As a result of my brief stint in jail, I knew there were some changes I needed to make in the care and treatment of my mental health. I had already been contemplating switching away from the clinic in Lafayette. But the events leading up to my violent fugue were proof positive that a change needed to happen — and happen right now. I hadn’t felt like my sessions with my therapist were as helpful as they could be. And my psychiatrist merely wanted to increase the dosages on my medications rather than finding a better pharmaceutical treatment program.
Making the Call
One of the very first things I did upon my release was call the local mental healthcare facility to make arrangements to transfer my care to them. They scheduled an intake appointment for me, which would be a two-hour screening in which they would gather as much information about my background as possible. This was something that had never been done at my previous clinic, so immediately I felt like I was in better hands.
The Screening
It took about three weeks from the date of the call to actually get in for the screening itself. As promised the appointment took every bit of two hours and then some. The interview almost felt like a cliché as we went over everything not just from my adulthood but all the way back to my childhood. We drew some connections between childhood anxiety I had experienced and my current anxiety disorder, and I began to realize that I’ve dealt with anxiety for far longer than I ever realized.
The end result of the screening was an update in my anxiety diagnosis. Prior to this point, we had been treating my anxiety as Generalized Anxiety Disorder. After the screening, the diagnosis became Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia. I was relieved. For months, I had felt like Generalized Anxiety was the wrong diagnosis, that my symptoms more fully matched Panic Disorder. So it was gratifying to have someone else, a mental health professional, confirm my own suspicions.
I got booked with an appointment with a therapist for about a month after that.
Therapy
Right from the first session with my new therapist I noticed a difference. It took two full sessions just to cover my background, but even in those two sessions, my therapist was able to provide both insight into my behaviors and reactions and suggestions for personal development. From there we talked about recent activities, challenges, and goals, and every time I left with a feeling of accomplishment from our time — which is more than I could say about sessions with my previous therapist. Mind you, I’m not trying to say my previous therapist was bad in any way. But I recognize now that she wasn’t the right fit for me and I should have changed therapists sooner than I did. Over the past seven months, I’ve gone from meeting with my therapist every two weeks to meeting once every two months. My drive for self-improvement saw me through rapid changes in my mindset and behaviors, all for the better, and I’m stronger and healthier mentally than I have been in years.
Medication Adjustments
The other half of my mental health care was switching doctors to manage my medications. My first appointment with my new doctor (technically, she’s a psychiatric nurse practitioner, but doctor is easier to say, so that’s what I’m going to stick with here) lasted almost two hours, as well. We covered a lot of the same ground as I did with my new therapist so that I could give my doctor as thorough an understanding of where I’ve been as possible. She agreed with me — and the many others who had expressed their concerns to me — that my medication dosages for anxiety were higher and more aggressive than they ought to be. Again, I felt relief at having that suspicion confirmed by a professional.
My doctor suggested that we make two changes to my medications. The first was that we dial back my klonopin from 2mg to 1mg. Then she suggested that we add a mood stabilizer to my regimen. She said that mood stabilizers are typically used to treat both Bipolar Disorder as well as epilepsy, which I found fascinating. But she went on to say that mood stabilizers are sometimes used successfully to treat severe anxiety. We started out at a low dose to begin with to ensure I wouldn’t have any side effects, then dialed the dosage up over the next six weeks.
And it made a world of difference! It took some time to really see and feel the full effect of the medication change, but I expected that. That’s normal for psychopharmacology. Any medication change takes a week or two to fully take hold, and we made three adjustments in under two months. I felt ‘off’ for much of that time, but the end result was that I had more energy, more mental focus, more productivity, and less anxiety than I’ve had in years. Which is fortunate, due to the fact that I now have a business to run.
Stay tuned…
