Discussion What would you do in my place? Attempt one time at psych recovery or forget about them?

[Suicidebydeath]

What would you do in my place? Everytime I've been let down by psych services, faced unprofessional behaviour. Being shouted at if I don't instantly answer their questions without thinking. Being laughed at and asked if I enjoy the severe abuse and torture my uncle did to me. Then my childhood psych, who believed my family's lies and put everything on me, even asking if I was "royalty" despite that being the most hellish time of my life, being physical, verbally and emotionally abused at home and at school for years. If I try again, how do I safeguard myself? With my prior experiences, will they understand even that I have really low faith in them at this point. Just another person who slips through the cracks. Why do people have such a fixed perspective of me?

How do I safeguard myself if they let me down again, or from even attempting to verbally abuse me again?

@RainAndSadness you're pretty clever, how am I supposed to protect myself from being verbally abused or worse, falsified notes again? Maybe it will be different this time, maybe not. It's a little easier for me to talk about things than it used to be.

 

[RainAndSadness]

I don't know if I can give any adequate advice, my experience with psych service has been equally terrible. They always made me feel worse and I also experienced a severe amount of gaslighting and victim blaming myself. I don't know. Maybe you can set your boundaries with them before you start therapy. I'm sure you'll come across someone who is fine as a person eventually, I'd say just don't give up, if you notice any red flags, look for a new psych. You don't have to endure their abuse and you decide when they crossed the line. That's all I can say.

 

[chinadoll]

This sound like a completely awful situation. I'd suggest completely removing yourself from this team of doctors. (And possibly reporting this team) Start completely new with a more professional team after due research. Let me know if you'd like more details.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

This sound like a completely awful situation. I'd suggest completely removing yourself from this team of doctors. (And possibly reporting this team) Start completely new with a more professional team after due research. Let me know if you'd like more details.

Oh, sorry for being unclear. These are different individuals at different points in my life. I don't see any of them anymore. They weren't all like this, I just tried again every so often.

I don't know if I can give any adequate advice, my experience with psych service has been equally terrible. They always made me feel worse and I also experienced a severe amount of gaslighting and victim blaming myself. I don't know. Maybe you can set your boundaries with them before you start therapy. I'm sure you'll come across someone who is fine as a person eventually, I'd say just don't give up, if you notice any red flags, look for a new psych. You don't have to endure their abuse and you decide when they crossed the line. That's all I can say.

Thank you, this is incredibly level-headed advice. I was considering the same things already, it's just really awkward to talk about people in the same profession in the past, when establishing boundaries, and the boundaries are pretty common sense for the most part, I suppose I can let them know that I do have to think about answers to questions sometimes, which I was considering doing anyway. They're only human, it might put them on edge and make them feel judged etc themselves if I BM previous psychs. Like, we're going to be starting on a bad foot.

I'm also really sad it happens to you too (gaslighting, victim blaming). It's a huge trigger for me so I know how bad/awful it is. That's why I'm sad it happened to you too.

 

[Againstthewind]

What would you do in my place? Everytime I've been let down by psych services, faced unprofessional behaviour. Being shouted at if I don't instantly answer their questions without thinking. Being laughed at and asked if I enjoy the severe abuse and torture my uncle did to me. Then my childhood psych, who believed my family's lies and put everything on me, even asking if I was "royalty" despite that being the most hellish time of my life, being physical, verbally and emotionally abused at home and at school for years. If I try again, how do I safeguard myself? With my prior experiences, will they understand even that I have really low faith in them at this point. Just another person who slips through the cracks. Why do people have such a fixed perspective of me?

How do I safeguard myself if they let me down again, or from even attempting to verbally abuse me again?

@RainAndSadness you're pretty clever, how am I supposed to protect myself from being verbally abused or worse, falsified notes again? Maybe it will be different this time, maybe not. It's a little easier for me to talk about things than it used to be.

If this is something you wish to attempt once again your previous experiences are due to individuals that should not be in that profession, even if you start a general psychology course you learn to set boundaries but at the same time not belittle your clients, that's the core of what counseling/therapy is.
You need to stand up for yourself and what you want, if you have a counsellor who does belittle you or does treat you like shit, write it down and feedback that complaint to the company, this particular counselor is treating clients like this is a big No-No in that field.

