I also heard that blacks are less likely to go to a pdoc for help with any mental illnesses.
Yes, there is a huge mistrust of doctors in the black community. I’m not sure why. Possibly because we are often taken less seriously than our lighter skinned counterparts, I suppose.
Well, I mean, if we take the study into account, I would guess part of the reason is because they keep getting misdiagnosed with schizophrenia instead of depression. That kind of treatment would make me pretty mistrustful, too.
Firemonkey, pardon me but, are you African American?
@Selah I’m white British .
lol what are you talking about?
She’s talking about the results of this study, which proves many doctors have a racial bias. Read the study before commenting, please.
Yes, I am saying that black people tend to mistrust doctors and other healthcare professionals because they are often dismissed. We tend to be viewed as drug seekers and malingerers because “things can’t really be that bad.” There’s a saying in the black community. I don’t remember it exactly, but it goes something like “if your ancestors worked as slaves for over a century without help from doctors and survived, then so can you.” I do have a theory though about diagnosing blacks with more severe disorders (or not believong them at all). So basically, ailments that typically aren’t severe for whites, end up becoming severe because they are able to progress to a point where seeing a doctor is the only possible solution. So a black man comes in seeking help with depressive symptoms which are so severe that a doctor thinks “I’ve never seen a patient with depression this severe, therefore it must not be depression.” And of course, with schizophrenia being a diagnosis of exclusion, the black man is diagnosed with schizophrenia because all “less severe” disorders, such as anxiety, mood, and obsessive compulsive disorders, have been ruled out.
I have firsthand experience with this, as when I began having psychotic symptoms at 14, many of the doctors and therapists I saw had (at most) single hour long sessions with me before determining that I was just trying to get out of school, that I found all my symptoms online and faked them, that, because I wasn’t getting any better (despite nevee having any actual treatment, just assessments), I was a manipulative sociopath exploiting my mom’s resources. One doctor legit talked at me for 5 minutes and wrote me a prescription for 50mg of seroquel. Then, a week later, he asked me if I was feeling any better. I, of course, said no, so he took me off the seroquel, put me on 50mg of zoloft and said I was just depressed. “If she were psychotic, the seroquel would’ve worked.” So I just kept getting worse and they said it was because I wasn’t trying hard enough.
I had one single doctor in the hospital who diagnosed my with psychotic depression, and I refused to take the antipsychotic (I believe it was either 5 or 10mg of abilify). I was only there for 3 days before mom came and got me because they were abusing patients. Needless to say that didn’t pan out.