KuriGohan&Kamehameha
想死不能 - 想活不能
- Nov 23, 2020
- 1,668
A huge reason why I believe my suicidality has persisted for over half my life is because the stringent, regulation-bound, trigger happy mental healthcare system completely failed me when I was an impressionable child who didn't get a choice to walk away from it when things weren't working for me. As an adult, interacting with the MH system in any capacity fills me with a deep sense of unease, puts me on high-alert, and further embeds a proclivity for distrust within me.
Now, these are my own experiences, and I don't want to dissuade anyone by sharing them. I have known people who felt supported by MH services. I just am not one of them. And there's really no other space in which I can share that, it's an incredibly isolating perspective to hold as healthcare institutions are ironclad against any sort of criticism and refuse to adapt to the needs of what are considered "problem cases."
In some aspects, I am luckier than others. I was never detained in a psychiatric ward, or sectioned, but I came within a hair's breath of that happening several times, and I witnessed a relative being detained for suicidality before, as well as losing a friend to suicide following a horrific involuntary hospitalisation. For a long time every occasion I'd hear a random knock at the door or an ambulance siren I'd jump out of my skin and panic because I thought once again I'd have to talk my way out of getting forced into something incredibly damaging for me and downplay how much I'm suffering in terms of suicidal thoughts so they don't force me into what is effectively a prison sentence rather than any sort of rehabilitation.
For people like myself, the MH services and modalities of treatment are not only ineffective and ill suited for purpose, but can cause more damage if they are continuously forced once it's been established such methods aren't having a positive effect. The worst part about this is having almost no one believe it, and having to contend with accusations that you don't want to put in the work and similar types of rhetoric. It can never be the case that certain methodologies, pills, and therapies are not suited to you, no, it is always a personal failing according to that logic, something which angers me to no end.
I remember bits and pieces of being a struggling adolescent and teenager. Looking back, what I truly needed during that time was a caring figure and a role model, as well as good relationships with other people who were knowledgeable about autism and could have treated me with kindness and patience. In hindsight, that crucial period was a time to build skills, relationships, and the foundations for a good life, but the adults responsible for nurturing that allowed me to sink.
Instead, I was put on a cocktail of medications and sent to therapy, where I was basically told I had to just continue to deal with my family's neglect until I became an adult, because they can't do anything unless my family started physically beating me in a noticeable manner. Instead of suggesting anything tangible to remedy the situation, I was told that I needed to use coping mechanisms like listening to music and drawing when my relatives were having shouting matches, breaking everything in the house, or refusing to acknowledge my presence for 3 days straight when I was still a child and dependent on them for survival.
The issue during that period was primarily my environment, with my PTSD and autism being secondary drivers that were inhibiting my ability to flourish and have a good life. Because I wasn't given any accomodation or disability support at school, I was held to the same standard as other pupils and would be taken into rooms and berated and insulted frequently by teachers as they thought I was lazy and being stupid on purpose when I was drugged out of my mind on psychiatric medications and not even eating more than one meal a day because my foster parents wouldn't buy enough food. There was a point where I was basically homeless while still in highschool, sleeping on the sofa bed of a girl I met online and working 7 hours a day many days on top of attending school, but that was never taken into consideration. Nope, I was simply "mentally ill and lazy."
I've had probably a dozen different therapists assigned to my case throughout my life time, and none of them have ever told me something I didn't already know, or been able to offer me anything genuinely useful. Probably the worst fumble dealt to me by a therapist was one of them not objecting to a 26 year old man grooming me when I was 16/17 to prime me to have sex with him and end up living with him because I had nowhere else to go. What I really needed to be told was that what was happening to me was messed up and innapropriate. I feel sick to my stomach recollecting any of this.
I've had PTSD since a very young age and it has not responded to any sort of psychotherapy or psychiatric treatment, I think the damage is deeply embedded at this point but that observation seems to go in one ear and out the other when it comes to MH workers. A sentiment I've often seen reflected on this site, and in my own life, is that there's no room for honesty when dealing with MH staff. If you admit how suicidal you are, it can put you at risk of institutionalisation. Sometimes, you can pour your heart out about what's troubling you and be met with blank eyed stares, or statements that demonstrate your burdens are too weighty for them to handle. The lack of understanding breeds more pain and resentment.
