Dealing with the mental health system (may be triggering)

Hi @justanotherguy . Welcome to the forums! 🙂

Your experiance sounds very similar to my own; except it sounds like you had to deal with a lot more therapists then I did. I only had 2 main therapists (though I did do some brief work with a couple others.)

Like you, I came out the other end in worse shape then I was to begin with. As you indicate, I think burnout was part of the problem with my first therapist; but I think that the worst of my experiance had much more insidious causes. As you say, therapists pushing their own agenda... I've dealt with my fair share of that.

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@justanotherguy wrote:

If there was some kind of instruction manual for navigating the mental health service that would be great, I'm sure it would help a lot of people avoid unnecessary distress.

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You are right. But it shouldn't be that complicated; it should be much more straightforward. You shouldn't need to be a rocket scientist - or need to have familiarized yourself with a massive manual - in order to get the help you need. You should be able to just state what you want, and be directed to the person who can deliver that outcome for you.

I follow a lot of stuff about the changes to the mental health system, and even I can't figure out what's happening, and whether the help I need has actually been added to the mental health system yet. Thus far, most signs tend to indicate that it hasn't. But it's impossible to get a clear picture, because nobody in the realm speaks plain english. You get lost in ambiguous terms like "missing middle" and "psychosocial", until you have no idea what's actually going on.

I suppose the first chapter of that manual you refered to ought to clarify that therapists refuse to actually solve the real-life problems that make people suicidal/depressed/anxious/ect. That fact is not clarified in any of the major mental health public advertizing campaigns, and I suspect that the vast majority of people aren't aware of this. I certainly wasn't until well after I'd been let out of my therapy nightmare. So the whole system is being marketed under false pretenses.

I'm sorry for your own terrible experiance. But perhaps you might take some comfort knowing your not alone here. There are several members floating around here who've had their own terrible experiances with the mental health system. I'm sure you'll bump in to many of them sooner rather then later. 😉

Hi @justanotherguy

I just wanted to jump in here and say hi and welcome to the forums. I also want to validate your experience. I used to work in an older persons (over 65) community mental health service so would often meet people who had been with the mental health system for a loooong time! Many had experiences similar to yours. Some had positive experiences, which was great, but still there they were in the later years of life still experiencing distressing mental health issues. It's actually what drew me to the peer worker role: not focussing on symptoms and diagnosis but work with people to focus on the issues that had actually led them to the place they were at. For example many had children who were estranged from them and they felt isolated. So we would talk about ways to participate in society and the community in a way that might help them feel better about themselves, therefore leading to less bothersome symptoms. Sadly, I didn't feel like I was 'utilised' enough by some of the staff. They didn't understand what my role was and preferred to focus on getting the participant the 'right' medication or therapy.

Anyway, I won't go on. As workers within the mental health system, we need to take care of being overly critical of the system as it might deter others who are reading along from seeking help. And that's not good either. It's the only system we have for now but I do know that there is a major push by those who advocate the peer worker/lived experience role to focus more on lived experience support of participants, less on diagnosis, and more on social aspects of the causes of mental illness. And I must also reiterate that I did see many people make wonderful progress in their lives with the help of good psychologists, mental health nurses and the like. I hope that all makes sense.

Wishing you well

Hanami

Hi @chibam & @hanami

Thanks for your feedback, I was not even properly diagnosed and started off on a small dose of antipsychotics as a precaution, but the horror I have experienced is like some kind of Stephen King novel. In the midst of it all I felt like I was in some kind of bad dream and just did my best to put up with the trauma. The first psychiatrist I ever spoke to had convinced himself that EVERYBODY on earth has a mental illness, so I knew I was in for a rough time. That kind of thinking can only lead to bad outcomes, and every psychiatrist I have dealt with has been either completely insane or some kind of Bond villain in training. I am in a regional area and I know we don't get the best and brightest, we are basically just lab rats and pin cushions for overseas drug companies. They do have a duty of care but it must be so burdensome for them as it gets in the way of their little power trips and control fantasies. I have suffered genuine physical and psychological torture, but it's all with the blessing of the State and there is basically no recourse as these people are still above reproach. I seemed to be constantly lurching from one crisis to another, these people only know how to escalate a problem and not diffuse it. The people I have dealt with in the psychriatric service are basically idiots with no empathy or moral compulsion, but this is no surprise as I have always been a caring person and constantly attract life's villains to me who want nothing more than to exploit me for fun and profit. I have always known this but the psych service has hit me harder than most. I have met others being treated similarly so I knew I was not alone. I was actually told about an advocacy position at my local mental health service but I think the manager got cold feet as I would tell the other patients what was really going on and probably put them all out of a job. The psychiatric service is so totally not fit for purpose, the only thing it does well is introduce you to others with similar experiences so that you can help heal each other, and maybe get lucky and find a caring therapist and work on your real issues. Medication and hospitalisation does not solve anything, most people have some kind of abuse or trauma issues, how can a tablet fix that kind of thing? And that is the problem with the whole psychiatry field, they are looking for some kind of chemical or biological reason for 'mental illness' whey it is usually just trauma. I'm still in the stage of disbelief about the whole thing, but at least I am still sane and not under attack any more.

@justanotherguy The more you write, the more your story hits home for me. Although, thankfully, the "physical torture" was one nightmare I missed out on.

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@justanotherguy wrote:

I have suffered genuine physical and psychological torture, but it's all with the blessing of the State and there is basically no recourse as these people are still above reproach.

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The thing that still nags at me is that the Victorian Royal Inquiry into the mental health system explicitly shied away from identifying and condemning the perpertraitors of all the abuse and deplorable mismanagement that the countless victims of the system had endured. Every other royal inquiry in living memory has set its crosshairs on the perpertraitors behind the horrible incidents it had been investigating. Why did this royal inquiry, alone, refuse to take on that important task?

And don't get me started on how a prominent therapist was aloud to design the entire inquiry! Let the cartel tell the authorities how they'd prefer to be investigated. Brilliant. 😒

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@justanotherguy wrote:

Medication and hospitalisation does not solve anything, most people have some kind of abuse or trauma issues, how can a tablet fix that kind of thing?

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I would add to that sentance: "or a major real-life problem". Because it needs to be said.

Many people, such as myself, just go into therapy because we have a problem that needs to be fixed, such as loneliness, unemployment, inappropriate housing, harassment by the beaurocracy, ect. Obviously pills don't magically fix these sorts of issues, either. So we need therapists that will actually solve these problems, the way a benevolent friend or family member would do.

Unfortunately, this reality seems to constantly be ignored, even by many of the advocacy organizations that are supposedly on our side.