Hey everybody Happy Thursday!
Today is another day of Kati FAQ
or pretty much I take all of your
comments and questions and then
I come up with a pretty good one
and one that's been asked a lot
and today's is definitely one of those.
And I contemplated doing coffee and
a chat but it's really late in the day
and I am already highly caffeinated
cause I did a livestream earlier.
So without further a due lets get into it
"Hey Kati how do we know if we need
inpatient or more treatment other than
just outpatient?"
I thought this was really an interesting
topic and something that is really good
to talk about, and that's why
let's pretend it's coffee and a chat
but its really water in the afternoon
with Kati and I'm not even thirsty
but you get my point.
How do we know we need more care?
What can that care look like?
Let's start at the beginning- Let's start
with I'm having a hard time
I'm going to reach out to a therapist
and I'm going to start seeing them.
Things are kinda getting
a little bit better. I'm starting to
talk to someone. I'm starting to realize
maybe the vast amount of my life
has been overcome with depression or
eating disorder or self injury urges
or any of those things. And at that time
we may talk to our therapist a little bit
about what we're feeling and what
we are noticing. Because often I find
a lot of my clients when they first come
to see me they won't really understand or
realize how sick they may be
and I don't mean that as like a put down
or anything bad it's almost like it takes
us so long to get up the gull to ask for
help that often it's gotten
really really really bad so much so that
we're extremely impaired and we honestly
don't know what else to do so we reach
out and its almost like a last ditch
effort instead of it being our first
thing to do and I blame the stigma
for that but that's a whole other video
and I actually have one about it I'll
put it in the description. But because of
that stigma we may be really really ill
and we don't even realize it. And so
our therapist usually will let us know
"Hey you should probably see a dietitian"
or "I'd like you to get checked out by
your primary doctor" or "medication may
be something we need to look into since
you're having panic attacks everyday
lets talk to a psychiatrist" all of those
things are like what I would call the
first step of needing a little more care
we're still outpatient, yes
outpatient meaning if you're confused
about that term cause I know I use a lot
of terms and it's important to identify
and define them. Outpatient means that
you live your regular everyday life and
then you go for your appointments
so I go for therapy and I come home
I go to see my Doctor and I come home
that is the, that's what we mean by
"outpatient" now as a clinician I always
refer my clients to see their doctor
see a psychiatrist etc. and so that's
something that I am always going to
be doing If I think they need something
else or if I want to get something
checked out because believe it or not
thyroid issues, um all sorts of
different medical conditions.
Not to mention chronic illness and things
like that can really affect our mental
health and so as a therapist it's
important for me to get an assessment
from a regular doctor or a psychiatrist
to make sure that I am taking into
consideration everything and understand
fully what it going on with you so I can
give you the help that you
need and deserve.
After outpatient so lets say that that's
just not enough and we find ourselves
getting progressively worse and therapists
at some point may say "I can't keep seeing
you like this because you're a danger to
yourself and I'm going to have to refer
you to a higher level of care" and they
usually give you a window like I'll give
my clients like 2 or 3 weeks depending
on the severity
for them to
contact an inpatient facility
I can give them- I'll give them referrals then
they can go you know talk to them, see
them, do the interviews and the intakes
and then they get put on the waitlist
and I will continue to see them until
they can get in
sometimes there's no waitlist, sometimes
there is so that's kind of the next step
now inpatient also comes various levels
could be couple days a week, could be five
days a week, it could be living, there can
be seven days a week, 24/7 were in a
facility and each step of these I hope
you can kind of understand why you would
need to take that step that being that
if we're not getting better and we're
actually progressively getting worse,
I don't mean we're going through a
stressful time and so things are really
hard I mean it just continuously
progresses downward and we're getting
more and more sick and we're struggling
even more day after day after day that's
when we need more help and that's really it...
I wish there was a more intensive
in-depth thing we could talk about but
that's really the truth and as a
therapist that's what I worry about most.
I want my clients to be doing well,
I want them to be progressing I want them
to be able to do the behavioral
techniques and if I feel like they just aren't
getting better and things keep getting
worse and we would talk about that would
be the first things we talked about a
higher level of care what that would
look like what are they comfortable with
what can they afford there's a lot of
facets but if you're not getting better
things are getting worse that means you
need more support the truth of it is
that the sooner we reach out and get the
level of care that we need the sooner we
start feeling better
that's the truth and so that's really
important to remember and I think it's
something to consider that if your
therapist has told you
hey we should start considering looking
to start looking into this we should
start considering impatient or
considering you know a higher level of
care whatever that could look like a day
program really consider it, really look
into it, I know it's hard I know it's
scary I know we don't know what to
expect but I have a video I believe
about it i'll put in the description
about impatient what that looks like and
if you want more on it let me know in
the comments I'd love to make an entire
video about what inpatient
hospitalization can look like and feel
like and what to expect because I know
that often were just really scared and
that's what I hear most of my clients is
''I'm just really scared what does it look like?''
so know that it's honestly just like
making your first therapy appointment
it's not as scary as we think there is
help available in through insurance and
if you live in other countries most of
things are covered almost fully we
usually have to meet your deductible and
then it's covered so know that help is
available we can make it happen and if
you need more support you just need more
support to get better and that we're all
different right
our road to recovery is gonna be
different, it's a process not perfection
I hope you found that helpful
I know getting to a higher level of care
can be really overwhelming sometimes
really scary and I hope that just shed
some light on it and help you feel more
at ease at the decision that you may
have to be making and before I end this
video I would love to showcase your art
I get such beautiful art from a lot of
you send it to my p.o box and I've been
wanting to find a way to share it and if
you noticed on mondays video at the very
end I put someone's art that they had
sent to me and told her thank you so
much for creating it and sending it and
I'm going to continue to do that so if
you would like your art to be showcased
my p.o box address in the description
and when you send it to me let me know
who you would like me to say it's from
I know a lot of you don't want your
real identity shown and I always want to
keep your confidentiality so let me know
would be a twitter handle, instagram or
just your first name I'm happy to do
whatever but send me your art I would
love to showcase you all of you are so
wonderfully talented it's just so
amazing and lastly if you haven't had a
chance to pick up a copy my friend
Hannah Hart's book it just came out two
days ago
it's wonderful only two chapters in but
I absolutely love it talks a lot about
mental health and her experiences with
it and I really just think that each and
every one of you would really love it as
much as I do and I will see you all
later, bye!
ah... gotta wet my whistle