Other people would tell me, I just haven't found the "right" therapist or doctor and whatnot, despite going to so many different ones, and then later living under a system where the only option is paying out of pocket for private therapists as the national health service won't provide you with a pittance of anything. So in my case, it would be throwing money down the drain and gambling, as there are very few therapists or MH staff who have experience with extensive childhood trauma in the first place, a conclusion made not only by myself but the numerous MH staff I interacted with throughout my life. I was always told I needed a higher standard of care, but this higher standard did not exist.
Spending a lot of time online reading forums where clinicians interact and only verified MH staff are allowed to post (so it's quite legit), I have observed that psychiatrists and therapists both express resentment and hatred towards patients who cannot simply fix themselves. I have frequently seen psychiatrists discouraging each other from working in "complex" populations as they admit there's nothing you can do for certain patients, but they aren't allowed to say this to the person's face as it's part for parcel that they have to instill hope no matter what.
I genuinely think a sizable number of people working in the mental health field have no clue what they're doing when it comes to many issues. I've met so many healthcare staff who do not keep up with current research, who lack critical thinking skills especially when it comes to prescribing medications which contradict, and genuinely cannot make informed clinical decisions based on a patient's best interest because all they can do is follow tick box guidelines to try and dodge all liability. It's very frustrating because these valid criticisms are viewed as, "resistance to treatment" or irrational thinking rather than real issues that need to be addressed in order for the field to ever improve.
When you're labeled as "mentally ill' in any capacity, you're assumed to have no theory of mind or insight when it's convenient for the argument being put forward. A person could have a very rational reason behind how they feel, for example, a person who has always been alone predicting that they will continue to feel lonesome if nothing changes in their life is a logical judgement based on past experiences and current evidence. In this circumstance, that loneliness should be acknowledged in an attempt to find solutions to remedy it, but often in the mental health world, bad feelings are often treated like cognitive distortions no matter what. Another example I can think of is telling someone to feel less stress while not removing any of the stressors causing such pressure in the first place. There's a cause and effect that goes unheard. How can one solve the underlying problem if it is never acknowledged in the first place?
It's why I find so many MH treatments glaringly ineffective. It's like throwing darts blindly at a dartboard and hoping you land the bullseye. I remember being taught in my degree that SSRIs, for example, were not as effective as they are advertised, especially when you consider that many types of serotonin receptors are not even fully understood yet. Many are still being discovered far after these drugs hit the market. From a drug design perspective as well, one has to consider the question, is it beneficial to have a global effect on one type of target (serotonin transporter), without consideration of specific brain regions to reduce the risk of offshoot effects? There are so many questions like this which MH staff cannot often answer. These questions aren't being studied.
Recently, I dealt with the MH system again as I had to prove I was seeking some sort of support in order for the impacts of my health circumstances to be validated. Both encounters left me feeling worse and even more hopeless, I think upon being confronted with the knowledge that no one is going to give you novel information or suggestions it reinforces a sense of despair. Every time I deal with MH services it feels like I am not being heard at all. One MH worker told me a few months ago that it was a good thing in a way that I've been suicidal for over half of my life, because it has taught me how to "cope" with it instead of going through with the act. The underlying wickedness of forcing someone to suffer and seeing that continued pain through a positive lens just demonstrates a complete lack of insight into how awful being suicidal is.
Often times the messaging is, they are doing the best that they can with the tools that are available. In some situations, this may be true. There are some MH staff who went into this line of work with altruistic motives and truly want to help. But I don't agree with it regarding the MH field as a whole for a number of reasons. When it comes to other facets of health, the public generally agrees that medicine needs to be improved, and you will see donation calls for research funding everywhere for other sorts of diseases. Yet, when discussing 'mental' despair, developmental disabilities, and other neurological issues that can't be easily seen with the naked eye or dealt with by other medical specialties, suffering is perceived as a case of personal responsibility.
MH staff seem to resent treatment resistant patients and treat them badly in ways that would be unacceptable in other fields. "Go to therapy" has become a dog whistle insult for people you don't want to deal with or dislike. No matter how much people will say they want to erase stigma, there is a bias everywhere that can't be erased, and it is how people treat others with long-term, incurable mental health issues and think they exist of a person's own violition.
Even on here at times, I have seen people say that someone else simply needs to improve their personality, outlook, etc. I think certain aspects of one's temperament can be moulded and shaped over time, but it's completely unrealistic to expect grown adults to rewire years of formative experience and conceptions about the world that have been strengthened with time- a very fundamental principle of how synaptic plasticity works in the brain- using sheer willpower alone.
