When it comes to shrinks and therapists, I’m not of the opinion all should be flowers, rainbows and sparkly unicorns.
In order to make any sort of progress, you have to do the hard work – the uncomfortable work – required to achieve your goals and sometimes that means you don’t like your mental health professionals all that much.
But no matter how much I’m not enjoying their particular brand of torture, I expect them to be somewhat polite and their office staff to be pleasant even if that smile plastered to their faces is as real as Dolly Parton’s boobs.
That really isn’t too much to ask. I know. Really. I know.
I used to work in a call center for Teleflora and I dealt with way too many families who ordered funeral flowers and the flowers never showed up and even though I was just the chick dealing with their problems at 0200 – Why they almost always waited until the wee hours of the morning to deal with that crap, I’ll never know. – I knew it was my job to grin and bear it. That’s what I was getting paid to do.
Same thing for the fine office folks at a shrink’s office.
I get they have to deal with “for real” crazy people; that’s gotta be taxing. I understand people are assholes and then when you add messed up drugs or no drugs to the mix you get some interesting reactions – and by interesting I mean psychotic. I understand all that. I feel your pain. Now, put a smile on your freakin’ face, speak with me like I’m a normal human being for two minutes and we can both get on with our very, very exciting lives.
I figured I’d feel better by now but I don’t and so I suppose I have to go into the whole story. Feel free to go read something else. I have some cat videos around here somewhere.
For about the past two or three months, I’ve been losing my hair.
Not like cancer patient hair loss but it’s substantial enough that I’m always pulling my hair off of me or the kids or the furniture. At first it was just annoying but as it’s gotten worse, it’s become embarrassing.
Embarrassing enough that I finally gave in and called my no nonsense Irish GP and had him do a blood workup. That phlebotomist pulled five separate vials. That was fun. Not really.
That happened on Friday and my results came back today: all’s good in the hood. Except my hair’s still coming out.
Doc’s assistant suggested I contact my shrink to see if hair loss is a common side effect of the drug I’m on – it’s not…I checked already.
Being the good little patient, I called the shrink’s office and got the receptionist. She was nice enough. I asked to be connected with the nurse of the doctor I see. She connected me right away and as I started telling the nurse what I was calling about, she cut me off, told me hold on and the line went quiet.
Two minutes later, a new voice came on the line and asked me who I was and why I was calling. She was promptly informed that I had been speaking with my doctor’s nurse.
“Oh, no. No one is EVER put straight through to a nurse. That just doesn’t happen. Now. What symptoms do you think you’re having?” – her emphasis, not mine.
I really was polite. I promise. I was.
I told her I was losing hair, my GP had told me to call them and that my next option was a dermatologist if all else failed. She assured me she’d pass my message along.
To the nurse’s credit, she did promptly return my call. To her detriment, she was a heinous bitch.
It’s not even worth quoting her here since the conversation was eerily close to the one I had with the chick prior. Same “What symptoms do you think you’re having?” All that fun stuff. Except, I have hair in my hand when I run my fingers through my hair. I don’t think I’m losing hair; I have proof.
The nurse went on to say:
“Extreme stress can cause hair loss. No one can prove it but it’s true. Do you pet yourself? Too much hair brushing can cause hair loss.”
I guess I will quote her. I just can’t help myself. Really? “Do you pet yourself?”
I was still being nice…nice with an edge of annoyed Amy hiding under the surface. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t stressed any more than your regular American and it would make a hell of a lot more sense if this medication was causing the problem and not some unprovable “thing”.
ANYWAY, I have a call in to my therapist – who I enjoy – about changing my shrink since I don’t enjoy my “treatment team” and just got a call about my dermatologist appointment.
I just wanna quit shedding like a dog. Is that too much to ask for? Just like I want mental health professionals to not be assholes. But I guess that’s just me.
