Tag Archives: doctors

An adventure to Second-Closest-City and Therapist #26

Last week S.M. contacted me with a name of a potential therapist. The one we’d spoken about before for the consultation wasn’t available. I googled this person and was very uncomfortable about meeting with her because she’s a member of a small organization that a large number of people I work with are also part of. The connection to my work was way too close.
I articulated this to S.M. and he was insistent that I needed compromise somewhere with my confidentiality concerns. He wants me to meet with someone even if I am worried about their association with my work and then work through those concerns in the therapy. There’s just no way I could feel comfortable enough to even begin therapy with someone so closely associated.

I believe I made the right decision here and feel further reinforced with this by the fact that at my work this week, the organization that that therapist is a part of came up in a meeting. We are inviting this group to an event in the near future. The organization already contains 1 past therapist from several years ago before I began this job. Had I agreed to meet with this new therapist I might have been dodging 2 past therapists at the same event. Hopefully that one therapist won’t attend this event.

S.M. told me that he’d run out of resources and that he would call this therapist if I wanted to meet with her, but otherwise I needed to find a therapist on my own.
I feel horrible. I feel guilty for bothering him so many times about referrals. He’s really gone above and beyond with finding me therapists in the past so it’s not fair to feel angry at him. But I am a bit angry. I was holding myself together with the hope that he’d find me a therapist and it fell apart.
Part of me wanted to call him apologizing for bothering him so much, but I didn’t because I realized the apology would be a little passive aggressive.

I found one last local place to try to call. They didn’t have availability until January. I can’t wait that long. I had a panic attack while on the phone. I was such a mess, that the secretary put me on hold, saying that she’d try to find someone I could talk to right then on the phone. At some point the call was dropped. I tried calling back, but they had closed for the day.

Per the suggestion of some folks here, I decided to expand my search radius. I discovered that Second-Closest-City is easier to get to than I’d realized. It’s actually easier and faster to get to this further away city than to a lot of the suburbs surrounding my city. This city is far enough away that people are not all affiliated with where I work.

I made a lot of phone calls. Nothing was working. I can’t count how many panic attacks I had. I skipped out on a lot of obligations, because I was too upset to leave my apartment.

I was working on my next suicide method and kept calling my Dad crying. He took over the search for me. I hate having my Dad do these things for me. He’s very busy and I am really trying to pretend to be an adult. But I was falling apart trying to manage it myself.

My Dad found someone for me to meet with who was able to see me a few days from then.

On the day of the appointment I traveled to Second-Closest-City. I’ve traveled through Second-Closest-City many times, but I can only think of one time when I was maybe 12 that I actually visited it.
I was very prepared for my trip. I put together a whole packet of maps and train schedules. I decided I would walk, but spent 20 minutes getting lost and progressively more anxious. It’s scary coming to a new City and not even knowing where the main streets are. I asked a stranger if she knew where I could get a cab and she gave me the number of a cab company.
I waited for 10 minutes, no cab arrived. The time of my appointment was rapidly approaching, and I was worried about waiting for a cab that might not ever show up. I backtracked to a more populated part I’d walked through earlier and found a cab.

I really don’t like taking cabs. It goes against the whole don’t get in a car with strangers idea. I know a number of people who’ve been held up by cab drivers and some who cab drivers attempted to rape. I’m a very tiny person, I wouldn’t be able to do much to protect myself.
Also in a strange city sometimes it can be hard to distinguish legitimate cabs from illegitimate ones. This one was particularly shady, but I was desperate. It had a meter which added some legitimacy to it, but it was very run down and the driver gave me the creeps.
I safely made it to the building where the therapist is located. I had traveled 2 hours from the door of my apartment to the door of his office to discover that he has a buzzer at his door.

He directed me to a waiting room, which wasn’t really a waiting room. It’s clearly a room he usually uses for group therapy sessions. The chairs were all arranged in a circle. At first I thought he was going to conduct the individual session in there! There would have been a lot of empty chairs available for the empty chair technique.
The actual office was more typical, although it was meticulously organized. My first impression of him is that he dresses more like a lawyer than a therapist.

He commented on my outfit and asked if I was still dressed for Halloween. I let him know I dress like this year round. A tactless early comment, but I let it slide.

The first session went well enough that I returned again for a second appointment.

The second appointment went less well. My trip to Second-Closest-City was nice. I conveniently was able to take the same train as a friend who commutes daily to Second-Closest-City. This friend is someone who doesn’t know any specifics about my crazy, but I am comfortable enough with that I shared my reason for going to Second-Closest-City with him. I have a lot of trouble justifying social interaction in my schedule. If nothing else this trip can force me to communicate with another human for a bit.
My friend and I shared a cab, because the weather was bad and he was traveling in the same direction.

I arrived at the office with 3 minutes to spare. A big change from my usual 20 minutes early, where I avoid going into the office until at least 10 minutes of.

He was dressed less like a lawyer this time, but I have a serious comment for you folks: Do not wear brown shoes with a black suit. Fashion disasters make me sad.

