My own thoughts on the failures of the MH system

[KuriGohan&Kamehameha]

A huge reason why I believe my suicidality has persisted for over half my life is because the stringent, regulation-bound, trigger happy mental healthcare system completely failed me when I was an impressionable child who didn't get a choice to walk away from it when things weren't working for me. As an adult, interacting with the MH system in any capacity fills me with a deep sense of unease, puts me on high-alert, and further embeds a proclivity for distrust within me.

Now, these are my own experiences, and I don't want to dissuade anyone by sharing them. I have known people who felt supported by MH services. I just am not one of them. And there's really no other space in which I can share that, it's an incredibly isolating perspective to hold as healthcare institutions are ironclad against any sort of criticism and refuse to adapt to the needs of what are considered "problem cases."

In some aspects, I am luckier than others. I was never detained in a psychiatric ward, or sectioned, but I came within a hair's breath of that happening several times, and I witnessed a relative being detained for suicidality before, as well as losing a friend to suicide following a horrific involuntary hospitalisation. For a long time every occasion I'd hear a random knock at the door or an ambulance siren I'd jump out of my skin and panic because I thought once again I'd have to talk my way out of getting forced into something incredibly damaging for me and downplay how much I'm suffering in terms of suicidal thoughts so they don't force me into what is effectively a prison sentence rather than any sort of rehabilitation.

For people like myself, the MH services and modalities of treatment are not only ineffective and ill suited for purpose, but can cause more damage if they are continuously forced once it's been established such methods aren't having a positive effect. The worst part about this is having almost no one believe it, and having to contend with accusations that you don't want to put in the work and similar types of rhetoric. It can never be the case that certain methodologies, pills, and therapies are not suited to you, no, it is always a personal failing according to that logic, something which angers me to no end.

I remember bits and pieces of being a struggling adolescent and teenager. Looking back, what I truly needed during that time was a caring figure and a role model, as well as good relationships with other people who were knowledgeable about autism and could have treated me with kindness and patience. In hindsight, that crucial period was a time to build skills, relationships, and the foundations for a good life, but the adults responsible for nurturing that allowed me to sink.

Instead, I was put on a cocktail of medications and sent to therapy, where I was basically told I had to just continue to deal with my family's neglect until I became an adult, because they can't do anything unless my family started physically beating me in a noticeable manner. Instead of suggesting anything tangible to remedy the situation, I was told that I needed to use coping mechanisms like listening to music and drawing when my relatives were having shouting matches, breaking everything in the house, or refusing to acknowledge my presence for 3 days straight when I was still a child and dependent on them for survival.

The issue during that period was primarily my environment, with my PTSD and autism being secondary drivers that were inhibiting my ability to flourish and have a good life. Because I wasn't given any accomodation or disability support at school, I was held to the same standard as other pupils and would be taken into rooms and berated and insulted frequently by teachers as they thought I was lazy and being stupid on purpose when I was drugged out of my mind on psychiatric medications and not even eating more than one meal a day because my foster parents wouldn't buy enough food. There was a point where I was basically homeless while still in highschool, sleeping on the sofa bed of a girl I met online and working 7 hours a day many days on top of attending school, but that was never taken into consideration. Nope, I was simply "mentally ill and lazy."

I've had probably a dozen different therapists assigned to my case throughout my life time, and none of them have ever told me something I didn't already know, or been able to offer me anything genuinely useful. Probably the worst fumble dealt to me by a therapist was one of them not objecting to a 26 year old man grooming me when I was 16/17 to prime me to have sex with him and end up living with him because I had nowhere else to go. What I really needed to be told was that what was happening to me was messed up and innapropriate. I feel sick to my stomach recollecting any of this.

I've had PTSD since a very young age and it has not responded to any sort of psychotherapy or psychiatric treatment, I think the damage is deeply embedded at this point but that observation seems to go in one ear and out the other when it comes to MH workers. A sentiment I've often seen reflected on this site, and in my own life, is that there's no room for honesty when dealing with MH staff. If you admit how suicidal you are, it can put you at risk of institutionalisation. Sometimes, you can pour your heart out about what's troubling you and be met with blank eyed stares, or statements that demonstrate your burdens are too weighty for them to handle. The lack of understanding breeds more pain and resentment.

