This is another guest post by Dorothy Donald
I actually got to sit down with a consultant psychiatrist. He
asked me all the questions I was expecting (How are you today, can you rate
your mood on a scale of 1 to 10, what seems to be the trouble, what was your
childhood like, are you shagging anyone, yes I am paraphrasing, and so on). He
scribbled on a piece of paper, then turned the paper over and scribbled on the
other side, smaller and smaller and smaller… then quit and got another piece. He thought our meeting would take about 40
minutes. It took twice that long. I was pleased to be listened to, but also felt
a bit bad for his next patient whose appointment got delayed.
He doesn’t know what to diagnose me with, which seems eminently
sensible to me. Up for consideration are: autism spectrum disorder (which is in
my family, but I don’t think I have quite
enough of the markers to be diagnosed); PTSD (which I think is Consultant
Psychiatrist for “Your parents fucked you up, Dorothy”); personality disorder (which I think is
Consultant Psychiatrist for “You persist in behaving oddly, Dorothy”); and
treatment-resistant depression (which I think is Consultant Psychiatrist for
“You’re shit out of luck, Dorothy”)
Or, as a dear friend of mine put it: “He’s going to throw
the DSM at you and see what sticks?”
I go back in six weeks.
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