Why are they all so weird???? I swear, I’ve never even met one who seemed particularly smart.
So, my regular psych is out of town, and I need Adderall (bad!). My regular guy is okay (if you can get beyond the fact that his eyes point in two different directions)—but, as with most psychiatrists, all he does is ask me how I’m doing and write me a prescription. In and out in 10-15 minutes.
So anyway, I decide to see the other guy who works in his office. I’m in there a few minutes and when I tell him that I was diagnosed at age 30, he says, “Well, ADHD symptoms have to start before age 9” (or whatever.) I say, well, yes, I know that. So now I feel like he’s questioning my diagnosis. I tell him that I was diagnosed at Edward Hallowell’s clinic in Massachussets. He says, “I have no idea who that is.” Hallowell is a psychiatrist who writes extensively about ADHD, for both lay and professional audiences. He’s often a featured speaker at conferences on the subject, and he writes all his books with John Ratey, who does a lot of clinical research in this area. I find it hard to believe that a psychiatrist who treats ADHD has never even heard the name.
So, I tell the good doctor that it was a three day evaluation, with a battery of tests. He says, “Oh really? I wasn’t aware that there was a conclusive test for ADHD.” He’s being completely sarcastic, because everyone knows there isn’t one. He’s treating me like an idiot. I say, “Well, of course there isn’t. But they did a lot of tests of various cognitive functions.”
He says, “Isn’t it interesting that they took three days to do a diagnosis that I could do in 15 minutes? How much did it cost you?” So now he’s telling me that I’ve been scammed, basically. Things aren’t going well. I say, “Really? How do you make a diagnosis like that in 15 minutes? Isn’t it a rather complex disorder?” He picks up his little Cliffs Notes version of the DSM-IV and says, “I just go through the diagnostic criteria with the patient, and speak to the family if I can. If they meet the criteria, they have ADHD. If they don’t, no ADHD.” Wow. This guy is a very nuanced thinker, no?
Okay. So now I feel like I have to defend my diagnosis. I say, “Well, I think if you look at my whole history—which they did during the evaluation—the diagnosis makes a lot of sense. I went to that clinic after I heard Dr. Hallowell on the radio talking about ‘adults who are vastly underachieving…’” He cuts me off, saying, “Well, sure, it’s a great marketing tool they use. People hear that and they go, ‘I must have ADHD! I better go spend two or three grand on an evaluation!’”
So now, not only have I been scammed, but he’s telling me that I’m just a garden-variety fuckup who only thinks she has ADHD because she’s lazy and undisciplined and can’t get her shit together; an incompetent loser with delusions of grandeur, who only thinks she’s underachieving, when the truth is that she’s below average in every way and doesn’t have the ability to be a high achiever. Or anyway, that’s what I’m hearing—probably because, in my darker moments, that’s exactly what I believe about myself.
So again, I’m feeling pretty defensive. I say, “Well, you know, I could diagnosis myself using the DSM criteria. I’m glad I had a more thorough evaluation. They didn’t just give me a bunch of tests and tell me I had ADHD. They took a whole history; I spoke to a cognitive behavioral therapist, a psychotherapist, a psychiatrist…”
He sees that I’m getting defensive and backs down a little, “So, you felt you got something useful out of the evaluation?”
I say, “Yes, I thought it was useful to see the results of those cognitive tests as well…” I mention some of the tests they gave me, using the actual names of the tests (e.g. the “Rey-Osterrith Complex Figure Test” and whatnot) in a pathetic attempt to gain some sort of credibility....
He says, “Yes, I guess those IQ tests and such can be useful as sort of a baseline…But, you know, they can work against you, too. I never scored very well on IQ tests. When I took one back in college, they told me I might not make it through medical school….” I wait a moment, hoping that the story ends with something like, “But I graduated near the top of my class!” But no. So he’s just told me that he’s an idiot who barely squeaked through med school. Way to inspire a patient’s confidence in you, buddy! Wtf?!?
