KuriGohan&Kamehameha
想死不能 - 想活不能
- Nov 23, 2020
- 1,801
Seriously, I wish that people who lack lived experiences with these conditions would keep their backwards opinions to themselves, no matter how much they think they have insight into my struggles, they only cause more harm.
This week, I was forced to confront one of my biggest ptsd triggers. I also have selective mutism due to autism, so my freeze response is exacerbated by triggers and in extreme cases, I will go mute. Now, I have told my partner about this multiple times, but he didn't seem to believe me until he witnessed it firsthand.
To protect myself from more trauma and flashbacks, I have not interacted with the medical system at all in nearly a year. However, my partner forced me to register with a GP surgery and assured me that he will manage all of the interactions as my advocate and have accommodations for me so I will not have to go in person unless absolutely necessary for a test or be coerced into any procedures.
Everyone tells me to simply not think about it, but that's not how my ptsd operates-- it's involuntary physical reactions. Sure, I have mental distress, yet for me personally, it pales in comparison to the physical symptoms that come about from the release of stress hormones. Regardless, I've had ptsd since I was around 6 and endured more and more trauma since then, so I know that these horrific flashbacks are here to stay.
Well, my partner wanted me to go to this surgery alone to sign some documents. That didn't end up happening, as I had a horrible tremor when we arrived and when he told me to speak to them without assistance my stutter became more pronounced. With the next sentence my voice was cracking too and I sounded like I was going to cry, at that point I went totally mute and couldn't get any words out.
The woman stepped outside, she was actually very nice and one of the few kind medical staff I've ever interacted with in my life, yet you could tell from the look on her face that she felt pity for me. She felt sorry for me. She said she will talk to him from now on so I don't have to speak. Do you realize how humiliating that is? Especially when I frequently get insulted and told to stop acting like a stroppy, petulant child, and to grow up.
You know there was no point in me having to suffer this embarrassment. Because I've tried every treatment that the NHS has approved for any of my problems. If you look at the list of therapies and medications that are allowed to be prescribed for CFS, ptsd, unspecified chronic pain, and IBS I have tried nearly everything besides the things that are so highly regulated that they are impossible to get like benzos and heavier opiates.
As I've said many times, no one believes me though. They think there's a magic hope and I'm simply too stubborn or unwilling to accept it. My boyfriend sat me down the day before I had to go to that office, and told me that ptsd is irrational, so I should stop pretending my behaviors and responses that come about from it (which I can't control) are logical. That I must admit I am wrong and change how I think, admit that I am ill and illogical, or I will never "get better." This really hurts, as it shows how people truly don't get it. They never will, due to the ingrained cultural beliefs that if something exhibits a 'mental' symptom it must be psychological and you can always be cured without fail.
I hate it when people who have not experienced chronic trauma try to tell me that my feelings are irrational. The same people who didn't have to grow up without any parents, people who weren't sexually abused multiple times, people who didn't have to witness death and constant overdoses in their home, people who have never been groomed nor been in domestic abuse situations, people who aren't disabled, people who weren't hit, people who didn't have to watch their family members beat the shit out of each other, people who never had to live in Foster care and poverty, and who were never sexually abused, gasligt and hurt by the medical profession.
Tell me how the fuck is my fear irrational? If others had to spend their entire upbringing living out all of these horrific scenarios, I think they'd be pretty shell shocked too. Obviously, I'm just irrational though for being distrustful of these true heroes in the medical profession who fucked me up for life due to their negligence, abuse, and drugging me up when I actually had physical health problems that needed tending to. In spite of all this, I get told to go back to therapy and that this pain and torment lingering from the past is self-orchestrated- it's my fault that 10 years of it didn't work. Mmhmm, my fault you say, why exactly is that? Because I don't have the right mindset, apparently.
Everytime I have tried a new therapist or modality I have sincerely been optimistic and open to new ideas. However, I am only met with disappointment at every encounter and wasted so much time and money often to be talked down to or treated like I'm stupid. None of that, you just haven't found the right one bullshit either, because I have literally been to over a dozen therapists in many different locations, with varying personalities and cultural backgrounds. All of them were clueless on how to help me and some of them only poured salt in the wounds by attempting to train me into "not acting autistic." Cognitive behavioral therapy is simply sanctioned gaslighting for a traumatized individual as well, yet people bang on about how it helps some people with situational anxiety. News flash, that's not the same ailment as ptsd.
This notion that therapy fails because of shortcomings in a patient's willingness or personality is ludicrous. Would you go tell someone in a dialysis machine that it's their fault all other treatments have failed? They should have just conjured up more willpower to get their kidneys working again, huh? See how ridiculous that sort of statement is? People are perfectly content applying subjective judgements to the efficacy of treatments when it is in regards to anything that's been labeled as "mental." Hell, sometimes physical illnesses as well, if you have chronic pain. People with dehabilitating chronic fatigue syndrome and chronic pain like me literally get told to attend CBT courses and treated as if our pain is all in our heads and we can control the physical sensations we feel from a somatic disease.
