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rebbieh
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18 Apr 2013, 8:55 am

In the beginning of the week I spoke to my psychiatrist about the fact that I need him to write two letters that confirm my diagnoses (not sure what a letter like that is called in English) which I then need to hand in to people at university etc.

Got the two letters today. It mentioned my GAD, OCD and Social Anxiety Disorder but it didn't say anything about depression and that made me very anxious. In fact I'm so anxious I can't think about anything else right now. I'm not even sure why it makes me anxious. I think I fear that the people who will read the letters now won't see the whole picture and that I'll get treated differently now than if they knew about the depression too. I don't even understand why my psychiatrist hasn't mentioned the depression. Last time I saw the psychologist she told me the depression's moderate. So it should've been mentioned, right?

Another thing which makes me anxious is that the letter says "R meets the criteria for Social Anxiety Disorder, Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder" but I'm not sure that means I have been diagnosed? Does it mean I've been diagnosed? I'm very confused because the psychologist and the psychiatrist are a bit vague and I really don't understand what people are saying if they're not specific, direct and clear.

The smallest things make me anxious (though this is not small in my opinion).

Any thoughts?



Raziel
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18 Apr 2013, 9:12 am

rebbieh wrote:
The smallest things make me anxious (though this is not small in my opinion).

Any thoughts?


I was once very simmilar. I had a trauma at that time, that was totally overlooked and I fullfilled the diagnostic criteria for many psychiatric disorders at that time.
I'm not saying you also have one, but maybe there is a specific reason for you high anxiety level?
Is this possible?


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rebbieh
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18 Apr 2013, 12:20 pm

Raziel wrote:
I was once very simmilar. I had a trauma at that time, that was totally overlooked and I fullfilled the diagnostic criteria for many psychiatric disorders at that time.
I'm not saying you also have one, but maybe there is a specific reason for you high anxiety level?
Is this possible?


No, I don't think so. Not that I can think of at least.



justkillingtime
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18 Apr 2013, 1:01 pm

It can be very confusing. After a year of therapy, my psychologist said "your behavior is consistent with Asperger's". Later, I said, "so, I am diagnosed with Asperger's?". He had said before he did not have his DSM with him. This time I said, "Well, I brought my pocket DSM (that I got from Amazon)". He looked at it and said "you fit Avoidant Personality better" (paraphrasing).

Then I had testing and he said it showed depression and traits of schizoid instead of avoidant personality disorder with traits of Asperger's. Recently, he said Asperger's people don't want to be around people but I did not think that was true of all Asperger's people. I see many lonely people here on WP.

Maybe if you let the psychiatrist know a definite diagnosis is important to you, that would clear things up a bit for you. I don't know what it takes, though, to get a definite diagnosis.


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nick007
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20 Apr 2013, 7:16 pm

I'm guessing that you wanted the letters so you could get accommodations with your schooling. Perhaps your psych didn't think mentioning your depression would affect your accommodations. I don't think there's much the faculty can do to accommodate depression; with anxiety things they can know not to have you you get up in front the class, not to ask you to read out loud, not stand over you shoulder when taking test but I don't know how they could accommodate depression.


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kouzoku
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20 Apr 2013, 8:46 pm

I can relate. I have GAD, too. Today, I almost couldn't even make it outside. I had a panic attack about going out, then one trying to figure out what to wear, one because I was worried about driving, then anxious about being out amongst people, anxiety over money, and so on. Now I am depressed and frustrated. :cry:



rebbieh
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21 Apr 2013, 4:35 am

justkillingtime wrote:
Maybe if you let the psychiatrist know a definite diagnosis is important to you, that would clear things up a bit for you. I don't know what it takes, though, to get a definite diagnosis.


I've told them that it's really important to me to know the names of my diagnoses so I don't have to be all confused and unsure about things. They're still vague. I'm not sure if it's because they don't understand that I really need to know or if they actually don't know themselves. Perhaps they want to wait until I've been assessed for ASD and ADHD as well. I don't know.

nick007 wrote:
I'm guessing that you wanted the letters so you could get accommodations with your schooling. Perhaps your psych didn't think mentioning your depression would affect your accommodations. I don't think there's much the faculty can do to accommodate depression; with anxiety things they can know not to have you you get up in front the class, not to ask you to read out loud, not stand over you shoulder when taking test but I don't know how they could accommodate depression.


Nah, I've already got support at university (as in I get a mentor who helps me organise my studies, exams in a quiet room etc). I'm supposed to hand in one letter to explain why I've failed a lot of courses this year. Both the psychiatrist, the psychologists and I are sure it's because of everything I'm going through so that's why the psychiatrist wrote the letters. To confirm my diagnoses and prove that's why I've done so poorly at uni this year.

kouzoku wrote:
I can relate. I have GAD, too. Today, I almost couldn't even make it outside. I had a panic attack about going out, then one trying to figure out what to wear, one because I was worried about driving, then anxious about being out amongst people, anxiety over money, and so on. Now I am depressed and frustrated. :cry:


Yeah, GAD (and anxiety disorders in general) can really be crippling.



Raziel
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21 Apr 2013, 5:46 am

rebbieh wrote:
I've told them that it's really important to me to know the names of my diagnoses so I don't have to be all confused and unsure about things. They're still vague. I'm not sure if it's because they don't understand that I really need to know or if they actually don't know themselves. Perhaps they want to wait until I've been assessed for ASD and ADHD as well. I don't know


Especially when it's a combination out of different disorders it can take months -sometimes even years- until everything is sorted out. In my case it also takes a while. Also because several disorders are overlapping, so it can be very difficult to find out wich symptoms are just overlapping and wich disoders you really have.
What I did, I did a list with my symptoms and grouped them into different categories. That helped me a lot.


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justkillingtime
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21 Apr 2013, 6:36 pm

My psychologist believes the brain is too complex for diagnoses to be important or very accurate but I wanted to categorize and understand behavior probably for reasons, like you, regarding confusion and being unsure. Lost, maybe.


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