maybe we can help you modify your views. We all have our own collection of symptoms and diagnoses to deal with and the best that we can do is manage them as best we can, to be able to live the best quality of life we can achieve. Nobody's perfect and to expect perfection sets ourselves up for failure and disappointment.

Are you still receiving therapy and taking the prescribed medications?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Welcome, NotSteve. At least you've kept your sense of humor and that can be a very valuable asset sometimes.

Many people don't realize that a diagnosis is not a carved in stone thing but one which can evolve over time as the symptoms are clarified, or more information becomes available, or even the patient's reaction to specific medications. In most cases, within the first meeting or two with a patient, the practitioner will record a "working diagnosis" (which is essentially "best guess at the present time"), often followed by "Rule out Diagnosis B", "Rule out Diagnosis C", "Rule out Diagnosis D", etc.

 

[SteveVanSik]

Sorry to hear you feel that way, but maybe we can help you modify your views.

Are you still receiving therapy and taking the prescribed medications?

I may have inadvertently misled you with my phrasing. By "it" I don't mean life, but rather the process of refining a diagnosis. I tend toward being "fiddly" and would naturally have a tendency to obsess over the minutea of the diagnosis rather than the solutions. I am happy to refine the diagnosis, but only insofar as it may lead to a solution (or set of partial solutions, I suppose) -- which is where I am trying to focus. Hence my next step being moves like joining this forum, looking for resources about dealing with these things (such as some of the ones posted in the section on here .. have downloaded the big book but haven't gotten into it yet) etc., rather than getting my hand on the revised DSM and the backing primary literature and trying to weasel out an exact diagnosis. While I do have periods of suicidal ideation as well as suicidal tendencies, the "giving up" in this situation is more along the lines of giving up on analyzing my though proces and just blundering my way through as best as is possible. I hope instead to improve my lot in life.

I am still taking my medication. I have not returned to the therapist since session one (over a year ago now). I found it horribly unproductive and misguided -- but that is a rant for another day. I do meet my family doctor once every three months to renew my script and sort of touch base. Not really therapy and the last one she was on vacation so I spoke (or rather didn't really speak) with one of her minions instead. I have another appointment in about a week and a half.

Many people don't realize that a diagnosis is not a carved in stone

The psychiatrist who did see me apparently wrote that I was "diagnostically complex" and needed a second appointment in order to get it sorted. :-D

 

[rdw]

Welcome to the forum "not actually Steve"!

 

[MHealthJo]

Welcome, NotSteve.

Sorry to hear the really bad time that you went through. I'm glad you survived it, and it's excellent that you're on a road now of working to improve your quality of life.

I can't be sure what modalties of therapy and self-help you have or haven't looked into yet, so bear with me. But from what you say, I get the hunch that a therapist or group who you can build some level of rapport and comfort with, who uses modalities such as Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, could be a great asset to you. As well as self-help books and other resources based on those modalities.

The ideas of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy may be appealing to you along the lines of how you say you have gotten bogged down sometimes trying to analyze where your thinking goes wrong. Doing that and weeding out the problems created is a large part of what CBT is all about, and the effectiveness of CBT is well-researched and well-established. Doing it with the help of a good therapist with a good idea of what conditions you have, could make that process work quite well for you... Alternatively, online CBT resources or self-help CBT books can help you do this work on your own. The only thing you miss out on doing work on your own though, is an objective outsider to ask the right questions, help you see what's going on in yourself, or point you to the right tool that you need at the right time.

On another tack, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is perhaps more along the lines of the other side of your goal - that is, trying to not necessarily get bogged down in what you're thinking, why you're thinking it, where it's going wrong, etc etc - but instead, letting thoughts be what they are sometimes, and focusing on what you need to do and what your options are - despite whatever thoughts and feelings might be present. It's about ways that we can move past unhelpful thinking and feelings to still go towards actions or results we are looking for, anyway.

That's an extremely glossed-over 'gist' of why I'm thinking a good therapist (and/or resources) using these modalities could be a really positive asset for you. As well as that, remember that there's lots of self-help information geared towards ADHD which ADHD folks have found really useful. Digging in forums and self-help sites geared towards that will eventually yield useful resources for you. Different folks with ADHD have different facets that bother them, but in my case my husband who has ADHD has benefited quite a lot from CBT books written by David Burns, as well as general digging, books, videos, forums, talking, and self-help reading on the ADHD side of things.

Best of luck on your travels... Let us know how you're going, or anytime you have other questions...

 

[GDPR]

Hello.Welcome.