I brought my collection of neuropsychological testing to the appointment. The therapist had seemed a little uncomfortable about writing my Ritalin prescription and asked if it could wait until this 2nd session. I figured I should bring the testing so he’d know I wasn’t inventing the ADHD diagnosis myself. I’m really worried that my decision to go so far away might be misinterpreted as something drug seeking.
I’ve given many of my therapists copies of my testing. Some are more interested in others. Based on his questioning from the first appointment, (He asked a lot of neurological and general medical history type questions) I thought he’d want to see them.
I don’t have a good way to make copies. I could theoretically do it at school or work, but I don’t feel comfortable copying my personal private information there. So I brought the originals and asked if he was able to make copies.

He said he could make copies there and proceeded to do so. For the next 15 minutes. The copier was misbehaving. He unstapled and restapled all my reports. Papers were put everywhere. I have to check through all my reports now to make sure no pages or entire reports are missing.

It felt very disrespectful of my time. Yes the therapy session is only scheduled for 50 minutes, but I have to carve out 5 hours in my day when including travel time. If I’m waking up at 5:30 in the morning to begin my day so I can fit this in, then I’d like to get the full 50 minutes.

I get that he might want to avoid having tasks for patients outside of the billable hour, but despite his similarities in fashion choices to a lawyer, therapists billable hours don’t usually work the same way. Their fee should partially factor in doing some tasks outside of the session. This is why the hours are 50 minutes rather than 60. Every other therapist who I’ve given reports to has made copies and given the originals back to me the next session, rather that using session time.
It’s possible that he just didn’t realize how much trouble he’d have with the printer, so it took longer than expected. But I found a similar trend in the 5+ minutes spent discussing billing. He mentioned that I’d not brought a check the first session. I hadn’t realized he wanted me to. I thought he was going to bill my Dad. I asked if he could just send my Dad the bill. He wasn’t very into this idea. he really wanted to sort it out right there.
It turns out he takes credit card. I paid with my American express card. American express has a reputation for charging a lot in fees to vendors. I hope he got charged a lot in fees for being too lazy to send my Dad a bill. I get that maybe a lot of patients don’t pay bills promptly, but my Dad is very reliable about these things. I’m not sure if my credit limit can handle getting too many of these charges. I usually just use it to buy food.

It makes me really anxious to see the sticker price of sessions. When I submit it to my insurance company for reimbursement the cost will go down to 15-20 dollars per session, but to see $500 for the two sessions on my receipt makes my heart rate speed up.

This left less than 30 minutes of therapy time.
We had a very uncomfortable interaction where he asked me if I wanted him to help me. He wanted me to say “I want you to help me” rather than me just answering his question with a “Yes”. I didn’t cooperate.
This and a couple of things made him feel more like a bad “self help guru” than a psychiatrist. He listed the 5 things he felt were important in a psychotherapy session and the 3 types of communication he believes exist. It felt trite and cheap and tacky.

The session was very directed towards talking about my childhood. I certainly do believe that my childhood had a role in the types of problems I have today, but he doesn’t even know yet what most of my problems today are. It’s too easy for this type of therapy to turn into time where I just say horrible things about my parents. And my parents (especially my Mom) definitely messed up in some places, but they were well intentioned. I did not appreciate his efforts to make me express anger about my Dad for a situation where my Dad really had no good options. He’s paying the bill! and basically is a good guy aside from his inability to be emotionally supportive.
I mentioned that I am not going home on Thanksgiving and the therapist reacted much too enthusiastically about this. He hardly knows my situation and reacted as if I was cutting ties from an abusive family situation. My family is dysfunctional in many ways, but not abusive. My reasons for staying here are more academic than emotional.

I much prefer information about growing up to come out organically in relation to information I share about the present. I am suffering here in the present. Yes the past influences that, but the present matters too. Dwelling on every detail of my childhood is not conducive to changing how to feel today. Really, it just makes me more miserable.
Is it unfair for me to seek out a psychodynamic therapist and criticize him for wanting to talk about my childhood too much? I don’t think so. I think a therapy can be dynamically informed while having a present focus.

I mentioned how I’m not fond of the pure free association type of therapy and I prefer when it’s more interactive. He said that he agreed and said that he’d once been in therapy with a classical Freudian-type and had hated that style. I am kind of uncomfortable with that self-disclosure, even though I realize it’s very typical for analytically oriented therapists to have had their own therapy at some point. It felt like over sharing.

When working on the billing, he asked what ICD code I wanted. I’ve been asked in the past what diagnosis others have used for the bill, because they want to be sure I get reimbursed, but never flat out asked which code I wanted. I opted for Major depression, recurrent, moderate, because I’ve had that used a lot in the past.

I’ve been trying to do work on the train, so I don’t feel the time is wasted, but unfortunately I’ve been so tired, that I’ve not been very productive. Maybe as it becomes more routine it will be easier.

