What the fuck

My initial reaction to seeing the report that the psychiatrist shared with me was, “What the fuck?” I had been expecting a summary of our discussion and the psychiatrist’s diagnosis. I was anticipating reading her perspective on things. But all I get is, “Diagnosis: Obsessive compulsive personality traits,OCD,in remission”? This is literally verbatim. I haven’t even changed the spacing. That is all the ‘prescription’ stated. What the fuck? What am I supposed to make of that? I was hoping for a more detailed summary. During our consultation, I got the impression that I was going to receive a summary. The psychiatrist said that she wanted to have a conversation about everything with my therapist before she sent me one, but that I could expect one. Maybe I misunderstood?

But either way, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with, “Diagnosis: Obsessive compulsive personality traits,OCD,in remission”. What the hell does that tell me?

I don’t know, I guess I was just expecting something with a little more substance. During our conversation, she explained various aspects of our consultation and my assessment to me. I wanted to see all of that in writing to see if the notes I made matched up. I wanted to see all of that in writing so that my therapist and I could deconstruct it and see what to make of it. We talked about so much more: childhood adversity, hyperactivity, vulnerability to anxiety disorders, and relapse of OCD. I remember intentionally clarifying with her: so there’s no diagnosis for autism, there’s no diagnosis for ADHD, there’s no diagnosis for OCD (but there would have been in the past), but there is a diagnosis for OCPD? And she’d answered yes. But this report only says obsessive-compulsive personality traits. So, which is it—obsessive-compulsive personality traits or OCPD? During our first session, she said it looked like there were obsessive-compulsive personality traits but she wasn’t sure if it was at a diagnosable level. I clarified whether there was a diagnosis at the end of our second session because she made it sound like there was a diagnosis (at least, that’s how I perceived it). So reading what I did in the report has really confused me and I don’t know what to make of it.

Maybe I just don’t understand how psychiatrists work. They’re medical doctors, not psychologists. They probably feel no obligation to delve into the details of their observations or diagnoses. Maybe—though it’s unlikely—she is going to send me a longer summary and I just have to be patient (but how much more patient shall I be, it’s been 16 days since our second consultation). Or maybe this is it. This is all I’m getting from her and I have to make of it what I will. Maybe there will be no more detail or clarification and this is all it will be. And if it is, I just have to deal with that.

26 February 2025