I have never been anti psychiatry but the experiences that I had with psychiatrists in the past were horrible! If you ever find yourself with a pdoc that does not listen to your needs or is over medicating you with no adjustments- fire him or her and leave!
Don’t stay just for the sake of staying - don’t do what I did and settle for less!
I got very lucky and finally found a very competent- professional pdoc - she
actually cares about the welfare of her patients and does not resort to over sedating her patients to the point of zombification.
My current psychiatrist has restored my faith in psychiatry again.
Although the meds are not perfect, it’s not about the meds, it’s how these powerful meds are
prescribed!
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i am happy for you.
take care
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Very excellent advice.
Like every large system… there are gaping flaws and all levels of competency in the profession.
I’m happy with my doc… it wasn’t always the case.
But just like everything… there is always room for improvement. So as long as we seek the best we can for now… who knows what a few years will bring?
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Yeah my old pdoc used to fall asleep during our sessions!
Luckily my mom and sister jumped in to find me a new one.
I really like my pdoc now. He seems to listen very well.
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I had a pdoc that did this - he fell asleep during our sessions many times!
I like my pdoc. She is careful with meds and we talk and she listens to me. She wanted to try Lithium, I did not want that because I’m not bipolar. She did not push me. She just dropped the idea.
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Here is something I wrote about 7 years ago.
I do not support the anti psychiatry movement especially those
parts of it that are rabidly anti meds and all too readily cosy up
to the scientologists.
However i can see how some people may be attracted to the
anti psychiatry movement as a reaction to negative experiences
with a mainstream psychiatry movement that increasingly sees
clients/patients/service users as walking/talking diagnostic labels
rather than whole people who need to be engaged with in a more
holistic manner and often adopts a condescending/arrogant/impersonal/
mechanical approach to those it is paid to help .
I think also think that the dictatorial approach of those practising
mainstream psychiatry plays into the hands of the anti psychiatry
movement.
For example what clients/service users say is individually good for them
is often ignored by a mh service approach that arrogantly and
myopically says 'We know what’s best for you ’ and is often
shaped by the latest transitory ’ socio- political ’ thinking.
A personal example of this dichotomy between client/service user
belief in what is good for him/her and what the mh services dictate
was the recent closing of a discussion group that i and several others
found beneficial.
Basically it didn’t fit in with the current approach to psychiatric care
and was unceremoniously axed.
I personally think that it is the failings of those charged with administering
mainstream psychiatry that more than anything pushes people
towards embracing the anti psychiatry movement.
It is a negative vote against mainstream psychiatry rather than a
positive vote for anti psychiatry.
Unfortunately it is the mental health workers working at the proverbial
coal face and charged with the daily task of adhering to and implementing
these policies that comes in for the the face to face flak from
disgruntled/disillusioned clients/service users and carers .
In the meantime the policy makers sit in their ivory towers intent
on changing the deckchairs on the Titanic akin in their way to the
1st world war generals who sent thousands to be maimed or slaughtered
from the comfort of their positions many miles from the front line.
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My feeling on this , is yes some in psychiatry are dictatorial . But many are at the cold face of treating psychotic sympthoms. Psychotic sympthoms to you or me and indeed many are understood by ourselves , but to a psychiatrist who has experience in the field will unfortunately have met cases where persons have being agressive , where families have being destroyed where lives have being cut short . They hear the same story day in day out , people are after me , there are cameras in my home , lives withering away at the beset of delusions , hallucinations , etc. So what seems deeply personal and real to a person suffering psychosis , is just par for the course to a pdoc. And the pdoc probably adopts an insensitive approach but not untirely unreasonable attitude , if this guy/gal just took their meds i wouldnt have to listen to this crap , his/her family home would be a happier place , he/she wouldn’t be waisting their lives because of complete total and utter dysfunction , both he/she and society would be safer , the potential for destruction reduced.
When i frequent these forums and read some of the posts , i too find myself saying , i a diagnosed schizophrenic; ‘just to stop talking nonsense and take your medicine’.
