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My psychiatrist passed away

“He was a big character, chaotic, charismatic, and fun. With a big heart. He lived a big life, too short. And now he has left us with a big hole.” James Oliver, Revi Nair’s colleague and friend

Today I found out that my old psychiatrist, Revi, has died. First I was in shock, and then I cried. I watched his eulogy online. I don’t know why. But it’s a great eulogy and helped me understand him more and what draw him to psychiatry. He wasn’t just a great psychiatrist but a wonderful human being with a huge personality who cared for all living beings, from stray cats to humans, all his life. He said some things to me I’ve longed to hear all my life: “I want to take care of you”, “something has to be done, things can’t keep going like this” (in reference to how bad my mental health was). Well they can and they will. What a horrible end to yet another shit year. I didn’t actually have that many sessions with him. I was referred back to the public system as he, like most private psychiatrists, felt I was too bad for the private system. But the public system/case management service won’t take me back. I was going to get the GP to refer me back to Revi. I don’t actually feel psychiatry (or even psychology) has a lot to offer me but he was a kind person and I feel there is a place for some aspects of psychiatry, like short term benzo use. I don’t know what I would have done yesterday if I didn’t have any diazepam. I wouldn’t wish panic attacks on my worst enemy. Well the GP gave me twenty more tablets of diazepam today. I was hoping for more, but the drug is highly regulated and he worried the system might knock me into red if he gave me a pack of fifty. Hopefully I don’t keep having more panic attacks. I slept better last night.

I can’t believe Revi is gone. Everyone loved him. His office was always so warm and welcoming. And his laugh… omg his laugh. There are not many psychiatrists like him around.

I seem to lose everyone as the year comes to an end. I remember my very first therapist who I saw for two and a half years and was like a best friend to me terminated our relationship in December. I have never managed to get back on my feet and have remained in a deep depression for a decade now. My current therapist is about to go on holidays, and I don’t know if I will ever see my NDIS worker again. He told me he wanted to cut back our sessions as he felt I was too dependent on him. He then told my parents he couldn’t handle all the distressing messages I was apparently sending him and has now gone off on stress leave.

I will need to rely more on my friends this next month. I don’t like to lean on my friends too much as I don’t want to burden them with all my stuff. I will probably spend a lot of time on my own in nature this next month, which I feel I need to do.

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Rebuilding life after therapy

Even weeks after leaving that final session with my psychologist, I am still not sure what hit me. That session was so grotesque… the way she said she’d been speaking with colleagues about me and they all agreed that she should stop seeing me… the way she brought up all the times I’d been difficult during my private hospital stays to prove that I was indeed too “unstable” to work with. Apparently pulling a third person into the dynamic is a documented strategy used by “selfish individuals” to “comfort and protect their egos”, and “reinforce their sense of rightness or superiority”. I was left feeling ganged up on. All I had left to say to my psychologist as I left was “fuck you”. All I have left to say now is this quote by Booker T. Washington.

candle quote

Continue reading “Rebuilding life after therapy” →

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Sad

It is not an easy night. It is 4AM and my grief is keeping me up like a little child. In fact, I believe it literally is a little child. My psychologist introduced me to Internal Family Systems and the idea that we have different “parts”. Within me are parts stuck at different ages. I didn’t always interact with my psychologist as a 31-year-old adult. I attached to her like a child attaches herself to a mother. Sometimes my young part(s) would not only hijack my emotions but they would hijack my behaviour. There was one session I spent on the floor playing with the toys in her office. I put some of her little soft animals in her plastic expandable ball (there is one for sale on Ebay here for reference) and rolled them around. I built block towers out of dominos, and then balanced my psychologist’s little toy hedgehog on top, very impressed that it did not collapse. My psychologist had two crochet otters called “Harry” and “Ginny”. One day when she took leave she let me keep one of them. She kept “Harry” and said she would carry him in her handbag wherever she went so that she wouldn’t forget me. They were like friendship charms. She said it was normally what she’d do for her children, but she trusted me and thought it might help. It did help. I kept “Ginny” by my bed and she was of great comfort, so much so that I had trouble relinquishing her when my psychologist returned. I gave “Ginny” back to her crying and then left abruptly. Continue reading “Sad” →

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Shapeshifters, being believed, and nihilism

My OCD is bad this evening, and there is nothing I can do to satisfy the compulsion. Instead of taking a bunch of pills and going to bed, I thought I’d try and squeeze in the post I was going to make before my OCD hijacked everything.