Other people would tell me, I just haven't found the "right" therapist or doctor and whatnot, despite going to so many different ones, and then later living under a system where the only option is paying out of pocket for private therapists as the national health service won't provide you with a pittance of anything. So in my case, it would be throwing money down the drain and gambling, as there are very few therapists or MH staff who have experience with extensive childhood trauma in the first place, a conclusion made not only by myself but the numerous MH staff I interacted with throughout my life. I was always told I needed a higher standard of care, but this higher standard did not exist.

Spending a lot of time online reading forums where clinicians interact and only verified MH staff are allowed to post (so it's quite legit), I have observed that psychiatrists and therapists both express resentment and hatred towards patients who cannot simply fix themselves. I have frequently seen psychiatrists discouraging each other from working in "complex" populations as they admit there's nothing you can do for certain patients, but they aren't allowed to say this to the person's face as it's part for parcel that they have to instill hope no matter what.

I genuinely think a sizable number of people working in the mental health field have no clue what they're doing when it comes to many issues. I've met so many healthcare staff who do not keep up with current research, who lack critical thinking skills especially when it comes to prescribing medications which contradict, and genuinely cannot make informed clinical decisions based on a patient's best interest because all they can do is follow tick box guidelines to try and dodge all liability. It's very frustrating because these valid criticisms are viewed as, "resistance to treatment" or irrational thinking rather than real issues that need to be addressed in order for the field to ever improve.

When you're labeled as "mentally ill' in any capacity, you're assumed to have no theory of mind or insight when it's convenient for the argument being put forward. A person could have a very rational reason behind how they feel, for example, a person who has always been alone predicting that they will continue to feel lonesome if nothing changes in their life is a logical judgement based on past experiences and current evidence. In this circumstance, that loneliness should be acknowledged in an attempt to find solutions to remedy it, but often in the mental health world, bad feelings are often treated like cognitive distortions no matter what. Another example I can think of is telling someone to feel less stress while not removing any of the stressors causing such pressure in the first place. There's a cause and effect that goes unheard. How can one solve the underlying problem if it is never acknowledged in the first place?

It's why I find so many MH treatments glaringly ineffective. It's like throwing darts blindly at a dartboard and hoping you land the bullseye. I remember being taught in my degree that SSRIs, for example, were not as effective as they are advertised, especially when you consider that many types of serotonin receptors are not even fully understood yet. Many are still being discovered far after these drugs hit the market. From a drug design perspective as well, one has to consider the question, is it beneficial to have a global effect on one type of target (serotonin transporter), without consideration of specific brain regions to reduce the risk of offshoot effects? There are so many questions like this which MH staff cannot often answer. These questions aren't being studied.

Recently, I dealt with the MH system again as I had to prove I was seeking some sort of support in order for the impacts of my health circumstances to be validated. Both encounters left me feeling worse and even more hopeless, I think upon being confronted with the knowledge that no one is going to give you novel information or suggestions it reinforces a sense of despair. Every time I deal with MH services it feels like I am not being heard at all. One MH worker told me a few months ago that it was a good thing in a way that I've been suicidal for over half of my life, because it has taught me how to "cope" with it instead of going through with the act. The underlying wickedness of forcing someone to suffer and seeing that continued pain through a positive lens just demonstrates a complete lack of insight into how awful being suicidal is.

Often times the messaging is, they are doing the best that they can with the tools that are available. In some situations, this may be true. There are some MH staff who went into this line of work with altruistic motives and truly want to help. But I don't agree with it regarding the MH field as a whole for a number of reasons. When it comes to other facets of health, the public generally agrees that medicine needs to be improved, and you will see donation calls for research funding everywhere for other sorts of diseases. Yet, when discussing 'mental' despair, developmental disabilities, and other neurological issues that can't be easily seen with the naked eye or dealt with by other medical specialties, suffering is perceived as a case of personal responsibility.

MH staff seem to resent treatment resistant patients and treat them badly in ways that would be unacceptable in other fields. "Go to therapy" has become a dog whistle insult for people you don't want to deal with or dislike. No matter how much people will say they want to erase stigma, there is a bias everywhere that can't be erased, and it is how people treat others with long-term, incurable mental health issues and think they exist of a person's own violition.

Even on here at times, I have seen people say that someone else simply needs to improve their personality, outlook, etc. I think certain aspects of one's temperament can be moulded and shaped over time, but it's completely unrealistic to expect grown adults to rewire years of formative experience and conceptions about the world that have been strengthened with time- a very fundamental principle of how synaptic plasticity works in the brain- using sheer willpower alone.