With this, you should take the strength to immediately stop a conversation if they are, making you feel terribly as a client, but just terribly as a human being.
When that situation occurs, you calmly say "I don't feel comfortable in this situation, you are making me feel less about myself, professionally you are judging me with your preconceived notions, I do not want to continue this conversation with you, and I will request a different counsellor".
That way you don't give them the ammunition to say that you're just straight out crazy, manipulating the situation that the counselor wasn't at fault for their own shitty behaviour.
You are calmly taking control of the situation that you are in and it's not about causing an argument, it's about maturely shutting down this situation to talk to someone who will treat you with dignity. If you are having this occur on multiple occasions, record this down, what, who the individual was, the time and date, and feed this back. Maybe make a rule of seeing three counselors at best for one company?

The most important thing is this is nothing to do with yourself as much as you may have a voice in your head telling you this, it's that the company itself is piss poor and clearly couldn't counsel a fly to shit.

Don't allow other people's shitty miserable attitude, dismiss the problems that you have. You have the right to be spoken to with respect as any human being on this planet.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

Thank you.

There is a lot wrong with my psych notes that I saw(I did a request of information so I have some of them, fair warning if someone's experience is anything like mine they make for a very traumatic rereading). They wrote that I wasn't forthcoming about what happened at home etc. However they weren't taking into account several things and clearly ignore things in my past notes:

1) The first time I was forthcoming about what happened at home, it was completely ignored, as Rain said I was basically gaslighted by my child psych. They were trying to make it as me at fault instead. And apparently my telling them they're going in the wrong direction was taken as a negative thing instead of you know, not wanting to focus on stuff that never happened because it was stuff my family made up.

2) It was very difficult to talk about. I wasn't given time to think either, and I was shouted at. They didn't write that they shouted at me in the notes, obviously. They just end up blaming me without actually saying what I was doing wrong exactly.

3) Asking what I was doing wrong always gets shut down and noted down as a negative thing.

4) I was trying to "protect" my family as well and just get on with things. I was highly likely to be trauma bonded to them, they are my family after all. Plus back to 2+1, it was hard and embarassing to talk about anyway without even having to worry about whether or not I was believed. I repressed a lot of the stuff that happened to me too, I had to just to get through the days. It was unbearable to think about. I've reached a point now where I don't think things will ever work with my family. I'm also on mirtazapine, a drug recommended to me by a friend to help with symptoms of C/PTSD.

5) It's literally in my notes about the years of childhood abuse and why I left. Instead they wrote a lot of "didn't know" and so on, and ignore that it's written repeatedly in my notes that I don't want contact with my family. There's a bunch of stuff they've recorded as "don't know" that I clearly answered. But I guess it didn't fit with their fixed perspective of things.

They got in contact with my family anyway. And then of course everything goes pear-shaped in the notes. Why would they literally include the perspective of my abusers? That's not logical.

6) There's so much they never even asked me about. And there's a lot of misinformation.

7) I remember that I did tell this guy, but the same as 1, he completely ignored what I said, then tried to tell me it was something different, and when I said no, that's not it. He shouted at me again. So I was forthcoming but he shut me down again.

8) At that age I was basically gaslighted into thinking I was the problem anyway.


And so on.

And then they write in my notes "closing down services" or "did not attend future appointments". Yes, I was telling them what happened, and they turned it around on me and then shouted at me when I correct them simply by saying "no, it's as I said". They have some fixed perspective that they're unwilling to change, and if I don't change the version of events to the version of events they made up themselves, they get angry and verbally abuse me. Why would I want to attend future appointments at that point? With that person.

I'll guess I'll use victim blaming when discussing future boundaries too.

Boundaries:
No verbal abuse
No shouting
No falsification of records
No victim blaming
No gas-lighting
Missed an important one. No involvement of family or any other abusers. Jfc, you think that would be common sense too.

It's kind of sad/insane if I have to give those as boundaries, they should be common sense. I also feel like if they were going to violate one of these boundaries anyway, they would just ignore the fact I made them anyway.
It's also seems kind of silly between 1. and 9, that I would have to explain those things which are both common sense and within the fields of psychiatry when it's their job. The whole job is about listening too, which they failed spectacularly at.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

Perhaps I can write a letter or an email correcting all of the misinformation in the records that I saw. Maybe I ask about that if I go to see someone? I believe I can write a letter correcting all misinformation even without having to see somebody.

There's no point writing one unless it's taken into account though. Since it's traumatic for me to reread the notes and find all the flaws.

 

[Againstthewind]

They contacted your family.....*facepalm* man they really do hire any numb skull.

Yes, set your boundaries that YOU want, and expect them, not 'want' them. You are the client you are technically in control, its a service not a military exercise.