We’ve just had a violent heatwave here (I actually just typed heatache by mistake just then, shows where I’m at!). I don’t mind the heat. I missed a lot of summer as I was in hospital, so was glad I could still squeeze in some beach days before the colder weather sets in. Now the weather has changed dramatically, reminding me of the way emotional abusers suddenly turn. Many people start to get Seasonal Affective Disorder during autumn, and with the added loss of my psychologist, the season feels particularly cold and melancholic. “Beware of shapeshifters”, “Trust no one”, “Run away”, “The end is near” are phrases Linkin Park has put in his music video for his song “Final Masquerade”. A masquerade is an event where people wear masks. My psychologist wore a mask. Sometimes I caught glimmers of the cold, heartless person she is behind the mask, such as the day her face for some reason morphed into my old teacher’s. I don’t know whether it was her make up or what it was. This teacher had a nasty side as well. She spread a lot of misinformation about mental health and I don’t believe she had any lived experience perspective. When I started speaking out against the things she was teaching, I was expelled. I was still struggling with depression and was often late to class. One time the staff found me in the bathroom holding a pin which I felt like injuring myself with. The staff used my mental health against me as a reason to stop me doing placement and ultimately remove me from the course. Yes, I was discriminated against, but because I hadn’t openly disclosed my disability to them, I suppose they thought they could get away with it. Similarly my psychologist used my mental health against me to end our relationship. I didn’t think it was possible, but the levels people will sink to continues to amaze me. “Too unstable”, “too much”. Those words haunt me, stinging me like shards of glass stuck in my skin. I feel like I walk around with a sign on my back saying “get rid of me”. But I came across a quote by C.Olavasdaughter yesterday which brought me comfort: “Darling, you’re magic, and people are afraid of magic. 400 years ago they would have called your wildness and beauty witchcraft and burned you on a stake. They don’t burn the magical ones anymore. They just leave them out in the cold and make them feel like freaks.” This is how people with BPD are treated nowadays. We are discriminated against. We are stigmatised. We turn to hospitals suicidal and are not given a bed, dumped on the floor of the waiting room crying with not a single soul stopping to ask if they can help us. Or we are told we will only be given 48 hours in hospital, and if we protest, the staff threaten to use their security to force us out. The private system is only marginally better. We are allowed to stay longer, but if we play up, the hospital can blacklist us and refuse to give us another admission. In the final meeting with my psychologist she brought up all the times I’ve played up in private hospitals and how they struggle to manage me there. She said she is part of the private system as well, and she is siding with the hospitals, agreeing that I am too difficult to manage. Continue reading “Shapeshifters, being believed, and nihilism” →

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Today’s update: finding myself

Every day I get urges to kill myself. Last night I called Lifeline. I actually found the lady who picked up really helpful. She was horrified by my psychologist’s behaviour and said she shouldn’t be practicing. Something I’ve learnt about Lifeline is they are there for anyone in distress and needing someone to talk to, you don’t have to be suicidal. Today when I woke up I called Blue Knot, a helpline for those with childhood trauma. They offer free, weekly 45 minute counselling sessions, though it’s a different counsellor each time. I’ve been meaning to check them out. I didn’t find the lady as empathetic and am not sure I will call them again next week.

I’ve been thinking a bit about my combination of personality disorders today. Each personality disorder is basically a defense strategy we develop to deal with trauma and pain. I have what might seem like an odd combination: BPD and Schizoid Personality Disorder. It is like having two people in my head arguing.

“You should have listened to me and never got involved with that psychologist”, Schizoid brags.

“I was right all along. Psychologists are dangerous. Attachments are dangerous. The only person you have and can rely on is yourself.”

But Borderline has a real need for attachment. The monochrome life of the Schizoid is unbearable.

The worst thing for Borderline is abandonment and loss. The worst thing for Schizoid is contact and suffocation. The two are constantly at war, and I struggle to find a middle ground. Continue reading “Today’s update: finding myself” →

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This is what being abused by a psychopath feels like

I wake up at 3pm, still nauseous from the alcohol I drank yesterday. My head feels like it’s been rammed into a brick wall and I have a cough. Don’t tell me I’m sick again? I’ve only just got over the flu.

It’s 5pm. Looks like it’s too late to go to the post office and send the badge someone ordered from my Etsy store last week. Whenever I get an order, I am no longer excited. “Shit, I can barely stand to be alive, let alone get this order sorted” is what I think. Thankfully I already have the badge made up, so I just need to post it.

It is 6pm and I reluctantly leave my bedroom. I’ve been putting it off as I can’t stand to be around anyone, and I definitely do not want to be asked how I am because the answer is always the same: horrible. I just go through different degrees of horribleness. Today it is particularly horrible.

It has been 8 days since my psychologist dumped me. I haven’t showered all week and clumps of knots are forming in my hair. Continue reading “This is what being abused by a psychopath feels like” →

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Tonight’s tears

“Nobody gives an answerI’m just asking why?Just tell me why?Why it has to be like this”

Enigma, “Why”

I usually like listening to sad songs on YouTube, but all my favourite songs are too triggering for me right now. Last night I had a break down listening to “True Colours” by Cyndi Lauper even. It was the part of the video which showed the little girl (who I assume was the younger version of Cyndi). I feel like that little part of me came out sometimes with my psychologist. I showed her my true colours, all of me, but instead of caring for these parts, she turned her back on them in the end. Then tonight I listened to “No More “I Love You’s“” by Annie Lennox. This was even worse. The tender music video shows Annie holding hands with the different characters. It reminded me of the times my psychologist held my hand, and how I feel this ending is all my fault because still, after all the care she showed me, I did not get better. I was the most unrewarding client she’s probably ever had. For a long time I’ve felt like all I really need is something very human: just to be held and touched. But there are only a few people I can really enjoy this with. For instance, I hate my family touching me, and I don’t like to be touched by most men. Most of the time touch is an emotionally empty experience for me. I long to be touched but I hate it too. But I had developed a very intense bond with my psychologist, and there was still so much more I felt we could do together, such as experimenting more with touch. Touch, when done right, allows us to leave survival mode, and in another time, and in another place, a little you is experiencing what it’s like to feel safe. I am deeply scarred by the way my psychologist drew me in and then spat me out. She said she was committed to me and that she thought it would be a shame to end our relationship as we had so much history together. I trusted her, and then she ruthlessly ends our relationship without giving me any say over the matter. There are no words for the pain and sense of betrayal I feel. I have had to take diazepam tonight as I’ve been so distressed by all this.

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