Separation anxiety with a mental health provider

[Shunneddune]

In November of last year I fired my psychiatrist of 8 years for the way hee manged my meds for the previous 2 year....the psychiatric np I've been eing since then gave me some hope because she was more willing to change things...but now she is leaving for family reasons...I stayed with company so she worked under my old docter..now I'm torn between going b pays back to my old Dr or getting used to the new person....there are pros ND cons to each but the main thing in my current predicament I really feel like I ne3ed the MD more..I kinda do miss him ..h was more like friend that just came once a month to visit but he hated to change things at least I would know what I was getting and I need that stability more than anything right now....I'm throughly torn...

[gajh]

I am sorry you are in this situation. I know you will make the right choice.

[012703060610]

It's so hard to lose your psych resources. My psychiatrist was with me for more than 20 years and just retired. He was a solo practice so I had to search a lot. I found five places and interviewed with them all. I have no idea why my insurance hasn't ever pushed back. I miss him dearly. Just as you describe, he was a bit of a friend and had a vested interest in my life and could remember almost all of conversations. I think it was the comfort with him that helped to begin with when I started on medications. My new psych guy does 5-15 min med mgmt appointments online only. Really impossible to ask questions that you may have with that short of time. It's one reason my old psychiatrist would take the time to explain medications to me and how they worked. He would even follow up when we changed things up. Now I've got this new guy who did change my meds, but it seems to be an improvement, but wants nothing to do with whatever I'm dealing with. Here is where I needed to add a better therapist. I switched from CBT to EMDR through a PTSD counselor. For now, I feel like I have the right combo.

So the million dollar question, where do you go? I think your gut will tell you as you think about it. If you really feel like you need to change meds now, I think that may be a different story. If you are ok with your current plan, then it may feel safer to go back to some comfort with maybe less flexibility. The worst case scenario would be that you may have to tell your MD that you wanted to change XYZ regarding meds and your past NP was supportive of changes that were beneficial to you. Kick it to him and say, is there any reason you see why I shouldn't try something knew? It may take a few sessions if you want changes but I think if you keep asking they are really supposed to be listening and giving you valuable reasons why or why not to take something. Trust the gut!