The reality is that the adult brain is incredibly difficult to mould compared to an adolescent one, and we need better methods of facilitating that. Telling someone to get over it or change their entire personhood to become more happy and appealing is simply at odds with the complexity of the human mind and what's required to initiate a biological change. Many cognitive symptoms are caused by underlying physical pathologies in other parts of the body, but this fact is neglected and often dismissed. I didn't reach the low point I'm at now without suffering from chronic fatigue for years and developing spinal pain that makes it difficult to function consistently. Yet, that aspect is ignored entirely.

Then there are also societal aspects as well, suffering is more often than not treated like an individual burden, when support from others is a key component of emotional wellbeing and stability. For whatever reason it has become completely normalized for large chunks of the population to live alone, to never leave their house, to exist almost fully online, and to be fully self reliant. A lot of human biology has not adapted to this yet. Elders die unattended in their homes, people cry out about loneliness and yet as always this is treated as an individual failing and not an error in collective consciousness and culture enabling this depressing state of affairs to happen.

A few weeks ago I complained to a therapist that there are not enough outlets for socialising post university for adults especially if you lack family support. They told me to just find groups and join them. The groups do not exist. Not only the support groups, but any sort of hobby group that does not involve high intensity sports does not exist unless you live in a metropolitan area. Even then, you could attend a group numerous times and nothing may come out of it as attendance of members may be inconsistent and people are nomadic and moving around a lot rather than staying in one location long enough for meaningful connections to form. When I point out the lack of groups to join, I'm told to just talk to strangers in the park, when that is deeply frowned upon culturally where I live to disturb people in supermarkets, parks, etc. You can't win in this scenario because they will always loop it back to finding fault with something you're doing, or not.

MH workers have made so many assumptions about me and others that they will not allow you to challenge. One thing I've been told so many times is, it's not acceptable to have a low dose of sedatives in rare situations for PTSD, you should be forced to confront triggers, no more crutches. The MH industry cannot seem to acknowledge that some people cannot "process trauma" by talking about it, and that some people will always be bothered by certain things no matter how many times you brute force them to confront those stimuli. What's even worse is that the most efficacious methods for helping people with PTSD (compounds like MDMA which stimulates a remarkable state of neuroplasticity) are completely off limits and will continue to be for the foreseeable future to 99.9% of the people who need hope the most.

The mental health system has made me feel more suicidal and hopeless, and I wish that it could be acknowledged outside of this forum that situations like mine do happen.

 

[Priestess]

You're right. I've had 5 therapies and 5 antidepressants. None worked and several had appalling side effects. I've had severe depression for over 25 years, one suicide attempt already, a history of self harm and a major eating disorder (started off as anorexia for a few years then turned into bulimia). Here are some examples of the therapy I've been given on the NHS:

One therapist was a hippie who told me to buy the New Age book, "The Secret," about the law of attraction, and use the law of attraction to attract whatever I want into my life, then I won't need to be depressed any more.

One therapist suggested this to cure my lifelong eating disorder: that I should write a list of all the reasons I should eat normally and then look at it whenever I want to starve or binge I should look at the list and just eat normally.

My current therapist is obsessed with making me write timetables for myself. Depressed? Anxious? Eating disorder? Just write a healthy daily timetable for yourself and stick to it! Never mind any real help. I'm living in an abusive situation right now and every week she promises to find some resources for me to find a better living situation and every week she forgets to do it. And ALL of these therapists blamed me when these "therapies" and antidepressants didn't work.

As you say, telling people to feel less stressed while doing nothing to get rid of the source of the stress is a big one. My current therapist actually said to me this week that her objective with this therapy is just to get me to accept my situation and learn to live with the stress. Why am I still having this therapy? One reason only: I'm going through a PIP reassessment right now and if I'm not in treatment they'll likely stop my payments. As soon as I get my award, I'm quitting (unless I can ctb before then).

Like you, I was blamed as a problem child during my youth. I was actually an abused and neglected child, but no adult even thought to ask if some deeper issue was going on. They just blamed me.

Same thing with my physical health. I was ill for three and a half years. No doctor would do tests and my parents wouldn't advocate for me. They all just called me a lazy hypochondriac. Later turned out I actually had thyroid cancer.

