KuriGohan&Kamehameha
想死不能 - 想活不能
- Nov 23, 2020
- 1,888
This seemed to fit here better than the other sections, so here goes. I have a lot of complex physical and mental health issues, and have been engaging with various "help", mental health services, doing my own research, and so on, for many many years. I'm 27 now and probably the first time I made contact with any service was probably around 15-16 years ago at this point. So that's how long I have been suffering.
Whenever I hadn't tried very many things yet, I think people in general, but especially mental health workers, were more hopeful and treated me with more respect. The longer my issues have gone on, the more I have been treated with disdain, or that it's my fault I am suffering. Hell, even in the pinned resources here, you can see people espousing the view that therapy works if you, "put the effort in yourself to change, and don't expect fixes." I strongly disagree with this mindset, because I think it's possible to want relief and then a certain method of treatment is simply ineffective for you personally. In that situation, the only person who should face blame is someone who won't listen or believe you that something isn't working.
Of course, I have heard the same things many times. I'm autistic, and I've had PTSD since I was 5 years old. My PTSD has gotten worse over time in some ways, because I have been subjected to more and more physical, mental, and sexual abuse. Some of the worst callousness or bad conduct I've encountered has been at the hands of so called helping professionals, btw, which makes things more complicated because a lot of people don't believe you, if you were abused by an authority figure.
I have also been gaslighted frequently over my physical health issues. I have CFS and chronic pain. I have had loads of blood testing, scans, etc, and in the past the only thing remarkable about my results was that I have a chiari malformation, I also had a tumor in a different part of my body and none of my symptoms improved when the tumor was gone. Whenever I had surgery for this tumor, I had the worst male surgeons who were constantly minimizing my trauma, telling me I need to be forced to use dilators at home so I can be trained to have sex/be a "normal woman", and just making me feel terrible for being a victim of CSA.
I do have some abnormal results in my blood tests like low LDH, and recently issues with blood oxygenation, iron, and red blood cells. I have a family history of a rare blood cancer, but keep getting gaslit about my symptoms. Right now I live in Japan, and many specialists are off limits unless you have a referral. I pretty much went everywhere it was possible to go, even though I was terrified, only to have my concerns downplayed. Because one of my levels went down slightly on a subsequent blood test, I was essentially called a hypochondriac and told to quit worrying.
The thing is, I'm not worrying, I've been in hell for 10 years now with physical health symptoms. I suffer from dehabilitating fatigue, pain, dizziness, brain fog, vision issues, and difficulty with stamina and walking long distances. These symptoms are not just minor inconveniences, they are life ruining. Despite this, no doctors ever acted like they wanted to help me, and treated me like shit. Whenever I wanted to try treatments, I've usually had to try and find ways of procuring them myself, because medical staff just refused to do anything.
When it comes to my PTSD, I'm in a similar boat of, I've tried every SSRI (made me more suicidal, but once again I am not believed), every SNRI, tricyclics, atypical ADs, antihistamines, the gamut of psych drugs, with no improvements and only bad side effects. The only thing that helps me during a triggered episode is benzos, and they refuse to prescribe them to me for those breakout episodes, because in their words, "the effective treatment is facing your fears" despite this clearly never working for me and making things worse.
I tried pretty much every form of therapy you can think of, and it was also making my mental state worse with no improvements, constantly being forced to revisit traumatic memories. I've been to over 12 different therapists and all of them seemed confounded that a person could have so much trauma. I've tried taking psychedelics at home with a guided regimine, and the only thing that ever helped me was MDMA for one day.
Whenever I tell people this, they simply don't believe me and accuse me of not, "trying hard enough" at the treatment. Because I don't have any family or any real support network, I have been in several grooming situations when I was in high school, and abusive relationships as an adult. I have been married to an abusive guy for a long time and trying everything I can to get out of that marriage, because he is one of the worst gaslighters there is. Despite the fact that I have to walk everywhere at a snail's pace, and he has seen me on the floor rolling in pain, he would still say things like I need to take up running and I should be happy I don't have a terminal illness???
