Mine is very specific. I had a case worker who was an Occupational Therapist, and she kept on sending me youtube videos of people singing to lakes because in Japan it heals your soul apparently if you sing at a body of water.
That was not helpful, and I felt it encouraged delusional thinking.
I am sure she meant well, but I don’t buy the ‘eastern medicine’ stereotype/rebellious teenager fad ■■■■ that she clearly bought into with her privileged India trips for 6 weeks at a time to Buddhist retreats yada yada
What about you? What is the strangest thing a health care worker has tried to get you to buy into?
It wasn’t that weird, it was actually good advice but when I try to tell people I get weird reactions.
I had a therapist who used to tell me to have fun and do something fun. In fact, his whole therapeutic approach was based on getting his clients to do fun things. He told me that he used to see the biggest problem with his clients is that (and I do this too for periods of time) they concentrate and spend so much time focusing on their problems that they just never have fun. And he observed that this can be detrimental to their recovery. He tried to get his clients to go to a movie or go play frisbee in the park or go window shopping downtown or go to a free outdoor concert or a museum or art gallery or go bowling.
The therapist was an ex-marine and a recovering alcoholic with ten years clean at the time; so he was pretty cool and had been around the block a few times. That was over twenty years ago but I still remember his advice now and then.
The only reason I write this is because you don’t have a lot of therapists who encourage people so strongly to have fun.
I see this a lot on online posts that people do this.
It’s a shame.
To be fair to this person, if he can get people to engage by doing fun things, no harm in that. You need to have things you enjoy. Hard to do though when you start from such a low point, but it can be done
When I got diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia one of the psychiatrists in the room said if I didn’t like that diagnosis they could change it to PTSD.
But I had a really weird therapist once. He said some off the wall stuff. I told him my wife threw things and broke them. He said what are you doing sleeping with whores. I quit seeing that guy.
I had a Pdoc who said to me that his kind of therapy, was that he spoke more than his patients. He knew everything and you should just listen to his wise words.
Unfortunately his wise words was just a rude version of “positive thinking therapy” + a strange combinations of drugs. He was bored if i tried to speak.
People singing to lakes sounds really strange, of course not helpful at all, but a very poetic idea.
I was delusional and it was my first of two psychotic breaks and the nurse that came in my room alone to do my bloodwork said, “what’s the matter?” the blood was freaking me out and I said, “are you a vampire?” and she said, no but the blood makes her thirsty…I swear to God she said that…it scared me to death later…
i saw a psychiatrist once who refused to diagnose me with schizophrenia so as to not have such a scary diagnosis on my record, but still wanted to prescribe me medication. she then told me a story about a schizophrenic patient she had that ran away from home while delusional, and he was found miles away trudging through mud. really scared me at the time, but five years later guess what i ended up doing during a psychotic break lol. i didnt walk for miles (really only like 10 blocks), but i think it’s a bit funny in retrospect
My last “Care Co-Ordinator” said he would rather i smoke weed than drink. Fcking Shocking.
I made sure i shared that little gem with his manager as well. The little shite thought he was “special” too just because he was was prescribed 50mg of Sertraline , even proudly pointing it out in his dashboard when i was in his car.
Not surprisingly - he is not working with the CMHT anymore.
(Sorry that came across as arseholish - but really? Get stoned and hallucinate my tits off - from a Care Provider? Come On.)
After opening up for the first time in years to a professional, he said
“In the olden days they’d say you’re possessed.”
I was shocked. Couldn’t believe he actually said that. Lost faith in him immediately.