Posted by Elizabeth on August 2, 2001, at 8:39:49
In reply to Re: DID, MDs, DSM, EMDR, etc. » Elizabeth, posted by shelliR on August 1, 2001, at 20:54:25
> Anyway, with sexual abuse I think you always would believe an uncoached three year old. And my first knowledge of my sexual abuse came to me totally independent of therapy
Well, it's good to feel confident in your memories. Being diagnosed as "mentally ill" can often make people feel much less self-confident, I think.
> Also, when I was three I tried to burn down my neighbor's house so the fire engines would come (tried with matches to burn brick), and she takes the credit for that, but I do remember lighting match after match.
< VBG > Glad it wasn't a wood house!
> You might ask what a three year was doing all by her self outside trying to burn houses down--sort of indicates the pattern of neglect in my family.
It does indeed. I think there are a lot of children who experiment with fire (hence the warnings not to play with matches). I wonder if the behaviour is linked to particular traits.
> > You say that you find all this dissociating and so forth completely natural. Under those circumstances, I can see how it would be hard for a clinician to figure out what was going on.
>
> Well, if I was losing time and buying things I didn't want, and people knew me who I didn't know, and if I found myself in places with no clue how I got there, then it *would* feel strange and very horrible I think.Sure. But since you don't see anything unnatural about it, it might not come up in a clinical interview.
> My friend was diagnosed as schizophrenic in NIMH, because she heard voices inside, but she didn't fit a scheizophrenic profile.
When did that happen? In the past, schizophrenia has been a sort of umbrella diagnosis, and many people were misdiagnosed with schizophrenia when they were really suffering from, e.g., bipolar disorder.
> BTW, he is still her therapist. I think he feels so bad about misdisagnosing her (it took eight years!) that he doesn't charge her anything over what her insurance pays.
Hmm, I wonder if I can come up with a scam to make my pdoc feel guilty enough to charge less. < g >
> Actually she is his only patient (talk about a transference dream) because he (MD) and a psychologist run a very well known treatment center for people with dissociation and substance abuse, which keeps adding new locations. The only clinical work he does now is run some of the groups out of the centers, if he's still doing that. Mostly he is administrative. It's called the Kolmac Clinic.
I think it would be cool to set up a private clinic with a couple other clinicians like that. (I'd probably be more interested in treating "dual diagnosis" patients with mood or anxiety disorders and addictions.)
> > They don't like to give Valium? Why not -- not trendy enough? < g >
>
> Not only not trendy, but even worse: "post-trendy" meaning it is almost blacklisted! Remember miltown (meprabamate?)"Remember" doesn't seem like quite the right word. I do know of it. It seems that it's a metabolite of Soma (a muscle relaxant that I use for back pain), although I don't have any idea to what extent since I've never taken meprobamate.
> > > Is anyone else in your family depressed?
> > Yes, on both sides of my family. (no bipolar, AFAIK)
>
> Anyone in your immediate family (sibs, parents)?My mother and my (younger) sister have been, but I never witnessed it. (I just thought my sister was holing up in her room in the way that teenagers generally do. In retrospect I feel bad for having failed to notice what was going on. I made her promise that if it ever happens again she will tell somebody in the family.)
-elizabeth
poster:Elizabeth
thread:67742
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010731/msgs/73080.html