Comments on: When the Help Becomes Part of the Problem

Comments on: When the Help Becomes Part of the Problem https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/ Science, Psychiatry & Social Justice Thu, 30 May 2024 22:23:37 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 By: Jordan https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-282027 Thu, 30 May 2024 22:23:37 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-282027 In reply to Donna.

Right, to say suicidal and failing at thriving is to say that what is going on is an emergency. If the help becomes the problem, in hindsight, that is called healing. It weirds me out that I used to run out of breath walking up steps due to obesity. I couldn’t run a quarter mile. Now I’m relatively fit, work out 3 hours a week or more at high intensity and 2 hours at lower intensity. I’m somewhat disgusted by how I used to be. I would be offended if my doctor were to harp on it or bring it up every appointment, as I should. What makes sense in one season of our life but makes us feel awful in hindsight is healthy. It’s not the emergent part of mental health that needs to change as much as the maintenance part of it. If you’re seriously suicidal, it could take a lot of therapy and time to get out of that without chemical adjustment. It’s possible, but we don’t risk that as we have far more reliable methods. It’s ignorant to be “anti” any tool in a tool kit when you don’t even pretend to offer a better one. There is a difference between psychiatric emergency and long term psychiatric experiences. I’m anti a lot of the drugs because they are touted as long term solutions and projections are thrown at us, but my experience is that when someone is dying, we give them drugs to help. It becomes up to the individual what to do after they stop feeling that they need the help. Psych drug injuries are real but not as bad as being dead.

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]]> By: Birdsong https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-281787 Tue, 28 May 2024 03:34:04 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-281787 In reply to MD.

That does not surprise me at all.

]]> By: MD https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-281771 Tue, 28 May 2024 01:37:20 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-281771 In reply to Birdsong.

I don’t even know what that means or why depression is in quotes…

]]> By: Birdsong https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-281760 Tue, 28 May 2024 00:09:04 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-281760 In reply to Donna.

Psychiatric “medications” slowly poison the vulnerable.

]]> By: Birdsong https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-281757 Mon, 27 May 2024 23:47:29 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-281757 In reply to MD.

Get your facts straight, MD. “Depression” is not a medical need, it is an emotional need.

]]> By: Birdsong https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-281753 Mon, 27 May 2024 23:29:31 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-281753 In reply to Jordan.

Psychiatric “medication” may “work” in the short term, but the real question is how long will it take before they backfire on people iatrogencically?

Knee-jerk presribing soothes the professionsals as much (if not more) than the “patients”.

Psychiatric drugs ought to be avoided as much as possible as they are toxic and potentially addictive.

]]> By: Donna https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-281633 Sun, 26 May 2024 10:01:19 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-281633 In reply to MD.

My own psychotropic medication experience began outside the hospital. I was competent, had been working for 10 years in a renown medical teaching hospital, and had a relationship crisis. When I sought help within the system where I worked, from a psychiatrist, she listened for 5 minutes before making a diagnosis, and prescribed an antipsychotic with no explanation and no discussion of how it might affect me. The first dose paralyzed my face in a gargoyle-like mask. This doctor immediately passed me on to another one who put me on two mood stabilizers. Before long a series of medicinal “treatments” resulted in tremendously bad physical side effects and lingering cognitive distortions. I lost my job, my my marriage, my house, and my financial independence. Over the next few years I was prescribed 27 various psychotropic medications, plus additional treatments. The medications dramatically worsened my mental and physical condition. I was hospitalized at 7 different mental health facilities and I would grade only one of them “satisfactory.” It was not until 18 years later when I found a doctor willing to help me get off the medications that I was able to be restored to a normal and stable state of existence. I blame the initial quick and dirty drugging and subsequent horror-movie progression through various treatment centers and vials of medication for loss of relationships, loss of connection with myself, and eventual severe disability that left me unable to work. My family and I have decided together that it would be the worst of ideas to ever consent to such medications again. I have been scarred for life.

]]> By: MD https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-281605 Sun, 26 May 2024 00:44:50 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-281605 This is very strange to me.
You describe in beautiful but horrendous detail the pain you felt in merely existing, but later describe your suicidality as a “minor ailment”.
Medications have been proven over and over again to be lifesaving in these situations. Of course therapy is also necessary and I have no doubt an inpatient stay can be terrifying. There are many ways to improve upon psychiatric care, but what a disservice to your own history and anyone else who might be reading this and struggling to dismiss medications. Why should mental illness be prolonged for the sake of medications being “the last option”? In truth, all humans could likely benefit from therapy, but it’s also likely that medications allowed the therapy to work better (as has been shown in many studies on depression). Indeed, I would hope that you would not advocate for holding off on disease-altering medications for patients with other medical needs such as heart disease or diabetes, and your opposition to psychiatric meds is not well-explained in this piece.

]]> By: Jordan https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-281594 Sat, 25 May 2024 20:17:47 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-281594 Such a mature understanding of what you experienced and how it ultimately saved your life. Beautifully written as well!