The reality is that the adult brain is incredibly difficult to mould compared to an adolescent one, and we need better methods of facilitating that. Telling someone to get over it or change their entire personhood to become more happy and appealing is simply at odds with the complexity of the human mind and what's required to initiate a biological change. Many cognitive symptoms are caused by underlying physical pathologies in other parts of the body, but this fact is neglected and often dismissed. I didn't reach the low point I'm at now without suffering from chronic fatigue for years and developing spinal pain that makes it difficult to function consistently. Yet, that aspect is ignored entirely.
Then there are also societal aspects as well, suffering is more often than not treated like an individual burden, when support from others is a key component of emotional wellbeing and stability. For whatever reason it has become completely normalized for large chunks of the population to live alone, to never leave their house, to exist almost fully online, and to be fully self reliant. A lot of human biology has not adapted to this yet. Elders die unattended in their homes, people cry out about loneliness and yet as always this is treated as an individual failing and not an error in collective consciousness and culture enabling this depressing state of affairs to happen.
A few weeks ago I complained to a therapist that there are not enough outlets for socialising post university for adults especially if you lack family support. They told me to just find groups and join them. The groups do not exist. Not only the support groups, but any sort of hobby group that does not involve high intensity sports does not exist unless you live in a metropolitan area. Even then, you could attend a group numerous times and nothing may come out of it as attendance of members may be inconsistent and people are nomadic and moving around a lot rather than staying in one location long enough for meaningful connections to form. When I point out the lack of groups to join, I'm told to just talk to strangers in the park, when that is deeply frowned upon culturally where I live to disturb people in supermarkets, parks, etc. You can't win in this scenario because they will always loop it back to finding fault with something you're doing, or not.
MH workers have made so many assumptions about me and others that they will not allow you to challenge. One thing I've been told so many times is, it's not acceptable to have a low dose of sedatives in rare situations for PTSD, you should be forced to confront triggers, no more crutches. The MH industry cannot seem to acknowledge that some people cannot "process trauma" by talking about it, and that some people will always be bothered by certain things no matter how many times you brute force them to confront those stimuli. What's even worse is that the most efficacious methods for helping people with PTSD (compounds like MDMA which stimulates a remarkable state of neuroplasticity) are completely off limits and will continue to be for the foreseeable future to 99.9% of the people who need hope the most.
The mental health system has made me feel more suicidal and hopeless, and I wish that it could be acknowledged outside of this forum that situations like mine do happen.
Now, these are my own experiences, and I don't want to dissuade anyone by sharing them. I have known people who felt supported by MH services. I just am not one of them. And there's really no other space in which I can share that, it's an incredibly isolating perspective to hold as healthcare institutions are ironclad against any sort of criticism and refuse to adapt to the needs of what are considered "problem cases."
In some aspects, I am luckier than others. I was never detained in a psychiatric ward, or sectioned, but I came within a hair's breath of that happening several times, and I witnessed a relative being detained for suicidality before, as well as losing a friend to suicide following a horrific involuntary hospitalisation. For a long time every occasion I'd hear a random knock at the door or an ambulance siren I'd jump out of my skin and panic because I thought once again I'd have to talk my way out of getting forced into something incredibly damaging for me and downplay how much I'm suffering in terms of suicidal thoughts so they don't force me into what is effectively a prison sentence rather than any sort of rehabilitation.
For people like myself, the MH services and modalities of treatment are not only ineffective and ill suited for purpose, but can cause more damage if they are continuously forced once it's been established such methods aren't having a positive effect. The worst part about this is having almost no one believe it, and having to contend with accusations that you don't want to put in the work and similar types of rhetoric. It can never be the case that certain methodologies, pills, and therapies are not suited to you, no, it is always a personal failing according to that logic, something which angers me to no end.
I remember bits and pieces of being a struggling adolescent and teenager. Looking back, what I truly needed during that time was a caring figure and a role model, as well as good relationships with other people who were knowledgeable about autism and could have treated me with kindness and patience. In hindsight, that crucial period was a time to build skills, relationships, and the foundations for a good life, but the adults responsible for nurturing that allowed me to sink.
Instead, I was put on a cocktail of medications and sent to therapy, where I was basically told I had to just continue to deal with my family's neglect until I became an adult, because they can't do anything unless my family started physically beating me in a noticeable manner. Instead of suggesting anything tangible to remedy the situation, I was told that I needed to use coping mechanisms like listening to music and drawing when my relatives were having shouting matches, breaking everything in the house, or refusing to acknowledge my presence for 3 days straight when I was still a child and dependent on them for survival.
