Talking to Doctors

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The first time I visited a doctor to discuss mental health matters basically turned my life's path to crap for several years with how she reacted. I tried as well as I could to portray my struggles and issues but she berated me and couldn't understand why I was having supreme difficulty at university and needed her to begin some kinda process for me in finding support. I pretty much tried to lay myself bare and everything I'd gone through, which I'd never done before and she left a bad taste and trust in doctors. I rarely went back to that practice except to get sleeping pills every now and then, they never took my chronic sleeping issues seriously either, ''you need to exercise'', promptly shut up after I informed them I was jogging five days a week and working out three times a week.

The GP surgery around here is like night and day in comparison, unfortunately my life had to descend into the gutter before I found out doctors can be compassionate and patient in matters of mental health, they have given me appropriate medication and sent me to the right people in each stage of self discovery and curiosity I have explored over the last five years. I have to write things down and take a long time to prepare but the GP I see regularly since last year is extremely understanding and has helped improve my life, I have difficulty and mess up in appointments and they take a lot out of me but they are necessary, he even has told the receptionist to let me have another appt if I miss my time slot due to executive function issues, I have serious trouble preparing and getting to things.

I also seem to apologize too much for taking up their time with mental things as I rarely have anything physically failing or malfunctioning but they seem to want me to come back even though I feel I'm wasting resources and precious minutes.

It is true that some doctors are idiots, and even their peers recognize it. It's a pity they don't let the public know except through a bad experience...

Anyway I agree that if you don't feel your doctor listens and is interested in what you have to say, by all means, vote with your feet. (Find someone else, in other words.)

Last time I went to my doctor, I said "I've been on the Internet looking up what you diagnosed me with last time, and I don't make any apology for that." It was an unnecessarily militant thing to say, but she took it well. My doctor hasn't heard of every rare disease, nor every new drug, but if you mention something she doesn't know about, she herself goes straight to the Internet - during our meeting - and looks it up! You can't ask anyone to be more open than that.