I’ve had more hospitalizations than I care to recall. It wasn’t until worked I worked in inpatient psych as a tech that I learned to appreciate medicine. It is the quick fix and sometimes we need a quick fix. If you’re dying from something we have medicine to help, we should use the medicine. It’s too late at that point to fix injustice or resolve the burden of past trauma. We don’t have perfect medicine but we might have the best medicines now that we ever have had.

I personally spent too many years angry at the system and troubled by the interventions. But whatever, they worked, thankfully without waiting for my approval.

]]> By: Donna https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-281561 Sat, 25 May 2024 12:28:02 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-281561 I have been admittted to psychiatric ICU inpatient treatment several times. I was never sure why. It was not discussed with me. After all, I was only the patient. I was given multiple medications. I was never sure why. It was not discussed with me, the patient in the room. I was put in a “rubber room” with only a mattress on the floor so doped I couldn’t walk for days. A morbidly obese hairy-faced nurse sat at a table in the dayroom. She made up the rules according to her mood for the day, which was always bad. The other patients’ stories made me feel better. Not the nurse, the doctors, the medications, the ECT, the therapy. I was “processed” through the system like pork sausage stuffed into its casing by a machine. Then sent home to an empty house. To survive. Alone. I had lost my job so my house was foreclosed. At 39 I had to go back and live with my parents. Oh joy. Then back to the hospital where it all began again. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say. I agree.

]]> By: HJ https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-281499 Fri, 24 May 2024 17:47:04 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-281499 I had a forced hospitalization during law school; was threatened w/being removed from campus by police & committed unless I went voluntarily, so of course I went voluntarily. Claimed I was suicidal when I never said anything about wanting to harm myself. Felt like a prisoner, treated like a child, continually threatened “I could send you to a lower level hospital where bad things happen… I could be asked to decide if it’s safe for you to remain on campus-don’t keep pissing me off.” I have never recovered from it & will never see a counselor or psychiatrist again.

]]> By: Carol https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-281203 Mon, 20 May 2024 12:16:43 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-281203 I don’t understand how any woman is supposed to cope in a racist, misogynistic, harsh society. Of course you’re depressed, anxious, hyper-alert, and broken hearted.
You–we–need a lot of love and kindness. It’s not easy to find if you don’t already have it.
Sending you all love and kindness today.

]]> By: Caroline McGaughey https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-280982 Thu, 16 May 2024 08:21:01 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-280982 My husband was diagnosed of Parkinson’s Disease at age 66. He had severe calf pain, muscle pain, tremors, slurred speech, frequent falls, loss of balance, difficulty in getting up from sitting position. He was put on Senemet for 6 months and then Siferol was introduced and replaced the Senemet. During this time span he was also diagnosed with dementia. He started having hallucinations, lost touch with reality. We took him off the Siferol (with the doctor’s knowledge) and decided to try PD-5 programme offered by Natural Herbs Centre which we researched prior. 3 months into treatment he has improved dramatically. the disease is totally under control. No case of constant twitching, hallucination, weakness, muscle pain or tremors. We got the PD-5 Protocol from natural herbs centre my husband is getting active again, I’m sharing my husband experience perhaps it might help, but you still need to decide what works best for you. Sending prayers

]]> By: Anne Auguste https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-280955 Wed, 15 May 2024 21:27:14 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-280955 In reply to Someone Else.

Hello ‘Someone Else’,
Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts!

Best,
Anne

]]> By: Anne Auguste https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-280954 Wed, 15 May 2024 21:25:27 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-280954 Hi Itame,
Thank you for sharing your experience with me. I’m sorry you had to go through that. To answer your question – I’m unsure if it’s rhetorical or not, but here goes my response: I have confidentially spoken to individuals with wonderful experiences. I have heard of many more negative experiences than positive ones. A plausible reason may be that individuals could be timid to reveal they’ve received inpatient treatment for mental health. Folks could not feel comfortable disclosing – unless to raise awareness about a not-so-good experience. Your question is a good one and beckons research into the experience of those who have been committed. Thanks again for sharing.

With warmth,
Anne

]]> By: Itame https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-280879 Tue, 14 May 2024 17:38:24 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-280879 I just had a similar experience. I feel so violated and defeated by the experience. Is the stigma of institutions really a stigma if it’s the reality of nearly everyone who goes to one? I felt like I was being treated like someone who did something really terrible for the fun of it. Not like someone who needs help. It made me regress, and very weary of talking about my feelings.

]]> By: Someone Else https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/05/when-help-becomes-part-problem/#comment-280627 Sat, 11 May 2024 01:14:59 +0000 https://www.madinamerica.com/?p=256380#comment-280627 “[R]adical self-acceptance” for all distressed individuals is needed … NOT stigmatization with the “invalid” DSM disorders.

https://psychrights.org/2013/130429NIMHTransformingDiagnosis.htm

Oh, all distress caused by the world wide distressing event of 9.11.2001, was blamed upon a “chemical imbalance” in my brain alone … when I was picking up my and my family’s medical records in 2005, including from my child abuse covering up psychologist, and according to my innocent child’s medical records.

The current “mental health system” does the opposite of actually “helping” people, too often, sadly.

Thank you for sharing your story, Anne.

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