The issue during that period was primarily my environment, with my PTSD and autism being secondary drivers that were inhibiting my ability to flourish and have a good life. Because I wasn't given any accomodation or disability support at school, I was held to the same standard as other pupils and would be taken into rooms and berated and insulted frequently by teachers as they thought I was lazy and being stupid on purpose when I was drugged out of my mind on psychiatric medications and not even eating more than one meal a day because my foster parents wouldn't buy enough food. There was a point where I was basically homeless while still in highschool, sleeping on the sofa bed of a girl I met online and working 7 hours a day many days on top of attending school, but that was never taken into consideration. Nope, I was simply "mentally ill and lazy."
I've had probably a dozen different therapists assigned to my case throughout my life time, and none of them have ever told me something I didn't already know, or been able to offer me anything genuinely useful. Probably the worst fumble dealt to me by a therapist was one of them not objecting to a 26 year old man grooming me when I was 16/17 to prime me to have sex with him and end up living with him because I had nowhere else to go. What I really needed to be told was that what was happening to me was messed up and innapropriate. I feel sick to my stomach recollecting any of this.
I've had PTSD since a very young age and it has not responded to any sort of psychotherapy or psychiatric treatment, I think the damage is deeply embedded at this point but that observation seems to go in one ear and out the other when it comes to MH workers. A sentiment I've often seen reflected on this site, and in my own life, is that there's no room for honesty when dealing with MH staff. If you admit how suicidal you are, it can put you at risk of institutionalisation. Sometimes, you can pour your heart out about what's troubling you and be met with blank eyed stares, or statements that demonstrate your burdens are too weighty for them to handle. The lack of understanding breeds more pain and resentment.
Other people would tell me, I just haven't found the "right" therapist or doctor and whatnot, despite going to so many different ones, and then later living under a system where the only option is paying out of pocket for private therapists as the national health service won't provide you with a pittance of anything. So in my case, it would be throwing money down the drain and gambling, as there are very few therapists or MH staff who have experience with extensive childhood trauma in the first place, a conclusion made not only by myself but the numerous MH staff I interacted with throughout my life. I was always told I needed a higher standard of care, but this higher standard did not exist.
Spending a lot of time online reading forums where clinicians interact and only verified MH staff are allowed to post (so it's quite legit), I have observed that psychiatrists and therapists both express resentment and hatred towards patients who cannot simply fix themselves. I have frequently seen psychiatrists discouraging each other from working in "complex" populations as they admit there's nothing you can do for certain patients, but they aren't allowed to say this to the person's face as it's part for parcel that they have to instill hope no matter what.
I genuinely think a sizable number of people working in the mental health field have no clue what they're doing when it comes to many issues. I've met so many healthcare staff who do not keep up with current research, who lack critical thinking skills especially when it comes to prescribing medications which contradict, and genuinely cannot make informed clinical decisions based on a patient's best interest because all they can do is follow tick box guidelines to try and dodge all liability. It's very frustrating because these valid criticisms are viewed as, "resistance to treatment" or irrational thinking rather than real issues that need to be addressed in order for the field to ever improve.
When you're labeled as "mentally ill' in any capacity, you're assumed to have no theory of mind or insight when it's convenient for the argument being put forward. A person could have a very rational reason behind how they feel, for example, a person who has always been alone predicting that they will continue to feel lonesome if nothing changes in their life is a logical judgement based on past experiences and current evidence. In this circumstance, that loneliness should be acknowledged in an attempt to find solutions to remedy it, but often in the mental health world, bad feelings are often treated like cognitive distortions no matter what. Another example I can think of is telling someone to feel less stress while not removing any of the stressors causing such pressure in the first place. There's a cause and effect that goes unheard. How can one solve the underlying problem if it is never acknowledged in the first place?
It's why I find so many MH treatments glaringly ineffective. It's like throwing darts blindly at a dartboard and hoping you land the bullseye. I remember being taught in my degree that SSRIs, for example, were not as effective as they are advertised, especially when you consider that many types of serotonin receptors are not even fully understood yet. Many are still being discovered far after these drugs hit the market. From a drug design perspective as well, one has to consider the question, is it beneficial to have a global effect on one type of target (serotonin transporter), without consideration of specific brain regions to reduce the risk of offshoot effects? There are so many questions like this which MH staff cannot often answer. These questions aren't being studied.
