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

Hi there @chibam

You sure do have strong opionions about the inadequacies and failings of the mental health system and good on you for voicing them so emphatically here on the forums.

My major concern though is your opinion that there is no professional help available for people who are suicidal. There is compelling evidence from many forum members and others who have been helped when they were in dire need that this is simply not the case. Help is available and can be life saving.

regards

Whitehawk

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@Former-Member wrote:

Hi there @chibam

You sure do have strong opionions about the inadequacies and failings of the mental health system and good on you for voicing them so emphatically here on the forums.

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Thanks, @Former-Member!

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@Former-Member wrote:

My major concern though is your opinion that there is no professional help available for people who are suicidal. There is compelling evidence from many forum members and others who have been helped when they were in dire need that this is simply not the case. Help is available and can be life saving.

regards

Whitehawk

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Well, my opinion is based off personal experiance, of a long, deeply harmful experiance in therapy that didn't even attempt to offer any genuine help for the nightmare that is my life. It is also based upon countless testimonies I've encountered in subsequent years in places just like this forum, of fellow patients/former patients who likewise recount stories of lengthy treatment runs where their therapists gave them no real help whatsoever and often even did them harm.

But perhaps most importantly, it is based upon numerous re-confirmations I've read from therapists themselves that it is a "golden rule" (their words!) of the therapy industry to not offer patients any actual help for their inhumane problems! So if, as you say, there are indeed real cases of patients being helped by the mental health system, then by definition, these cases must all arise from rogue therapists flouting the rules of their own profession! Because the rule is not to help!

Obviously, I'm not going to deny that there are rule-breakers in the world, so your claim that some patients do get help from the system is indeed likely true. But the scarsity of these happy endings is, I believe the dominant talking point of the mental health system, not the fact that they do actually exist if you dig hard enough to find one. When the achitechture of the system is designed to not help, that is a major problem. When that achitechture occasionally breaks down and some measure of help inadvertantly slips out between the cracks, that is not a significantly redeeming accomplishment.

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@Former-Member wrote:

Help is available and can be life saving.

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This, I believe, makes a significant point; because it's important to know who's measure we are working off when we talk about whether something is "helpful" or not.

Do we define a therapist's intervention as being "helpful" simply because they prevent a death? If they took a visably suicidal patient and somehow managed to subdue or restrain those suicidal inclinations well enough that we can now trust the patient not to behave or speak suicidally?

Again, these concerns are based off personal experiance. Some people might claim I've been "helped" by my therapist because she very effectively constrained any preparedness I had to actively end my own life while I still have living close relatives who might be distressed by my death. Yet every time I have diahrea, I hope it is a sign of terminal bowel cancer. Every time I feel a chest pain, I dare to hope that it is the fatal coronary I've long prayed for. Every time I see a news story about someone getting gunned down in the street, I think: "Lucky bastard!" So yes, my therapist may well have saved my life. That life-saving was most definitely "available", as you say. But the reality of that life-saving, that supposed "help", is to be trapped in a life that I utterly despise and can't wait to be rid of.

I can't help but wonder how many people who speak of there being "help" willfully brand the inhumane nightmares like my own as such. Because when it is others' deaths that distress you, not their anguish; when it is the fact that they harbor a value system that gauges their currant plight to be a fate worse then death that you take issue with, not the horrendous plight itself - it is so easy to rewrite the rules and to redefine the term "help" to mean transforming the sufferer's picture into what the 'normal' world wants it to be - not what the sufferer themself need it to be.

I can't help but see parralels between the "help" system and domestic abuse, in this issue. How often do we hear about abusers punishing/coercing their victims into adhering to a standard that they themself have imposed, and claiming that that punishment is really "helping" their victim? Think of the husband who beats his wife for laying out the bedsheets a little croockedly. "I don't like doing this. I only do this to help you learn that you must do it properly!" he might say. Spend enough time in that sort of environment and the wife may well come to believe that it was her husband's dutiful tutelage that truly 'helped' her to become an immaculate housewife.

Is that what the mental health system does? Does it bend and break people who believe that it is better to die then it is to live as permanently lonely, or unemployed, or bullied, or poverty-striken, or homeless, or disabled, because it can't abide such values and sees them as defects to be "corrected"? Does it reshape the "defective" suicidal as an abusive spouse might reshape their "defective" wife, all the while schooling their victim into believing that they are actually "helping" them?

Do we only say that the mental health system has helped people with appalling lives, because it is so good at brainwashing people into believing that prolonging an appalling life is admirable and "helpful"?

Because lord knows, that's what they tried to do to me.

You can call it "help" if you like. I call it abuse.

Having your life saved is not praiseworthy when you would still be better off dead. I have a right to believe that a life like mine is a fate worse then death, and I am not "defective" for believing so. Nor am I in need of coersion to believe that being alive like I am now is better then being dead.

