My stupid psychiatrist

My standards for a psychiatrist are somewhat lower than for a therapist. Therapist I see for 45min-1hour every week. Psychiatrist is 20-30 minutes once a month.. the length of time depends on the doctor.
In 2010, I went to residential treatment for bulimia. Shortly before, my current psychiatrist stopped accepting my insurance.. so I randomly picked a psychiatrist that works in the same building as my therapist.
She was a moron. Well, not entirely, but there were some flaws.
1. She kept trying to give me (a recovering bulimic) exercise and diet advice. She honestly asked me at one point "Don't you want to lose weight?"
2. She refused to retry old medications I had been on, and she didn't take me off anything.. so I ended up on a long list of meds
 3. She was (still is) always late.. not a little late.. usually 30-45 minutes late generally. She was never really apologetic about it. So one time she was particularly late, she did apologize and I commented that it really bothered me. She honestly told me that me being so bothered by people being late was a character flaw.. I am a bit weird about it, but usually up to 20 minutes late is usually fine. Longer than that I will tolerate if someone says they'll be late. Beyond that, yes I do get upset

Well, I moved to go to school.. about 35 minutes away. I eventually got fed up and found a closer psychiatrist. The town I live in has 2-4 psychiatrists on my insurance. I picked one that was a woman because I do prefer that.

She was a good doctor. She was willing to reduce the number of medications. She was willing to retry meds I was on as a teenager. I've been on pretty much everything available : Prozac, Cymbalta, Celexa, Lexapro, Wellbutrin SR, Wellbutrin XL, Zoloft, Effexor, Paxil, Pristiq, Remeron, Abilify, Lamictal, Viibryd, some MAOI patch. The issue is that a lot of these are not effective in people under 18, and a lot of those were before I was 18, so they may work now.

Well anyway, she was way too reactive. If I was self harming, she wanted me inpatient. If I was purging, she wanted me in treatment. And finally, she kept threatening to stop seeing me if I didn't stop drinking. Ultimatums don't work, and I got sick of it. So I found someone specializing in addictions.

This is my current psychiatrist. Unfortunately, he is 35-45 minutes away. I try to see him on the same day I see my therapist because she's out that way too. It is definitely annoying to drive that far for a 10 minute appointment. He doesn't give ultimatums. But quite a few times he's said that changing my meds won't work if I'm drinking.. which is true.. but I'm paying $40 a month for him to say that. He's tried the alcohol blocker type drugs.. Campral, Naltrexone, Vivitrol. They haven't helped. So now he just keeps pushing rehab.

I would love to go to rehab. I think a controlled environment would be great.. but I can't afford it. I'm having to talk to my parents about giving me money if I don't find a job. I have good insurance, but they only pay 80% of the cost. That would probably leave at least a thousand for me to pay.. and rehab places are not as nice about financing than hospitals (I have a couple bills I only pay $20 a month on to one hospital).

It also took a long time for him to listen when I said how much my medication costs. I was on Seroquel, Wellbutrin XL, Lamictal, Viibryd, and I thin Gabapentin. It cost around $100 a month. I finally got him to switch the Viibryd (~$45 a month) for Lexapro (I think ~20). That plus the $40 is a lot of money when my paycheck was around $1000 a month, and the rest was student loans.

I am in so much debt too.. I refuse to look up how much I owe in student loans. I have hospital bills around $1000-$1500. Credit card debt around $8000. The problem was at the end of every semester I'd run out of money, and I'd start putting stuff on the credit card. I eventually got a second card, so I could spend another $2000.. and now the cards are both maxed out.

Anyway, he finally said I could see him in 2 months, so that's a little less money. This stuff really contributes to my depression. He also thinks my job teaching contributed.. but it's a job I can be sure I'll have in the fall. Sorry, I'm ranting. Money is just a major stress, and paying money for a man to say he can't do anything is pointless.

By the way (this is a little bit TMI), the vivitrol shots sucked. I did 3 months, and every time I had a giant lump at the injection site (just above my ass) and each took more than a month to go away. Plus it didn't work, so I finally said I didn't want it.