Psychologist's Assessment

I wasn’t expecting much from this psychology assessment I had today. All I really expected was for me to give my life history, he tell me I need therapy and then he further tell me the waiting list is 12-18 months. Well surprisingly it was much better than that. I came away happy and I felt like I had actually got somewhere with services for a change.

                I was anxious before I went in, I was sat in the waiting room nervous but I kind of had figured how it was going to pan out. Maybe that’s what made me nervous. I’ve had six assessments by psychologists in the past. Two in the community before hospital and four in hospital, why would the seventh be any different? You talk about yourself, its hard and then you come away feeling dejected and more often than not feeling worse than you did before. I thought I would have an issue with him being male but I didn’t. I would have before hospital but being in hospital you get used to all the male nurses and doctors and I think I learnt I could get along with males.

                He started off asking me how I’ve been since hospital. I said I’d had difficulties at the start with self-harm and overdosing but that now I am managing that but I suffer with my mood still. We moved onto when I first started experiencing difficulties and I told him it was when I was 13 and described what they were. He asked if anything had happened around that age. At first I said no but then remembered something little. I told him what it was in little detail. I dismissed it as nothing much but he thought it was big. He said it was an attempted rape but I denied that. He asked me if I was to accept that it was an attempted rape, how would that make me feel. I said I don’t know because it wasn’t. We moved on through my life explaining how I was and various incidents that occurred. We discussed my old CPN V and what lead up to me being sectioned. We talked about family relationships and other relationships. We discussed how I felt about myself. We also talked about other stuff too but I cannot remember.

                He then said the session was coming to a close. He told me what he thought which was the first time a psychologist had ever done that. He told me that I have dismissed all the things that have happened to me in my life. I see them as unimportant. It then leaves me confused about why I feel and behave like I do. This makes me angry at myself and I think I am bad. I get trapped in a cycle of shame and guilt which further leads me to behave like I do. As a consequence I punish myself. He then goes on to say that services have also then further punished me by labelling and locking me up without getting to the bottom of why I feel and behave like I do. He said he has read lots of reports about me and that only one had a little something written in about what he classes as the attempted rape. He says there is lots of blame on me.

                When I heard this I was surprised. I felt a sense of relief that someone had finally explained something to me about me.  Also surprised that perhaps he understood me well. . It made me feel sad because if it were the truth it is a very sad situation. It kind of made me want to hug this person he was talking about and tell them everything would be ok. I felt sorry for this person he was talking about but I don’t know if I could accept that it’s me. Maybe it is me but I do find it hard to accept. I suppose it just felt good that he attempted to understand me and actually tell me what he thought at the end. Nobody has ever done that before. He said he was going to speak to a colleague about me who specialises in a type of therapy that is based on relationships. He didn’t tell me the name of it. He said he would get back to me. I hope its good news.

Brokenmind

x