Edit: Appointment is over and wasn't as bad as I thought-yet anyway. Thank you all!
I have a mental health assessment today at a new behavioral healthcare office and I'M TERRIFIED!
Here's my head:
Will they judge me? Will they want to change my meds? Will they diagnose me with a new condition? Will they treat my agoraphobia? Will they take me on as a patient without my previous health records? Will I act right? Will I answer the questions appropriately? Will they treat me with respect? Should I even do this? Should I just get off my meds? Do I look unkempt? Will they telehealth my future appointments? What if they think ill of me? Will I defend myself? Will I advocate for myself?
OMG, the endless negative thoughts! (The wife will be here with me as it's telehealth) They're on a loop and nothing I'm doing is helping. I just want it over with. I'm so done with mental health care. I want to be done with it. Can I just not be mentally ill?
Anyway, does anyone have tips, suggestions, or advice?
Yes. If you want to be done with mental health, my biggest piece of advice is to practice the teachings of Dr Claire Weekes. Her book, Essrntial Help for your Nerves helped me greatly in overcoming what you are going through.If your biggest issue is strugggling with the symptoms of anxiety and depression, this is the self help book for you. I also recommend any other publication that advocates acceptance as the way to recover.
Swilly79, I completely agree with Beevee’s reply above.👆That’s a LOT of thought you’ve put into one appointment. Glad your wife is able to be there for support. Imagine what you could do with all that mental energy focused on something positive and productive? Overthinking is a bitc*! Hope it went well!!
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Right! Thank you 🙏
just write down what you expect from them and things you would like discussed You got this
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I did that and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought lol thank you ☺️
It went OK, I had to open up which I hate doing but it's over-phew! Thank you 🙏
Hi swilly glad it's over for you so sorry I didn't do that post had in mind couldn't get the shot I wanted and been kinda shy about posting even tho I have got quite a good shot now I'll try post it soon, sending a hug 🤗💛🌟😹
I’m glad that your appointment went well. You are engaging in what CBT therapists would call fortunetelling and catastrophizing. You are trying to predict the future when you really don’t know what’s going to happen and you assume that it will be the worst possible outcome. In the future, look at this incident in which you had all these negative thoughts and feelings, but in fact, turned out pretty well. A useful question to ask yourself about some upcoming event that may be troubling you is: what is the worst that could happen, what is the best that could happen and what is the most likely thing that could happen?
Also, keep in mind that you are the customer, so to speak, and that you can decide whether you like a therapist or not or whether you think you’re making progress and you can decide what you want to do.
Finally, I would recommend the book Feeling Great by David Burns. It is an excellent book on CBT and if you want to help yourself therapeutically without actually going to a therapist, this would be worth a try.
I am glad things worked out better then you thought. We so often worry about things that never happened or things that do happen with less intensity then we worry about
So true. I'm a catastrophizer. I fully admit that lol 😆 Also, sometimes sh*t does happens that I worried about so, of course that's all my brain remembers and, when I worry, it goes right to the sh*t, instead of the good things if that makes sense.
Our brains can work against the mentally ill, like me. I've just gotta re-train it which I'm trying to do but it's tough.
Try to use it as a learning session for you now that it's over and you realize how much your anxious thinking blows things up way out of proportion and catastrophizes them and they are just lies that aren't true at all. Believing that your anxious thoughts are just lies and nothing else is a major step toward healing.
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