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Hi everyone
I've managed to get myself to 2 clinical psychologists in the past in the hope they could help me cope better with dealing with chronic illnesses.
I probably should give you a bit of background on me. I started getting a lot more diagnoses from 2008 onwards. For quite a while I was getting no help and no real answers about what I was dealing with. My symptoms were worsening, and so was my ability to cope. It came to a head in 2012 when I got told by a gastroenterologist that he couldn't help me and that he thinks I should see a clinical psychologist to work through my psychosomatic symptoms (a fancy way to say it's all in my head). I did that and went to a rather expensive clinical psychologist here who wrote the "rewiring" theory for the psychologists here. She was great in that she went through my childhood with me and worked out I had actually had 9 childhood traumas and she claimed normal was only 3 traumas. Well that was interesting, but when it came to my actual illnesses she struggled to understand what I was dealing with. She couldn't understand why I was burping. She couldn't understand that when she took me through her deep breathing exercises that I would roll about in pain because it physically hurt to breath while laying on her couch. But there was another problem surfacing in 2012, I had been complaining all year about my voice. No one would listen to me. Even my GP was glossing over my comment about my voice saying well lets see what the gastroenterologist has to say. So having sessions with this clinical psych actually hurt me because I'd be in pain talking. Then she expected me to read aloud 10 life goal statements 50 times each day. When I explained I can't do that she insisted I had to do it as it was part of her rewiring technique. So that was the end of that and I had to stop seeing her.
About mid 2012 I was referred to another gastroenterologist and he started a string of tests on me. One of those tests happened to be the barium swallow test. All good, except no one at the radiology clinic thought to tell me that your No. 2's may not flush down the toilet after this test. So off I go and getting ready to go to work and can't get the toilet to flush. I won't go into detail about it. lol. But to cut the story short the plumber was called out 3 times and he even dug up the back courtyard. Well I was still ok although a bit frazzled about what was going on... thinking stupid toilet. Then my real estate agent called me after the 3rd call out to tell me I was the problem and she suggested I use an industrial toilet (yep her words). I was at work when she told me this. Well next you know I had a meltdown at work. What she said just made me snap over the build up about my health up to that point. So I was pulled into the bosses office and told I need to take a break and prioritise my health. Finally a couple of months later my new gastroenterologist made his diagnosis and finally listened to me about my voice. He referred me to an ENT surgeon for investigation. I was diagnosed by the 2nd ENT I saw in January 2013 with reflux laryngitis and muscle tension dysphonia.
My point of discussion is that obviously I have a physical limitation and counselling is hard. I've tried to get counsellors to chat with me online, none of them here will do that. So even though I know I could probably do with some counselling still, I just can't get what I need. It's a shame.
Sorry this is probably a bit long, but just wanted to give you an idea what my experience has been to date with counselling for my health.
I've managed to get myself to 2 clinical psychologists in the past in the hope they could help me cope better with dealing with chronic illnesses.
I probably should give you a bit of background on me. I started getting a lot more diagnoses from 2008 onwards. For quite a while I was getting no help and no real answers about what I was dealing with. My symptoms were worsening, and so was my ability to cope. It came to a head in 2012 when I got told by a gastroenterologist that he couldn't help me and that he thinks I should see a clinical psychologist to work through my psychosomatic symptoms (a fancy way to say it's all in my head). I did that and went to a rather expensive clinical psychologist here who wrote the "rewiring" theory for the psychologists here. She was great in that she went through my childhood with me and worked out I had actually had 9 childhood traumas and she claimed normal was only 3 traumas. Well that was interesting, but when it came to my actual illnesses she struggled to understand what I was dealing with. She couldn't understand why I was burping. She couldn't understand that when she took me through her deep breathing exercises that I would roll about in pain because it physically hurt to breath while laying on her couch. But there was another problem surfacing in 2012, I had been complaining all year about my voice. No one would listen to me. Even my GP was glossing over my comment about my voice saying well lets see what the gastroenterologist has to say. So having sessions with this clinical psych actually hurt me because I'd be in pain talking. Then she expected me to read aloud 10 life goal statements 50 times each day. When I explained I can't do that she insisted I had to do it as it was part of her rewiring technique. So that was the end of that and I had to stop seeing her.
About mid 2012 I was referred to another gastroenterologist and he started a string of tests on me. One of those tests happened to be the barium swallow test. All good, except no one at the radiology clinic thought to tell me that your No. 2's may not flush down the toilet after this test. So off I go and getting ready to go to work and can't get the toilet to flush. I won't go into detail about it. lol. But to cut the story short the plumber was called out 3 times and he even dug up the back courtyard. Well I was still ok although a bit frazzled about what was going on... thinking stupid toilet. Then my real estate agent called me after the 3rd call out to tell me I was the problem and she suggested I use an industrial toilet (yep her words). I was at work when she told me this. Well next you know I had a meltdown at work. What she said just made me snap over the build up about my health up to that point. So I was pulled into the bosses office and told I need to take a break and prioritise my health. Finally a couple of months later my new gastroenterologist made his diagnosis and finally listened to me about my voice. He referred me to an ENT surgeon for investigation. I was diagnosed by the 2nd ENT I saw in January 2013 with reflux laryngitis and muscle tension dysphonia.
My point of discussion is that obviously I have a physical limitation and counselling is hard. I've tried to get counsellors to chat with me online, none of them here will do that. So even though I know I could probably do with some counselling still, I just can't get what I need. It's a shame.
Sorry this is probably a bit long, but just wanted to give you an idea what my experience has been to date with counselling for my health.
