frustrations with mental health care

[jacrispy]

anyone really fed up with the American healthcare system? in 2016 I was involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. obviously when you're suicidal you're not in the right frame of mind and the social workers hurl paperwork at you to sign when you've got no idea what's even going on. I'm now banned from owning or possessing a firearm for life. I was also told if I "didn't get better" I'd be transferred to a state facility, which is not somewhere you want to be. the doctor offered me a choice to either get ECT or go to state and I did ECT. it messed with my brain even more and a dozen medical students stood watching over me like a Guinea pig. I was nothing more than an experiment to them, coerced and taken advantage of due to suffering. this world is disgusting.

 

[Sweet Tart]

I'm so sorry you had this experience. A choice of ECT or state hospital is a hell of a choice to be confronted with. I'm sorry ECT wasn't helpful and sounds like it was a degrading experience when you were vulnerable and should have been offered the dignity of privacy.

I'm really fed up too, tho have not experienced anything as extreme. I'm on my 3rd therapist this year and am frustrated with the lack of consistency and accountability I'm seeing. I really, really need help and am asking for it but getting surface level advice and flaky scheduling. Also my psych NP just seems checked out and does the minimum.

Our healthcare system is a dystopian mess. I have a chronic physical illness and just trying to get the care and treatment I need to avoid horrible complications of my condition is an actual struggle most months. My docs and pharmacy screw up so often with stuff that I need 24/7 that the cumulative effect becomes psychological torture. Idk if this makes sense to anyone who isn't dealing with chronic illness, but just managing an illness gets harder and harder over time in a way that is completely separate from dealing with the illness itself (which is a completely separate source of agony). Apologies for going off on this tangent.

 

[AresCohere]

I'm very worried about being sent to one myself, especially as whatever condition I have continues to grow, and I'll be alone in a few months for college over a thousand miles away so it's likely to get exponentially worse soon…

If I do get sent to one is there anything I can do to fake it and get out?

 

[jacrispy]

I'm very worried about being sent to one myself, especially as whatever condition I have continues to grow, and I'll be alone in a few months for college over a thousand miles away so it's likely to get exponentially worse soon…

If I do get sent to one is there anything I can do to fake it and get out?

if a psychiatrist feels you've got the need to be in one, no. they can hold you against your will. smooth talking won't get you out of anything

 

[suicidalloser]

anyone really fed up with the American healthcare system?

only to those actually in that country

 

[SolomonKado]

if it makes you feel any better I get help from VA in the states and each mental health medication is no better then the first. WTF! Do they not want us to get better? It makes sense because that's how they make money by sapping us of all of ours for medications that don't need to be so expensive.
I just got my knew medication "bupropion" (Wellbutrin) and online it says;

Bupropion may cause some people to be agitated, irritable, or display other abnormal behaviors. It may also cause some people to have suicidal thoughts and tendencies, or to become more depressed.

 

[lsssrrr]

Sorry you're going through that.

But yeah, even voluntarily getting mental health care sucks. Some of the organizations I called have waitlists of TWO THOUSAND patients. Wait times of UP TO TWELVE MONTHS. I managed to get a couple visits at some smaller clinics, and 3 times during this month they've cancelled my appointments because of "scheduling errors."

 

[Unattainable666]

anyone really fed up with the American healthcare system? in 2016 I was involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. obviously when you're suicidal you're not in the right frame of mind and the social workers hurl paperwork at you to sign when you've got no idea what's even going on. I'm now banned from owning or possessing a firearm for life. I was also told if I "didn't get better" I'd be transferred to a state facility, which is not somewhere you want to be. the doctor offered me a choice to either get ECT or go to state and I did ECT. it messed with my brain even more and a dozen medical students stood watching over me like a Guinea pig. I was nothing more than an experiment to them, coerced and taken advantage of due to suffering. this world is disgusting.

100% It SUCKS!!! I have obama care because I couldn't afford $900 a month. Well, Obama Care doesn't pay for shit, so I figure there's no sense of continuing to pay for something that I can't get anything out of. I've posted previously about some of the therapists I've seen. A fucking nightmare. I get ya.

 

[Hollowman]

Yep it's a cruel fucking joke. I gave up hope of getting 'help' they have nothing for me. I've been to six psychiatrists, been on over twenty five medications and it was all for nothing. Sorry about your experience that sucks.