Not my 'story' - it's my nightmare.

[chibam]

Hi @Historylover. Sorry for taking so long to respond. Since I saw your latest replies were a bit big, I decided to put off reading them until I had some time. I didn't realize how badly you'd plummetted since your previous posts. I hope your feeling a bit better now.

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@Historylover wrote:

No, @chibam,  I did not have a good experience from my psychiatrist.  It only seems that way when I am feeling positive and it doesn't last long.

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Sorry to hear that. I can't say I understand what it's like to have varying feelings about my treatment or my therapists - my opinions about them have always been about as decisive as can be - but I do know what it's like to feel betrayed and corrupted by one's therapist. There's not much to say, is there? Aside from the fact that it sucks immensely and the powers that be really need to take notice of these sorts of travesties. I think, between the various inquiries going on at the moment, they are starting to at least become aware of the scale of the problem.

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@Historylover wrote:

I did some research on psychiatrists harming patients etc. and read that bullies are often drawn to the 'helping professions' eg. doctors, nurses, etc.  I realized long ago that we don't deal with people in the roles they represent but with their individual personalities.  The 'bully' aspect which was suggested hadn't occured to me but it makes perfect sense.

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I didn't want to say anything while you were still carrying a fond impression of your therapist, but I found a video a while back that implied a fair amount of therapists are sociopaths! They love it, apparently! Plenty of ripe, vulnerable victims unwittingly stumbling in through their doors, for them to exploit and manipulate for their own ends. And while I was watching this video, which went into thorough descriptions of what sociopaths do and how they exploit people, I was astonished at just how familiar all of it sounded. How so much of what was beeing described was eerily similar to how my worst therapist treated me!

I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if it turned out my therapist was a sociopath.

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@Historylover wrote:

You are so helpful to everyone, so able to express things which so many of us understand but don't have the depth of understanding you have.  What a mess we are all in.  

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Thanks! But the truth is, I'm floundering in confusion just like everyone else here. I know the ins-and-outs of my own story; but when it comes to understanding others - especially "normal" people - I tend to get lost very quickly.

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@Historylover wrote:

How are you?

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Same old same old. Stuck on a lonely prison bus going to a place I don't want to go, with little to no prospect of my destination improving. Basically a living example of why our society desparately needs a system to help those with hopeless lives, and simultaneously an example of how no such system currantly exists, despite any claims to the contrary.

[Historylover]

@chibam   So good to hear from you.  I have been sitting here trying to sort out my mess and saw your support.  You are always there for everyone.  You don't know how much that means to me.  I noticed in some of your posts that you even have a sense of humour.  I seem to have lost mine.  I don't know how you do it. 

This post now isn't specifically for you as I wouldn't offload my problems onto one person - we all have burdens - but I need to extend my experience on this platform.  I don't think I will ever make sense of it.  Perhaps others can see what I can't.

Can anyone out there make sense of my situation? 

As I said I swing from one understanding of my ex-psychiatrist to the other extreme.  One moment I feel that it will all work out and then back to my dreadful reality.  That he promised future friendship is fact.  That we worked together as a team - helping others wherever the need presented - fact.  I watched him work and saw how he practised his 'craft'.  I learned about psychiatry by watching the way he responded to me changed my behaviour, corrected my misconceptions.  I was enthralled - he said I was very perceptive.  I thought that is why he directed my employment into that of a Nursing Assistant and then into self-taught medical studies as he did - and I thought, found in me a kindred spirit because of it and offered me future friendship. 

We would discuss my own understandings about what I had observed re human behaviour, society etc.  He educated me.  I adored that man and it had nothing to do with 'transference'.  How could anyone not adore someone who had done so much for me and others, seemed to me to be trying to bring correction to his 'profession',  help me restore my family - even my extended family.  Such noble goals.  Such a good person.  Such a role-model for me.  Or so it seemed.  Was I naive/naieve - gullible?  Blinkered?  We are supposed to be able to trust them. 

How I wish I could do for sufferers what I had experienced him do for me. 

Then he destroyed me.

Is he ill?  Has he lost his - I thought - dogged determination to prove there is a better way?  Lost his integrity?  Was he just too good to be true?  Was it all just an experiment to test his beliefs and I am just collateral damage now?

I question whether he got cold feet, whether he couldn't get everyone on the same page - or was it his intention all along to do this?  I inevitably swing from adoring this man and believing in his intrinsic goodness - and hating him as I deal with the fallout on my own.

Perhaps I need to believe he is the person I knew him to be because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.  That he could be enjoying my distress is a very real possibility.  

As you know, I am new to this platform.  I have been warmed by the responses I have received and didn't know what roles everyone played in the organization.  Were they social workers, psychologists etc.?  I am beginning to find there are stories just like ours behind those screen-names.  Life certainly is an eye-opener isn't it?

A support group for victims of psychiatry is a fabulous idea.  How many stories like ours are there?  How many people are being 'treated' but have simply become rusted on in the system.

And how can we correct this mess?  There HAS to be a way.

