Help preparing for psychiatrist

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Im trying to prepare for a meeting with a psychiatrist (psychologists are not covered where I live). Last time I saw a psychiatrist (I've only done this once before) I was unable to express anything. This time Im preparing a binder explaining basically anything that I think might come up or be relevant so if I do freeze up I have the information I need readily available. I do this with a short term counsellor I have been seeing and this has helped. I'm having a bit of a hard time identifying what he might be looking for or consider important or relevant so preparing this binder is proving to be quite challenging. I plan on going into detail about some specific problems (though I doubt I will have time to go into anything too much) just so the information is there but I would like to have a simplified version I can go over that includes the most important parts. Any ideas how I can do this? ex. any important questions I should be asking myself that he might ask?

I'm just trying to avoid being stuck not able to respond...

Thanks

Hi ,

I think if you can articulate what your concerns are in a fair bit of detail that will help.

for example: I have trouble sleeping, I've always had this and it's really bad if.....and better if.....and this med helps and this one doesn't etc.

One thing I found is that it can be a slow process - another person who doesn't know you will take a considerable amount of time to absorb everything you're saying. you've lived in your head a long time and they just turned up right?

I started off by saying " I watched this film about a guy with AS and it was like the story of my life "

hope that helps,

I was the same as you, I didn't respond at all to my psychiatrist when I saw him, and they can't really diagnose if you won't talk to them.
Why don't you take a pen and paper with you, if you can't speak maybe you can write things down? I can't think of many things they would ask before hand, but maybe if you just write down the things that you're concerned about it will help. Try to summarise and make them as short as possible so you don't waste time with small details. The psych can ask questions if they need to know more then.

@OP:

Have you tried making an outline/grocery list of issues to discuss? If not, consider trying it but keep it simple and fairly open-ended since the conversation likely won't go like a script. I'd show you an example of mine but it's only meant to make sense to me to jog my memory.

Also, consider bringing a stress ball. This is something new I've learned and it helps me immensely. Men typically play with it in their left hand to stimulate their right brain to help access emotions, and women typically play with it in their right hand to stimulate their left brain for analytical thinking. An as female (or one close to the spectrum) would be more likely than most women to need it in their left hand.