Appointment with shrink

Made it to the shrink apt (in itself a victory) but had a major pain episode when I got there. Had to lie down during the appointment and take a second pill an hour after the first, then a third another hour later in order to get home.

The shrink said it looks from the outside like the pain or 'my experience of the pain' has got a lot worse since the orthopaedic surgeon's appointment.

I said I hadn't noticed that, but her saying it felt like an accusation, like I'm not fighting the pain hard enough, not dealing with it well enough. Like I'm giving up because I somehow enjoy this.

She also said she needs to talk to my GP, to work out what to do if I have an episode so bad that I can't leave. She was talking about them 'not being set up to deal with that', and whether there was a 'safer' place to see me. If she means home visits, then that's fine, but it felt very much like she was looking for an excuse to discharge me even though I still need her help.

I did have that kind of pain episode there several weeks ago, but suddenly she's worrying about it, like it's new. It made me feel like she's only now seeing the pain as being something serious, and till now she's just been humouring me, or she thought I was faking it.

I know none of this is true, but I can't help feeling that way. The other thing all of this does is make me feel like I've passed some mythical point-of-no-return. Like I've reached the point where I'm never going to be able to work again, go out on my own, do any of the normal stuff. She was talking about 'what's changed to affect the pain' as though if there isn't anything, then there's simply nothing that can be done about it.

A small part of me was terrified by the finality of all that, but a much larger part of me was even more scared by how little I felt about it. As though it was inevitable, and there was nothing left to fight for.

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