I’ve been having a lot of reactions to the idea of going to Second-Closest-City for therapy. When I was calling places looking for a therapist, they’d ask where I coming from and I’d tell them and as soon as they wondered why I’d come so far, I’d start crying. I’d hardly be able to speak.
I feels like it’s some kind of punishment for being so crazy. I’m so messed up I can’t even find a therapist in a city filled with therapists. 3 of my former therapists are within a 5 block radius of my home.
I’m mostly keeping these trips private, people would think it’d strange for me to go to this Second-Closest-City for a couple of hours only. I feel like I’m going on these secret adventures that I can’t tell anyone about.

Some of my professors commute from Second-Closest-City to my city. I have a slight fear that because I am taking such an early train that I might run into them at the train station in Second-Closest-City. I’m not sure how I would explain seeing them there, then seeing them in class later that day. It’s close enough for a commute, but far enough that people don’t usually just stop in for the morning.

There are some upsides though. If I were to be hospitalized, I’d be hospitalized there and my confidentiality would be safer than it could be in any hospitals around here.
I also feel like in this other city, I am suddenly free from a lot of my worries about privacy. I’m in this city where hardly anyone knows me. It’s liberating.

I have some serious doubts that #26 is going to work out. I’ll give it one more appointment to see if things improve, but otherwise I’ll move on. If nothing else I’ve learned that Second-Closest-City is a viable option for finding therapy.

It would have been nice to end on a multiple of 5

I’ve seen more therapists than I have years that I’ve been alive. I started therapy when I was 14.

How am I? Oh well I’m emotionally dysregulated. How are you?

I’ve gone and fired therapist number 25 before I even had a chance to write an entry in here about the start of therapy with him. I met with him for 2 and 1/2 months or so.

Only a handful of sessions in I started to feel really attached to him. It terrified me, because that doesn’t usually happen and was and felt way out of proportion to how little he knew me.

That idealization was crushed shortly after. Because I felt over-attached, I rushed into some tough topics.

I think an important role of a therapist is to keep an eye on the patients level of affect and ensure that it is neither too low or too high. The optimal rage is different for everyone every day. Too low and the therapy is too superficial, but too high and it will be too overwhelming to be therapeutic. The optimal level varies based on how much time remains in the session. As the session nears its end the therapist needs to find the way to bring the affect to a level the patient can manage outside of the container of the therapeutic relationship.

I realize this can often be a difficult task, but he did about as poorly with this as possible. The session ended abruptly, leaving me in a vulnerable emotional state. This left me feeling wary about the therapy, realizing that he and I were very out of sync. I picture this session as a chart where x is time and y is affect. We both started at low affect and his line was straight across with no slope, while mine got higher and higher.

We did talk about this after, but I think he took the wrong message from it. I wanted him to be more aware of when things were escalating too far, while he took this to mean he shouldn’t press certain topics at all.

A couple of weeks ago I wasn’t feeling great. I won’t get into the reasons right now, because retrospectively I’m embarrassed about how trivial they were.
I cut in the bathroom of his building before my appointment. I felt extremely out of control. I bled through my pants leg. I spent the session with my purse held over the blood spot so he wouldn’t see.
Obviously he can’t read my mind (Although once a therapist accused me of wanting him to do that, probably with some justification) but I really resented him for not noticing something. I always keep my purse on the floor rather than holding it. Clearly I wasn’t meeting with Sherlock Holmes for therapy.
He was so focused on convincing me that I shouldn’t feel how I felt, that he didn’t get around to understanding how I felt.
He asked me if I was going to be okay over the weekend and I very unconvincingly said ‘Yes’. He didn’t question it.

That weekend I was not feeling well. I had some oxycodone left over from a medical problem I had over the summer (This is a topic for another post) I took that, some klonopin and some seroquel too.
Unfortunately I only slept for 13 hours as opposed to forever.

This is the first time I’ve ever misused prescription medications like this. I felt incredibly guilty about it. I’ve always only used over the counter medications for overdoses. I feel like doing this is betraying a level of trust between me and the perscribing doctor.

I rationalized this somewhat by not going over the daily limit for the klonopin, and only doing so with the oxycodone, because I care more about the trust between me and my psychiatrist than me and random doctor from the hospital who will never know about this.

With a lot of reluctance, I told therapist number 25 about this, but it took me two sessions to fully get out. At the time when I told him about this I wasn’t feeling suicidal any more. I came early though to that session to plan out my escape routes in case he tried to hospitalize me and I needed to bolt. I tossed a hat and sunglasses and change of clothing in my bag as well.

I brought up the idea during that session that my period may be relevant to some of my more serious mood problems. I’ve brought this up before with therapists. I never really can feel sure. Is it confirmation bias? I don’t have a good way to keep track of if my mood changes around my period. I don’t buy into those mood monthly calendars. All self report measures of mood are highly subjective and because I wouldn’t be blinded to when I have my period I question their validity.