For me, "help" doesn't mean coersion or brainwashing. It doesn't mean being pressured to "cope", "accept", or "be resiliant" towards living in hell. It means actual practical help to get me out of that hell and into an environment where the statement "life is worth prolonging" is actually true.

@Former-MemberSorry if I responded to your last post a bit agressively. I didn't mean for it to seem as if I was lashing out.

It's certainly a 2-sided issue and, as you can probably guess, I've been stuck on the bad side of it.

Hell, maybe I'm in the wrong. I don't know. Certainly doesn't seem that way from where I'm sitting; but that's just opinion, not fact. And biased opinion at that. Maybe I'm in the wrong.

Either way, I can only speak about things the way I see them. I don't like the idea of pretending to buy into something I don't. So I don't know. Maybe I just shouldn't say anything at all.

Anyways, @Historylover, and anyone who might be interested/concerned - I have work I have to do tomorrow that will probably keep me tied up until tomorrow evening at least, maybe longer. So don't fret if I drop off the radar for 24hrs, give or take.

@chibam I thought we had agreed that if psychiatrists etc. weren't helping us then we had to help each other? And to help ourselves!

I will speak frankly @chibam as you do, as I believe that is the basis for constructive conversation - but it has to be constructive!

I see in you a most interesting man with so much to offer but who is locked in to thrashing about complaining about the "mental health" system. Stop it!

We can't change the past and we can't change others - we can only change ourselves!

I spend most sleepless nights ruminating over my difficulties but in the morning I inevitably put one foot in front of the other and slowly come to the realization that today is a little better than many others which have preceded it, and that if I continue to draw upon my own resources there may be even better days ahead.

We have here a constant platform to work with others who understand - who have walked similar paths to our own. It gives us a place to release our distress - to get and give support - to get our bearings and then hopefully to get on to the road to recovery. That has to be our goal.

Sorry, @Historylover .

I've always felt like it was important to try to fight to fix the parts of the world that are broken. But maybe it is time to stop complaining about the system. I have to admit, it does seem like I just get myself worked up moreso then spurring any improvements.

I'll try hard to keep my lid on from now on.

@chibam You certainly give me much to ponder! I don't respond to your posts point-by-point as there is little I can add. I agree with everything you say and your experience, observations and research has given you great insight.

I also have considered it important - a responsibility, in fact - to try to fix the things, the systems, the people in our society who are broken - but it can't be at the cost of our own peace. That would help no-one.

No need to 'keep a lid on' - just don't let these matters overwhelm you. You - we -are justifiably angry but we have to find balance in our lives somehow - don't we?

@chibam I have just watched Paula Caplan's youtube lecture "Psychiatric Diagnosis: The First Cause of Everything Bad in the Mental Health System". It was very enlightening. Are there people like her in Australia? I will be looking further into such people as there is so much to learn, but I will be taking it slowly.

I don't know how to link - or if the above reference needs a link. I'm a novice here Moderators.

Edited: Thankyou @Former-Member

For those interested who have not already seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qIQqRl94_Y

Hey there @Historylover,

If you wanted to put a link in your post you could copy and paste it in. Or you can highlight the relevant words of your post then click the symbol I've circled in orange to paste in the webpage URL you would like to link to. The person can then click on your highlighted words and this should take them to the webpage.

We only ask that people provide references from trustworthy sources for statements about things outside of your experience such as statistics, data, studies or medicine. So your post about appreciating this documentary would definitely not need a link. You can read more in the Respect part of the Guidelines.

I hope that helps, thanks for asking questions. It helps everyone who is unsure 😊

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@Historylover wrote:

@chibam I have just watched Paula Caplan's youtube lecture "Psychiatric Diagnosis: The First Cause of Everything Bad in the Mental Health System". It was very enlightening. Are there people like her in Australia? I will be looking further into such people as there is so much to learn, but I will be taking it slowly.

I don't know how to link - or if the above reference needs a link. I'm a novice here Moderators.

Edited: Thankyou @Former-Member

For those interested who have not already seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qIQqRl94_Y

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Very interesting so far, @Historylover . It's about 1hr40min, so I'll break it up and watch the rest later. But so far, very enlightening. There's a lot there I hadn't heard before.

The closest person I know of over here to her position is a psychiatrist who has likewise spoke out against the system for being non-scientific, and who has apparently faced much professional backlash for breaking ranks. His name is Niall McLaren, and here's a page that links to some of his articles: https://www.madinamerica.com/author/nmclaren/

@chibam She's very informed, isn't she? Calls it exactly like it is. And, as far as I am concerned, she mirrors my sentiments exactly. Especially as regards 'diagnosis'.

People seem to think that a diagnosis is what they should aim for and then, if they are medicated, all will be well. That is so misinformed.

People shouldn't be treated for their 'diagnosis' - they should be treated for their pain and the cause of it. That requires an entirely different field of understanding and expertise. Anyone can 'diagnose'. It takes great skill to treat and cure.