I had my second doctor's appointment today, and (I think!) I have officially been diagnosed with severe depression.
He asked me some set questions all beginning with "In the last two weeks how often have you..." and the only one I didn't answer with "everyday" was "have you felt a lack of concentration?" Go me. I don't think he even realised how bad it was before he did this assessment.
"In the last two weeks have you had thoughts of harming yourself?"
"Yes."
"But not that you would act on." (Like it went without saying)
"Um...no...I have actually..."
At the end, after I'd told him I've had a lack of pleasure in doing things, had a low mood, had negative thoughts about myself, wanted to sleep all the time, had very little appetite and had thoughts of harming myself pretty much everyday for the last two weeks, he said, "So it appears you have severe depression." Ha, you think?!
For the record, I do really like him, he comes across as really understanding, but I found the whole assessment process quite amusing. Maybe that's just my weird sense of humour.
But despite all this, today has been the first day since I can remember that I actually felt good all day. It feels like I've been walking on eggshells with myself all day though - constantly being on edge wondering what's going to send me back down, trying to block out all negative thoughts in case my mood switches. Actually it's like trying to tread water when you've got nothing to hold on to - as soon as you start sinking you concentrate all your effort on frantically kicking to get yourself afloat again, and you feel good for not letting yourself sink. But in the back of your mind you have the sinking feeling (no pun intended) that eventually it's going to become too tiring and you won't be able to keep yourself afloat anymore.
About Me
- Katie
- My name is Katie, I'm a twenty-something Londoner and student occupational therapist. I haven't figured out any more than that yet.
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4 comments:
This sounds almost exactly like my experience with a doctor. I took the same type of test you took. the doctor looked at and said "Huh, so it seems like your depressed?" I wanted to hit him and say "Your the doctor, you tell me.
I had gone in for some random health problem and I mentioned feeling depressed. Before I took the test the doctor said "Well your probably like most of us and you get down every once and awhile." No it's more like I feel good every once in awhile and I feel "down" all the time. I also didn't like the way he said "us." It was like if I was depressed I wasn't one of the "us", like I wasn't normal or part of the group. So when I said that it was more than that he got this look on his face that was like "Oh so your one of them."
Later I got a better doctor who confirmed my depressed state of mind instead of telling me to guess my own diagnosis. It was such a relief because it was a validation of what I was feeling. Getting the right doctor can be tricky. If you like this one I'm happy for you. I hope he can help. My second doctor told me honestly that some MD's don't like dealing with mental health issues because it's still a developing field. It's not like having a broken arm which they can easily diagnose and fix. It's in the brain somewhere and medicine still hasn't worked it all out.
Yeah, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this in my blog before but I worked at a mental health outpatient clinic last year and all the psychologists there hated GPs because they don't understand mental health at all. That's what put me off going to the doctor for a while (that and my GP back at home is an absolute twat), but I do like this doctor. I think I just found the whole assessment process a bit silly, even though he probably had to do it. He takes me seriously, I think that's the most important thing, since I was worried that he'd just disregard my depression like your doctor did (I can't believe he said that to you, what a terrible thing to say!)
Thanks for council how I can thank you?
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