On Tuesday, I went to my first official appointment at the Bariatrics Center. This was to meet with the program psychologist for an inital psych evaluation. The appointment did not go as I had hoped and I left feeling a bit defeated.
The center pyschologist was very sterile and stand-offish. I guess I've been spoiled by my two therapists that I see. Both of them are very approachable and have a nice "bed side manner" (for lack of a better term). The center pysch gave me a quick run down of what the meeting's purpose was and then ran down her list of questions while typing the answers into her computer. There was no warmth to her at all. In between questions, there was awkward silence as she looked at her computer and then back to the paperwork that I had done before the appointment. It was extremely uncomfortable. I felt like I was sitting in front of the judge and jury all wrapped up in one person.
The questions were pretty straight forward: what was your lightest/heaviest adult weight, do you smoke, do you drink, do you do street drugs (no, no, and no), why are you pursuing surgery, how do you think this will alter your life, etc.
When I talked about my past struggles and my current BED, the feedback that I got was pretty discouraging. She talked about the fact that I would have to overcome that in order to get things on track before the surgery and if I haven't been successful in doing that now, how did I think I was going to be able to do it before the surgery. That got me really irritated. I understand all of these things. I've been reading up on the different types of bariatric surgery for two years so I'm not ignorant about any of it. The part that really set me off inside was when she asked how I thought I could get on track with the possibility of surgery in the future but I couldn't without the surgery in the future. How do I even answer those questions? So much of this process is psychological- the surgery and the BED.
The upside to this appointment was that the center psych wants to consult with both of my therapists so that she can get a better picture of who I am and how they feel about the surgery. I realize she can't get to know me well in an hour's time and I know that my therapists are very supportive so being able to talk with them will hopefully give her a more comprehensive view of me.
I walked out of the appointment feeling discouraged, defeated, and like it was a waste of my time. I've never been in a room with a therapist and felt so....not sure of the word.....invalidated, maybe? I guess I wanted to be seen as someone that was looking for a tool and not a quick fix and I didn't get that feeling from the psychologist. Maybe that's just her default mode because she sees a lot of people in her office that expect they don't have to make any changes and think that the surgery will fix everything. I'm not one of those people so when I tried to make that clear, I didn't get any indication from her that she understood or that she believed me. That was disheartening. I felt like I completely blew the whole evaluation.
Since that appointment, I've tried to distance myself from her demeanor and lack of warmth and have told myself that maybe that's just how she is and I'm over-interpreting it all. I have a wonderful group of friends and family that support me and so I'm sitting tight until the center psych gets back to me after she's talked to my therapists.