 

[Adûnâi]

The idea of involuntary hospitalisation is so horrific, it's like being burned alive, or impaled by Dracula, or raped. I would totally understand proceeding with suicide asap if that is on the table. To hell with the malicious and vile normie retards. I think I'm safe now, and that is only a possibility on the screen, but if it were real, I'd totally kill myself. (And to hell with Buddhist ideas of reincarnations, I'd kill myself in the next life, too, lmao.)

Edit.

A few weeks ago I complained to a therapist that there are not enough outlets for socialising post university for adults especially if you lack family support. They told me to just find groups and join them. The groups do not exist. Not only the support groups, but any sort of hobby group that does not involve high intensity sports does not exist unless you live in a metropolitan area. Even then, you could attend a group numerous times and nothing may come out of it as attendance of members may be inconsistent and people are nomadic and moving around a lot rather than staying in one location long enough for meaningful connections to form. When I point out the lack of groups to join, I'm told to just talk to strangers in the park, when that is deeply frowned upon culturally where I live to disturb people in supermarkets, parks, etc. You can't win in this scenario because they will always loop it back to finding fault with something you're doing, or not.

Now this hits close to home. (Although I'm Ukrainian, and you're probably talking about America, and I may be applying American standards to the Ukraine.) I feel like without the clan systems of Asia, or without the totalitarian party system of the deceased USSR, all we can do is die unattended indeed. Maybe women have it better due to the ease of forming a relationship, but men should just die. And it's fine, really - without such circumstances, America would have conquered the world, so we should be considered a price paid for no second Hitler (pbuh).

 

[NumbItAll]

The whole approach to mental health is wrong for the reasons you mentioned (you have a better understanding than most professionals). Are people suddenly way happier these days because of the availability of therapy and meds? It doesn't seem like it. I'm sure some people are helped, but I honestly think the system creates more patients than it helps. Also, convincing people that they are inherently defective rather than helping them solve their underlying problems just sets them on a path toward failure.

 

[KuriGohan&Kamehameha]

You're right. I've had 5 therapies and 5 antidepressants. None worked and several had appalling side effects. I've had severe depression for over 25 years, one suicide attempt already, a history of self harm and a major eating disorder (started off as anorexia for a few years then turned into bulimia). Here are some examples of the therapy I've been given on the NHS:

One therapist was a hippie who told me to buy the New Age book, "The Secret," about the law of attraction, and use the law of attraction to attract whatever I want into my life, then I won't need to be depressed any more.

One therapist suggested this to cure my lifelong eating disorder: that I should write a list of all the reasons I should eat normally and then look at it whenever I want to starve or binge I should look at the list and just eat normally.

My current therapist is obsessed with making me write timetables for myself. Depressed? Anxious? Eating disorder? Just write a healthy daily timetable for yourself and stick to it! Never mind any real help. I'm living in an abusive situation right now and every week she promises to find some resources for me to find a better living situation and every week she forgets to do it. And ALL of these therapists blamed me when these "therapies" and antidepressants didn't work.

As you say, telling people to feel less stressed while doing nothing to get rid of the source of the stress is a big one. My current therapist actually said to me this week that her objective with this therapy is just to get me to accept my situation and learn to live with the stress. Why am I still having this therapy? One reason only: I'm going through a PIP reassessment right now and if I'm not in treatment they'll likely stop my payments. As soon as I get my award, I'm quitting (unless I can ctb before then).

Like you, I was blamed as a problem child during my youth. I was actually an abused and neglected child, but no adult even thought to ask if some deeper issue was going on. They just blamed me.

Same thing with my physical health. I was ill for three and a half years. No doctor would do tests and my parents wouldn't advocate for me. They all just called me a lazy hypochondriac. Later turned out I actually had thyroid cancer.

I hope you're feeling a bit better now, with your thyroid, and have been able to stay in remission. Having your hormones messed with is no joke, especially if it's being caused by cancer/tumors. And we all know the NHS doesn't really often do their duty of care to check in on people with health conditions that can relapse.

I had a huge tumor (that turned out to be non-cancerous in the end) removed myself from my reproductive organs over a year ago. It took years for me to find out I had a massive tumor in the first place until it completely stopped me from being unable to use the bathroom anymore because it was blocking so many organs. Doctors said many times I was just not exercising enough, lazy, anxious, or not eating enough fiber. Even now I still bleed occasionally and have lots of pain in that area and I was told it's likely I'll end up with more tumors eventually but if I have my ovaries removed I'd need to take synthetic hormones forever. Such great healthcare.

