His mother had been seeing me and they had signed mutual releases. Mother wanted me to see him as soon as possible, because he was “nervous and unable to sit still at all.”
When he came, he denied a “nervousness” which his mother thought looked like “attention deficit disorder.”
I can’t treat what people don’t think they have.
He described problems with his girlfriend and his mother, since his mother had told him he could not go to a party in the home of his girlfriend’s family on the bad side of town, “where they would just as soon shoot you in the street as say ‘hello.'”
He sounded like he had pretty routine mother-and-girlfriend problems.
She contacted me on the weekend, worrying about him frequenting strip clubs, something I had not asked about and he had not told me about. Sometimes, she said he became so angry she physically feared him.
Their two narratives were simply inconsistent. I drew the line at her feeling scared of him physically.
I told her about “tough love,” and I told her if that happened again, to call the cops.
My husband reminded me of the ultimate authority in my profession — Hugh Laurie as “Dr. House” — who repeatedly said on television in public for all the world to hear, “Patients lie.”
Which one of them? Maybe both of them. I told her what I had told them; and would indeed, tell anybody who gave me the opportunity. I can try a session with the two of them together and help to resolve things, but I could not promise that it would resolve things. I would try. I always try as hard as I can to do the best that I can.
She said she knew this to be true.
I had told him and also told his mother on the phone, that the hardest thing a young man (or a young woman) ever had to do in his (her) life was establishing themselves as an individual distinct from parents. This usually meant a period of confusion before resolution. There may be (and there was) some confusion about vocational direction, too.
One can only press forward. The ability to communicate openly is precious, and irreplaceable.
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Filed under Alternative Medicine, depression, Diagnosis, Disease, Family, life, medicine, Mental Illness, Personality Disorders, Psychology, relationships by on Oct 11th, 2019. Comment. 
Read more on Your Job Description Is Always “Customer Service”…
Filed under News, Personality Disorders by on Mar 16th, 2017. Comment.
I remember a supervisor from the past whom I never thought had the right personality to be a psychiatrist. I mean, he was a little angry and domineering for my taste. But heck — I gave him a “bye” since he worked in a prison context.
I was never attacked by a prison patient through my tours-of-duty through four (all-male) California state penal institutions. I had a couple who ended up on their knees, crying, stroking my hands, or even asking permission to kiss me (denied, of course).
They said I was “nice” to them. I guess I treated them like human beings — something pitifully lacking in the prison system where everything seems oppressive and depersonalizing. Read more on Assaults On Psychiatrists…
Filed under abuse, Mental Illness, Personality Disorders, Psychiatrists, PTSD, Public Health System by on Jun 19th, 2014. Comment.
I really don’t know what is real and what is not, in this list of accusations of Donald Trump. I know for sure he has silly-looking hair and I would not want to learn anything from him about hair.
There is a big business teaching people how to make money. My husband and I have studied this with some of the big gurus, in public auditoriums and oversized mansions in Las Vegas. I think some, although not famous, are ethical.
I do know that we have been followers of those who “sell information” and make money. I have a lot of information that the world ought to know and I remember my amusement when I first learned it was possible to charter a university in California for only $5000, which does not seem like a totally unobtainable sum. Read more on The Rich Really Are Rotten…
Filed under News, Personality Disorders by on Aug 28th, 2013. Comment.
Narcissistic men have raised cortisol – or physiological stress — from being these bully-others sorts. But women do not? Hmmm.
A narcissist is somebody who puts their needs above yours in any relationship. I can count on one hand the times I have seen them in treatment. They are “bullies” and we usually see their victims.
Cortisol – commonly known as the “stress” hormone — can be accurately measured with a mouth swab. Because of this, people can do research — many of whom appear to be a great deal more open minded than doctors. Read more on Physiological Validation of Narcissism…
Filed under Diagnosis, medicine, Personality Disorders, Psychology by on Jun 7th, 2012. Comment.
We did not really know where this patient was at. I figured out he was some kind of bipolar, because he talked about mood swings.