Stop treating CBT like a panacea. You know, people like to tout that current modalities of therapy are scientifically sound with extensive empirical evidence to back them up, so that they can blame you if these Freudian offshoots don't work and you want to see some actual changes made to the mental health industry. However, you can read many papers that disagree with the unfettered worship of therapy and the claims of near 100% efficacy.
CBT is not even half as effective as it used to be: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...cbt-is-falling-out-of-favour-oliver-burkeman#
Thousands of veterans with PTSD don't complete therapy courses and drop out: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100210110742.htm
In this older study involving EDMR therapy, they try to claim that within 3 sessions, EDMR has resulted in 84% of patients in the study no longer meeting the criteria for ptsd, and 68% reduction of ptsd symptoms, which completely contradicts their earlier point. That is not anywhere near "curing ptsd" because trauma manifests with many different symptomatic presentations, and also half the people in this study DID NOT EVEN HAVE PTSD: https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/0022-006X.65.6.1047
No change in efficacy between EDMR and exposure therapy, but once again their main measurement metrics for the success of their treatments are "depression, anxiety, and dissociation levels" stop trying to conflate multiple conditions. Depression is not ptsd, and ptsd is not depression: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jts.20069
Next, in a meta analysis of 19 studies on ptsd therapy efficacy, only 44% who entered treatment and 54% who finished their their chosen therapy course were classified as improved: https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.162.2.214
There are dozens of articles out there, where you can clearly see the data has been massaged to got a more "favorable conclusion" such as conflating different illnesses to try and achieve a positive symptom reduction in time for publication. My point is, therapy is not infallible and it's no one's fault if it doesn't work. These methods are clearly lacking, and no one is talking about it. Sure, some people are being helped, but if you examine studies it seems to be people with very mild depressive symptoms who otherwise have favorable life circumstances. Not the people on this forum who suffer from severe anhedonia, bpd, ptsd, psychosis, autism and other developmental disabilities, severe chronic pain and physical illnesses- an amalgamation of different maladies.
I wish society would stop treating us an one entity. An entity that just needs to spend another few thousand dollars or pounds on therapy, then we will magically stop being "irrational" and loving a life that kicks us into the dirt constantly.
This week, I was forced to confront one of my biggest ptsd triggers. I also have selective mutism due to autism, so my freeze response is exacerbated by triggers and in extreme cases, I will go mute. Now, I have told my partner about this multiple times, but he didn't seem to believe me until he witnessed it firsthand.
To protect myself from more trauma and flashbacks, I have not interacted with the medical system at all in nearly a year. However, my partner forced me to register with a GP surgery and assured me that he will manage all of the interactions as my advocate and have accommodations for me so I will not have to go in person unless absolutely necessary for a test or be coerced into any procedures.
Everyone tells me to simply not think about it, but that's not how my ptsd operates-- it's involuntary physical reactions. Sure, I have mental distress, yet for me personally, it pales in comparison to the physical symptoms that come about from the release of stress hormones. Regardless, I've had ptsd since I was around 6 and endured more and more trauma since then, so I know that these horrific flashbacks are here to stay.
Well, my partner wanted me to go to this surgery alone to sign some documents. That didn't end up happening, as I had a horrible tremor when we arrived and when he told me to speak to them without assistance my stutter became more pronounced. With the next sentence my voice was cracking too and I sounded like I was going to cry, at that point I went totally mute and couldn't get any words out.
The woman stepped outside, she was actually very nice and one of the few kind medical staff I've ever interacted with in my life, yet you could tell from the look on her face that she felt pity for me. She felt sorry for me. She said she will talk to him from now on so I don't have to speak. Do you realize how humiliating that is? Especially when I frequently get insulted and told to stop acting like a stroppy, petulant child, and to grow up.
You know there was no point in me having to suffer this embarrassment. Because I've tried every treatment that the NHS has approved for any of my problems. If you look at the list of therapies and medications that are allowed to be prescribed for CFS, ptsd, unspecified chronic pain, and IBS I have tried nearly everything besides the things that are so highly regulated that they are impossible to get like benzos and heavier opiates.
As I've said many times, no one believes me though. They think there's a magic hope and I'm simply too stubborn or unwilling to accept it. My boyfriend sat me down the day before I had to go to that office, and told me that ptsd is irrational, so I should stop pretending my behaviors and responses that come about from it (which I can't control) are logical. That I must admit I am wrong and change how I think, admit that I am ill and illogical, or I will never "get better." This really hurts, as it shows how people truly don't get it. They never will, due to the ingrained cultural beliefs that if something exhibits a 'mental' symptom it must be psychological and you can always be cured without fail.