I mentioned feeling conflicted about this due to my identity as a feminist. I don’t really have a fleshed out coherent argument about my feelings with this, just an uncomfortable feeling. Somehow I think that if I say the words feminism and menstruation enough my feelings will be clear to everyone.
The feelings have something to do with the society wanting to view women as overemotional on their periods, the medicalization of a normal process and the validity of PMDD as a diagnosis, but again I’m not good at expressing myself here. I can see both sides of an argument about PMDD.
He seemed confused about why feminism would be relevant to a discussion of PMDD. I can handle disagreement, especially since both sides of the argument are dueling it out in my brain. But I was shocked that he wouldn’t even be aware of the possible relevance of feminism to an issue involving menstruation. He seemed very perplexed and I was horrified.

He did apologize the following session without prompting, but still it was unsettling.

Then to make things even more exciting and wonderful (note the sarcasm) The therapist who kicked me out of school (I need a shorter way to refer to him) was on a major news network promoting his book.
Every bit of publicity feels like he is taunting me.

I sent him 3 angry tweets from my twitter account. This twitter account is public and associated with my real identity (not my real name, but the username I mostly use an also people I know in real like follow me there). Probably not my most brilliant idea ever, but I’m leaving them up. If any person searches for his @replies they will know that at least one person out there is very unhappy with him. They’re vague enough that if a person didn’t know the background they would know I was angry with him, but the reasons would be unclear.
This means he now has access to most of my social networking pages. That’s fine though as I put my best foot forward on those, unlike in this blog.

When I went to therapy to talk about this I was very let down. Awhile ago I made a comment about how klonopin makes me stupid, which it does. The stupidity occurs in varying degrees, but to have any relief from anxiety thoughts rushing around, some of the good smart thoughts are slowed down as well. Sometimes thoughts can even be of both types.
I commented on how I had to stop what I’d been working on (Probably for the better as is it was slightly destructive) when the klonopin kicked in, because I wasn’t able to think well enough. He decided to take this time to argue with me about wither I am on the correct dosage. I have had the dosage fiddled with to the point of adjusting it by increments of 1/4 of the smallest pill size. This is the right dose. I’ve been taking it at this dose for a couple of years. I’m not messing with it. He was convinced that there is some ideal dose where I won’t be anxious or stupid. I don’t believe this is possible, because the two are so intertwined and the impact of the same klonopin dose varies depending on the day.
The comments felt accusatory too. Like he thought I was abusing it, although I have never ever gone over my prescribed limit. In the context of previously telling him about my oxycodone and klonopin adventures I was very sensitive to this sort of comment, because I feel so guilty about it.

He was taking a super ego guilt inducing role. My super ego is super at making me feel guilty already thankyouverymuch.

I told him about something I had thought of doing, but did not do and he took his guilt induction much too far. I can’t write about the details here, but basically he took a thought of mine and turned it into a worst case scenario. I tried to protest, but he kept making it worse and worse. The things he was saying were already fears in my head. I didn’t need him to give them credibility.
I have far worse thoughts in my head that I haven’t told anyone. If he reacts with such a judgmental extreme to something less horrible then there’s no way he can handle the worst of me.

I felt like he was treating me like he thought I was a sociopath. He was playing this role of a conscious for me as if I had none.
If he had even a basic personality conceptualization of me he was working from to base his comments he’d have realized that I am already very skilled at guilt.

I stopped talking. I stared out the window for a bit.
Then, I pulled out my Nintendo DS and resumed the game I’d been playing in the waiting room. Really juvenile, but I don’t care.
My brother called while I was ignoring the therapist. I refused the call, but then he called again and I took it, upping my rudeness level by +10. He just had a quick answer to a question I’d had about the game I was playing.

After about 20 minutes of ignoring the therapist although with the occasional yes or no answer to a question I said “I think I should just leave”. And I did. He asked if I wanted to make another appointment and I said “No”.
There wasn’t anything he could say at the point that could have made me comfortable continuing therapy with him.
I hate myself already, I don’t need a therapist thinking I am awful as well.

I rushed out of the building, worried that I was going to be followed or stopped by security. Psychiatry departments are never placed near an easy exit and I think we all know this is not an accident.

I arrived home and decided to take some ibuprofen. I think the reason I am still alive after all these years is that I am awful at swallowing pills. If I were better at I’d have succeed years ago. I had liquid gel filled capsule type ibuprofen. I decided that if I dumped the liquid out and drank it that might work.
Turns out this is the worst idea ever. I tried opening one up, but it didn’t work well, so I decided to just put it in my mouth and bite it. It was extremely acidic. I ran to the sink to rinse my mouth out to stop the pain. My mouth and throat felt sore after, like I’d been vomiting.
With that method ruined, I gave up to the time being.

It’s a few days later and I’m okayish now. I’m not being very productive with school work. I’ve mostly been sleeping and eating ice cream. I don’t know what I’m going to do about the lack of a therapist situation. I hate starting over again and again.

Partial Hospitalization #1

A partial hospital program is sometimes also called a day program. You spend the day at the hospital, but then go home to sleep.

My first partial hospital program was right after my first hospitalization. I lasted two days there.
This is the program that I mentioned in my post about how they sent me someone else’s records.