If its the same company you used before or even different, then maybe send an email correcting that information, but the way I see it, I wouldn't waste your energy on it, they aren't particularly bothered, if they were, they wouldn't have said such garbage and created lies about you. Its about you, you don't need to spend time correcting a "professional" horseshit

 

[Suicidebydeath]

I've just realized that things would be very different if I had covertly recorded these sessions. I did not have a mobile on me at the time anyway. Meaning if I recorded the first guy shouting at me, and the second guy laughing at me and asking whether I enjoyed it. I do not know the legality of it back then. The second guy was fairly recent, I'm surprised he didn't consider the possibility of being recorded.

I'm considering it, there is no law against it now and it says it is to be expected in the modern age and not a slight against the professionalism of the service. It just makes me uncomfortable, like I'm betraying their trust, but maybe it's the smart thing to do. Obviously if I'm recording in case of the chance of abuse, I can't ask for their consent first, because they would know they're being recorded.

I wonder if I should add a caveat that they should agree that any statement they make that I think is contrarian to common sense can be submitted to a review by their peers and my peers (e.g. reddit).

For example I can imagine arguing with them that contacting my abuser is against common sense and unprofessional , and them making excuses. Maybe it won't happen, I probably just remember all the times my brother would do the same thing while verbally abusing me, and it's the same for internet trolls probably. So maybe my expectations are off.

 

[snowcloud9]

What would you do in my place? Everytime I've been let down by psych services, faced unprofessional behaviour. Being shouted at if I don't instantly answer their questions without thinking. Being laughed at and asked if I enjoy the severe abuse and torture my uncle did to me. Then my childhood psych, who believed my family's lies and put everything on me, even asking if I was "royalty" despite that being the most hellish time of my life, being physical, verbally and emotionally abused at home and at school for years. If I try again, how do I safeguard myself? With my prior experiences, will they understand even that I have really low faith in them at this point. Just another person who slips through the cracks. Why do people have such a fixed perspective of me?

How do I safeguard myself if they let me down again, or from even attempting to verbally abuse me again?

There's a whole anti-psychiatry movement dedicated to talking about the power abuse in therapists and psychiatrists. It's so common, unfortunately. I've had the same experience and I know for sure that I'm not a stereotype. I'd quit seeing those people anymore, they are one of the shittier ones. Depending on what country you are in, you can (or maybe can't) find better treatment elsewhere.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

For me the only way to avoid harm from the MH system has been to quit engaging with it.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

"They never had permission to contact my family."
I sent this to my friend about this and she gave me permission to quote her

She said:
"Yeah they are not aloud to discuss anything unless they have real evidence that you will cause serious harm to yourself or others, hope your ok."
"Was this recently? Or when you was a minor? I'm not sure what the rules are if under 18"
"I would research under 18 cause I don't know, but after that it's a big No, if you think about it that could of caused more harm to you them telling others stuff"
"The word confidential is a big key don't you think"

I discussed that they might still try to argue the point here if they say they believe my brother/father referred me or whatever but she's adamant on this.
"Still an adult, and nope they can't tell them"


So leaving this here in case it's helpful to anyone else. Essentially she says they broke patient confidentiality and put me at risk of further harm (on top of the shouting at me, etc).

 

[LaVieEnRose]

"They never had permission to contact my family."
I sent this to my friend about this and she gave me permission to quote her

She said:
"Yeah they are not aloud to discuss anything unless they have real evidence that you will cause serious harm to yourself or others, hope your ok."
"Was this recently? Or when you was a minor? I'm not sure what the rules are if under 18"
"I would research under 18 cause I don't know, but after that it's a big No, if you think about it that could of caused more harm to you them telling others stuff"
"The word confidential is a big key don't you think"

I discussed that they might still try to argue the point here if they say they believe my brother/father referred me or whatever but she's adamant on this.
"Still an adult, and nope they can't tell them"


So leaving this here in case it's helpful to anyone else. Essentially she says they broke patient confidentiality and put at risk of further harm (on top of the shouting at me, etc).

The US provisions protecting patient confidentiality HIPPA are often more theoretical than one would think.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

Not from the US, I found this on the subject:

"Disclosing personal information about a client to someone not entitled to it, places you at risk of possible criminal liability (e.g. offences under the Data Protection Act 1998), civil action (for breach of privacy for example) and investigation by your (voluntary) regulator. The reputational risk associated with unlawful breaches may be the most significant impact felt by professionals choosing to tell tales on the patients (even when told with the best of intentions).
A patient's right to confidentiality is not absolute and there will be circumstances that arise that permit and perhaps even require you to breach confidence and make a disclosure to an appropriate authority, be that the police, social services or a parent, in the case of a child. Therapists should remember that any disclosure in breach of patient confidentiality will only be lawful if it is authorised by the patient or by the law.

