Thus asked my neuropsychologist, the other day.
I was telling them about my psychotherapist friends who are well-meaning, but ascribe all kinds of cognitive and behavior issues to psychological ones.
I’ve been labelled all sorts of things by psychologist types — obsessive-compulsive, depressed, manic, repressed childhood sexual abuse survivor (which to my knowledge, information and belief is not the case), etc. — and I told my neuropsych as much.
“Or, maybe you just got hit on the head a lot,” they said, shaking their head in frustration. And disbelief.
They also told me, that visit, about another patient of theirs who had been diagnosed with “rapid cycling bipolar disorder” because they were slow and sluggish getting up in the morning, their mood picked up in mid-day, and then they wound down at night.
Turns out, they just had a wicked case of ADD and their brain worked more slowly at the beginning and end of the day. But they had to get saddled with an “extremely rare version of bipolar disorder” diagnosis… and perhaps have to take god-knows-only-what-kind of meds, on top of it.
Sometimes the mental health profession just makes me crazy nuts. Do they do it for job security? I have to wonder… 😉
Broken Brain - Brilliant Mind 
Ah, yes, another favorite response of the medical community. I get bonked on the head, go through all kinds of crap because the medical systems ignore it and don’t treat it and then when I am struggling – but amazingly survive and get through with a POSITIVE attitude… I am told it’s mania and here, take some of these. Sorry boys (and girls) my neurochemicals have been messed with enough – no drugs. (And of course, I am not allowed to be angry or it’s aggression or mania, or sad because it’s depression – sh– When are you allowed to FEEL anything?
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I’d love to know what rehab center you are going to – sound like they know what they are doing.
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I’ll second that! About a hundred times over.
As far as I’m concerned, medical and mental health professionals should be required to master neuropsychology, before they get into psychology. Or medicine. I cannot even begin to say how sick and tired I am of people treating the “mind-body connection” like it’s something new. The only thing new is that people are starting to use their God-given brains to conceptualize the connections. It just makes me nuts — so-called experts limiting their helping professions because of their own limitations… and their myopic incompetence that doesn’t even see how limited they really are… and their hubris/arrogance that tells them they can’t possibly be wrong.
And they call me brain-damaged….?!
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Oh, yes – they know what they’re doing. But I’m not going to a rehab center. I am seeing my neuropsych on my own time, and I found them on my own steam. It was quite a saga, finding them, but I made some calls and got lucky with finding people who have similar issues to me, and they steered me in the right direction. I have been taking a few hours off work, every couple of weeks for testing and follow-up. I never received any medical attention for my injuries — even the really obvious ones (like Natasha Richardson, I refused to seek medical care several times, but unlike Natasha Richardson, I survived — and my last fall was apparently a lot more violent than hers was, so it’s leaving me with a bit of survivor’s guilt). Because I never received medical attention, I don’t have records to show that I had those falls/accidents/concussions, so I don’t know how to go about getting rehab help. My neuropsych is helping me, tho’ — they are giving me info about occupational therapist-type people who can work with me, and they are telling me what I need to do for insurance, which is enough to drive anyone away from the medical care system (note that I didn’t say “health care system” — that’s a different thing).
My neuropsych — unlike many others, so I’m told — does all the testing themself, and they do the analysis themself. So I don’t have to deal with a gaggle of underlings who may or may not know what the heck they’re doing. This is apparently rare. From what I hear, most neuropsychs at this person’s level delegate the testing to minions, and then they do the analysis, which seems just dumb to me. But maybe it’s my broken brain that’s not following… or is my brilliant mind that can tell when some stupid-ass sh** is exactly that — stupid-ass sh** 😉
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