Recently, I dealt with the MH system again as I had to prove I was seeking some sort of support in order for the impacts of my health circumstances to be validated. Both encounters left me feeling worse and even more hopeless, I think upon being confronted with the knowledge that no one is going to give you novel information or suggestions it reinforces a sense of despair. Every time I deal with MH services it feels like I am not being heard at all. One MH worker told me a few months ago that it was a good thing in a way that I've been suicidal for over half of my life, because it has taught me how to "cope" with it instead of going through with the act. The underlying wickedness of forcing someone to suffer and seeing that continued pain through a positive lens just demonstrates a complete lack of insight into how awful being suicidal is.
Often times the messaging is, they are doing the best that they can with the tools that are available. In some situations, this may be true. There are some MH staff who went into this line of work with altruistic motives and truly want to help. But I don't agree with it regarding the MH field as a whole for a number of reasons. When it comes to other facets of health, the public generally agrees that medicine needs to be improved, and you will see donation calls for research funding everywhere for other sorts of diseases. Yet, when discussing 'mental' despair, developmental disabilities, and other neurological issues that can't be easily seen with the naked eye or dealt with by other medical specialties, suffering is perceived as a case of personal responsibility.
MH staff seem to resent treatment resistant patients and treat them badly in ways that would be unacceptable in other fields. "Go to therapy" has become a dog whistle insult for people you don't want to deal with or dislike. No matter how much people will say they want to erase stigma, there is a bias everywhere that can't be erased, and it is how people treat others with long-term, incurable mental health issues and think they exist of a person's own violition.
Even on here at times, I have seen people say that someone else simply needs to improve their personality, outlook, etc. I think certain aspects of one's temperament can be moulded and shaped over time, but it's completely unrealistic to expect grown adults to rewire years of formative experience and conceptions about the world that have been strengthened with time- a very fundamental principle of how synaptic plasticity works in the brain- using sheer willpower alone.
The reality is that the adult brain is incredibly difficult to mould compared to an adolescent one, and we need better methods of facilitating that. Telling someone to get over it or change their entire personhood to become more happy and appealing is simply at odds with the complexity of the human mind and what's required to initiate a biological change. Many cognitive symptoms are caused by underlying physical pathologies in other parts of the body, but this fact is neglected and often dismissed. I didn't reach the low point I'm at now without suffering from chronic fatigue for years and developing spinal pain that makes it difficult to function consistently. Yet, that aspect is ignored entirely.
Then there are also societal aspects as well, suffering is more often than not treated like an individual burden, when support from others is a key component of emotional wellbeing and stability. For whatever reason it has become completely normalized for large chunks of the population to live alone, to never leave their house, to exist almost fully online, and to be fully self reliant. A lot of human biology has not adapted to this yet. Elders die unattended in their homes, people cry out about loneliness and yet as always this is treated as an individual failing and not an error in collective consciousness and culture enabling this depressing state of affairs to happen.
A few weeks ago I complained to a therapist that there are not enough outlets for socialising post university for adults especially if you lack family support. They told me to just find groups and join them. The groups do not exist. Not only the support groups, but any sort of hobby group that does not involve high intensity sports does not exist unless you live in a metropolitan area. Even then, you could attend a group numerous times and nothing may come out of it as attendance of members may be inconsistent and people are nomadic and moving around a lot rather than staying in one location long enough for meaningful connections to form. When I point out the lack of groups to join, I'm told to just talk to strangers in the park, when that is deeply frowned upon culturally where I live to disturb people in supermarkets, parks, etc. You can't win in this scenario because they will always loop it back to finding fault with something you're doing, or not.
MH workers have made so many assumptions about me and others that they will not allow you to challenge. One thing I've been told so many times is, it's not acceptable to have a low dose of sedatives in rare situations for PTSD, you should be forced to confront triggers, no more crutches. The MH industry cannot seem to acknowledge that some people cannot "process trauma" by talking about it, and that some people will always be bothered by certain things no matter how many times you brute force them to confront those stimuli. What's even worse is that the most efficacious methods for helping people with PTSD (compounds like MDMA which stimulates a remarkable state of neuroplasticity) are completely off limits and will continue to be for the foreseeable future to 99.9% of the people who need hope the most.
The mental health system has made me feel more suicidal and hopeless, and I wish that it could be acknowledged outside of this forum that situations like mine do happen.
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