"Get help" they said. If only it was so simple.

[KristineMC]

I feel like there's this big misconception in society where people who have never lived through mental health issues massively overestimate how effective treatment is. So many people seem to think depression can just be talked away by opening up to a shrink. It seems so absurd. Prolifers or anyone in general's response to a struggling person is always "get help, talk to someone, etc etc". In their mind, the biggest barrier to people getting better is simply stigma/unwillingness to seek treatment (of course this is a big issue, but much of the general population seem to view is as the main/only issue when it is often not). If only they would seek help, it would all be solved, or so they think.

It seems like this assumption is only held when mental health is concerned. For physical ailments, people seem to understand that treatment doesn't always work and even if it does, it's sometimes not straightforward. Psychiatry is scarily underdeveloped and the brain is so underresearched that at this point I practically consider psychiatrists to be witch doctors. Thorw drugs at you and maybe one works. The only medical field with basically no definitive understanding of how any of their illnesses work biologically. Not to mention the coercive care side of things.

So yeah, I'm tired of being told to "get help" or "just talk to someone". Like, you really think I've never thought of that before? Believe me, I've tried. About 5 psychiatrists and 4 therapists. It's only made me worse. There is no hope, and I'm tired.

 

[SMxj9]

As someone living with depression since i was a child i agree 100%. Drugs only made me worse.

Sometimes they need to believe there's always a way, a cure, they can't deal with reality.

Sure you can always save someone from suicide, by basically turning them into vegetables who have no will to live or die.

 

[Lazuli]

"Get help" is one of the things better left unsaid because it's so corny.

 

[rainatthebusstop]

I'm pretty sure the "Get Help!"/"seek therapy" crowd is also, funnily enough, the crowd making the social stigma around treatment worse.

deadass got told that i would become "dependent on drugs" and "really fat and ugly" if I ever went on antidepressants by the same person who tried to forcibly admit me to therapy. It's like "do you want me to get treated or no"?

 

[Fadenself00_]

Thorw drugs at you and maybe one works

you forgot "and if they make you worse, you'll be gaslit and called crazy"

 

[KristineMC]

you forgot "and if they make you worse, you'll be gaslit and called crazy"

Oh and the "if it doesn't work, they'll insist it did and up the dosage anyway". And they wonder why people are "non-compliant"

 

[Fadenself00_]

Oh and the "if it doesn't work, they'll insist it did and up the dosage anyway". And they wonder why people are "non-compliant"

It's like an elementary school bully being given the right to categorize and drug adults and come up with terminology for their resulting behaviour

 

[KristineMC]

It's like an elementary school bully being given the right to categorize and drug adults and come up with terminology for their resulting behaviour

What I don't understand is why there is always this power imbalance in psychiatry. If I go to a GP because I broke my ankle, there's no power dynamic, and the doctor isn't superior to me because I have a broken ankle. Yet in psychiatry the way everything is charted, the way doctors speak to patients and speak to each other about patients always has an underlying assumption that the patient does know what is good for themselves, does not know anything about their own life, and is "stubborn" or "rigid in thinking" or "noncompliant" when they disagree with the psychiatrist's judgement formed in a 20-minute consultation.

I have had a psychiatrist straight up tell me "don't say anything unless I'm asking you a question", during the first ever visit, before I had even opened my mouth. I swear, psychiatry is arrogant in a way no other medical specialty is.

 

[Fadenself00_]

there's no power dynamic, and the doctor isn't superior to me because I have a broken ankle

Because both of you(r brains) have the same relation to that bone (minus physical effects you are able to experience, but those are easy to understand and communicate), whereas in Psychiatry, this "black box"-approach only works for them, not for you, because you are the black box in question, and you have a lot more access to what things are actually going on, than them.. (at least for as long as imaging techniques are nowhere near the required level of detail - which will be for a while)..

To deal with that and to avoid this type of power dynamic, there are a bunch of ethics publications and guidelines from the World Health Organization for example, taking this into account.. Unfortunately, there is no legal obligation for them to follow those standards, let alone them being actively monitored if they adhere to them

 

[xXSufferingXx]

never forget the good old: "remember, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem".

which is also pure bullshit. how do they know it's a "temporary problem"?

plenty of people in the world have very very permanent unsolvable problems

 

[starboy2k]

these idiots will let you become a psychiatrist's science project and wither away, than admit that they fucked up for bringing life into a world that is already shitty and aren't equipped to raise their children to not want to kill themselves……..but yea "get help" so they won't have to experience the real time effects of how much you were possibly failed.

I'm pretty sure the "Get Help!"/"seek therapy" crowd is also, funnily enough, the crowd making the social stigma around treatment worse.

deadass got told that i would become "dependent on drugs" and "really fat and ugly" if I ever went on antidepressants by the same person who tried to forcibly admit me to therapy. It's like "do you want me to get treated or no"?

my own mother assumed if I went to therapy I would lie, yet didn't taken to account how honest I was in telling her I was contemplating suicide….why the fuck would I waste my time in therapy just to lie.

its like they want the moral points for telling you so dismissively to solve problems you never asked to deal with, whilst making fun of you for needing help in the first place.

reminds me of the school bullies who acts friendly to the outcast for the entertainment of their stupid peers.

