I work part-time in a pharmacy. I see what scripts come in and what prescriptions go out. I know that huge number of the population on some type of anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, anti-your-life-sucks-and-you-need-to-take-the-edge-off. I also know that many, many friends place a call to their doctors asking for anti-whatever, and over the phone get prescribed something. Isn't everyone on something???
So imagine my surprise when my doctor refused to put me on something for my horrible, can't breathe, think I'm suffocating, anxiety attacks I've been having. For years, I have suffered...I have meditated, and drank chamomile tea, I have talked with friends and blogged, I have thrown things and petted things. I have tried to overcome this alone, not afraid to ask the doctor, but convinced that it would go away-but it hasn't. But she doesn't care about this...she still refused to put me on something. Instead, she is forcing me into therapy.
Not let me state clearly that I am a huge proponent of therapy. I believe we all can benefit from a little therapy now and then. I have sent myself to therapy years ago to get over a broken heart that was refusing to heal...it helped. It really did. It helped me see why I was feeling that way I was feeling and it allowed me to talk about the situation freely without judgement or worry. But this time, it's different. I know what I am feeling. I talk about it all the time to anyone who will pretend to listen. I blog about it. I read others going through it. I seek help from those who understand. I cry. I get angry. I let myself feel all the yucky the infertility brings. I'm sad. I'm mourning. I'm angry. What can the therapist possibly tell me that will shed any light on this? Yes, I'm sure there's things we can talk about, I'm sure the therapist will show me the many errors of my ways since birth (and the ways of my parents, too, no doubt), but what good will that do? When you are already stressed to the hilt because you don't have time to anything, what will adding another appointment 35 minutes away do to help? Having to pay for a babysitter with money I don't have to go to an appointment to talk about feelings I acknowledge every day?
I'm so angry about this. I understand thattruly, general practitioners should not be doling out prescriptions for psychiatric drugs. It's not their specialty. But when you have a patient who jumps through all your flaming hoops (bloodwork, stress tests, echo, EKGs), who deals with you honestly, who pays her $20 copay twice in two weeks so you can meet with her for five minutes, who admits that she's pretty sure she would only want a short-term prescription to get over this nasty hump she finds herself at, why could you not throw her a bone? Give her three months, for goodness' sake!
The general consensus is to find another doctor, which I will do in the near future. For now, though, I'm just dealing. Not drugs, of course, since I can't get a darn prescription for anything...but dealing nonetheless.
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