It must be so frustrating that you have to keep going to something that isn't useful and productive for you, in order to be able to retain the benefits you need to sustain yourself. I think the people who make the regulations don't realize how useless "treatment" can be or even more damaging in certain situations. They just assume everything can be fixed if you just keep going to professionals enough times.

Forcing people to accept messed up situations has never sit right with me. I've been told similar things many times before. With my chronic health problems, I've been told that I need to just "accept that this is the way life is now." Rather than being offered anything that might actually remedy any of my symptoms somewhat. I've spent ages trying off label treatments I bought online because they literally will not do anything for me anymore and gave up. It's disheartening to be told that we have to accept bad situations, over, and over, and over again. And yet they want us to have hope?? How??

If they don't give you any information about housing resources soon you may have to push the council/social services. I've been through the same rigamarole when it comes to referrals, no joke I've been told multiple times over the span of many months that I would be referred to a number of services which ended up not existing. Each time I would go back and probe again only for them to have forgotten or pretend they never mentioned it and push talkworks again. You deserve better than this crap too. We all deserve better.

The whole approach to mental health is wrong for the reasons you mentioned (you have a better understanding than most professionals). Are people suddenly way happier these days because of the availability of therapy and meds? It doesn't seem like it. I'm sure some people are helped, but I honestly think the system creates more patients than it helps. Also, convincing people that they are inherently defective rather than helping them solve their underlying problems just sets them on a path toward failure.

Agree with all of this 100%, especially how these systems convinced many people that we are defective and unworthy of having a place in this world, whilst expecting us to just be happy and content with such a harsh judgement call.

While I know not everyone's pain can be absolved with love/positive attention, looking back on my adolescence the difference in how things turned out would have been night and day if I'd had any sort of positive reinforcement and encouragement as opposed to vitriol and being labeled as a lost cause and a "mentally ill lazy loser" while suffering from the effects of a traumatic childhood.

I noticed that in school especially, at a certain point all the adults would give up on certain children and decide that they were not worth investing in, even at an early age. How morally bankrupt is that, before children are even self aware that adults are putting a scarlett letter on the next generation and giving up on helping them because they had a bad home life, learning disabilities, or certain behavioural issues.

From what I've noticed it seems like more and more normal people with more common complaints are using MH services now. By normal I mean someone who wouldn't qualify as having dehabiliating illnesses that impair their ability to function and exist in a noticeable way. I've seen on social media people paying for therapy as a weekly vent session to air the stressors of everyday life rather than what we would consider pathological levels of distress/pain, and it seems to be becoming more common.

I think this gives the illusion that these techniques and methods are more effective than they actually are. When the user base is saturated with a ton of people it's easier to pretend that the success rate is high because the effects in certain demographics are being obscufated. No matter what someone's issue is these days they're always going to be referred to the same generic therapy regardless.

While I have seen some people be helped by methods that I find ineffective for myself, I've also seen many people who on the surface would say they're stable, coping with SSRIs therapy etc being one bad day away from a total breakdown and feeling like their current state is being held together with duck tape. I've known people online who are on the gamut of weed, psych meds, and weekly therapy and still not very happy.

I think the lack of options makes people feel afraid to acknowledge that the tools we have available need to be seriously refined.

 

[divinemistress36]

Reaching out for help was the worst thing I did. All the meds made me more suicidal and electroshock therapy gave me a bunch of memory loss which makes me even more depressed . Mental health services are a joke

 

[Hotsackage]

Sums up my.experience, my fault apparently I'm exercising, keeping busy or w.e, and still can't live normally(sarcasm).

 

[LaVieEnRose]

I despise the MH system with all my heart.

I have essentially the same experience and outlook on it as you except I experienced the coercive side of things (not just narrowly escaped it but that's certainly traumatizing itself as well).

That's why suicide appeals to me. Being able to exercise your agency in the most ultimate way after a lifetime of not being able to. Not just in terms of coercive psychiatry but that certainly was a big theme.

You already know, I'm sure regulars already know, so I won't repeat myself here.

I do know that commodified mental health is a fundamentally flawed concept and NOT the way go.

And yes professional spaces online like on Reddit are definitely most illuminating. Fuck those people.

