Guilt & Anxiety/Depression

[kendo59]

The last time I went to counselling, the counsellor & I agreed that particular type of 'talk' counselling was not useful to me, and the counsellor said she would write to my GP to recommend CBT. Since then, I've seen my GP and he's very abruptly told me that the counselling I had was not cheap & that CBT would only be a further waste of time & resources, and that I should just "put my problems in a box & stop thinking about them". He's also stopped my propanalol & diazepam, and told me that he'd continue my Mirtazapine even though it was very expensive.

I get the feeling that my GP expected a half-dozen counselling sessions to somehow 'cure' me, and that he's now lost interest/patience with me.

I now feel extremely guilty at how much of a burden I am, not only at home (I feel a total failure at not being able to work & bring home the bacon), but also what a burden I am in taking up my GP's time & the cost to the NHS.

I read about people who go to the doctor for every ache & pimple, who get CAT scans, MRI scans, blood tests, etc, etc, etc and each time are given the all-clear.

I feel guilty at how much my treatment costs, in terms of doctors time & NHS expense. Unfortunately I can't afford private treatment or pay for counselling, and knowing how much all this is costing the NHS makes me feel anxious & depressed even more.

Does anyone else ever think about or feel like this?

[Karen]

Hi Kendo

I sympathise with the way you have been treated and think it is absolutely appalling. Everyone with mental health/emotional problems have different needs when it comes to the type of therapy they need and 6 weeks of treatment is rarely enough of whatever type anyway.

I think if your counsellor recommended CBT then they are the specialist and their opinion should be listened to. NICE guidelines actually suggest that CBT is the most appropriate treatment for anxiety and panic so you could get a copy of that and wave it at your GP.

It's true that some people seem to get everything and treatment varies between areas. This is a different scenario but I still cannot believe that my PCT were willing to wait until I got ill enough that they paid for 3 months inpatient treatment in an eating disorder unit (private sector) 2 years running, which I didn't want, and yet they wouldn't fund the CBT I'd asked for in the beginning and which might've prevented my decline.

I ended up funding CBT from myself from my benefit payments. Then when I asked for PCT funding for a one off hypnotherapy session I was again turned down, yet I am not getting any therapeutic help on the NHS as I am funding it myself. The system does not make sense at all.

If I were you and you feel strongly about it I would fight it. Good luck.

Karen

[Natural Mystic]

I feel guilty at how much my treatment costs, in terms of doctors time & NHS expense. Unfortunately I can't afford private treatment or pay for counselling, and knowing how much all this is costing the NHS makes me feel anxious & depressed even more.

Does anyone else ever think about or feel like this?

NO! I have worked and paid my taxes since I was 16, I'm now 40

there's a short answer

[marie1974]

kendo matey dont u feel bad for asking for help, if i was u i would get a different doc cos the one u got sounds terrible.

u go and push for the cbt and other things u want cos its your right.
hugs matey xxxxxxxxxxx

[siobhain]

sorry to hear you have been treated so badly by your gp.Just wanted to reinforce what the others have said cbt has been stated to be very effective at treating depression and anxiety .Can not believe your doctor was so insenesitive depression and anxiety make you feel guilty, you do not need your GP adding to these feeling of guilt.You cant help the fact that you suffer from anxiety and depression.It s rather worrying that a gp has this attitude towards mental health.like the others have suggested i would def suggest trying to see another GP.I know how horrible it is to feel like a burdern ,something i struggle with to.Try and stay strong and really hope things get better for you.

[Franz]

Looks to me like you're SAVING the NHS money by being honest and saying the counselling isn't working.

There are plenty of people who abuse the NHS without a moment's thought. Yes it's stretched but if you need help, you need help.

