Coping with psychopathology

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psychforme

Mighty horse shoe
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Hi there fellow doctors-to-be! :)

I suffer from psychopathology. No need to go into details since I am afraid you will label it as trolling. But the bottom line is that I see nothing in people worth liking. However, I feel sympathy for sick people who are more miserable than me. Basically I am a disgusting human being and there is not much to do about that since it's my psychopathology.

Any ideas on how to cope with your psychopathology and rescue your medical career? Objectively, I really feel I need psychiatric healtcare to cope but I am very afraid that would hurt my career.

And my career is the only thing I have.

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You should probably go ahead and go for some psychiatric evaluation if you think it would help. Don't go through life putting your career over your own wellbeing, especially with something this serious.
 
The only thing I would suggest is not to play the "it's just my psychopathology" game. Placing a "blame" on your disease takes ownership away from you.

Edit: You haven't even been to a psychiatrist/psychologist about this? This thread is probably about to close for being medical advice but seriously what the hell, you're diagnosing yourself with some random personality disorder without even seeing an expert about it?

Stacks of doctors see shrinks. It's some thing you'll need to get over.
 
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If you need to see a shrink find a way to do it covertly and without adversely affecting your career, which may later require disclosure at some point. But what's wrong with being a misanthrope? Isn't that basically House MD? Who cares if you like people as long as you get the job done?
 
As long as you are getting treated for whatever you have and it's under control where you aren't a danger to yourself or others Medical Boards are somewhat reasonable about it (although the stigma is clearly there). Even if you have a minor issue, people with untreated mental illness underperform job-wise and life-wise. Treatment should help your career, not hurt it (or get a different therapist). Don't take this the wrong way, but it's unfair to your patients to practice medicine if you are a danger to your patients. If you have a substance abuse problem on top of that, things get more complicated (it's easier if you don't). Just don't advertise the issue and it shouldn't be common knowledge and affect your career. You should be able to find confidential treatment. Not getting the help you need is a quick way to not have a successful career. We already lose 200-400 physicians to suicide every year (and we don't know how many exactly -- just estimates from obituaries in newspapers -- because we are too embarrassed to count them) ... we need to take reasonable steps to reduce this number. The AMA and others are working to remove barriers for physicians to get treated for their mental illnesses, but it's a slow slog from what we have learned (I have no practical experience; I'm taking a psych class right now and we had some lectures and videos on this.). Apparently Arkansas no longer even asks if a physician has a mental illness (the removed that question from medical licensing).:luck::luck::luck:
 
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