Abandon all hope, young man

I’ve just left an appointment with my consultant psychiatrist and, although it clarified some matters, it has left me feeling more hopeless than ever.  I told the doctor about some of my personality problems, the fact that the medication seems to have no effect on me (other than to lumber me with symptoms due to side effects) and the fact that I seem to have a moveable feast when it comes to the diagnosis I am given.

I’m unsure whether he really heard the personality problems I told him about because he seemed more interested in the more mundane issues – sleep pattern, appetite, etc. – and, in my opinion, the personality problems are where my depression and anxiety are born and raised.  However, he’s the expert.

The question of diagnosis was covered by the psychiatrist saying that a diagnosis is based on what I bring up in the appointments and most diagnoses are subject to change.  This is a given and something I already knew but it would have been nice to be told that ‘Adjustment Disorder (depressive type)’ is another way of saying ‘a period of depression brought on by an event’ or ‘reactive depression’.  The other diagnosis of ‘Recurrent Depressive Disorder’ is now being questioned for some reason although being somewhat drowsy from my medication, one dose of which I kept around to demonstrate the sedative effect on me, I didn’t really get what the problem was.  The doctor did say though that the fact I was on two anti-depressants was unusual for someone in my case and showed that they were willing to take medical risks to help me although I’d think that I’m the one taking all the risks.

The doctor was unwilling to change my medication because I’ve had medications from each class of medication and they haven’t helped.  He didn’t say it in these words as such but the gist of the conversation was that ‘sometimes we just can’t help everyone’ and that it may be a fact that I may just have to live like this for the rest of my life.  That revelation could well be too much for me to bear; however, I will continue to go on until I have the psychiatrist’s final decision, supposedly in a month’s time.

I will be worrying every minute of every hour of every day until I get that final decision, worrying about how that decision will affect my access to services and benefits that I rely on.  All I know is, those words ‘sometimes we just can’t help everyone’ will be echoing around in my head, haunting me.