u/AITOorisitAutism

Hey, I posted a few days ago about how my therapist doesn't have any connections or know how to help me get assessed, and she doesnt know how to help me anymore after all my issues have come to light. After all those comments, I'm realizing that my gut instinct was true, I am out of her scope now, and I need to find someone who probably does DBT and works with mood and personality disorders.

How do I find a specialist? I use the filter on Psychology Today to narrow it down, but if I even just put in Bipolar + DBT + my insurance, then it says 0 results. OR, even if I do find some that do only DBT atleast, then still everyone's profile looks the EXACT same, like "I create a warm, safe space to help you navigate stress, anxiety, and life transitions." They all say that! I dont want to talk about work stress, I have some issues that need true structure and deep work....Also, I dont trust profiles where they have expertise in EVERYTHING and 7 different modalities if they graduated 3 years ago.....so thats another half of PT.

I had a consultation with a therapist yesterday who literally said "working with me is pretty relaxed, I wont make you cry every session, I'm here to help and we'll have a good time". But thats not what I need at all, I dont want to relax and have a good time. If I never cry then I guarantee we are not hitting the roots of my issues. I want someone who can see through my high functioning mask and really dig into it.....How do I find someone like that?? If not PT, then where??

Or does anyone know of someone like that in Louisiana? Hook a girl up

I have been seeing a therapist for over a year. They think I have a mood disorder, but there is alot of other stuff going on, so they wanted me to go to "someone who makes way more money than them" to get a diagnosis. I want to go to someone who will take a couple hours (in a row or over multiple sessions) to really dig into my case, because it is complex with alot of overlapping characteristics of different disorders. So she sent me to a psychiatrist....which is not at all what I wanted or what we talked about. It went horribly, because medication management was not the goal, and I stopped seeing the psychiatrist.

Fast forward a year later, we talk about going to see someone again. She said I need a "comprehensive psych eval", yet refers me to another psychiatrist. I look it up and it seems like I need to see a clinical psychologist to get assessed. I ask her about psychologists, and she says "oh no, they dont see clients at all. They just do research and stuff like that" and I am very confused by that, because its simply not true. Then she referred me to about 3 other places that, when they called to schedule the appointments with me, said "we don't do what you are looking for".....wtf is going on? Should an LPC have been taught this in school? Why has it been 6 months of trying to get testing done and it feels like absoloutely no one knows whats going on??? Her, the places I call, my PCP I had to call to get a referral, everyone was acting like I was speaking a different language.

I was always different from other kids growing up. I had a stable home life and my parents were together.

Around 9 years old I started thinking that I would never reach any milestones. I would never make it to middle school, high school, get my driver's license, turn 18, go to college, turn 21, get married, have kids, etc...

It wasn't in an anxious way, it didn't bother me, I just KNEW that that is what other people got to do, but that was not my lot in life. No matter how bad I wanted it.

Idk if I thought I would die first or kill myself or what, but I just always had an understanding that I would never make it that far.

Is there a name for this? Or a clear cause when a young kid is 100% convinced of this? I am also in my late 20's now, and I have met all of those milestones, but I still feel like this can't be real and that I'm just posing as a normal person in the world.

I was in a....relationship? With my child's dad. It ended terribly, he was never physically abusive but threatened to kill me/pay to have me killed, financially trapped me, and a lot of other stuff.

I now look for him everywhere when I'm in public (he lives in another state), imagine him showing up at my job almost every day, if I think I'm going to be in a situation where I will see him I start full on panicking and shaking really bad and feel like im going to throw up (haven't seen him in 4 years, no contact in 2 years), if I see someone that looks like him I freeze up, etc.....

Is this the type of situation where EMDR would help? Or does it need to be more like a single instance of huge trauma? Rather than 1 year worth of hell?

I started therapy a little over a year ago. I went due to the fact that I was in a 2 month depressive episode, and I knew I had attatchment problems, some trauma from a past relationship, and also a lot of other stuff that I knew was "off" about me but didnt know what was wrong with me.

Now, a year later, I know where my issues lie (so Im self-aware but havent fixed them yet), my therapist thinks I have Bipolar type 2, and I have an appointment with a psychiatrist this week.

The problem is that I have been baseline and totally fine for about 1½ months. I feel so stupid for going to see a psychiatrist now, I feel fine and I don't really have anything to talk about in therapy. Is it time for me to stop? If I were your client, would you see any need for me to continue?

I know that I will still need to get my supervision hours and other thing in person, but I am looking for a masters program that the coursework can be completely done online asynchronously.

