He was 23 years old with a rich ethnic heritage and identity that he said gave him strength. He looked like any one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of “youths” you could find on the streets. A couple of tattoos. The kind I would see when I was driving with my husband and think sometimes “wow, it was so much easier in the days of Marlon Brando movies.” I would have preferred a handsome renegade in a leather jacket to this obese, angry, unkempt person who clearly did not want to talk to anybody, including me. He was not my patient. A frustrated therapist asked me to see him because no medications had worked on him. She had expected me to come up with a miracle drug we could get samples.
He told me the same thing, over and over again, that he was doomed, that nobody could help him, that I was a nice lady, nicer than most, but I was wasting my time just like the rest of them.
He heard voices, always angry and deprecating voices, telling him he was going to die, that he was no good and deserved to be killed. Many times, in his life, he had attempted to prove the voices correct. Read more on The Devil’s Role In Mental Illness…
Filed under depression by on Jun 25th, 2010. Comment. 
He was in his fifties and he wanted the same medications he had, except for one thing. He just could not manage to have sex with his live-in girlfriend. He never had. I was filling in at a clinic where I knew this was the only time I would see him.
There are a couple of strategies with prescription medications that sometimes work. A partial agonish to reverse a receptor; adding another antidepressant. I reluctantly told him about them, since a complex mental illness was being otherwise quite well managed. I mean, this man’s diagnosis was “schizo- affective disorder.” He had been really psychotic, hearing bad things and thinking they were real and running naked in the streets. As much as I think an interest in sex is healthy and part of normal living, I certainly did not want to risk having all of these horrible things happen to him again. Luckily, he told me the last thing in the world he wanted to think about was another drug. Even a little bit of another drug.
There are herbal solutions that actually work. I was thinking about some oriental herbs, which I certainly did not think were that expensive. But he assured me he had no disposable income at all. Maybe true, maybe not, but I always wonder at least a little bit when people tell me that they want something very badly, but then do not seem to find any money for it. I mean, he was a heavy smoker (over a pack a day) and I was certain insurance did not pay for that. I tried to approach this subject, and he became so angry at me I would have dived under the desk for protection if it had been physically possible. Read more on Men Just Want To Talk About Sex…
Filed under relationships by on Jun 16th, 2010. Comment.