I hate it when people who have not experienced chronic trauma try to tell me that my feelings are irrational. The same people who didn't have to grow up without any parents, people who weren't sexually abused multiple times, people who didn't have to witness death and constant overdoses in their home, people who have never been groomed nor been in domestic abuse situations, people who aren't disabled, people who weren't hit, people who didn't have to watch their family members beat the shit out of each other, people who never had to live in Foster care and poverty, and who were never sexually abused, gasligt and hurt by the medical profession.
Tell me how the fuck is my fear irrational? If others had to spend their entire upbringing living out all of these horrific scenarios, I think they'd be pretty shell shocked too. Obviously, I'm just irrational though for being distrustful of these true heroes in the medical profession who fucked me up for life due to their negligence, abuse, and drugging me up when I actually had physical health problems that needed tending to. In spite of all this, I get told to go back to therapy and that this pain and torment lingering from the past is self-orchestrated- it's my fault that 10 years of it didn't work. Mmhmm, my fault you say, why exactly is that? Because I don't have the right mindset, apparently.
Everytime I have tried a new therapist or modality I have sincerely been optimistic and open to new ideas. However, I am only met with disappointment at every encounter and wasted so much time and money often to be talked down to or treated like I'm stupid. None of that, you just haven't found the right one bullshit either, because I have literally been to over a dozen therapists in many different locations, with varying personalities and cultural backgrounds. All of them were clueless on how to help me and some of them only poured salt in the wounds by attempting to train me into "not acting autistic." Cognitive behavioral therapy is simply sanctioned gaslighting for a traumatized individual as well, yet people bang on about how it helps some people with situational anxiety. News flash, that's not the same ailment as ptsd.
This notion that therapy fails because of shortcomings in a patient's willingness or personality is ludicrous. Would you go tell someone in a dialysis machine that it's their fault all other treatments have failed? They should have just conjured up more willpower to get their kidneys working again, huh? See how ridiculous that sort of statement is? People are perfectly content applying subjective judgements to the efficacy of treatments when it is in regards to anything that's been labeled as "mental." Hell, sometimes physical illnesses as well, if you have chronic pain. People with dehabilitating chronic fatigue syndrome and chronic pain like me literally get told to attend CBT courses and treated as if our pain is all in our heads and we can control the physical sensations we feel from a somatic disease.
Stop treating CBT like a panacea. You know, people like to tout that current modalities of therapy are scientifically sound with extensive empirical evidence to back them up, so that they can blame you if these Freudian offshoots don't work and you want to see some actual changes made to the mental health industry. However, you can read many papers that disagree with the unfettered worship of therapy and the claims of near 100% efficacy.
CBT is not even half as effective as it used to be: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...cbt-is-falling-out-of-favour-oliver-burkeman#
Thousands of veterans with PTSD don't complete therapy courses and drop out: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100210110742.htm
In this older study involving EDMR therapy, they try to claim that within 3 sessions, EDMR has resulted in 84% of patients in the study no longer meeting the criteria for ptsd, and 68% reduction of ptsd symptoms, which completely contradicts their earlier point. That is not anywhere near "curing ptsd" because trauma manifests with many different symptomatic presentations, and also half the people in this study DID NOT EVEN HAVE PTSD: https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/0022-006X.65.6.1047
No change in efficacy between EDMR and exposure therapy, but once again their main measurement metrics for the success of their treatments are "depression, anxiety, and dissociation levels" stop trying to conflate multiple conditions. Depression is not ptsd, and ptsd is not depression: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jts.20069
Next, in a meta analysis of 19 studies on ptsd therapy efficacy, only 44% who entered treatment and 54% who finished their their chosen therapy course were classified as improved: https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.162.2.214
There are dozens of articles out there, where you can clearly see the data has been massaged to got a more "favorable conclusion" such as conflating different illnesses to try and achieve a positive symptom reduction in time for publication. My point is, therapy is not infallible and it's no one's fault if it doesn't work. These methods are clearly lacking, and no one is talking about it. Sure, some people are being helped, but if you examine studies it seems to be people with very mild depressive symptoms who otherwise have favorable life circumstances. Not the people on this forum who suffer from severe anhedonia, bpd, ptsd, psychosis, autism and other developmental disabilities, severe chronic pain and physical illnesses- an amalgamation of different maladies.
I wish society would stop treating us an one entity. An entity that just needs to spend another few thousand dollars or pounds on therapy, then we will magically stop being "irrational" and loving a life that kicks us into the dirt constantly.