The social worker in my hospitalization set up the intake at the partial hospital program for me.
I told her two requirements I had for it:
1. It needed to be an adolescent program
2. I did not want to do DBT

When the social worker informed me it was set up, she told me my requirements had been met.

When I arrived on the first day, I quickly learned neither request had been fulfilled.

I realize now that avoiding DBT in this type of program is likely an impossibility, but I’d have appreciated her being upfront with me about this. To be fair she probably didn’t know the program contained DBT. But the reason for this is probably because she didn’t put any effort to find out.

My request for an adolescent program was reasonable. I was 19. My inpatient hospitalization had been with adolescents (their cut off was age 21).

There was a group of about 6 others in the program. I was by far the youngest. Most were old enough to be my parents.
I was very uncomfortable. I listened to people complain about their children and spouses. I couldn’t relate.

At my intake meeting a ‘No Harm Contract’ was presented.
‘No way’, I said ‘I will self injure if I want to and forcing me to sign that just will force me to lie. I’d rather not need to lie.’
The contract was pushed aside to be reevaluated in the future.
I left that meeting with the understanding that I had in no way suggested I would refrain from self-injuring.

I was very angry and aggressive (verbally, not physically). Largely because I was stuck at this partial hospital program because I’d been kicked out of school and possibly also in a small part because of a bad reaction I was having to Celexa.

I was under the impression that successful completion of this program was necessary to help my return to school. Despite despising the program, I felt I needed to stick it out.

The first day was a Friday. That weekend I returned to the school to move everything out of my dorm room.
Most was removed Saturday. Sunday morning I came to retrieve the last few items and discovered another person sleeping in what had been my bed and a large bong in the bathroom.

Monday I returned to the partial hospital program. The first day I had left my sharp items at home. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into (would my items be searched?) and decided it was in my best interests to leave them at home. Monday, the second day, I came prepared with a swiss army knife in my pocket. This seemed fine based on my experience the first day.

Inpatient hospitalizations are under-structured. Too much time with nothing to do. Partial hospital programs are over-structured. One group after another. Spending the entire day dwelling on problems, because the structure prevents one from going out and doing anything enjoyable.

I was frustrated with the way the people leading the groups spoke down to us, as if the depression meant we were cognitively challenged.

During the lunch break I made a few little tiny cuts on my leg. Very minimal, close to zero blood draw.

In the afternoon I had a daily check-in meeting with a social worker. As a side note I mentioned cutting a little during lunch. I didn’t think it was a big deal to mention. I’d never agreed to the no harm contract.

I was transported into an office with another woman (someone with a higher level of authority). She demanded to see what I’d used. I handed over the knife.
A lecture proceeded in a disgusted tone, wondering how I could have possibly thought it was acceptable to bring a “weapon” (aka a small swiss army knife) into a hospital.

She demanded to see the cuts.
I refused, explaining they were minimal and did not need medical attention.
She argued that because I had done it “on the premises” she had to see them.
I continued to refuse.
“I’d have to take off my pants to show you”, I protested.
She seemed unconcerned.
I was scared and eventually intimidated into giving in.
I tried rolling up the pant leg to show the cuts, but as I’d suspected the leg wouldn’t push up far enough.
I unzipped, pulled down my pants and showed her the cuts.
I felt very violated.

“Well there’s not too much damage this time“, she huffed.

That was it. The last straw. I announced I was leaving the program.

She bombarded me with questions assessing my current suicidal risk, trying to trick me into saying something to allow them to keep me there.
I didn’t fall for it.

My knife was returned and I went home.

I still didn’t have a therapist. While making phone calls to find one, many therapists refused to see me on the basis that I’d not properly completed the partial hospital program. I only was able to get into therapy (although this was my fake therapy, because anything I said was at risk of being reported back to my school) eventually when I left out the bit about the incomplete partial program.

Confidentiality Struggles on Inpatient Psych Units

I’ve found that during my psychiatric hospitalizations working to maintain my confidentiality has been an issue.

I’ve never been hospitalized for non-psychiatric reasons, so I don’t have a perfect comparison. From observing while visiting family in the hospital I can tell that any hospitalization seems to result in some level of decreased confidentiality. When there’s a shared room it’s near impossible to keep everything private. You might not know details, but there is often at least a vague sense of what your roommate’s problem is. Family members who visit, often speak with the doctor without the presence of the patient, creating a risk that information will be communicated that the patient might have not wanted shared.

At my first hospitalization there was some posturing about confidentiality. Cameras including camera phones were banned and the lack of names on doors was emphasized.
I had a terrifying experience of 24 hours in the ER and was refusing to sign the form to be admitted. I wanted to go to a different hospital, but they wouldn’t let me. I asked if I could maybe see the unit first to see that it wasn’t scary. I was told I couldn’t have a tour because of confidentiality issues. This seemed reasonable. Eventually I gave in a signed the form.

A couple of years later I heard from a friend who was considering going inpatient at a different hospital for medication adjustments. He had been given a tour of the unit he would stay on before making his decision. So it appears this rule is not consistent between hospitals.

