Taking control of the conversation during therapy.

I have been to see a Psychiatrist three times, twice i was referred when i was a "junior" e.g. in Primary School. The last time, i attempted to try and resolve my issues once and for all. I ended up developing quite "Informal" relationships with my mental health team and Psychiatrists. One Mental health nurse even shared a cigarette with me, even though i wasn't old enough to smoke at the time...

The only issue is, when i get there, i go into manipulative mode and effectively don't tell the truth. I find it increasingly difficult to tell the therapist the truth, that i have feelings of emptiness...blah blah. I believe the last time, i took control of the conversation, feigned symptoms that were similar to ones i told my doctor because i instantly regretted "spilling the beans". I realized that Psychiatry, when it comes down to it, is much like the age old mystic of old. I didn't feel the "Permanent mark" on my medical record, for all potential employers to see i had a "mental illness" was worth venturing down a path that would have lead me to a dead end again. Perhaps another CBT Practitioner who got into it the easy way, doing one of those seminar based pathways and who relies on a book from the "...For Dummies" series.

Before, it was mainly due to the idea of being "examined" and the discomfort of being exposed. I played up to the symptoms of depression, hoping for medication to keep me occupied. (I was using drugs at the time, clean for 4 years now...) It also eventually led to me getting bored and not sticking to the therapy, eventually feigning recovery to get out of it all. Now i'm quite happy dealing with it all myself, without therapy and with focused thought/intent.I've made more progress alone than i did in therapy, managing to deal with my drug addiction and other issues. I understand now that many people do get something from therapy and i'm in no way Anti-Psych.

It's a tough call for me. I'm sure others feel the same. Is it only me that likes to take control of the conversation?Or is it quite common?

Well I don't know if it's common or not but I can strongly relate to what you're saying. I have been trying to convince myself to talk to someone about it for three years now, except that my conversations over these things would quickly break down. I'm convinced I have BPD but I don't act on my anger except to give people slightly scary looks, and sigh a lot in the background if they make me impatient, plus eventually I will say something spiteful to a complete stranger but I'm actually more of a people pleaser, which doesn't mean I want to manipulate people all the time except I actually do so far I took a long time getting help because I think I was happy to tell friends my ideas and get annoyed at them if they disagreed with me, telling myself I knew the symptoms better than they did(which I really REALLY did-sometimes I don't sleep much at all and I feel so self-involved but I have had so many days where I'm just on mental health forums all day/possibly night so of course I know the symptoms better! I read so much, then read something which tells me that I may aggravate any issues by reading about them but then I remember that other people aren't this crazily obsessive, and that they would never identify with stuff on these forums the way I do). But I saw a counsellor for four weeks, the first appointment was with someone else, and all the way through I looked a lot like someone with anxiety and/or depression to them I'm sure, until the last session I kind of switched and looked much more positive to the counsellor, so she didn't make any more appointments for me. The thing is the moment I left the building I felt empty again and I feel angry at myself for not showing that side of myself to her but at the same time feel like she didn't care anyway.

Anyway I'm in danger of repeating the same thing. Saw a GP and got a prescription for propranolol to help with anxiety before my exams start but the thing is I don't have many attacks, I did have at times but at the moment I'm mainly just having really strong emotions rather than THAT many physical effects from it. Most of what I got from anxiety was change in appetite and that may still have been from the depression I had for about a month before it lingering. I wish I could explain to them how I know I don't only swing one way too far, as I've had periods of anxiety, depressions and some really bad irritability plus being very distractable and also changing my opinions of people all the time, but I get self-conscious as well so it feels more like I'm manipulating them to think there ISN'T anything drastically wrong with me. I think I'm manipulating people's views of me to one extreme or the other constantly, either I can't go on like this or don't worry about me I'm fine. But I also can't talk to friends with similar problems about it because I get convinced that they have it much worse than me so I always bring stuff up in a casual way so they also believe it! However I don't think they have it worse because they're functioning better than I am, whether they realise it or not.

I guess the point is, it's alright if you are this way so long as you're coping alright. Hope you're okay