YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Well, I could go on for days about the treatment I've received at the hands of the experts, but I don't want to be a drag. You have to admit these highlights are pretty good, though:

1) (said to me by psychiatrist while in treatment for severe anxiety/panic attacks/agoraphobia) " these feelings are normal for a girl your age".

2) ( by psychiatrist treating major depression) "i'm not sure what to prescribe for you now - what do YOU think I should prescribe?"

3) (psychologist after treating me for 6 months for depression) "I'm not convinced you're depressed. I'm wondering if you might have early onset alzheimers?" ( I was in my 40s. )

4) (psychologist recently treating me for depression) "I don't know what else to do for your depression. It seems like everything has been tried. I'd like to treat you as if you suffer from borderline personality disorder because i don't have any other ideas".

5) ( psychologist after I asked him why none of my doctors had ever mentioned the potential for rage reaction with certain antidepressant drugs, as the rage had been tearing my marrriage apart for years). " Ooops!! Sooorry about that one!!! Ha ha ha!!!"

Read your list, Terry. It made my blood boil.

It horrifies me the low standard of professionalism and caring of most mental health "professionals".

But I am a little worried about my own "go it alone with self-help books" approach. I have a tendency toward narcissism and grandiosity. Using "self-help" books may prompt me to twist and coil deep inside of myself, set up a room for myself inside a dusty corner of my head.

My wife and daughter are pretty outspoken and don't let me overstep healthy boundaries and don't let me descend into myself. So maybe I will be just fine.

Please take care, Terry. Recognizing this violations of trust from your therapists leaves you fore-warned for the future. We are all cheering for you, for your best today and tomorrow. Cheers!

hahahahahaha good thread.
at one point, my girlfriend at the time had just entered rehab. her doc's initially suspected she might have Borderline Personality Disorder (after she dried out, turns out it was just good ol' Manic Depression).
Made the mistake of confiding this to my doc, who told me - in no uncertain terms - that the only smart thing to do was to immediately break up with her.
the doctor continued to tell me that Borderline patients are beyond help and I should extract myself immediately.
I was flabbergasted that a mental health professional would actually relegate any class of people into an "unloveable" caste based on an illness. what the fuck.
Unloveable? Unfixable? she was a depressed adict, not a Republican or Christian!
anyshits, that relationship continued for another five years. my g/f worked really hard at sobriety and her mental health. so living well is the best revenge.

i always get guilted.

"you're so young, full of talent, it's a shame you're throwing it away."

"what would your mom/family/friends think if they knew you did this"

"but you're not skinny/not overweight"

nothing makes someone with an eating disorder feel great like guilt, and then being told I'm not skinny enough to warrant any concern. guess I need to be near death to get real help.

Word. I generally feel like GPs here aren't taking me seriously or think I'm overreacting (well yeah, I'm clinically depressed and have generalized anxiety, of course I overreact, but that doesn't mean I don't need help). I guess it doesn't help living in a foreign country (I'm American but have lived in the UK for 3 years) with an overtaxed social healthcare system where the answer to most things is just to throw drugs at problems and hope they go away. I did get some counseling once, but for only 6 weeks. It seemed to help at the time, but I ended up just falling back down again. Just not sure how to handle things as when I was in the States I had Kaiser and could just call the Psychiatric people and get help directly. Here I need to go through a GP at my local medical centre and one doctor basically told me it wasn't worth giving me a psych referral, even though I was crying because I was so upset and felt like he thought I was making it all up. I did later receive an assessment worksheet in the mail to fill out and return, but at that point I'd convinced myself I'd made it all up so I threw it out. I think this is one issue that the NHS really don't seem to handle very well, at least from my experience and that of a friend of mine.

Granted, mental illness is just difficult all around, because no one can actually get inside your head fully and know what it is to be you and how that feels. It relies a lot on language and communication, which (as we can see in this thread) breaks down when mental illness is involved. Fun!

yeah I can relate to the frustrations above.