 

[uniqueusername4]

A huge reason why I believe my suicidality has persisted for over half my life is because the stringent, regulation-bound, trigger happy mental healthcare system completely failed me when I was an impressionable child who didn't get a choice to walk away from it when things weren't working for me. As an adult, interacting with the MH system in any capacity fills me with a deep sense of unease, puts me on high-alert, and further embeds a proclivity for distrust within me.

Now, these are my own experiences, and I don't want to dissuade anyone by sharing them. I have known people who felt supported by MH services. I just am not one of them. And there's really no other space in which I can share that, it's an incredibly isolating perspective to hold as healthcare institutions are ironclad against any sort of criticism and refuse to adapt to the needs of what are considered "problem cases."

In some aspects, I am luckier than others. I was never detained in a psychiatric ward, or sectioned, but I came within a hair's breath of that happening several times, and I witnessed a relative being detained for suicidality before, as well as losing a friend to suicide following a horrific involuntary hospitalisation. For a long time every occasion I'd hear a random knock at the door or an ambulance siren I'd jump out of my skin and panic because I thought once again I'd have to talk my way out of getting forced into something incredibly damaging for me and downplay how much I'm suffering in terms of suicidal thoughts so they don't force me into what is effectively a prison sentence rather than any sort of rehabilitation.

For people like myself, the MH services and modalities of treatment are not only ineffective and ill suited for purpose, but can cause more damage if they are continuously forced once it's been established such methods aren't having a positive effect. The worst part about this is having almost no one believe it, and having to contend with accusations that you don't want to put in the work and similar types of rhetoric. It can never be the case that certain methodologies, pills, and therapies are not suited to you, no, it is always a personal failing according to that logic, something which angers me to no end.

I remember bits and pieces of being a struggling adolescent and teenager. Looking back, what I truly needed during that time was a caring figure and a role model, as well as good relationships with other people who were knowledgeable about autism and could have treated me with kindness and patience. In hindsight, that crucial period was a time to build skills, relationships, and the foundations for a good life, but the adults responsible for nurturing that allowed me to sink.

Instead, I was put on a cocktail of medications and sent to therapy, where I was basically told I had to just continue to deal with my family's neglect until I became an adult, because they can't do anything unless my family started physically beating me in a noticeable manner. Instead of suggesting anything tangible to remedy the situation, I was told that I needed to use coping mechanisms like listening to music and drawing when my relatives were having shouting matches, breaking everything in the house, or refusing to acknowledge my presence for 3 days straight when I was still a child and dependent on them for survival.

The issue during that period was primarily my environment, with my PTSD and autism being secondary drivers that were inhibiting my ability to flourish and have a good life. Because I wasn't given any accomodation or disability support at school, I was held to the same standard as other pupils and would be taken into rooms and berated and insulted frequently by teachers as they thought I was lazy and being stupid on purpose when I was drugged out of my mind on psychiatric medications and not even eating more than one meal a day because my foster parents wouldn't buy enough food. There was a point where I was basically homeless while still in highschool, sleeping on the sofa bed of a girl I met online and working 7 hours a day many days on top of attending school, but that was never taken into consideration. Nope, I was simply "mentally ill and lazy."

I've had probably a dozen different therapists assigned to my case throughout my life time, and none of them have ever told me something I didn't already know, or been able to offer me anything genuinely useful. Probably the worst fumble dealt to me by a therapist was one of them not objecting to a 26 year old man grooming me when I was 16/17 to prime me to have sex with him and end up living with him because I had nowhere else to go. What I really needed to be told was that what was happening to me was messed up and innapropriate. I feel sick to my stomach recollecting any of this.

I've had PTSD since a very young age and it has not responded to any sort of psychotherapy or psychiatric treatment, I think the damage is deeply embedded at this point but that observation seems to go in one ear and out the other when it comes to MH workers. A sentiment I've often seen reflected on this site, and in my own life, is that there's no room for honesty when dealing with MH staff. If you admit how suicidal you are, it can put you at risk of institutionalisation. Sometimes, you can pour your heart out about what's troubling you and be met with blank eyed stares, or statements that demonstrate your burdens are too weighty for them to handle. The lack of understanding breeds more pain and resentment.

Other people would tell me, I just haven't found the "right" therapist or doctor and whatnot, despite going to so many different ones, and then later living under a system where the only option is paying out of pocket for private therapists as the national health service won't provide you with a pittance of anything. So in my case, it would be throwing money down the drain and gambling, as there are very few therapists or MH staff who have experience with extensive childhood trauma in the first place, a conclusion made not only by myself but the numerous MH staff I interacted with throughout my life. I was always told I needed a higher standard of care, but this higher standard did not exist.