When I first saw him, he seemed to have a delusional system that had something to do with idealizing a woman pharmacist and feeling he had offended her and thinking obsessionally about her.
He was starting to idealize me, and commenting on my hair and clothes, and I will admit that I wanted to fix this guy as quickly as possible, so I would not get incorporated into one of what sounded like a series of delusional systems. He had come into the clinic several times, usually with sequentially weakening delusions — always an idealized woman. He gave the impression of being gay — always wearing at least one piece of jewelry that I would have expected to see on a woman. Read more on How To Shock Your Doc — New Uses For A Medicine Bottle…
Filed under medicine, Personality Disorders by on Jan 5th, 2011. Comment.
My weakness for the “classical arts,” in a world where “beats” pass for music and random words pass for poetry, is known to anybody who knows me. There are a couple of people who discuss classical arts with me in secret, at work or play. Like the opera “Carmen.” I think it is the favorite of a lot of people. Even though it was written in French by Georges Bizet, the use of traditional Spanish musical songs and dances gives it more snappy tunes than even George M. Cohan could cram into one show.
I was minding my own business and singing the habanera to myself. “For love is like a gypsy child/ who has grown up without any rules…”
I told a counterpart in my own profession. “Carmen is a model to all Spanish borderline personality disorders. A perfect model.” Read more on Borderlines In Song And Story…
Filed under Diagnosis, Personality Disorders by on Nov 11th, 2010. Comment.
We can’t pick our diagnoses like we pick what outfit we are going to wear.
I remember an encounter where the psych symptoms had political overtones, although I’ve handled plenty of other cases that had the same resistance to being diagnosed.
“I’m scared of this bipolar thing,” he said. “Everyone I know who has it is really sick — like crazy — and I’m not sure I want to take medication for it.” Read more on Great Manics of History…
Filed under Diagnosis, Personality Disorders by on Oct 28th, 2010. Comment.
I have been working with criminals longer than I care to admit. I suppose it is a condition of my accepting temporary consultation assignments, going where the need is greatest. A lot of work in prisons. Some with people later, during the parole process. Sometimes they are contrite — more often not.
I am still waiting to meet the smart criminal. The Moriarty to some law-enforcement-colleague Sherlock. The high IQ planner, the applied psychologist, the brilliant criminal.
Maybe they are so brilliant that they never get caught. Or – if crime truly does not pay – maybe they are the ones who go to those so-called “Country Club Prisons” after they have become wealthy from stock market schemes. They might get “classier” psychiatrists, males with receding hairlines and goatees who wear neckties. I know they don’t get better ones. Read more on Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy And Smart Criminals — All Myths…
Filed under Personality Disorders by on Sep 16th, 2010. 3 Comments.
Most of the really effective compulsive lying folks are not patients. Such people, if ever seen as patients, do not stay as patients very long.
I remember a young woman, the daughter of a woman scientist who befriended me in France. She was beautiful, I could tell from her photographs, in a way I knew I would never be beautiful. Sometimes a poet, sometimes a singer, more often, this young woman in her late twenties, was manipulating (sleeping, I think) her way into bit parts on the Paris stage. We were interested, her mom and me, in the manifestations of the powers of the brain, ranging from raw intelligence, which we both knew we had, to the sort of metaphysical magic her daughter, who was calling herself LaFleur at the time, definitely had. I remember we knew someone who allegedly read photos. He was a “serious” person, an effective hospital administrator in one of the larger Parisian hospitals. Among his occult practices, he read photos. We asked LaFleur to submit him one, with no information other than her age (28 at the time) and name. She gave us a photo. It was one of the strangest photos I had ever seen. The lens distorted her myopic gaze in the vague direction of the camera. She wore some kind of soft cloth that descended low enough to reveal a single nipple and not the other. Of course, the “reader” declined the photo. He said a simple photo that would be used for a passport or drivers’ license would be helpful. LaFleur never submitted one. Read more on My Own Breakfast At Tiffany’s…
Filed under Personality Disorders by on Jul 8th, 2010. Comment.