It seems the most significant confidentiality difference between general medical hospitalizations and psychiatric ones is that for psychiatric admissions patients are specifically encouraged to interact.
In fact, not interacting with other patients will likely be looked upon as a symptom.
Rather than staying in your room in bed all day there are common areas and group activities.

It might seem like that activity group is purely recreational, designed to break up an otherwise empty day. Wrong! In all of my records there are notes of my behavior during those types of activities.
One form for an arts activity group says simply that I attended and comments, “Very quiet- worked with no discussion with peers”. Never mind that I was focused and enjoying that I was doing. All that mattered as a record for that hour was my silence.

The problem of communicating with other patients is that all of a sudden your hospitalization is no longer just a relationship between you and medical professionals, now others are added into the mix. These others have no ethical responsibility to uphold confidentiality.
I know that sometimes outpatient group therapy groups discuss that what is said there should stay confidential, but I’ve never heard any sort of similar comment discussed in an inpatient setting.

Despite this, I have found the unstructured social time of inpatient settings to be one of the few helpful things I have gotten out of my hospitalizations.
I’m so secretive in general that it’s nice to be able to talk without the fear that I will be judged for my ‘crazy’.

But information besides what I choose to disclose also gets revealed. If I was in my room crying all morning, people know. There’s no hiding it. If I go back to one-on-one security, people know my suicide risk was deemed increased.

Sometimes check-in meetings with psychiatrists were conducted in the hallways where anyone could hear. I’d whisper everything and usually reveal less information as a result.

This makes visitors a very anxiety provoking experience. On the one hand it’s nice to get a visitor, on the other hand those visitors are generally my parents. I don’t tell my parents much of anything. They receive the most vague information possible. I worry about another patient blurting out something private about me in their presence.

At the first hospitalization visitors were let onto the unit and were allowed to all the same places I had access to. So much for that “No Tours” rule.
There was no private place to meet. They could go in my room, but I also had a roommate. I was on edge during all the visits, trying to steer them away from anyone I’d communicated with.

The second and third hospitalizations had rooms where visitors and patients could meet for more privacy. The second still allowed family access to the rest of the unit thus compromising confidentiality of anyone there. What if a visitor ran into someone they knew there besides the one they’d come to see? In a general medical hospitalization the chances of noticing someone you know are much less likely unless you were peeking your head into each room.
The third hospitalization restricted visitors movement more, only allowing them in that one room.

Some point in the middle of my first hospitalization my doctor asked me to list the top things bothering me at the moment. One of the top items on this list was the distress my hair pulling was causing me. I later learned that this had been relayed to my Dad. He didn’t understand why I was stressed about my hair (the part about pulling it out got lost it appears). I can’t imagine how that doctor believed that it was appropriate to share this information with my Dad. I was so visibly upset upon learning this that I worry my Dad held back telling me more he might know to keep me from getting further upset. I have no idea if he was told more.
I believe him when he says that he didn’t try to get information out of the doctor and that this was shared more spontaneously. The hospital only had my permission to talk about about logistics (such as arranging affordable outpatient care) with my Dad but still information gets shared that shouldn’t once a line of communication is opened.
My Mom is banned from speaking to any mental health professional of mine, because she tries to manipulate people into giving her information.
I banned her from visiting at all during my second hospitalization and unfortunately it wasn’t very effective because they kept allowing her on until I started to scream that she wasn’t allowed there.

Family meetings seem to be encouraged, again creating the risk that something will be said that I wanted private.

My third hospitalization was the worst with regards to confidentiality. The central issue became my efforts to protect my privacy.

First they told me they were going to contact my school to let them know I was there. I strongly refused.
Anyone who’s been reading this blog regularly knows that letting my school know about my psychological issues is a touchy subject.
‘But it’s our policy’, they said. ‘We have an agreement with the local schools’
I called my lawyer and they called theirs.
After creating a huge amount of panic and stress for me they backed down realizing they had no leg to stand on.

While this was still being sorted out I noticed some student nurses were visiting the unit. I spotted a name tag. My college’s name was on it.
I fled the room. Had they seen me, had anyone recognized me?
Student nurses from my school came twice a week. No one had thought to mention this to me.
It happened too fast for me to spot any faces. Did I know any of them?
I spent the morning hiding in my room.
“Isn’t their being here putting my confidentiality at risk? I don’t want them to know I’m here. Can’t they leave?”
I go to a small school. People know each other.
No one seemed concerned.
I spoke to the apathetic Human Rights Officer.
I wasn’t allowed to ban them from the unit, but I could ban them from any activities I wanted to attend.
But I couldn’t attend the activities, I couldn’t walk down the hallway to get to the activities room without risking being seen.
The only way to prevent them from knowing I was there was to hide while they were on the unit.

When got out of the hospital I sent an anonymous email to the heads of the nursing department to let them know what had happened.