Spending a lot of time online reading forums where clinicians interact and only verified MH staff are allowed to post (so it's quite legit), I have observed that psychiatrists and therapists both express resentment and hatred towards patients who cannot simply fix themselves. I have frequently seen psychiatrists discouraging each other from working in "complex" populations as they admit there's nothing you can do for certain patients, but they aren't allowed to say this to the person's face as it's part for parcel that they have to instill hope no matter what.

I genuinely think a sizable number of people working in the mental health field have no clue what they're doing when it comes to many issues. I've met so many healthcare staff who do not keep up with current research, who lack critical thinking skills especially when it comes to prescribing medications which contradict, and genuinely cannot make informed clinical decisions based on a patient's best interest because all they can do is follow tick box guidelines to try and dodge all liability. It's very frustrating because these valid criticisms are viewed as, "resistance to treatment" or irrational thinking rather than real issues that need to be addressed in order for the field to ever improve.

When you're labeled as "mentally ill' in any capacity, you're assumed to have no theory of mind or insight when it's convenient for the argument being put forward. A person could have a very rational reason behind how they feel, for example, a person who has always been alone predicting that they will continue to feel lonesome if nothing changes in their life is a logical judgement based on past experiences and current evidence. In this circumstance, that loneliness should be acknowledged in an attempt to find solutions to remedy it, but often in the mental health world, bad feelings are often treated like cognitive distortions no matter what. Another example I can think of is telling someone to feel less stress while not removing any of the stressors causing such pressure in the first place. There's a cause and effect that goes unheard. How can one solve the underlying problem if it is never acknowledged in the first place?

It's why I find so many MH treatments glaringly ineffective. It's like throwing darts blindly at a dartboard and hoping you land the bullseye. I remember being taught in my degree that SSRIs, for example, were not as effective as they are advertised, especially when you consider that many types of serotonin receptors are not even fully understood yet. Many are still being discovered far after these drugs hit the market. From a drug design perspective as well, one has to consider the question, is it beneficial to have a global effect on one type of target (serotonin transporter), without consideration of specific brain regions to reduce the risk of offshoot effects? There are so many questions like this which MH staff cannot often answer. These questions aren't being studied.

Recently, I dealt with the MH system again as I had to prove I was seeking some sort of support in order for the impacts of my health circumstances to be validated. Both encounters left me feeling worse and even more hopeless, I think upon being confronted with the knowledge that no one is going to give you novel information or suggestions it reinforces a sense of despair. Every time I deal with MH services it feels like I am not being heard at all. One MH worker told me a few months ago that it was a good thing in a way that I've been suicidal for over half of my life, because it has taught me how to "cope" with it instead of going through with the act. The underlying wickedness of forcing someone to suffer and seeing that continued pain through a positive lens just demonstrates a complete lack of insight into how awful being suicidal is.

Often times the messaging is, they are doing the best that they can with the tools that are available. In some situations, this may be true. There are some MH staff who went into this line of work with altruistic motives and truly want to help. But I don't agree with it regarding the MH field as a whole for a number of reasons. When it comes to other facets of health, the public generally agrees that medicine needs to be improved, and you will see donation calls for research funding everywhere for other sorts of diseases. Yet, when discussing 'mental' despair, developmental disabilities, and other neurological issues that can't be easily seen with the naked eye or dealt with by other medical specialties, suffering is perceived as a case of personal responsibility.

MH staff seem to resent treatment resistant patients and treat them badly in ways that would be unacceptable in other fields. "Go to therapy" has become a dog whistle insult for people you don't want to deal with or dislike. No matter how much people will say they want to erase stigma, there is a bias everywhere that can't be erased, and it is how people treat others with long-term, incurable mental health issues and think they exist of a person's own violition.

Even on here at times, I have seen people say that someone else simply needs to improve their personality, outlook, etc. I think certain aspects of one's temperament can be moulded and shaped over time, but it's completely unrealistic to expect grown adults to rewire years of formative experience and conceptions about the world that have been strengthened with time- a very fundamental principle of how synaptic plasticity works in the brain- using sheer willpower alone.