I have had a few great, some good, and many horribly mannered doctors; I no longer have a problem droping them from my life. I can say that is the most important part of healthcare: to find one that fits for you - somone that doesnt speak down to you, doesnt talk to you like you understand all their medical jargon, and has some emotional intellegence.

ok here is my list to share with the group (only 3)

1) After months of fatigue and some mental fogginess "well lets get you a pregnancy test" - i replied, "I already peed on a stick at home, we are all clear" he said "well lets do another one, Im not sure what else this could be" (how about a blood test? some follow up questions? really? nothing ELSE?) - dropped him like a sack of potatoes

2) After a panic attack from a nerve conduction test (large needles jammed into your mucles and then you have to move your muscles around to test conductivity of your nerves): "well, we cant find anything wrong with your nerves, and im not saying that its all in your head, BUUUUUT the pain you are having could be due to depression" (well gee thanks kind and sensitive shit for brains... you ARE saying it is all in my head with that big "BUT" - maybe let me recover from this physical trauma BEFORE you tell me something that I am NOT ready to hear)

3) after 45mins of spilling my guts about my rage/angry outburts a psychiatrist's advise is "next time you feel angry, I want you to try to stop and breathe and count to ten or go for a walk, and make a list of everything that makes you angry" (wow I spent $150 and an hour of my time for advice my mom gave me 6 years ago - oh yeah and it didnt help - way to make me feel extra crazy)

Oh man... I'm so glad I've been paired with an amazing psychiatrist. These sound awful :c
I've had a professional tell me I might be borderline, so that Unloveable bit really hurt. We can be hard to deal with, but obviously we have a capacity to love and be loved.
I don't have that many as I'm only 21 and started getting help at 19 after some real bad stuff went down, but I've been told some stupid shit by people claiming they can help me.
In no order...
1) Doc at Kaiser who came "highly recommended" literally asked me "and how does that make you feel?" during the first visit. Never went back.
2) My dad told me "you know [your therapist] doesn't know anything I don't know?" despite his own menagerie of mental illness problems.
3) Was also told that bullshit "hold your breath and count to ten" by said Kaiser guy when I asked about rage issues.
4) My dad keeps telling me I don't need medication, despite knowing what I was like before them and seeing what I'm like when I run out.
5) Despite being diagnosed with Depressive Bipolar, borderline personality, codependence issues, being *thiiiiiis* close to split personality disorder, hallucinating and not being able to remember/control my actions off of medication, and having been suicidal for many years, I'm still told by (you guessed it) my dad that I don't need to go to a therapist and I've never needed to go to one.

Oh this thread is fantastic. In a "People are terrible" sort of way. I've dealt with far too many doctors and therapists that give out shit advice and such but these are probably my top five:

1) "I need you to get these papers signed for me, I could do it myself but it'll be much easier for you.", Therapist asking me to get papers signed by my parents and school teachers Right after I explained to her that my major problem at the time was talking to authority figures.

2) "shh, I just want to try something", said after he (a therapist) turned off the lights and put his hands on my shoulders. A combination of two of my biggest fears, the dark and physical contact.

3) "Oh, haha, That's what you're taking? Yeah that's what messed you up." told to me by a doctor after I had a seizure as a reaction to the medication he prescribed to me. He prescribed all my medications to me as so he knew Exactly what I was taking.

4) "I think you're lying to me. I don't think you're taking this serious." said to me by my first therapist on our first meeting after I told her things that I had never told anyone else.

5) And lastly, said to me after explaining that I had made a suicide pact with a friend at the youth home I was at and he had killed himself and now I felt guilty because I wasn't 'brave' enough to do it, "Well, we teach you to keep your word here, but you've never been very good at that have you?"

Things like this kept me from going back to therapy for years. I'm glad that I had a few good friends that convinced me that it wasn't me that was at fault but the idiot doctors I'd dealt with.

Ooh, lately this has been my favourite rant to people. Well, mainly to my excellent doctor now and my great therapist. Horror stories abound unfortunately when you've been around with a mental illness as long as I have.

a) "We don't have time to do Freudian therapy here" : Said when I said I didn't see a purpose in doing goal sheets when I was feeling suicidal

b)"I don't know why you feel safe here. I can think of 1,000 ways to kill yourself in this room." : Said after I told a psych nurse that I felt better and safer since I had been in the hospital

c)"Well, you can just kill yourself with any pills you find in a pharmacy any day". : Said after I told another psych nurse that I felt safer in the hospital since I didn't have access to the stockpile of pills I had at home.

d)"There are no happy pills. If you want a happy pill you just need to take speed.": Said by first psychiatrist before giving me my first AD at age of 16.

e)The nurse in the psych ward who told me how many pills to take and how much alcohol to drink so I can die when I told him I was tired of living.

f)"Obviously you don't want help.": Said after I told the doctor that I was feeling really dizzy and throwing up since taking a psych med.