Anyway, so he writes me a prescription for the Adderall. As he’s putting away my chart, he asks me what I did before I went back to school.
I say, “I was a stripper.” Well! Wouldn’t you know it! The good doctor perks right up!
“Oh really?!” He says excitedly. “You know, we have so many of them in this practice! We have two girls who come in from Vegas….And I have a patient who works as a stripper, and she’s 50! Actually, she just retired and got married….You know, the first time I was introduced to that, I was doing my residency at the emergency room at Harbor UCLA and a girl came in with a broken leg who had been working at one of the clubs near the airport….” And on and on and on, telling me everything he knows about strippers…
“So, where did you work?”
“Mostly on the East Coast, and…”
He cuts me off: “Oh, I wouldn’t know any of those clubs, then.”
Implying, I guess, that if I had worked out here, there was a good chance he’d be intimately familiar with the clubs I’d worked at….Of course, I don’t care if the guy goes to clubs, but doesn’t it seem a little…I don’t know…unprofessional…to make that known to a patient????
I dunno. For some reason the whole experience just left me with an overall icky feeling…Which, I notice, is very often how I feel after a visit with any “mental health professional.” Am I alone in this? (But hey, at least I got my scrip!)
I’ve had mostly unpleasant experiences with therapists and psychologists.
The first one I went to, when I was 12 or 13, came up with the brilliant theory that I was writing graphic stories about violent rape because I wanted to have sex. Why did I want to have sex, according to her? So that I could get pregnant and have a baby, because I felt that my parents didn’t love me enough. I can’t even tell you what bullshit this is.
Once I went to see a school psychologist, seeking a recommendation for a local therapist. I was about 22, and a bit PTSD at the time, still dealing with the aftermath of having been pimped out & generally treated like shit by Psycho Boyfriend—not to mention a recent attempted mugging (with violence, though it could have been much worse). I had just made the transition, literally almost overnight, from coked-out stripper-whore with abusive boyfriend to drug-free straight-A biology student and birdwatcher with laid-back hippie boyfriend…It was a lot to process.
ANYWAY, so I’m telling this school psychiatrist about some of this, and I can tell that she’s getting weirded out by it—the sex work stuff in particular. I decline to answer one of her questions, saying that I’m not comfortable doing so, because I’m not sure how she’s judging me. She gets defensive, of course. But then later, when she’s suggesting some (male) doctors I might like to see more regularly, I tell her that I think I might be more comfortable with a female therapist. She immediately responds, in a bitchy, sarcastic, accusatory tone: “Why, because you think you’re too powerful and too seductive?”
Jeez. No…I just think I want a female shrink right now! WTF!????
There was also the super-expensive Manhattan therapist I saw for a couple of months, whose office would call me daily demanding payment if I fell behind—I felt like I was being psychoanalyzed by a friggin’ bookie.
Then there was this high-strung, wild-haired woman, who also seemed freaked out by the whole sex work thing. I recall trying to explain how difficult it was to transition from being a stripper to having a low-paid, pink collar civilian job; I was working as a pre-school teacher at the time. I said, “You know, it’s hard to go from having a job description that people find titillating, that arouses people’s curiosity, to having one that’s so…ordinary and uninteresting.” She said, “Well! I would find your stories about being a preschool teacher much more fascinating than your stories about your…other job.” Yeah. Right. I don’t know, but that just rubbed me the wrong way. I could tell she was saying it because she wished it were true, not because it was true. Y’know?
Okay, those are all my annoying-therapist stories. Because I make a concerted effort to stay away from therapists, I haven’t had any really terrible experiences, just obnoxious ones.
Has anyone ever found a therapist that they LOVE??? Or do most of you have experiences similar to mine…or much worse?



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Thanks for confirming that I'm not crazy to feel weirded out by that experience. The messed-up thing is that he seemed to be questioning my diagnosis about 30 seconds after meeting me!
yeah... fucking newport bitch. ahem, *beach.*


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