Mental Health Intake Sucks

I’ve been working with a therapist and psychiatrist for the last five years, and I’ve gone a long way in those five years. I’m grateful to have those providers in my life even when opening up to them is difficult.

It’s no secret that healing from trauma is hard fucking work. If I want to live a good life going forward, it’s also essential work.

Having to start with a new provider is even more difficult, and that’s the situation I found myself in recently. Intake is a grueling process for me and I imagine it is for others also.

Despite how uncomfortable it makes me, and how incredibly hard it is, I’m committed to telling the truth even, and especially when I don’t want to tell the truth.

Some of us have been places and done things we don’t want known.

“Have you ever taken illicit drugs?” The nurse practitioner asked me.

“Yeah,” I said, wriggling in the seat, trying to get comfortable. We weren’t even very far into the question and answer thing that is a new patient intake, and these were standard questions. I’d already answered as best I could on the intake form, but they ask all the questions again in person.

“Which one?” She asked.

“I dunno. Whatever they gave me. Heroin I think.” I said.

“You don’t know what they gave you?” She asked.

“Not really. I was being pimped out and they gave me drugs to keep me addicted and submissive. My problem is I’m not the submissive type and so I eventually ran away.” I said.

“Well, I’m glad you escaped. We can assume it was heroin, because it often is. Anything else?” She said.

“Molly, roofies, whizz, a bit of acid. I know I took those, I chose to use those at times, but not always. Sometimes I had to take them because I was forced to. Apart from that, I’m not really sure what all I’ve taken but those I know for sure,” I said. “Also I smoked weed.”

“When did you use these drugs?” She asked me.

"Well, I was given some when I was little because I had to service daddy’s friends. I don’t really know what it was. I didn’t take any drugs by choice till I was eighteen or so, when I was homeless.” I said.

I always hate the new patient intake, but it has to be done. My insurance no longer covered the psychiatrist I’d seen for years and now I had to switch. Still, it’s unpleasant and I am scared of it every time.

“Do you still use any of these drugs?” She asked.

“No, and I haven’t in almost twenty years,” I said.

“That’s great!” She said.

“What about alcohol abuse, past or present?”

“Yes.” I responded, “although I don’t drink at all now.”

“Did you smoke?” She kept going down the list.

“Yes,” I said.

“When did you start smoking?” She asked.

“I was around sixteen,” I said. “I don’t smoke anymore. I gave it up for Lent years ago and haven’t smoked since.”

She smiled at the reference to Lent.

These things are difficult because certain ones of us took certain drugs and others did not. That’s one of the parts about Dissociative Identity Disorder that really sucks. One alters experiences are different from another. We all have our own trauma and stories.

When it comes down to it, I’d say that molly was what the majority used, and we were generally drunk when we did so. But my therapist had told me to be honest, and that my new provider was not supposed to be judgmental, and that as a mental health provider, she has heard a lot of things.

Sometimes I wonder how mental health professionals and priests manage to take on hearing the bullshit of people like me.

What does hearing such things do to them?

What effect does it have on them?

Do they ever come to the end of their capacity for empathy or compassion?

She kept going down her list of questions, and as much as telling the truth really freaked me out, lying about things wouldn’t do me any good. I can’t keep getting well if I lie to my providers.

Both me and my people have worked so incredibly hard to get to where I’m sober, have processed a lot of shit, and where I’m making great progress in my pursuit of wholeness.

Healing from trauma is difficult but important work.

Part of the healing work is to answer the questions honestly. I can’t get anywhere profitable without honesty, even though the truth sucks.

“Have you ever wanted to physically harm anyone?” she asked.

“Yes.” I didn’t want to elaborate, that’s something I want to work through with my therapist.

“Have you ever actually physically harmed someone?” She asked.

I sighed, and fidgeted with the large, blue enamel and silver miraculous medal that I was wearing around my neck. I needed to fiddle, but it was also a reminder that Mary was with me.

“Yes. Me and my therapist are working through all that. That stuff is also from twenty years or so ago.” I said.

“I’m glad you are working on it, and if I had gone through some of these things I think I’d want to hurt people too.” She said.

I know another woman my age who was also given drugs by her own parents. I’ve lost touch with her now because I think that our own trauma and the processing of such was too much for both of us to bear in each other. We certainly didn’t have a falling out, we drifted apart.

I suppose I might have ghosted her except that when I stopped messaging back, she didn’t have the energy to chase me down. Neither of us could cope with each other’s trauma.

I do believe that people can help heal each other, it’s why I write these stories, why I share so much of myself, and why there are groups for abuse survivors. I don’t think it is good when both parties are still deeply entrenched in their own trauma, which we both were.

Being honest with mental health providers is hard.

The biggest thing I’m afraid of is not being believed. My trauma is so bad that a lot of people don’t believe me, and as much as I’ve been gaslit in my life, I have the need to be seen, heard, and believed.

If I want to be believed, I must be honest, even if that means I won’t be believed.