My first appointment with my psychiatrist was also daunting, as I had no idea what to expect. I assumed, rightly, that it was nothing like how it was on the telly, and that was my only frame of reference.
The appointment was long but pretty straight forward.
The psychiatrist introduced herself and told me what had been written about me when I was referred to her. then she asked me to explain a bit about what had been going on that had meant that I needed to be seeing her.
After that she asked me lots and lots of questions. We basically covered my whole life. I was there for nearly three hours.
At the end the psychiatrist said that she agreed with everyone else that I probably had PTSD and depression, but that she needed to go away and think about it, discuss it with her clinical supervisor, and come up with a plan of what we were going to do about it.
I went back the next week and she told me that it had been agreed that I have Complex PTSD and major depressive disorder. The psychiatrist explained that I needed three types of therapy: trauma focused CBT, counselling and psychotherapy. We discussed how this was going to be set up.
Then she asked if I was happy with my medication or whether I wanted to try mirtazapine. I took the mirtazapine because I figured it couldn’t be any worse than what I was already taking, which had done nothing to help me so far. And that was pretty much it.
We talked a bit about how I was feeling, how I’d been getting on, and whether I was at risk of suicide. The psychiatrist tried to suggest other ways of looking at things and asked me to give the new plan ago before deciding I didn’t want to be alive anymore.
Then the session was over.
Make-Up & Mirtazapine 