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“That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all.”

--T.S. Eliot, The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock

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The Awesome Power of Procrastination

*Trigger Warning: self-harm The power of procrastination is so awesome that even though I have been without Internet access for several hours and I have things that I think I want to do, I have spent that time lying on top of my bed thinking about how I would do all the things I want to do if I were to do them. Very productive. I think that the ideas I have are worth so much more in my head, I can fetishize every negative feeling and pretend that it makes me special or interesting in some way. But when the thoughts become words that I type out and read back, I realise how banal everything about me is. That's probably the real reason writing blog posts and writing in my journal gets a little harder every time. Here is a quick list of the things I should be doing right now: On Tuesday I had a very intense dream that was terrifying enough to make me feel slightly separate from my body all week. Even now, everything feels a little unreal and abnormal; I haven't stopped ...
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The Trial and Error Thing


I found this today: choose a competent counsellor  and it made me think of something that has been bugging me for awhile.

A few months ago, I went home for the holidays and I had an issue with the antidepressants I was taking at the time because I was going away for 2 months, but the pharmacy could only give me a one month supply. The public health system here isn't really up to scratch, so getting pills for the second month of my vacation was nightmare; I had to see 2 nurses and an unbelievably stupid psychiatrist just to get a refill on my prescription.

Anyway, not the point. The point is the psychiatrist I saw at the hospital when I did eventually get the meds and the bitter after-taste he left in my mouth that is still bothering me. I have an avoidant personality disorder and I DO NOT LIKE TO SHARE. Also, he lost me at "Do you believe I Evolution"; I don't know if that's a standard question in a first session interview with a therapist, but it struck me as a bit insignificant and stupidly phrased. So I wasn't really up to sharing anything with him. I suspect he had already decided to diagnose me with BPD because of my cutting scars and so he tried to take the little information I did give him and make it fit with that diagnosis. For instance, he assumed that because I said I'd only ever been in one serious relationship, it meant that I'd had a string of other, short-term relationships that didn't last because of the BPD he'd already decided I had. He didn't ask me about alcohol or drugs or even my inability to maintain a relationship(which isn't actually a problem I have. The problem is being too awkward to get into a relationship).


I don't know much about how psychiatry is supposed to work and I may very well have BPD and not know it, but for me the issue here is that I'm supposed to trust someone who took one look at my arm and not only made assumptions about my motivations for  self-harming("boredom and wanting attention") and then jumped to a diagnosis without bothering to check if I fit any other criterion. I don't have a problem with therapists in general and this was only one session that did eventually get me the pills I need. But I do sometimes think about the patients he regularly sees. If his gravely unprofessional  behaviour affected me this much, what could it be doing to them?

I asked my regular psychiatrist about it and he gave me some vague non-answer in the form of, "If you think you might have BPD, just ask your friends what about you drives them crazy". I think he was aiming for "esoteric advice that makes me look within", what he hit was "ridiculous statement that makes me think this man thinks I'm an idiot". And it also made me realise how hard it is to get real outside help, especially if you don't have medical aid or lots of money. The whole thing kinda depresses me.
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