Therapists should satisfy themselves that the release of information to protect the interests of a third party exceptionally prevails both over the duty of confidence owed to the patient and the public interest in a confidential health and social care service. In short, disclosure must be considered essential to protect the patient, protect third parties from the risk of death or serious harm or prevent a crime/civil wrong. The most important considerations for a therapist are likely to be how real and imminent the risk of harm is and whether there is an appropriate person to whom the disclosure can be made who could in turn, avert the harm. Disclosure by a patient of historic sexual abuse is unlikely to fall into the category of discloseable information; a present, real and imminent threat to carry out a fatal shooting may well justify a call to the police."


Sexual abuse is given as an example. If we use common sense then there should be no reason to disclose anything to family when there is a history of family abuse.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

Thinking about it today, if I had to summarize some of the problems in my records:

Breach of patient confidentiality which directly caused me further harm (and put me at further risk)
Extraordinary lack of common sense and competence
Misinformation / Sloppy recording
Omissions
Bias from a fixed perspective of family

And lastly,
No attempt to verify facts

But I'm not sure that last one would be a problem if it wasn't for the other five. I don't know if it's their job to verify facts, but nor should they be doing their job so poorly that it becomes necessary.

 

[Againstthewind]

The general consensus from a counsellor is to NOT share information to anyone unless you plan on doing something, its just breaking simple GDPR rules. These companies do monthly auditing to make sure there house is in order.

Start with a fresh company, dont share what happened before, they could come in with a fresh perspective as reading previous notes, gives them a pre conceived notion. what they dont know wont hurt them. Your previous counsellors were shit. Plain and simple.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

Unfortunately the notes are shared collectively throughout the entire health system for my country, which is probably part of the reason I've had terrible experiences so far, because the first one during childhood really messed things up for me going forward. There's no way to isolate my previous notes, all I can do is ask they either ignore them or allow me to add corrections.

I feel like the only times I've had reasonable experiences have been in situations where they probably didn't read the notes and have the pre conceived notion. When they did, they were trying to get me to admit to doing stuff I wasn't doing, and since I wasn't going to do that and they weren't even telling me what I was supposed to have done, it went nowhere, and they got angry, which is really unprofessional.

Of course I didn't know what was written in them back then and trying to get a straight answer out of them was like trying to get blood from a stone, they never listened to me anyway.

 

[Againstthewind]

I think we are both in the same country, how about going to an independent counselling charity? NHS shares with all services within different companies, but charities being outside that scope?

Also, what is your goal, what is it you are trying to achieve?

 

[Suicidebydeath]

Diagnosis and treatment. There are at least two treatments available, unfortunately since I've been stuck in this merry-go-round with them, it's never gone anywhere and the abuse from them only ever made things worse, that and sharing notes with my abusive family.

I've been better off without them, but that still means I've got by with completely untreated C/PTSD as well. Besides dealing it with myself and getting meds from G.P. myself not through psych.

I requested mirtazapine from G.P. because a friend suggested they were great for PTSD and they've been great for me. My energy has gone way up. I complained about
lack of energy, etc for years and nothing was done before that. In general, most G.P.s have been helpful with everything but psych's just made everything way worse. I've no idea whether G.P.s get access to N.H.S. psych notes, do they?

My previous G.P. knew roughly what what P.D. they had me down with (from reading my notes it looks like it was the guy who shouted at me who dx that, but they are really unclear about who is who). Incidentally, I never know what P.D. it was supposed to be, because they never told me. Which increases the likelihood it was that gone, from the notes it seems to be around that period because I moved to a new address and the notes give my address as that.

So maybe they do and G.P.s are just not assholes? Maybe G.P.s have notes on my entire family, for that matter, whereas psychs are only allowed to look at the notes for the person they're seeing? Or there are more recent notes on my family and the guy who laughed at me about what my uncle put me through a few years ago was just a terrible person? - that was kidnapping, physical and mental torture, group beatings, death threats, violence, etc btw. There's nothing funny about it and it didn't help with PTSD that I already had, either going through it or the psych laughing about it and asking whether I enjoyed all of that.

To be honest, I'm not sure whether or not it was even the same guy/place who was involved in my mom's care, in which case there's a conflict of interest right there. That guy also shouted at me btw.

