Posted by banga on January 31, 2005, at 10:45:59
In reply to Have you done projective tests?, posted by Camille Dumont on January 31, 2005, at 0:18:11
One thing I wanted to say is that it's great that you seem to sense when your thinking is getting a little off. This is important in ANY mental illness, as it means you can work to help yourself. A person with depression has thoughts I am ugly I don't do anything right--they can counter these thoughts with evidence to the contrary. When they are deeply depressed, any ability to reflect and say it's OK it is a disease, it will get better.
For you, you notice your thoughts get distorted. You asked whether a stressful situation can make it worse...definately! So since you notice this, you can do something about it--get out of the situation, do something to lessen stress. If there are people around you that you feel you can trust, you can do "check-ins"--see if how you are seeing tinngs is acurate or not. So regardless of your diagnosis--your self-awareness is priceless in having an edge on working through tough times. I encourage you to try and keep stress down, it will help.
I can understand your fear about what this may mean in the long run--but as people said illness can go up and down for many people. I do encourage you to reach out to your doctor, if he/she is good they should be able to help. Doing a full assesment with a psychologist, with testing (an MMPI-2 and projective) would be very helpful in understanding what is going on. I can imagine you might even fear finding out what IS going on...but remember, the more you and your pdoc understand what is going on, the more you can be helped, and helped to find meds that help you feel more in control. TRy and not worry too much about diagnosis, these days the lines are blurred, the main thing is understanding your symptoms and treating them--we all here have one type of chemical imbalance or another, and all try to help each other find what might help get it right again.
Good luck, remember you are not alone and there is help.
poster:banga
thread:450292
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050128/msgs/450522.html