I'm working towards being able to live in an environment with two people who care about me and do believe me when it comes to the extent of my illnesses, but it's going to be extremely difficult. Even then, I have these deep wounds because it feels like all these institutions that are supposed to help me never wanted to help, or can't help, and expect me to suffer forever. It feels like living in some messed up version of the Truman show, where you know something is wrong, but everyone denies your reality.
Whenever I hadn't tried very many things yet, I think people in general, but especially mental health workers, were more hopeful and treated me with more respect. The longer my issues have gone on, the more I have been treated with disdain, or that it's my fault I am suffering. Hell, even in the pinned resources here, you can see people espousing the view that therapy works if you, "put the effort in yourself to change, and don't expect fixes." I strongly disagree with this mindset, because I think it's possible to want relief and then a certain method of treatment is simply ineffective for you personally. In that situation, the only person who should face blame is someone who won't listen or believe you that something isn't working.
Of course, I have heard the same things many times. I'm autistic, and I've had PTSD since I was 5 years old. My PTSD has gotten worse over time in some ways, because I have been subjected to more and more physical, mental, and sexual abuse. Some of the worst callousness or bad conduct I've encountered has been at the hands of so called helping professionals, btw, which makes things more complicated because a lot of people don't believe you, if you were abused by an authority figure.
I have also been gaslighted frequently over my physical health issues. I have CFS and chronic pain. I have had loads of blood testing, scans, etc, and in the past the only thing remarkable about my results was that I have a chiari malformation, I also had a tumor in a different part of my body and none of my symptoms improved when the tumor was gone. Whenever I had surgery for this tumor, I had the worst male surgeons who were constantly minimizing my trauma, telling me I need to be forced to use dilators at home so I can be trained to have sex/be a "normal woman", and just making me feel terrible for being a victim of CSA.
I do have some abnormal results in my blood tests like low LDH, and recently issues with blood oxygenation, iron, and red blood cells. I have a family history of a rare blood cancer, but keep getting gaslit about my symptoms. Right now I live in Japan, and many specialists are off limits unless you have a referral. I pretty much went everywhere it was possible to go, even though I was terrified, only to have my concerns downplayed. Because one of my levels went down slightly on a subsequent blood test, I was essentially called a hypochondriac and told to quit worrying.
The thing is, I'm not worrying, I've been in hell for 10 years now with physical health symptoms. I suffer from dehabilitating fatigue, pain, dizziness, brain fog, vision issues, and difficulty with stamina and walking long distances. These symptoms are not just minor inconveniences, they are life ruining. Despite this, no doctors ever acted like they wanted to help me, and treated me like shit. Whenever I wanted to try treatments, I've usually had to try and find ways of procuring them myself, because medical staff just refused to do anything.
When it comes to my PTSD, I'm in a similar boat of, I've tried every SSRI (made me more suicidal, but once again I am not believed), every SNRI, tricyclics, atypical ADs, antihistamines, the gamut of psych drugs, with no improvements and only bad side effects. The only thing that helps me during a triggered episode is benzos, and they refuse to prescribe them to me for those breakout episodes, because in their words, "the effective treatment is facing your fears" despite this clearly never working for me and making things worse.
I tried pretty much every form of therapy you can think of, and it was also making my mental state worse with no improvements, constantly being forced to revisit traumatic memories. I've been to over 12 different therapists and all of them seemed confounded that a person could have so much trauma. I've tried taking psychedelics at home with a guided regimine, and the only thing that ever helped me was MDMA for one day.
Whenever I tell people this, they simply don't believe me and accuse me of not, "trying hard enough" at the treatment. Because I don't have any family or any real support network, I have been in several grooming situations when I was in high school, and abusive relationships as an adult. I have been married to an abusive guy for a long time and trying everything I can to get out of that marriage, because he is one of the worst gaslighters there is. Despite the fact that I have to walk everywhere at a snail's pace, and he has seen me on the floor rolling in pain, he would still say things like I need to take up running and I should be happy I don't have a terminal illness???
I'm working towards being able to live in an environment with two people who care about me and do believe me when it comes to the extent of my illnesses, but it's going to be extremely difficult. Even then, I have these deep wounds because it feels like all these institutions that are supposed to help me never wanted to help, or can't help, and expect me to suffer forever. It feels like living in some messed up version of the Truman show, where you know something is wrong, but everyone denies your reality.
