UpndownnupndownSenior Contributor
Against the odds.
(trigger warnings: mentions of abuse without graphic detail, mental health system systemic negligence and a serious un-alive attempt without going into detail)
I feel shame and guilt for being where I am in my 39 years of life; particularly in my journey towards self-actualisation. I dislike using the word "recovery", because that would imply that I once had a baseline that I was trying to reach once again. The trauma which occurred during the early formative years, unfortunately taught me the maladaptive coping tool of disassociation that I've been stuck with and in, basically most days, for the past 30+ years. This disassociation started occurring, due to 1 quite traumatising event (but many traumatic events followed it, during my early formative years).
I would like to try and keep this thread as my on-going discovery journey, a blog if you will, but I also would like it to be as concise as possible because I can easily get lost in my sea of thoughts, whether in spoken or written form. As I will be posting reasonably often with my progressive (and regressive moments), it seemed most appropriate to start the thread in this section, as although I'm finally making progress where I hadn't been able to for the past 30+ years, I'm often still left thinking/feeling that "something's not right" (laughing emoji).
At a recent Clinical Psychologist appointment, with a specialist who has so far at least, really proven himself to have my best interests in the forefront of his mind. At our very first appointment, I basically laid out how I've been taken advantage of by not only an extremely covertly psychologically abusive mother, but also by mental health "professionals" that matter of factually have acted in negligent and incompetent ways, for over 20 years.
I now realise that every mental health specialist that I've seen throughout those twenty years or so, all of them broke the The Royal Australian and
New Zealand College of Psychiatrists "Code of Ethics"; principals 1, 2, 3, and 10, and one even broke principal number 6. All of them, bar my current Clinical Psychologist and ironically, a public health system practicing Psychiatrist a couple of years ago who was threatened with potential legal action if any of my trauma was minimalised or that any attempt was made to water down any appropriate diagnosis after hearing about my symptoms on presentation, because I was sick of the Australian mental health system stuffing me around, that someone was finally able to help me to start to see why my entire life had been such a dumpster fire seemingly no matter how hard I tried to make something of myself. She diagnosed me with cPTSD.
Since the age of 18, I've lost count of the number of Psychiatrists that I've gone to at different junctures in my life, to try and get answers for why I've struggled so much throughout my life. I've also seen several Psychologists.
In October of 2006, I had a public health system Psychiatrist diagnose me with bipolar disorder, less than three weeks after my older brother had just un-alived himself. On the first appointment, and not even 30 minutes after meeting me, then saying that I would need to start taking a mood stabilising medication straight away. Talk about gross negligence and incompetence; attempting to diagnose such a serious condition that immediately followed such a traumatic event, whilst basically not knowing me from a bar of soap. Sadly, this is just one example of "care", provided by Australia's public health system that I've been unfortunate enough to experience over the past 20 years.
Coming back to the present, I recently said to my Clinical Psychologist that I think that I might have ADHD and possibly ASD (it's highly offensive to me that the powers that be, can get away with labeling anyone on the Autism Spectrum, as having a disorder, simply for being neurodivergent. It'd be like calling Down Syndrome a disorder). I said that there's no way that my struggles could be attributed to only cPTSD, that I've struggled far to much throughout my life for it to be only attributed to cPTSD. Under his suggestion, I found a Psychiatrist who from all the patient reviews, I actually trust will perform a fair and accurate assessment for ADHD and ASD, in April so not too far away luckily.
I said to my Clinical Psychologist that I feared that my assessment could be unfairly judged due to some sporadic periods of addictive behaviours in my life. I said that I wanted to have as much information to present to the Psychiatrist in April, and that I would like to be pre-screened for both ADHD and ASD, to if not confirm that I could be both which I had started to suspect that I was, at least to rule them out. I was therefore sent a number of assessment questionnaires to which I had no idea which diagnosis they would be pertaining to, and filled them out. When I had my next appointment, I was advised at the end of the appointment that the results had come back, and that they suggested that it is likely that I could in fact have ADHD and ASD (as well as cPTSD).
Over the past 20 years of seeking answers for why I've struggled so much, I've had professionals suggest that I could be everything from Schizo-effective, to Bipolar, BPD, to Drug-Induced Personality disorder whatever that is. Most Psychiatrists have believed that I have Bipolar, simply because I mentioned that I wondered if I had it but that I wasn't sure due to my symptoms not exactly fitting even into that pigeon-hole. out of these plethora of specialists, numbering at least 7-10 how many of them bothered to undertake a pre-screening diagnostic questionnaire for Bipolar? Not one of them. From either the public health system or the private health system aka medicare rebated appointments.
To say that this newfound information has come as shock to me, would be an understatement. That and the realisation that the mental health system professionals who were meant to be administering quality patient care, have been so incompetent as well as often negligent, as well as having to process and grieve the loss of who I'd through denial, convinced myself that my abusive mother was, that I've had to extricate completely from my life. It's pretty hard to prove such a thing, but I have no doubt in my mind that she tried to goad me to commit suicide and was very nearly successful in becoming a martyr to two dead sons because sadly, she's got nothing else going for her. Not one authentic bone in her body. these words are not emotively-motivated but sadly, factually accurate in my opinon. my father is slowly coming around to just how covertly abusive that she is, she even used my serious suicide attempt as a weapon to psychologically abuse my father.
I'm having so many realisations since this new found preemptive diagnostic information, that my life is finally actually starting to make some sense to me. Why I think and behave so differently to most. I'm so overcome, that when I called to speak to a counselor on your drop in free counseling service, that the poor person on the other end of the line did her best and she should absolutely be commended for her level of expertise, but after an hour of hearing about my circumstances the call was suddenly disconnected, I assume because she'd reached saturation point and didn't have the experience to be able to deal with a clearly over-stimuated/traumatised person on the other end of the phone. I really felt for her after I realised this, a few moments after the call was disconnected.
It was extremely embarrassing for me, but I woke this morning with a clearer head and the knowledge that it isn't my fault that I'm overwhelmed with everything (even though I'm making a lot of progress at this time), that I'm only human and that hopefully she would have someone to debrief with over what would've been a very difficult phone call for her to be a part of.
When it comes to misdiagnosis and/or incompetence/negligence in our public health system, can anyone relate to this post?
(I've also realised that speaking to SANE counsellors is just too over-stimulating for me at this time. It appears that both I and SANE employees/volunteers will all be better off if I keep my reaching out in the written form. I don't want a repeat of last night happening again).