So as is the case , anything up to 50%, of schizophrenic sufferers are not taking their meds, or at least enough meds , or even indeed the right med , pdocs dont look very favourably on this.
Anyway the above is largely responsible for arrogance on behalf of pdocs , should we accept blindly what a pdoc says , absolutely not , we should keep going until we get the right med at the right dose.
I had to blankly say to my pdoc that i wouldnt accept clozaril as a treatment for example , in that my sympthoms were not bad enough. So i was civil and reasonable in how i approached the subject , and the net result is im on a med that i want , and taking it all the way up to a therapeutic dose.
So be confident , be civil and be reasonable.
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I for one will never be antipsychiatry - I know the meds work - they have saved my life in the past and prevented me from being hospitalized once when I was in bad shape. I do feel feel however, that for some reason, the psychiatric field, seems to be attracting unqualified, incompetent doctors - too many of them fall short.
Many people have had good experiences with their doctors, I am not one of them - until now.
My current doctor knows her meds and seems to know how to adjust them when needed.
If I were anti psychiatry, I would find something not to like about her - I would hate all psychiatrists, and this is just not the case with me
That’s why I work in Alabama but my son is in ga. Better proctor he was a zombie he could not talk until we changed
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[quote=“SnowyOwl1, post:4, topic:14006, full:true”]
Thank you! I couldn’t agree more… I’m about ready to sue someone! Lol. My doc could barely speak English. Messed me up for like a decade.
[/quote]Some psychiatrists, SUCK, BIG TIME.
Like I have said before. My SCZ was drug induced.
The drug was a Dopamine enhancer drug that was being given to me by my psychiatrist.
When the SCZ symptoms appeared, he said, don’t worry, we will get you off the Dopamine enhancer drug and you will be back to normal within 2 weeks. After months had passed by and I was still up to my neck in bloody SCZ sh_t, the doc said that he would no longer be seeing patients of my age bracket. He gave me my files and basically said buzz off. All the details concerning the SCZ had been carefully removed from the files.
The next psychiatrists that my GP set me up with all said I was mentally fit as a fiddle, even though the hell I was going through caused me to loose 27 pounds in just a few weeks, and I could no longer sleep which led to heart palpitations due to me probably having broken the world record of the maximum number of consecutive days without sleep.
So I went in search of a psychiatrist on my own. I chose one in a nearby hospital. When I met him he said that he had several SCZ patients and that there were many different drugs available for SCZ these days, and that we just have to find the right one for you. He said that obviously he can not do anything for me immediately, but that he needed to receive copies of my files from my GP, and that once he received these copies he would set up the next appointment.
That appointment call never happened despite the multiple times I called them inquiring about my appointment status. So, one day I got so fed up that I headed to the hospital and demanded an appointment then and there. I got one. But the psychiatrist immediately said that there was nothing that he could do for me. He said that he had no experience dealing with SCZ.
So I pointed out his previous statement… “I have several SCZ patients and that there are many different drugs available for SCZ these days and that we just have to find the right one for you.”… . His face turned red and then he said “Well…ahhhh…there is nothing I can do for you,…please leave, please leave now.”.
What happened was that he had gotten word of the drug induced SCZ.
So all of this, meaning sending me to multiple psychiatrists, and that they all said that I was mentally fit as a fiddle, and this last psychiatrist having told me to get lost, was all done to cover the first psychiatrists ass such that I could not sue him. By having all psychiatrists say that I had no SCZ symptoms what so ever, this created a deliberately concocted scene of there being no problem at all, period.
At a later date, I did find another psychiatrist who was fully willing to give me the SCZ drugs, but, with a smirk on his face, he said that he would only do so if I agreed to his terms. His terms were that I was to agree that I clearly do not in any way suffer from Schizophrenia nor do I show any symptoms of Schizophrenia.
Ain’t that a laugh. Anything to cover their asses.
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My experience with psychiatrists was kind of like talking to a fence post. I think that is the way it is supposed to be for a lot of them. We’re supposed to project our conflicts onto the passive pdoc.
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