I saw my consultant psychiatrist, NewVCB, for the second time this morning, an appointment that I’d been dreading for days.  Even though my first encounter with her back in January had gone without any significant hitch, and even though I had established on that occasion that she was not as formidably intimidating as OldVCB, I [...]

TRIGGER WARNING – If you hadn’t guessed from the title, this post contains a number of references to child sexual abuse in varying degrees of detail.  Please, please be careful if you think this material may trigger you.  Take care, Pan x
I received a text message from my cousin SMcF early this afternoon to report [...]

In response to this.  See also this update.  I have corrected a few minors errors in the author’s writing and have, as you will see, provided (italicised) annotated notes of the most rational and considered variety.  *cough*
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Dear Pandora
Advocacy in Accessing Mental Health Services
Thank you for your letter dated 17 December 2009 about accessing our mental [...]

Week 42.  Week 42.  How can this be?  I look back through this journal, and see prose referencing sessions as far back as week 10.  I read through said posts, and remember clearly the discussions, the facial expressions, the tones of voice to which I have alluded.  It all seems like yesterday.  How did we [...]

Things were so much improved on Thursday from what they had been the week before.  I think C’s mood and / or attitude was better than it had been, and I was feeling considerably more sane than I have of late, so between the two of us, the whole session felt a lot more productive.  [...]

So.  After the misery of January and the earlier part of this month, I had thought that things were beginning to find more of an even keel.  That perhaps the Quetiapine / Venlafaxine ( / psychotherapy?) combination might be starting to yield some results.  My motivation is still shockingly low, but my mood is higher [...]

I couldn’t possibly write this week’s AotW without mention of the first public consultation on the DSM-V, which was unveiled today.  The American Psychiatric Association has put its proposals on existing and new mental disorders up at www.dsm5.org, for the delectation of professionals and the public at large.  Comments are invited.
I’ve had a rudimentary gander [...]

Things are going more and more downhill in session.  Every one over the last few weeks seems to end up brimming over with hostility and defensiveness from both sides, and last week was no different.  I think he is finding me an increasingly difficult patient.  I am certainly finding negotiation of the therapeutic relationship increasingly [...]

Apparently I wrote this epic gem of a post on Thursday, post-C. It reminds me of a diatribe that A wrote to his friend W whilst in the early, very bleak years of his long university career:
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck it all,
My fucking life.
Suck, suck, suck, suck, suck it all,
My fucking dick.
Here is [...]

This hardly even warrants an entry, but in my obsession for complete records of my psychotherapy with C, I am going to write at least a rudimentary account of it anyway.
The reason it doesn’t merit a post is not so much because it was a useless session – though in some ways it was – [...]