The reality is that the adult brain is incredibly difficult to mould compared to an adolescent one, and we need better methods of facilitating that. Telling someone to get over it or change their entire personhood to become more happy and appealing is simply at odds with the complexity of the human mind and what's required to initiate a biological change. Many cognitive symptoms are caused by underlying physical pathologies in other parts of the body, but this fact is neglected and often dismissed. I didn't reach the low point I'm at now without suffering from chronic fatigue for years and developing spinal pain that makes it difficult to function consistently. Yet, that aspect is ignored entirely.

Then there are also societal aspects as well, suffering is more often than not treated like an individual burden, when support from others is a key component of emotional wellbeing and stability. For whatever reason it has become completely normalized for large chunks of the population to live alone, to never leave their house, to exist almost fully online, and to be fully self reliant. A lot of human biology has not adapted to this yet. Elders die unattended in their homes, people cry out about loneliness and yet as always this is treated as an individual failing and not an error in collective consciousness and culture enabling this depressing state of affairs to happen.

A few weeks ago I complained to a therapist that there are not enough outlets for socialising post university for adults especially if you lack family support. They told me to just find groups and join them. The groups do not exist. Not only the support groups, but any sort of hobby group that does not involve high intensity sports does not exist unless you live in a metropolitan area. Even then, you could attend a group numerous times and nothing may come out of it as attendance of members may be inconsistent and people are nomadic and moving around a lot rather than staying in one location long enough for meaningful connections to form. When I point out the lack of groups to join, I'm told to just talk to strangers in the park, when that is deeply frowned upon culturally where I live to disturb people in supermarkets, parks, etc. You can't win in this scenario because they will always loop it back to finding fault with something you're doing, or not.

MH workers have made so many assumptions about me and others that they will not allow you to challenge. One thing I've been told so many times is, it's not acceptable to have a low dose of sedatives in rare situations for PTSD, you should be forced to confront triggers, no more crutches. The MH industry cannot seem to acknowledge that some people cannot "process trauma" by talking about it, and that some people will always be bothered by certain things no matter how many times you brute force them to confront those stimuli. What's even worse is that the most efficacious methods for helping people with PTSD (compounds like MDMA which stimulates a remarkable state of neuroplasticity) are completely off limits and will continue to be for the foreseeable future to 99.9% of the people who need hope the most.

The mental health system has made me feel more suicidal and hopeless, and I wish that it could be acknowledged outside of this forum that situations like mine do happen.

Oh absolutely! I relate to this so so much. I have ADHD and for my whole life up until recently, I wasn't even aware it effected my mood. Because my DOCTORS weren't aware. They have known I've had ADHD since the 4th grade, but only advised that focus and hyperactivity are effected. It is soooo much more than that. And now that I know that information, it is even more depressing because I have to teach doctors that when I go to the appointment. Even ones who specialize in ADHD don't always know about executive functions and emotional regulation.

I've learned more about it and it makes so much sense to me now why I have so many sensory sensitivities and issues with food textures. It also makes sense as to why I struggle so much socially. but it really doesn't make anything better because no one has found any real solutions to this issue. The medications barely do anything and maybe just give me the ability to mask.

I am estranged from my family and live in a metropolitan area, but it is impossible to find groups to do anything! I've tried to find 2nd spaces (it is normally 3rd but I WFH so my work and home are only 1 space) through cafes, pickleball groups, hiking groups, volunteering, etc. and I haven't found any consistent community. I feel like the MH system is so behind, they can't help me. They have always minimized my issues, "there is nothing wrong with your life, why are you upset?" and made me feel like a criminal for wanting to escape this hell. I am of the opinion that if you don't want out of this place, you're cookoo and that is fine, I am fine with people being delusional but I don't want to be called the crazy one when this is a totally sane response to the reality that I face everyday.

 

[mango-meridian]

I don't really have a lot to add right now, and sorry for the bump, but as I am new here I am astounded by the quality and thoughtfulness of many of the posts on this site. I haven't seen anything like it on popular social media platforms like Reddit, etc.

It is actually making me feel dumb for consuming so much low-quality content and information over the course of my adult life.

 

[DefinitelyReady]

Not in a position to elaborate, but I really liked this and appreciated that it was expressed logically instead of emotionally. Covered most everything.

Just wanted to note:
Speaking of NMDA and neuroplasticity, I just like to pop in my advocacy for treatments outside of antidepressants; such as Spravato, ketamine infusions, DXM, cbd/thc, amino acids, and other atypical meds etc. not traditionally used for mental health like naltrexone.