@Former-Member wrote:
I'm wondering if you two could help anyone reading this post at home learn from your own experiences? Are there any tips you have for someone looking for supports for the first time? Or are there other things you've found helpful? It can be a real jungle out there, but maybe we can help some others have a different experience?
You know, recently I had a nostalgic encounter with an old favorite from my childhood: the movie "Wargames" (starring Matthew Broderick). There's this line in it where the malfunctioning AI that controls America's nuclear missiles draws a conclusion about World War III:
"It's a strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
I bring this up because this was the conclusion I drew about therapy. The teachable mistake I made was turning to the mental health system in the first place. There are a lot of people out there who will not like me saying that, but it's what I believe.
What advice could I give prospective patients today?
1. Make sure you go in with a way to get out.
I was so blinded by desparation and delicious assurances from the media that the mental health system would definitely help me, that I never even stopped to contemplate an escape plan. And by the time I realized I needed one, I was far too deep in, and far too exposed to be able to devise anything practical.
It scares me today, knowing that there is a strong push (and already a massive uptake) to make more therapy online-based. Because the internet reaches everywhere these days, and so there's nowhere you can go where you can be beyond the reach of a terrible therapist. How are you supposed to escape from that?
1-A. If you need a way out of therapy, listen to what your therapist idealizes, and play to that.
To use my own dillemma as an example: my therapist was obsessed with my financial status, when I was more concerned about my lack of meaningful relationship(s). I wasted years trying to argue with her, trying to get her to appreciate my real crisis, instead of the one she had decided to fixate upon. If I'd calmed down long enough to actually take notice of her obsession, I would've realized that all I needed to do to convince her I was cured was to tell her that I had a really good financial situation (e.g. I could've told her I'd won Lotto, or I could've told her I'd been given a really lucrative job offer, or I could've told her some rich aunt died and left me a fortune). I was so caught up in the infuriating frustration of being trapped under such a dense therapist that I was never able to spot that obvious way out. As it turned out, when she decided for herself that I had a good financial situation, she pronounced me cured and I was let out of therapy. If only I'd bothered to calm down and listen to what she wanted...
So that is definitely a teachable moment for others: Calm down. Listen to what they want to turn your life into. And then tell them what they want to hear.
2. Educate yourselves on the "Golden Rule Of Therapy". Know that no therapist is going to give you practical assistance for real-life problems, as doing so goes against their guidelines.
So if your problem is that your lonely, don't expect your therapist to set you up with new, kindred spirits. If your problem is that your employment situation is terrible, don't expect them to reassign you to a more suitable job. If your problem is that your household/family sucks, don't expect them to reassign you to a new household or family. If the government is driving you to the edge of suicide with beaurocratic grief, don't expect them to jump in and get them off your back and/or to sort the mess out. And I don't know anything about their track record in cases of bullying/descrimination, but I'd wager that they don't go marching into schools and getting bullies permanently and reliably off your case, if that's what your struggling with.
Therapists just "listen", and nothing more (aside from dealing out pills, perhaps). They don't actually step in and resolve peoples' real-life problems. So if that's what your looking for, don't even bother with the mental health system. At least, that's been my experiance, which has been backed up by information I've collected from many others.
3. Educate yourself on the dark side of therapy so you've got some idea what you might be letting yourself in for. A real good starting point would be the works of Dr. Paula Caplan.
4. A lot of people may have convinced you that there's something terribly wrong with you, and that you need to be "fixed". Be kind and fair to yourself.
Check to see if the people who criticize you are not holding you to a higher standard then they hold themselves to. Check to see if they are criticizing you for not overcoming matters that are beyond your control. Maybe your problems aren't really because of some shortcoming on your part that a doctor needs to repair.
If people are giving you a hard time because you aren't very good at play-acting a role that they desire, but which you have no respect for, the problem isn't in your "weakness"; it's more likely that your trapped in inappropriate company, and need to be relocated into an environment that fits you better.
The problem with that? Read point #2.
Those are solely my opinions; which are in no way, shape, or form intended to speak for or represent the rest of the patient community, or any other patient(s) therein. I know there are many who will take issue with some of the things I've written here; particularly my discouraging opinion towards seeking therapy. But this is my experiance, and the conclusions I have carefully derived from it.
I apologize if they make others uncomfortable; but to say anything more favorable about the system would be a lie on my part.