[Historylover]

@chibam   I know you're floundering just like everyone else - but you're always there for everyone.  Heartfelt thanks.

I will reply to this latest post later.

[Historylover]

@chibam   So much to think about - not just with your post - but with this whole situation.  I almost don't know how to respond.  

I made the comment recently that we may have forgotten how to have fun, enjoy life.  I think I was thinking that if we don't resolve these most serious issues besetting - plagueing - our society then we are stuck constantly 'complaining', reaching out here and there, and when nothing improves we are simply stuck there - 'complaining';  and life is passing us by while others get a better deal and are able to disconnect and turn a blind eye.  So maybe we should have fun in our lives too.  It's been a long time since I had any!  But on reflection, it must have seemed a frivolous thing to say.  It wasn't meant to be.  I just want to enjoy my life too.  Don't we all?  But our problems have to solved first, of course.

I don't know what to say further.  Your - and others' experiences - just make me so angry.  

Perhaps I will just sit quietly and think about all of this.

P.S. They are not "normal people", chibam, we are.  

[chibam]

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@Historylover wrote:
And how can we correct this mess? There HAS to be a way.

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It didn't reem relevant earlier, when you still thought well of your therapist, but there are opportunities to speak out, if you wish to do so.

The productivity commission inquiry is basically wrapped up, and the Victorian royal inquiry is no longer accepting submissions as far as I know. But the national inquiry into the mistreatment of disabled people is still accepting submissions and surprisingly enough, if you've found yourself in need of "help" from the mental health system, they considder that to be a disability. So the mistreatment of patients by therapists qualifies as abuse of the disabled, as is therefore of interest to their inquiry.

This is the inquiry's URL, if your interested: https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/share-your-story

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@Historylover wrote:

P.S. They are not "normal people", chibam, we are.  

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My concern there is that we already have a ton of communication problems; a world full of people who can't understand "what our problem is", can't relate to our point of view, or who can't relate to us due to a mutual absense of context. When we decide to start re-defining words, communication becomes even more difficult. If you and I say "normal" and mean one thing, and the minister for mental health says "normal" and means something completely differant... that's just another hurdle we all have to overcome.

Personally, I don't have a problem not being "normal". Especially if relinquishing "normal" makes it easier for me to communicate with others who call themselves "normal". But that's just my opinion.

[Historylover]

@chibam   I wish I could wave a magic wand and make all of your problems go away - at least for a while, the way you've done for me.  

Do we all run the risk here of making this our new way of life?  Once again I'm wondering have we forgotten how to have fun?  I certainly have.  I don't know where to find it at the moment.  

To realize that we have to move on from constantly dealing with unresolved issues?  Can we resolve them - or do we simply have to let go and move on?

At this time I won't be making a complaint, chibam.  I'm still working my way through this.  

I look at my posts over the past weeks and wonder what have I become?   It has got me through some difficult times to date and I'm very grateful for its existence - but I don't want this to become my new 'club'.   Is that the risk?

[Shaz51]

@chibam, you are awesome my friend , here for you 

unless you change psychiatrist @Historylover  it is hard 

and my husband has stopped seeing anyone which is also hard on me as his only support 

love your question -- "And how can we correct this mess? There HAS to be a way." there sould be a way 

[Historylover]

@Shaz51   I find this site rather bewildering at times and can't find how to work out where I am.  It gets worse when I am stressed.  

I am not sure who replied to my post as chibam is also shown.

My ex-psychiatrist bulk-billed me which wasn't unusual way back.  I don't have a home, live on a pension and a shoe-string budget.  I can't afford to see another psychiatrist.  I saw one a couple of months ago - twice.  He clearly thought my psychiatrist was a master at deception and he loved the joke.  He said things like - "can't save everybody" and looking into my eyes mockingly said "Do you feel well?" implying I was mentally unsound.  I was anything but.  I was distraught but in full control, and trying to get his help in making sense of this situation.

I won't go near another one.  They are all the same.  We really do have to help each other as they don't.  So is my life now an online one?  How I'd love to meet everyone.  

I'm learning something else here.  We don't have to have everything in common - or every viewpoint - because that isn't possible anyway.

I just want to help everyone to find a way out of their problems and I can't even find a way out of my own.  I don't know what to do.  

[Appleblossom]

@Historylover 

I thought I tagged you over to a conversation I was having about humour.  Laughter is a good medicine, so long as we are not the butt.  Its not the only medicine, but feeling alive and able to enjoy being in one's skin is so important and healing.

The moderaters and Community managers are paid staff, the rest are people with differing experience in Caring and Lived Experience of MI.

Your ex pdoc was pushing boundaries in the wrong way.  I am glad that he did some good, but still not sure what the cost was for you.  I looked for people who cared about MH activism, but it is a tricky terrain.

[Historylover]

@Appleblossom   To be honest, I think the cost will ultimately be my life.  How do I go on with no family, friends, home of my own and no prospects.  I'm getting older and I don't even have anyone to bury me! 

I will go back to U3A when it reopens but I wonder if I will be able to cope. Everyone has such 'normal' lives and I have nothing to contribute in that area.