Hi @minnykit
Thanks for sharing about your experience 🙂
Great to hear you are feeling so motivated to regain control of your mental health and find some clarity about what's truly going on for you. That drive to recover is arguably the most important ingredient in this whole process.
I am sorry to hear about you negative experiences at the doctors office, and medication in particular! Time-poor and resource limited GPs who show little interest in mental health is an issue our callers at the SANE Help Centre raise often. I tend to think of GP's kind of like a medical 'jack of all trades'. They have some knowledge about most things, but they're not necessarily the specialists or experts in the field. That is why they refer on to more specialised health practitioners such as psychologists or psychiatrists... as these specialists have devoted additional years of education and training to a particular area of health (e.g, mental health and mental illness).
Mental illness is particularly tricky for GP's because it is quite complicated compared to a physical health issue. It is virtually impossible to properly assess a person in a 15 minute appointment. Mental health consultations with a GP really do require a double appointment (30 minutes) as it can take some time to cover all that is needed for a more comprehesive initial assessment. They symptoms you describe in your post are congruent with a typical depression presentation, but that does not necessarily mean you have depression. There is a whole lot of cross-over in symtoms between different diagnoses, so it's definitely worth delving deeper - especially as you have found the anti-depressant medication so incompatible with you.
At your appointment, the GP will be able to set up the 'mental health care plan' for you. This takes some time as the doctor will need to ask you a set of standard questions to pass onto the psyhologist, and write up a referral letter. From there, you can give your chosen psychologist a call and book in your first appointment. It is by working with a psychologist that you can expect to find greater clarity about your mental health. The GP can recommend a psychologist for you in the local area, or you can find one ahead of your appontment and bring their details with you for the referral. You can find a psychologist on the APS website.
Sometimes people assume you will be forced to take mediction as part of mental health management. Rather, you as a consumer have the option to take medication if you find it helpful. The only time a person is made to take medication is when they become sectioned under the mental health act due to high risk to self or others... and it doesn't sound like youre anywhere near reaching that place right now. You also do not need to take medication in order to see a psychologist. Many people find regular sessions with a psycholgoist enough to manage symptoms and work towards recovery. Psycholosigsts do not prescribe medication either, rather they implement a range of other talk-based therapies to target the issues you're struggling with (e.g., cognitive behavioural therapy). When you see the psychologist, remember that you are the expert in your own experience, you are their client, not their patient. That means you can let them know what you want out of therapy (e.g., a formal diagnosis) and what your recovery goals are. The psychologist can work collaboratively with you to help you explore these issues and guide you to a place where you feel more in control of your mental health.
If you want to discuss medication for mental illness with someone who really knows their stuff, this would be done with a psychiatrist. The psychiastrist is actually a doctor who has done further study in mental illness, so they are much more up to speed about medication for mental illness and its interaction with the body, possible side-effects etc. They typically do not offer therapy as much, more so medication management. But if you would like to understand more about why you experienced those medication side effects, you might find it more helpful arrange a consultation with a psychiatrist as well.
I hope this helps to clear a few things up about the whole process... Essentially you're still standing at the front door of the mental health system, and that can be really confusing and frustrating place. But it is really good to hear you are motivated to find out more, and delve deeper. Please keep us posted with how things go at the doctor today. Fingers crossed this will open the pathway for some more answers for you. Take care of yourself.
