I mentioned back in the Spring that I had spent 10 days in a psych unit up in Westchester about a half hour from the City. I was in bad shape mentally and made a very impulsive decision which put me there for my own safety.

Some of you know that part of my history involves something very unpleasant that occurred during a time of my life when I was very ill and very impulsive.

Well, when I arrived on this unit they treated me like I was some kind of serial killer. When I finally got to see the pdoc the interview was brief and rushed. He only seemed interested in that thing I did back in 2002 and little else. He never asked me about my marriage, my relationship with my kids, my parents. Well, fleeting questions - but nothing that I would consider important. The second interview was even more brief and disappointing. I felt this guy had no idea who I was.

The third day he drops a bomb on me. He sits down and tells me that he's been trying to work on a diagnosis and there were two ways he could look at it: SYMPATHY as in feeling sorry for me, or using his diagnostic tools and branding me a SOCIOPATH. My heart just about hit the floor. Then, he tells me that he and the social worker finally got a hold of my wife who told them she wasn't interested in coming in to meet with them (nothing could have been further from the truth, she came to see me EVERY day when she got out of work, including weekends). So at this point I'm sobbing... and apologizing... and saying I don't mean to hurt people... and then he tells me that what I did, that awful thing from six years ago, is "UNCONSCIONABLE". Can you image this? A psychiatrist? Unconscionable? Really?

After all that, I call my wife. She said, "WHAT???" and had never talked to them. So now I'm thinking he just played a game with me and wanted to see how I'd react if he told me I really was the scumbag I sometimes feel like I am, and also that the most important person in my whole world didn't want anything to do with me.

The next day was like a ray of sunshine - he mentioned the sociopath thing again and I was like "yeah, whatever..." then he asked me to play the piano for him since he knew I was a musician. He started asking me if I knew this person or that person, like 50 different people - like a quiz to see if I really knew anything about music. Of course I knew who they all were and even had personal stories regarding a few of them. So I played for him, and do you know what he said? "Oh, so ok you are the real deal then..." Then he descended into the typical musician wannabe questions like, "I can not figure out how to improvise... " the only answer to that question is that you have to listen and copy other people until you have a handle on how it is put together, then try and do it on your own. The other thing is that if you can't let go of your sense of control, you'll never get it. There is a flow that you have to surrender to. It takes time, practice, patience... just like anything else. I doubt anyone handed him his MD. He earned it I'd presume... I know maybe I'm not being entirely fair at this point - in fact I thought maybe now that he'd seen me be a human being and create a little moment just for him maybe he'd stop calling me a sociopath. I thought maybe he really was just testing me and that it would all work out and end up being a great experience. I wasn't so lucky.

Over the next few days I went to the groups that were available. They were all led by therapists and social workers. Ordinarily when I'm in a group (been in lots now...) I'll contribute and then read the expression on the other people's faces as to what they were thinking or how they felt. When I looked at the leaders, they looked back at me with blank, cold stares. It was crazy. Not a smile. Nothing. Just empty chilling blank stares. It seemed pretty obvious that he had proclaimed his diagnosis to the "team".

The up side of this is that it shook me up. I re-evaluated everything about myself. I also managed to come off benzos for the first time in over five years. I gave him credit for that, but I think my euphoria for getting off the benzos and just getting the heck out of there got the better of me.

I've discussed this with my private PDoc. The hospital pdoc even called him and said I was a sociopath. I asked my PDoc about it.

This continues to bother me. I'm not sure why it keeps bothering me but it does. I asked my PDoc if I was a sociopath and he just kind of looked at me and said that if I was really a sociopath I never would have asked him that question... then he said "do you have feelings? do you care about your children? do you love your wife?" - so NO, I am not a sociopath.

I might be a lot of things... unfeeling is NOT one of them... I can be selfish... but I'm not a liar... I'm not a sadist... I never tortured animals... I process everything that happens around me to the depths of my being. This is not a sociopath...

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest. I'm not sure why I can't just let it die.

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...