[dianes]

Your doctors attitude to your anxiety stinks! You have nothing to feel guilty about kendo, I have recently learned that it has now been proven that anxiety disorders run in families and that it is genetic. It is not a lack of courage, willpower or moral fortitude or the result of poor parenting, we were born with predisposition or a biological sensitvity that led to our anxiety disorder, in other words, we were born to suffer with an anxiety disorder, therefore you should not feel a burden or guilty about it.
As stated, it is recognised that CBT is the best treatment, unfortunately, due to ignorance and a lack of facilities in some areas, not all GP's agree. I experienced this when I asked my own GP about it.

I would recommend that you read 'Freedom from fear, overcoming anxiety, phobias and panic - by Howard Liebgold M.D. you can get it from a library or buy it from Amazon. Briefly, it is written by a doctor who suffered with anxiety disorder for 31 years before he was cured. He now lectures around the world on the subject and runs courses to cure people from it. He explains fully and simply about it and trust me, by following the step by step course it does work, it is working for me

Hope this helps kendo,

to you.

Diane
'Remember, your imagination is always much worse than the reality'

[titchjd]

Hi m8 ..sorry u are feeling like you do ..but you certainly arent a failure at all,Im shocked at your Drs attitude and would certainly push for CBT and anything else you want ....I have had all mine through my GP who has referred me to different therapy groups or 1 to 1 sessions .
Why has he stopped your meds ..did you ask 2 have them stopped ?.

I would certainly change doctors if he still refuses as he doesnt seem to have any idea of anxiety/depression .

Hope you get some CBT sorted soon ....what area do you live in ?

take care
Titchjd x

[BNCfan]

Really feel for you kendo, it seems that more and more doctors are dismissing genuinely distressed, anxious people all in the name of saving money or complete ignorance. As all the others said, you have no reason to feel guilty, you are ill and need help. Find another GP quickly, anyone who would take you off meds such as Diazepam the way he did doesn't deserve to be practicing, he's dangerous. Let us know how you get on. Incidently, what area of the country do you live in? Not London by any chance?!

[PUGLETMUM]

the thing with 'talk' therapy is that it might not be that helpful for anyone fullstop - not just you!?

also your dr will be assessing your suitability to therapy against someone else - we have to have a certain amount of understanding about our problems and also to be able to take responsibility before we can truly benefit from therapy - this is the docs opinion not mine! i beleive EVERYONE can benefit from therapy but obviously there isnt the funding.

another issue is that unfortunately a symptom of depression is 'inappropriate guilt' - your dr will not 'want' you to feel guilty, your lowered mood is doing that for you already. you can help yourself to get better even if you feel you are getting little help from anywhere else - nobody knows you better than yourself. as far as i can see mindfulness based cognitive group therapy is going to be the next big thing on the nhs - the book that i have just read is a book for the profession which explains how 4 ppl have developed this therapy with nhs funding 2 are professors in this country and 1 is a professor in the states and the other is jon kabat-zinn, so i dont think you get any more qualified than that? i will disagree with the person who says we are born like this because i think that is a defeatist belief - i understand where it comes from and why, but i dont think we need to label ourselves defective to not feel bad about depression?

depression is an illness, but it is mainly driven by habitual negative thinking which then puts the brain into an altered state which in turn makes us change physiologically, so we do actually become ill - we dont need to feel guilty about that, it can happen to anyone!!! and the more times youve suffered, and the earlier in your life(i was 14 when i had my first bout)the more likely you are to fall into the trap every time you have enough reason to start you off into the mental groove that starts to become permanently wired into your brain! we just need to 'learn' how to not get into the mental groove that takes us down the road of depression. i am banging on about this therapy right now, and with good reason - i am a long term sufferer and i identify with everybody on here who feel helpless, hopeless, sad, lonely, lost, scared, beaten, un-loved, un-loveable, ill, broken, etc etc - i have been there time after time, and i am not there now even though i have just had a stressful life experience, firstly because i have had access privately to cbt, which has done the ground work and now because i have invested in these books and cds and i am currently committed to doing mindfulness practice everyday - and it WORKS!!!! please look into this as you dont need to spend the amount of money i have on cbt, the mindfulness will work just as well on its own i think - you could possibly look into cbt later on or not at all, whatever - you have nothing to lose?