Sorry to hear that, terrible you get let go when you've taken the step to get help. Did they at least provide one of their colleagues or were you just let go?
Is there any way you can provide feedback to their employers or does the behaviour go unnoticed?
They're just human and there is only so much they can handle, so I suppose the stress of trying to help desperate people will get to some worse than others, but at the very least they should be responsible for making sure You as a patient get help. Just leaving your patients for the wind surely isn't part of the Hippocratic oath. Do psychiatrists and metal health professionals even take that oath? I have no experience from them, aside from unloading my baggage on a counselor a while ago.
How are you holding up now?
I haven't been further directed to any colleagues in any of these situations. I'm not sure if I can provide feedback to their higher ups because so many different organizations have done this to me I honestly think it's allowed.
I have a variety of issues and i'm medicated but medication has never helped me no matter what, so I either haven't been directed to the correct meds or there's just something seriously wrong.
I even had my saliva sent off for gene testing, hoping that would really give us an answer on what medications should be given to me, but even those didn't help. They just put me in a more irritated, manic state.
Because it was always about them.
It was never about the patient.
If they deem you "difficult" or think you might go a little more against the grain, they drop you.
They want to keep themselves and their reputation safe, and they're not sorry.
Their reputation > Your quality of life
I 100% agree with this
I find it appalling that this happens. I do understand that perhaps they may feel like they are out of their depth with certain patients. Still- that SURELY indicates that the patients case is severe and possibly life threatening? What kind of medical professional just leaves someone like that without- at the absolute minimum- ensuring they know where else to turn to? Where is their duty of care?
It's definitely severe and threatening to my life and others. I'm guessing theres no obligation to genuinely guide a patient in the right path.
I've had similar unfortunate experiences. Not sure if that counts, but in one instance, the psychiatrist stated that she could not assist me after the first session as she only wanted to treat "seasonal depression". Another psychiatrist ended one of our appointment after dozens sessions, citing my refusal to undergo ECT as the reason, and stopped responding to me afterwards. Another who was very self-obsessed, flew off the handle on me after a few months because I was impudent enough to say to him that he was constantly manipulating my words and misrepresenting what I was saying (I brought concrete examples). Despite being frustrated and on edge, I remained polite and factual, and even then, mood disorders are common in depression, so his behavior was unprofessional and showed a clear lack of empathy from him. He ended the session in a violent and humiliating manner, stating that he did not want to see me again, and leaving me with a rough anxiety attack and alone with my CTB thoughts.
How is that person a licensed psychiatrist who "Only treats seasonal depression." ? That's honestly a joke. The whole system with this kind of shit is
A lot of therapists realize after getting to know their client and the severity of their issues, that they might be beyond what they are capable of helping with or outside of their area of expertize. In such cases it's fine for them to end the treatment in my opinion BUT it has to be done in the right way and they should make sure that they refer and support their client until they get a new therapist who is more suitable for them and their situation. Dropping clients who need help and support without any proper explaination and without giving them assistance until they get a new therapist or more help, is unethical and so terrible, but sadly some people have a ego and don't want to admit that they don't have enough knowledge or specialization within the problem area of certain patients so they'd rather just ghost them without being honest. I've personally experienced this twice in my life because I went to therapists who didn't have proper education or knowledge within the topic of trauma and PTSD and they told me I needed to get a new therapist and didn't give me any support or refer me to anyone so I was clueless on where to go and who to talk to, I luckily got new therapists who helped a lot and whenever those couldn't help, they'd still see me until I got my new trauma psychologists appointments.
The therapists/psychiatrists i've spoken with never directed me to anyone they thought would help me. They also never contacted me about my treatment being ended, they just stopped answering in every way possible. Since this has quite literally happened to me a handful of times, it leads me to believe that more of these people just end up ditching their patients; rather than ending the treatment and directing them to someone who's more experienced.
My therapist ghosted me then tried to reach back out. It made me feel like shit and I haven't been to therapy since
They honestly make the whole therapy experience nauseating. Never had a therapist who actually helped me, and when I finally thought I did she disappeared after we had a talk about something yesterday.
I have never tried, but I would not expect anyone in a client/service relationship to respond on weekends or far after work hours. I am not saying anyone did anything wrong, but that's their job and they needs days off too.
? Nobody is talking about breaks. This is 100% cutting ALL ties and never contacting their patients again, AND ALSO neglecting to redirect them to more professional help.
I've had that happen a fair amount lately, yeah. Mental health services in the U.S. have never been very robust, and there have always been even fewer options for the uninsured or underinsured. Increasingly, Medicare (which I have) counts as underinsured. Then covid came along and pretty much stomped the already-teetering American healthcare system into the mud.
So you get resident psychiatrists, you get graduate student therapists, you get clinicians working freelance out of their homes, sometimes for worrisome reasons like fighting a wicked alcohol addiction. (Can't look down on that myself, since I'm drunk half the time too. Still, two drunks sharing a Zoom connection do not a therapy session make.)
All of these people have caseloads bursting at the seams, too. Even if they were sober, experienced professionals (which they aren't), they still wouldn't have time to do proper follow-up with all of their clients. So they end up ghosting people.
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think it's about you when they ghost you. It's a bunch of systemic things.
In two of these cases they've been rather unknown therapists/psychiatrists who barely got any traffic. See, I suspected what you said about the systematic stuff too, until I got ghosted by people who barely have any clients. Then again, maybe that's the reason they don't have clients.
I'm very sorry you've had to experience that. I have never had that happen, but I imagine it must be very deflating. With the emotional toll therapy can take on a therapist (especially those who legitimately care and are invested in the well-being of their clients), I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they frequently burn out and need to withdraw for their own mental health. But it is deeply unfortunate you've had to be on the receiving end of this multiple times :(
I just don't see how it could have anything to do with their mental health since it's been so many different therapists.
I was late to a couple appointments with a psychiatrist and he ditched me. He told me once that he had no idea what I was going through. I think he got rid of me cause he couldn't figure me out and nothing was helping.
This is a better example of the dialogue that goes on between patients and psychiatrist/therapists when they get ditched.
A few people in these comments have blamed it on systematic issues, or them having to resign for their own mental health. If this were the situation in the majority of these types of cases then why are people still getting put down by their psychiatrist when they want to "End their treatment"? I didn't know ending treatment came with verbal abuse! :3
