Anxiety how to get help from GP

[contrarymary]

I have made an appointment to speak to my GP about my mental health and looking for advice on how to approach it I find it very hard to show my feelings and tend to bottle things up and just say that I am ok

i did the online questionnaire and it came up at 16 high anxiety.

i can't relax or sleep especially if in the house alone ok when family are in.

how do I explain this to GP as someone who keeps things to themselves. I saw the emergency GP on Saturday and they sent me for blood tests all ok and gave me some sleeping pills which I am scared to take so tomorrow I see my regular GP. I worry how he will react when I ask about anxiety. What should I be requesting and how do I ask.

i am 65 years old retired 5 years have a husband and family they think it's all my imigination when I get agitated and pace the floor

[Amond]

I really think your GP will be happy you bought it up with them.

Maybe using the words you used here could be a good way to start. I’ve been feeling xyz and so I took the online test...... that could be a good way to get started and I’m sure from there your GP will help the conversation.

do you have a good compassionate GP that you trust?

[smallwolf]

Hi contrarymary,

welcome to beyond blue.

I am thinking back to when I spoke to my GP about mental health. Your GP might ask how it started (recent incident) and I think from there the rest is questions and answers and thoughts and feelings and symptoms. For example, I would have a lump in the throat, racing heart, empty feeling. The telephone call I had with mum, was that I could not do this any more.

Here are some positives from your post -

1. as someone that cannot tell someone else about how they are feeling you have done a pretty good job here explaining your situation.

2, you have also made a booking with your GP. Some might not take that step or not see any issue.

3. you are also challenging yourself in dealing with your feelings.

So how to approach the conversation?

You could take these posts with you. Or you could write down what you what to talk about and your concerns. The fact that you were able to open up in your post here shows that you can talk about it to someone - just perhaps not to those close to you yet? You could also take the results of the online questionaire with you.

And quite honestly, when I saw my GP I said that I wanted to talk about mental health. That 2 nights prior I had these feelings (...) and then a googled those that mentioned depression and anxiety and found my way to the BB online test, and now I am here...

my GP asked me about family history and I had to do their test as well. I was referred to a psych for a second opinion.

know there nothing you can say wrong. All you can do is tell the truth as you see it.

lastly, for myself, finding out there was a mental health issue also meant for me that I was not making it all up. and I would be able to ways of dealing with it.

Peace to you

Tim

[contrarymary]

Update I spoke to my GP and agreed that I may need some help and has referred me to a pchycologist for an initial appointment which is in 3 weeks time never seen one before so not sure what to expect

[Here_I_am]

Hi contrarymary,

Great news that you went to the GP and followed through; I imagine it would have been quite easy to have not gone at all.

I appreciate the feeling of never having been to a psychologist before and not knowing what to expect. My observation of first time engagement with psychologists is that often people go to their appointment expecting the psychologist to magically know everything about them and their situation, and that they are going to come out of their first appointment with cures, answers, solutions, a degree of their own, and a smile from ear to ear because all is well. They go to the appointment, get none of that, and then feel as though the psychologist failed them! 🙂

The psychologist will likely ask you what you want to get out of your time with them. It pays to consider this question before going - what is it you want to achieve by talking to a psychologist? It can be a very well thought out 22 dot point write-up, or it can be a simple statement such as 'I don't want to feel this way anymore.' What is important however is that we're not taken by surprise by the question - you are going there to talk about you, so it stands to reason the psychologist will want to hear something of your story. Go prepared to talk, open up, and be ready and willing to engage with the process (it may take three or four sessions to get real traction!).

I sincerely hope you get a lot out of your appointment(s) with your psychologist. Remember also that if - after a session or two - you don't believe the psychologist is right for you, you can request to see a different psychologist. What is most important is that it works for you.