I've been on the same anti-anxiety med for four years. It doesn't work, doesn't help, maybe blunts the nightmares. My doctor increased the doseage of this drug that doesn't work, and that doesn't work. She says she doesn't want to prescribe new drugs because she's afraid of addiction.
What the fuck? That's like saying, as the baby is crowning, that you're worried about birth control.
So she reluctantly prescribed a new drug.
I looked it up online.
It has almost nothing to do with anti-anxiety, and that's only if you're feeling extraordinarily charitable and might possibly be drunk as well.
It's an anti-convulsant named Gabapentin, which is used primarily as an anti-convulsant and pain drug for certain disorders. It works on a few very specific subsets of other disorders-----if a bi-polar person has anxiety, it might help then. Or if you have drug-resistant depression.
Absolutely nowhere does it say it can be used as an 'take it as needed' anxiety fighter. It says nothing about panic attacks. It says nothing about taking it at the beginning of a panic attack, which my doctor indicated was why she was prescribing it to me. Jesus fucking Christ. It works on social anxiety disorder. I don't have social anxiety disorder. I have social annoyance for morons disorder, but that's different---and she's one of them.
She's not listening.
This is the culmination of years of my complaints, her brushing them aside, me persisting, and her----after I've backed her into a corner yet again-----suddenly getting defensive and saying, "Ginmar, you're shouting at me."
"No, I'm enunciating my words and you're run out of excuses and it makes you uncomfortable." I was not petty enough to say You fucking twit, I've interrogated men who committed a dozen murders in cold blood and I made them blink and you think you're going to push me around? But this is not war and I'm as polite as I can be. And it's confrontation after confrontation during which change is promised----and never arrives.
It's very simple what I want. I want a drug that's specifically for anxiety that will work. That's just what she doesn't want to prescribe.
And she has seen me. I've been in her office, when, for one reason or another, my guard drops for a second, somebody makes a loud noise and I jump. I've been known to flinch and drop if it's bad enough.
She saw me after I collapsed in the hallway at the VA and was brought by wheelchair to her office, where my vision was so bad I had a hard time focusing on her face and I was so shaky that my blood pressure took a jump off a cliff if I tried to stand. And when I told her about the panic attacks that happened on the way home-----something that NEVER happens, because if I'm going home I'm going TO safety------she brushed them off. And there were two of them. That never happens either. Once the panic attack is over, it's like it's all out of my system. Having panic attacks on the way home as never happened before, much less twice. And this was with the DAV providing the driver and another vet in the vehicle, which can be good or bad. It's bad if you get ignorant people who don't know what a panic attack is. That's rare.
The DAV does excellent work, and the person who arranges transportation for the local VA, B., is a dear who will chat with you, get to know you, and frequently asks after your pets, kids, family, conditions----and she sometimes goes to amazing lengths to help you. She got a woman driver for me, a Viet Nam vet who was not only a vet but a nurse besides, who understood exactly what was wrong.
I've told Babette more than I've been able to tell this fucking therapist. That's because she brushes me aside when I try and talk about the stuff that's really hurting my life.
So when I was talking a while back with a buddy and mentioned the nightmares of all types that I have constantly----sometimes dozens in one night-------we got to talking about those nightmares, and the description of one specific nightmare---too gruesome to describe to civilians-----let him to mention gently: "Um, gin, that's not a nightmare. That actually happened."
"What?!"
"That was real. That happened."
I didn't remember it. Not a clue for years.
Most often the memories just don't come back at all, even when the person telling me about my actions is very specific and detailed. There's even a spy in jail thanks to one of these gaps in my memory. Does anybody care about this stuff? My therapist doesn't. It's starting to make me a little nervous. What else am I forgetting? When my CO calls you from a Federal Court building and tells you he gave testimony about somebody that you tossed out of the classified office----and who later was found to be carrying classified material on him-----it can be extremely unsettling to realize you haven't a clue what he's talking about.
This doc seems to view patients as a bother rather than a responsibility.
And it's time to start calling congress critters. Again.
I don't even have to look up the numbers. I have them all on speed dial.