A New Member of my Support Team

Yesterday I met with my new Psychiatrist for the first time. I am always anxious about starting over with a new doctor or therapist. I never know what their form of treatment will be. I know a lot about my multiple diagnoses as well as forms of treatment, and sometimes knowing so much makes it harder to go forth with someone new. I want them to all be like my therapist back in Missouri, he and I really hit it off and he would not put up with my different forms of deflection and minimizing. He could see right through my "happy/brave face." That is what I need more than anything.

There is also the fact that in order to bring a new mental health professional into my life I have to tell my story again. I have to talk about issues that hurt and that I like to keep buried. I could have left that part of my story untold and just dealt with the overwhelming issues I have faced in the past year or so, but that wouldn't have helped me. I needed to lay it all on the table.

It took me all of three sentences before I started crying, she got up and gave me a tissue and hugged me. I knew it was going to be okay right then! She was everything I needed. She was firm in her response, and kind with her words. She acknowledged that I am perfectionist and that the world is not a perfect place, and that all of my attempts at being perfect were not working. I am a perfect Rachel just the way I am. She saw through everything I said and saw the anger behind it, and said if I felt angry to come into her office and yell at her, not to take it out on my body. She also told me that I was very intelligent and that I could easily be a doctor, which she thought I was when I started talking about what I had been diagnosed with.

In the past, my psychiatrists have basically been the people behind the medication. I haven't spent much time in their office, that is for the therapist. Yesterday I was in her office for over an hour. She made me feel better and she made me want to keep fighting the battle that as of late has not been easy.

I believe that with her on my side, as well as my friends and family, I will make it!

YAHOO!