Thoughts on Mental Health Thursday
Yesterday, in my post You did good, kid!, I reflected on an essay I wrote about an appointment I had with my former psychiatrist, Dr. Simpson back in 2002. In my essay I mentioned in multiple places how much trust I had in him and how willing I was to do whatever he said. The instructor said in her feedback that if I chose to revise this particular essay I should explain why I trusted him so much. That got me thinking about why I trusted him. Until I asked Josh last night, I honestly didn’t remember. I just know that at one point in the past couple of years, Josh even floated the idea of me searching him out and becoming a patient of his again, more than 20 years later. I had originally stopped seeing him because his private practice was being bought out by the local hospital system and since he didn’t want that, he closed the practice. I found recently that he actually still practices in the town I went to high school in (which wasn’t his original location). He specializes in substance abuse/addiction now. But I digress.
So I asked Josh why we had so much faith in him. Josh was quick to answer. He said because everybody else I went to was an idiot. I don’t think that was the exact word he used to describe the other doctors I had seen, but I try to keep my posts PG and that is far from what his actual description was. But he’s right. I seem to remember that I did see quite a few other therapists and psychiatrists before him and none of them really helped me. They either had really weird, out there kind of advice–one doctor had a very sexual answer for what I should do whenever I had the urge to cut myself–or they were impatient with me and were obvious about their impatience. Doctor Simpson was none of that. He was very serious in his approach. Matter-of-fact. Confident in his knowledge. And it showed.
I recounted to Josh my first encounter with Dr. Simpson. I remember exactly what he said to me. Josh doesn’t like this story and thinks it was wrong that he started with me this way, but that’s how he did it and for me, it worked. I met him the second time I was hospitalized in the psychiatric unit. It was a different hospital from the first one I had been in. This was the same hospital that my mom had been admitted to after her suicide attempt. And, as it turns out, Dr. Simpson was the doctor that my dad saw when he started having PTSD symptoms from his time in Vietnam. I guess having me in that hospital seeing that doctor was a full circle moment of sorts for my family, though at this point, my dad had already left the family.
I hated being in the hospital. H-A-T-E-D it. I cried a lot because I just wanted to go home. When Dr. Simpson came in to see me for the first time, my mom was visiting me and I was crying, again. I was crying so much that I almost couldn’t answer his questions. I don’t remember the very first thing he said to me, but I do remember that at some point while I was crying, he told me to look at my mom so that I could see what I was doing to her with my crying. I don’t recall what my mom looked like at that moment, but I stopped crying. Josh suggested too, that because Dr. Simpson was older, he was a sort of father figure to me in the place of a father I no longer had because he had left. Not that he was much of a father to begin with. I can see that too about Dr. Simpson. I probably did feel a fatherly connection to him.
Whatever the reason was, Dr. Simpson never let us down. I say “us” because Josh was as much a part of my healing as Dr. Simpson was. We were absolutely in it together. Josh didn’t go into the appointments with me, but I was always honest with him about what went on in the appointments. Josh was, of course, with me at each of the ECT treatments that Dr. Simpson ordered.
By the time he closed his practice, I was doing amazing. I had seen him for about five years at that point. I remember he told me that of all his patients, he worried about me the least when it came to the transition to another doctor for continued care.
So, having said all of that, I really need to write him that letter. I’ve put my book on hold until my writing class is over. I was going to include a quote or two from him in my book, if he agreed to it. But now, I just really want to re-connect with him even if to just say I am grateful for how much he helped me heal. Essentially, he was the reason I did. His extensive knowledge of mental health, what he knew to be proven solutions, what medications would help and what to try next when something didn’t help…he knew it all. I’ve said it before and I will say it anytime I talk about my mental health, that doctor saved my life. Really and truly.
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