nccotus

my therapist in Bethesda, MD, in the mid 90’s compared a psychotherapist to a prism.

I had been on a very difficult psych ward and when I out I compared it to being in his “prism” but he thought I was saying “prison” and, no matter how many times I said it, he didn’t get what I was trying to say.

Similarly, he said something about “telling stories.” It was so embarrassing and devastating to me as he formed his therapy about me around this. In knew from this that he had been talking to my mother. “Telling stories” is a British euphemism for lying. Obviously she said this and he misunderstood, and deemed that I had the habit of anecdote. I realized at that point that that doctors firm and coax there patients around their diagnosis. His diagnosis was schizoaffective disorder. At Hopkins they had told me that that was a wastebasket diagnosis. I had asked, what do I do if another doctor diagnoses me with this disorder. Dr. Kastelic said, they would be wrong.

Dr. Taube was deemed a leader in the therapy of patients with partial complex seizures and had written a famous paper on it. I read it with interest. He deemed that I did not have partial complex seizures.

I leaned on the health and strength of his brilliant mind to hold me together in that desperate time. But Alex in his negligence fostered something very negative there that led to a dangerous situation in the community that led to our having to go from there.

I am still stuck at WSH, a countercultural coummunity that satisfied my soul because of my upbringing in a disestablishmentarian family.

these days I am a pious, patient, and obedient antidisestablishmentarian Christian but I have these illfeasant roots.

it took a marriage into a military family and my horrific experience of abortion to turn me around. My Canadian husband also fostered understanding and perspective on my situation.

It was hard to leave Taube and go to Florida. I had to all but stop my medication.

Then I picked the meds back up with a PA doctor who I was able to see in MD. That turned out to be a disaster. Then I got care in Florida, it is a weird community. Now I am back in PA.

there was a crossover between the state hospital (WSH) and the Berks County Prison. People whom I knew who had been in both places said the food was better in prison. So, my son, when offered a choice, chose to go to BCP. That’s his business except to say that I think that that was probably wise. I am still completely stuck inside the Lodge program at WSH. It’s like a war that never ends.