Here’s the email I sent:

“I am writing to inform you about an issue I had recently relating to the *college* nursing department. I do not believe that anyone at *college* was at fault in this problem, but I hope that by bringing this to your attention perhaps something can be done to fix it.
I am a student at *college* and I was recently a patient on the inpatient psychiatric unit at *hospital*.
My confidentiality is very important to me, as I have previously had my confidentiality broken and suffered discrimination as a result of this. I understand that not everyone will react the same way others have, but because of these problems, keeping my psychological issues separate from my education is very important to me.
One day while on the unit I spotted someone wearing an ID saying ‘*college*’. I bolted from the room to speak with a staff member and learned that a number of nursing students from *college* would be there that morning. The staff knew where I go to school, no one thought to warn me of their arrival. I didn’t want to be seen by them. The staff informed me that they couldn’t be kicked off the unit or restricted to a less central location and that my only option was to hide in my room(or the isolation room) all morning. So I was stuck doing that. The stress of hiding there and the isolation it involved were not things I needed piled on top of the reasons why I was already a patient there.
The staff I spoke with (including the human rights officer) were fairly apathetic towards this problem, citing that they have an agreement with the school to allow the students on the unit. I argued that allowing peers of mine to see that I am there is a breach of my confidentiality because them seeing me there involves receiving information that I don’t want disclosed.
I understand that the students themselves are sworn to confidentiality. (Though from my experience when people break confidentiality it is hard to prove and they end up getting away with it), Were I to run into one of these students in a social or academic situation at *college* the interaction would be colored by their knowledge, knowledge that I didn’t want them to have in the first place.
I feel that as a patient my needs, particularly my rights to privacy, should be taking priority over the educational needs of the nursing students, because there is the option for the school to find an alternate assignment for the students in this sort of situation, but I don’t have the option of being in an alternate psych ward for the morning.
I can’t imagine that I’m the first person to run into this problem. And I understand that having the students not be there when someone from their school is a patient there who objects may not be a reasonable option.
I understand that the teaching hospital is a very successful concept, but that doesn’t mean it can not be improved. The current way that it is being implemented at *hospital* is taking too casual of an attitude towards privacy. I do not know if this experience is representative of other hospitals.
At the very least, if you could help me out by giving me a list of all hospitals where *college* students are on the psychiatric units, I would appreciate it. So I can know to avoid them. Because at this point I feel that if I am in need of inpatient psych care I am unable to get it because I fear a confidentiality violation.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. ”

I now have a note behind my ID in my wallet listing 8 hospitals I can’t go to because my confidentiality would be at risk. Basically I would have to travel fairly far to get to a hospital free of my school’s nursing students. Even further if I wanted to get to a reputable hospital.

I got a couple of more sympathetic, “We’re taking this seriously” emails in reply, but basically the end result is still that I can’t go to those hospitals.

Confidentiality should not need be one of my primary worries when hospitalized, but it has to be because I have to protect myself.

Primary Care

I used to believe there was never a legitimate reason to withhold information from a primary care doctor. Now I feel that information is only to be given on a need to know basis.

In late high school, my therapist (M.S.) gave me three choices, I could go on medication, go back to DBT or go to my primary care doctor to get my cuts looked at. If I refused select one of them, she wouldn’t meet with me anymore. I resented the ultimatum, but decided to go for the primary care option. Medication and DBT would be continued disruptions to my life but a trip to the doctor could be done and over with in a day.

I didn’t have any control over making my own doctor appointments or transporting myself to the doctor. My parents don’t know about my cutting so I couldn’t tell them why I needed to go.
I invented a vague medical issue (I can’t remember what, maybe a stomach ache?) and asked to go to the doctor. Given my Mom’s hysterical tendency to overreact to physical symptoms, this was all I needed to get an appointment.

I went to the appointment and no surprise, my cuts did not need medical attention, but the therapist didn’t trust my judgment.
I thought I was done with the primary care task, but the therapist kept insisting I periodically return.
More vague medical issues were invented. My cuts were fine. I make a lot of cuts, but the depth of each individual one is nothing to worry about.
One visit, my regular doctor wasn’t in and instead I met with an overemotional doctor who grabbed my arm and made me promise not to kill myself.

When I was hospitalized for the first time it was partially related to losing my virginity. Although I know that with lesbian sex the risks are lower, I decided to ask for a STD test. The HIV test was done while I was in the hospital, but the other more general test was not.
I was 19, but my primary care doctor was still my pediatrician. Google says that up to age 21 people sometimes still see their pediatrician, but for me age 19 felt much too old. I didn’t have control over making doctors appointments yet and hadn’t been comfortable asking my parents about switching. The doctors at the hospital helped me out by writing in my discharge report, “Recommend the patient establish care with gynecologist”.

Upon release from the hospital I had an appointment with the new primary care doctor. I got my STD test (Results were fine). That was the only appointment I ever had with her.

Much later, I was trying to find a therapist. A local hospital’s psychology department said they could get me one, but first I needed a primary care doctor in their hospital. I made an appointment to see this new doctor (I will call her Doctor A). I gave a fairly lengthy psych history to her, because I needed her to help me get a therapist within her hospital. She seemed very nice and insisted she’d help me get a therapy appointment quickly.
The hospital wasn’t able to follow through with getting me a therapist. The wait list was a month long and even after the wait I wouldn’t be able to have a high enough frequency of appointments.