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Also, some programs teach more straight for the exam than others. I am looking for one that is not just straight up teaching the exam. I know a few BCBAs that had a program like that and while they did great on the test, they struggled once on their own and felt like they didnt learn enough from their classes.

I usually have a really bad depressive episode about every 2-3 months. I have been baseline for over a month, and honestly I miss the low. Its like a deep dark blanket that I can just wrap up in. Being baseline for that long to me just feels exhausting by the end. Even when I'm not depressed, I still have underlying SI all the time. So baseline feels like there's a whole side of me not coming to light, an invisible backpack that gets heavier and heavier, even tho I feel fine for weeks at a time. But when I'm depressed I feel more like my "true" self. Does anyone else feel something similar to this?

For example:

1. I have lived in my house for almost 5 years. Around the year 3 mark, I suddenly forgot if my door was locked if it was pointing vertically or horizontally. 3 whole years of locking my door multiple times a day, I knew that vertical = locked... until I didn't. And it wasn't like "oh that was weird" and the muscle memory came back. Nope, I had to literally relearn it, I was confused for months afterwards before it became muscle memory again.

2. Another example is left vs right. Knew the difference since I was a little kid, but then around highschool I suddenly one day completely forgot which one was which, and I had to reteach it to myself over time.

3. my alarm system has a key pad. I knew the code by heart, until one day it completely wiped from my memory

4. the number of my address. I remembered the name of my street but not the number of my house.

Anyone else have this happen occasionally?

If a client saw you in an elevated state (hypomania) and disclosed some huge things to you (aborted sucide attempts, hallucinations in the past, etc), would you bring it up in a future session when your client was back to baseline?

My therapist did not and I'm wondering if that is normal? What would you do in that situation?

I have a small pottery wheel at my house, and my own assortment of underglazes and glazes that I have been buying over the last 5 months. I use kilnshare to fire my pieces.

Anyways, I looked at the only pottery studio within an hour of my house. It seems like a lot of money for basically nothing? But maybe Im new to the scene and this is normal.

The membership details:

-$179/month

-Included: 24 hour studio, wheel, underglazes, dipping glazes.

-Not included: clay (bought seperately), kiln (seperate charge, based on weight).

I knew that clay would most likely not be included, and thats fine, but still having to pay to use the kiln threw me off. If thats still a separate charge, then what is the $179 for? Basically just the underglaze and glazes? Idk, again, my expectations might have been off, so correct me if this is totally normal.

My therapist has STRONGLY suspected for a year now that I have a mood disorder (Bipolar 2). My therapist wants me to go get an assessment done, but I can not get clear information for how this works. Last year I went to a psychiatrist and talked for 45 minutes, she put me on medicine, and then I was only supposed to see her for 20 minutes a month after that.

But thats not the type of assessment I want. I want *whatever it is called* when it last a couple of sessions, you do all kinds of assessments and interviews and stuff, and then in the end they write a report and give you a diagnosis (if appicable). I want the whole shebang. What is this called? Who do I have to see to have this type of assessment done? My therapist admitted that she does not really know how this process works, aside from doing her part to provide a referral if I need one.

Ive been getting the run around for months. I need helppp

My session starts at 1pm. I honestly dont know what time its supposed to end. 1:50? 1:55? Either way, I know she has a 2pm appointment that is always waiting in the waiting room when I walk out. The problem is that me and the therapist typically dont end until 2:01-2:07 usually. I'm worried that her other client is going to be irritated or frustrated with her because we never end before her next session is supposed to start. What am I supposed to do? She doesn't have a clock where I can see it in session, its on the desk behind me so that she can see it.

TW: Mention of death threats, kidnapping, etc. Nothing super specific.

I was 19 he was 27. My ex denied our child (calling her his God daughter or other things), emotionally abused me, financially abused me, threatened to pay for someone to kill me, isolated me hours away from my family, threatened to kidnap our child if I tried to leave and take her with me, gaslit me, used threats of abandoning me to get me to comply, had his family help to "keep me in line", I left with a suitcase without telling him, etc. And honestly I did not realize the weight of it until 6 years later at 26 years old (I'm now 27, the age he was). Now that I am married, stable, more kids, financially secure, etc.....it's all hit me now. Is that common? I dont know what to do with all of this. Up until a year ago I would have denied that I was abused with everything in me. It didn't even cross my mind, it was a ridiculous idea. And now honestly just this week I have finally admitted that it was abuse. And I don't know what to do with all of this.