Tritone,

He chose to be in a profession that is usually called a "healing profession." Also, he is supposed to "do no harm."

He's not doing much healing it seems and he is instead doing much harm.

Try to be Zen about it.
You can let other things and other idiots go.
We all have.
If you met him in any other situation you would be telling jokes about him and not venting about him.


Maybe it is time to fully forgive yourself.

I'm still working on forgiveness and letting go too.
It takes work I believe.

That's a poignant scene -- your playing piano for the pdoc that called you a sociopath in order to get him to see you more fully dimensionally.

Mari

yeah... I actually wrote out (by hand, they wouldn't let me have a computer) like ten pages in a notebook, "how to improvise"... all kinds of tricks and ways to figure things out... things to listen to and even scales and chords on hand-drawn manuscript staves...

I was going to give it to him when I left, but I never did.

Why does it even matter? I guess because I really needed some help. Also, I know that people like him can often have *incredible* control over the destiny of people like me... Especially if we could be labeled as a threat. Civil Commitment laws... like the Patriot Act for some of us.

Symbolically, he was a last straw. I used to think that people were put into our lives in certain places and times by some divine providence. Now I'm not so sure. I think me struggling with this is an effort to *make* it a meaningful experience and also mourn the fact that I was so let down. In a more eastern sense, it was what it was. He is who he is. There is no point in trying to change it or continue thinking about it.

You are definitely right. In more simple terms I could just say who the heck am I that this merits so many words and so many hard feelings.

It is really, really hard... Yes indeed. Part of me senses growth taking place, just because I've learned these growth spurts are usually filled with unresolved conflicts like this. Perhaps the new me and the old me are still fighting over what to do with this.

I think your gut reaction is right on board...I think he stinks too.
Good for you for gettng off benzos that is a huge accomplishment!!!!
I am sorry that you ahd to have that awful stay....sorry that they manipulated you wich is a form of mental abuse....
bizi

Tritone,
I guess what I am saying is that I (most of us) run into people who stink.

Most of the time, I (we) can get away from them or stay way. And I can put them out of my mind.
This is how we survive.

But the hospital setting infused him with power over you and over his staff that also mistreated you.

As I have written before, I studied classical piano seriously for eight years. I spent many hours a day at my parents' upright through out my teen years. I studied under the best teachers available to me within commuting distance from my small town.
I had started alto sax in middle school and went to college intending to study both instruments.
I had very good technique but no ear. And worse, I didn't know what I lacked until I had already invested every minute of my teenage years on music.

I know a bit about the talent and the work involved in being able to improvise. Even today, decades after dropping out, I wish I could do what you can do.

You have a gift.
If that man could not recognize it, then he is lost to the world and his calling you that word is only one part of his lack as a human being.

And he may not have been put into your life.
Maybe you were put into his for him to have an opportunity to function for a moment or two as a complete human being.
It appears that he missed his opportunity.

Anyone can be a magnanimous psychiatrist with the run of the mill patients. He was given an opportunity to heal someone whose illness manifested outside his normal purview. He refused that opportunity.


I'm really not trying to talk you out of your feelings. I am agreeing that you experienced some major crumminess in that hospital and I am sorry about that.


Mari

I'm sorry that you went through a experience like that. That doctor sounds like a nightmare. What awful head trips. It will take therapy to recover from that stigma. I'm sorry that you had such a bad doctor,and this doctor sounds about as bad as they can get.

Picture a division between you and that faulty diagnosis,and division that cannot be penetrated. Don't let that shake you. These people are human,and some of them make bad mistakes,and use poor judgement.

It will probably take awhile to get over it. Talk to your personal doctor more about this,until you feel better over time. BF

I hadn't looked at it quite that way before. I've just been very angry. Thanks.

I don't feel you are trying to talk me out of my feelings - just take a more complete look at it...

One of the things my own pdoc said to me was if this guy had such a hard time, or had such strong personal feelings about me, then he should have recused himself from my case. My pdoc then cited his own personal feelings about working with anorexics which bothers him at some personal level... So he just doesn't treat them...