I'm just trying to get a proper dx and treatment for PTSD, at this point it feels like sunk investment. I've been through so much with this, and I guess I'm swayed by people telling me to try again. I think it does not help that there is a huge disparity between the way psychs see me and the way my friends see me. So my friends are like, they will believe you, it just takes time to find the right one you gel with, meanwhile for me I have to deal with all these pre-conceived notions from the psychs because they only have shoddy records, an inital record of childhood psych who had a bias and reported all of my family's lies on my sheet as facts while questioning what I said, and then these later direct abuses from certain psychs.

It's all been a hassle for me. In my childhood, it wasn't voluntary either, my family sent me there, and when I tried to tell them what was happening they straight up ignored me and tried to find problems with me instead. Which meant I had to fear years more of abuse at home, since I was only 13 then. Of course when they wanted to take me into isolation at 13 my family outright refused them to do that. They probably would've discovered what was really happening then.

You would think a 13 year old displaying signs of stress and being quiet and withdrawn would've raised alarm bells, not to mention I straight up told them, but I guess not. As soon as I was an adult and ran away from home they diagnosed me with stress, anxiety and depression. How hard was that? And why didn't they update my notes after I told them about my uncle?

 

[Againstthewind]

I've no idea whether G.P.s get access to N.H.S. psych notes, do they?

GP's and any Psych person, doesnt have notes of any family members do linked to you, I think you are giving them too much credit for preventing suicides and being pro active lol.

I would just make your stance clear before you start with any counsellor, but you have to be strict for yourself and the care you want, you have that right and power. I dont see any point in any professional getting wrapped up in the past...then again they are not exactly the 'letting go' type of professionals.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

GP's and any Psych person, doesnt have notes of any family members do linked to you, I think you are giving them too much credit for preventing suicides and being pro active lol.

I would just make your stance clear before you start with any counsellor, but you have to be strict for yourself and the care you want, you have that right and power. I dont see any point in any professional getting wrapped up in the past...then again they are not exactly the 'letting go' type of professionals.

What if we had the same G.P.? We did sometimes.

Well I told the last guy exactly what I wanted and he was the one that laughed at me and asked whether I enjoyed the stuff my uncle did. I wish I had recorded him now, and got him fired. What is he like with other patients?

 

[Againstthewind]

Even if you have the same GP, they are not allowed to share patient information with others thats a breach of doctor patient confidentiality.

Ah fuck him, hes just some jabroni, forget about him and focus on the future and what you want, dont let him ruin the idea of counselling (if thats what you want) dont let him scar you in making changes for yourself to get better. Karma hits everyone at some point, him included.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

Contact – NAPAC

napac.org.uk

I spoke to NAPAC ([National Association for People Abused in Childhood) on the phone for 30 minutes today. They can't help me sort out things with the NHS, take notes, home visit or anything like that but I got 100% validation from them.

On the 30th I have an appointment with G.P., I'll have to ask about another NHS referral then. Maybe it will go ok, everything's easier on mirtazapine and I think I've cemented NC with family.
I had another think about boundaries and since most of them are common sense, I don't really want to bring those up. If they were the type of person to break common sense boundaries they wouldn't care if I set them in the first place.


So maybe I'll just say that I've been told to set boundaries, and I'm limiting them to these:

* Do not share my notes or discuss with anyone. Especially under no circumstances my family. There will never be authorization to discuss anything with my family. Likewise I do not want to entertain even the remote possibility that this gets back to them, so it has to be confidential.

* If they feel they have to report something to the police or governing body regarding previous psych. performance, that is fine, but I do not want them to talk to my family either. I'm not pressing charges, I don't want anything to do with my family and I don't want anything to change.
I had another think about boundaries and since most of them are common sense, I don't really want to bring those up. If they were the type of person to break common sense boundaries they wouldn't care if I set them in the first place.

I suppose one more:
* They must dispel any pre-conceived notions or perception of the family unit based on previous psych reports, since they're full of misinformation, etc. Which all stemmed from the first psych not believing me about family abuse & bullying at school.

 

[Againstthewind]

Absolutely bang on with what you want. Dont know what your full story is but going NC with family members is the best result in this situation and to block of any attempts they have in contacting you.

Again a medical professional sharing any details with anyone else is STRICTLY prohibited, the fact that, that is even a request is unbelievable ridiculous then again this is the con man psycho goons we are talking about here.

But I am glad you are moving forward and putting that work in!