 

[RadiantNumber]

There is no help, it's a big lie

 

[bpdscared9]

It is, indeed, a misconception. And most people doesn't realize about the high cost of a psychiatrist and psychological evaluation and treatment. Not everyone can afford a 100+ dollar sessions everytime they wanna reevaluate your medication because the old one is being harmful instead of useful. Including me. I had to work for months to afford my treatment and also the sessions while I was battling with my own disorders, relapsing constantly with nicotine and every substance I had in hand back in the day, even reaching for harmful people as my former girlfriend. So, it's very much sad how people often makes you try to seek for help when many people often doesn't have a good incoming to sustain a long term treatment or not even mentally stable enough to keep it up with the treatment until the end.

 

[KristineMC]

never forget the good old: "remember, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem".

which is also pure bullshit. how do they know it's a "temporary problem"?

plenty of people in the world have very very permanent unsolvable problems

The logic of that sentence never made sense to me. Aren't permanent solutions generally considered good solutions? Like if you had a problem, isn't it good to solve it at its root, aka permanently?

 

[witchcraft]

The irony. The only people who seem to really understand there is no help, are the people who were promised that the help would help.

And the cherry on top is when they say you didn't try or give it a chance.

 

[Bitterly_Nostalgic]

never forget the good old: "remember, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem".

which is also pure bullshit. how do they know it's a "temporary problem"?

plenty of people in the world have very very permanent unsolvable problems

My god how the psychiatrists loved to trot out this stupid saying during my stay in the psych ward. They thought they were being so damn clever too. Arrogant and condescending pricks, the whole lot of them. Of course I couldn't argue against how idiotic they were being lest I risk being forced to stay in the ward even longer. I had to smile and nod while biting my tongue.

The very people who claim to be there to help are the main reason I currently refuse to seek it out. What an awful system.

 

[tunnelV]

Telling someone to get help is some type of useless common phrase where people pretend to care, doesn't even sound genuine. Its just the "right thing" to say. I swear some people will never understand what others experience and how it permanently changed their brain. Someone who's experienced nothing but shit for example 5 to 40, noway anyone can possibly think paying someone to listen to your story will change all of these brain abnormalities. I believe some damage is permanent.

 

[Aflame5926]

i wouldnt say it 100% worthless. there are plenty of people that actually got helped.

were just a big group that are the "unlucky" ones unfortunely.

and for ignorant people they keep hearing people that succeeded not he number of dead people. they prefer to believe in a miracle instead because that is easier to understand.

and for mental workers i think the are just assholes. they just deny the possibility of shit not working making it even more pointless

 

[ginadu]

I am seeing a psychiatrist every few months, tried all kinds of meds and have just started seeing a psychologist. I am getting help and trying really hard to recover from a major depressive episode but nothing seems to work. 100% I would be dead already if I wasn't such a coward.

I went off my endocrine therapy for breast cancer for 7 months and I was happier than I had been in years. The minute I started back on treatment I couldn't stop crying. Efexor was given to help with that and I was angry and aggressive all the time. I stopped and started that suddenly twice which is a bad idea. I'm here 9 months later on other meds now and just can't get out of the hole I fell into. I had been seeing someone very casually and we got on great. The minute I started on medication I turned into a different person, a nasty person. I was talking to him today and he just believes I was on my best behaviour at the start and just showed my true colours later. That's not true. I was super easy going but I just became seriously unwell mentally and very volatile. I feel like an alien has invaded my brain. People seem to think mental illness is just something you make up to excuse bad behaviour. It isn't. It is absolute torture every day.

 

[SoverignDreamer97]

>"Get help."

I do not put trust in princes, or human beings who cannot save, for "the grass withers, the flowers fade, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever". (Isaiah 40:7-8)

 

[BPDTalk]

What I don't understand is why there is always this power imbalance in psychiatry. If I go to a GP because I broke my ankle, there's no power dynamic, and the doctor isn't superior to me because I have a broken ankle. Yet in psychiatry the way everything is charted, the way doctors speak to patients and speak to each other about patients always has an underlying assumption that the patient does know what is good for themselves, does not know anything about their own life, and is "stubborn" or "rigid in thinking" or "noncompliant" when they disagree with the psychiatrist's judgement formed in a 20-minute consultation.

I have had a psychiatrist straight up tell me "don't say anything unless I'm asking you a question", during the first ever visit, before I had even opened my mouth. I swear, psychiatry is arrogant in a way no other medical specialty is.

The subreddit r/antipsychiatry is highly critical of the imbalance of power and patient rights. The practice prioritizes medication and lacks empathy for patients. Hopefully, they will soon improve and share your unpleasant experience.