Another local hospital said they too could find me a therapist if I had a primary care doctor in their hospital. Again, I went to a new primary care doctor who I told more about my psychological history than my physical history. This hospital was also not able to follow through on their promise of a therapist.

I decided to switch back to Doctor A because her hospital had a more convenient location. Both hospitals are affiliated with the same prestigious medical school so I believed they were of comparable quality. Turns out the USnews rankings feel strongly otherwise, but I didn’t know this at the time.

I had a handful of appointments with Doctor A. I needed a form signed for school, the HPV vaccination, I had the flu etc.
I wasn’t pleased with how she handled my medical form for my new school. She put much too much information down about my psychological history. I felt the only appropriate information was the medication I was on (klonopin) and a small reference to minor anxiety as an explanation. I didn’t feel comfortable using her form with what had happened last time I had a school know my psychological history.
I never gave my new school the medical form. I’ve avoided the student health center. I worried they would track me down looking for it, but it never happened.

My third hospitalization was at Doctor A’s hospital. The many ways that that hospitalization was the worst I’ve had are a subject for another post. When I was discharged they insisted I make a follow-up appointment with my primary care doctor. The next available appointment was many months outward. The appointment was made and although I felt it was unnecessary I kept in in my calendar book.

After the hospitalization at Doctor A’s hospital I requested a copy of my records. I really only cared about the records from my inpatient stay, but because I was already going through the effort of making the request I also checked the box asking for my primary care records.

In my initial appointment with Doctor A I had mentioned that I am a lesbian. I was also asked if I am sexually active. I find that a hard question to answer; I explained that I only had sex once. I was asked if it had been consensual and I told her it was. At the time I didn’t think much of the question about consent, it seemed like a reasonable follow up.

In my records I was surprised to find this:
“She has had one sexual encounter with a man 1 year ago, but has not had intercourse since. She considers herself a lesbian but does not have a girlfriend and is not sexually active.”

I definitely never said anything about having sex with a man! I’ve only had sex with a woman. At the follow-up appointment I called her out on this. She was very insistent that I had told her I had sex with a man.

She heard the statements “I have had sex once” and “I am a lesbian”. I think this was likely not conscious, but I believe she was biased to assume that “sex” is a man plus a woman even though intellectually I believe she understands the alternatives. So following that she asked the question about consent, because it didn’t make sense for a lesbian to have sex with a man unless it was rape. There are of course exceptions to this, such as when a person begins identifying as a lesbian later in life. Instead of asking for clarification she assumed I was one of those exceptions and entered the incorrect information into my record.

I wasn’t pleased to learn that my doctor had an implicit bias against homosexuals. I realize there are some leaps and assumptions in here, but I think it is the most logical explanation of what happened.

I decided I was done with preventative medicine. I have chronic suicidal ideation. Although I wasn’t going to take action to kill myself then, I shouldn’t take action to keep myself alive. Basic needs such as eating and sleeping were okay, but no need for check-ups. Maybe I would come down with a horrible disease and would die without needing the effort of killing myself.

Eventually, I loosened up on my boycott of preventative medicine. I found a new primary care doctor (Doctor B), one at a clinic with a focus on the LGBT community. I told Doctor B the bare minimum of psychological history; I let her know the medications I am on, and mentioned nothing other than occasional panic attacks and ADHD. That’s all she needs to know. If she doesn’t know more, then she can’t tell more on any forms I need her to sign.

In September when I had my most recent overdose, I wanted to go to a doctor to get checked out. I couldn’t go to to Doctor B, because I don’t want her knowing about my crazy.

I waited a week to avoid the risk of being forcibly hospitalized. The more time between me and the overdose the less of a case they would have that I was an immediate danger to myself.

Doctor A was a resident and no longer works in the same hospital, but the hospital assigned me a new primary care doctor who I have never met. As far as Doctor A’s hospital is concerned I still have a primary care doctor there. I just haven’t been to an appointment for awhile. This gave me access to their walk-in clinic.
I met with a doctor who insisted I needed an emergency appointment with their psych department. Because it was after hours and I wasn’t an immediate risk she said she’d call tomorrow with a referral for an urgent appointment. I didn’t argue because I didn’t want to say anything that might force me to stay there. But it was frustrating, because I’d come for the physical issues only.
Everything was fine physically in her tests besides my reported GI symptoms (they eventually faded away).
I dutifully followed up with all of the hoops to get the urgent appointment. I was without therapy so I figured it couldn’t hurt. The appointment never materialized. No surprise there.
I would probably go back there if I needed other medical attention related to my psychological issues. I don’t like them but they’re capable of running a blood test or giving an X-ray. Doctor B is still my doctor for yearly appointments and anything else .

I don’t know which doctor is my real primary care doctor. Neither has the full story. Each has their specialized purpose. It works, so I’ll keep it like this.