Therapy

I've been dealing with depression and bi-polar disease for 40 years. When Karl died I knew I needed help to get through this, so I immediately made an appointment to get back on Depression drugs. I thought that with my history and the grief complications that the doctor would surely send me to therapy, but he didn't and I was in too upset a state to insist. It was the first of several tries at therapy where I felt discounted and not listened to because I was in grief and we know all about that.

I tried with him for 3 months, the drugs weren't helping the way they had in previous bouts of depression and the doctor gave me something new rather than listening to me when I told him what had worked before. Then he wanted blood to check my liver function and that was the last straw. I don't do needles and I would never have consented to take a drug that required blood tests. I refused the blood test, left and never came back. But of course I still needed help. After six or seven more months of grief and depression I got up the courage to try again. No drugs this time, right to therapy. Three sessions later when we were still taking history and hadn't talked a bit about what was currently my problem, I quit that therapy too. I was starting to feel invisible. I went for four or five more months just barely getting by. I tried again, different doctor, different drugs, different therapist. She told me that I was a loser who would never be happy unless I had a complete personality change. She hadn't even talked to me and heard any of what I had to say and she thought I was a loser. It's no surprise that I never went back.

I had never had this kind of luck with therapy before. But as a person dealing with grief, I never once, through 4 different caregivers, felt that any one of them actually heard what I wanted to say or let me show them what aspect of grief I was having difficulty dealing with. I had become invisible an interchangeable part with all other people suffering grief.

Well, grief is not like that. People cope differently, people have different problems that most concern them. And most especially people who seek therapy to deal with grief need to feel they are being listened to. When I went to the therapists for depression treatment in the past, I was listened to and they paid attention to what issues I was having and how to deal with it. I was a person. Going to therapy with grief, I was no longer an individual, I was suffering from grief and steps a, b, c would fix that. One size fits all therapy isn't just wrong; it's harmful to the grieving person.