Lived Experience Forum

[KnightK4]

I need to vent. I've been treated for Paranoid Schizophrenia since I was diagnosed 26 years ago.
Medical opinion has changed frequently and often. Medications have changed repeatedly.

Many times when I've queried I've been given a prepared sounding answer, eg 'Psychiatry is an imprecise branch of medicine with a lot of gray areas and overlap of symptoms and opinion'.

At times I've been dragged in and out of Mental Health Courts because of angry outbursts through sheer frustration. The most recent matter was allowed to drag on for a decade in the courts. Even with my extensive recorded history of instability and suicide attempts.

At times, court psychiatrists couldn't agree and my legal issue was bounced backwards and forwards from court to court. After intervention from several political departments all matters were dismissed outright.

But what a toll it has taken! And ridiculous costs to the taxpayer too. I had been determined to plead 'not guilty' and expressed this clearly.

These days I find it hard to access psychiatric support. Am I being considered too difficult to treat? A recent trip to my local Emergency Department with genuine suicidal ideations, I was turned away at the front counter. 'Go Home!' was the directive.

I feel marginalised, undervalued and largely forgotten about. Many life opportunities have been missed as past Doctors insisted that I was hospitalised, against my will, sometimes on legal orders, to be treated for 'gray area' conditions.

Nobody apologises or sympathises for a lifetime of medical 'experimentation' and guesswork. It's just tough luck apparently. As life passed me by!

It's a struggle to look forward to a more positive future but what else can I do? Afterall, if I don't have hope, I have nothing!

Rant over.

[NotLabelDefined]

Hi @KnightK4,

Thanks for joiniing the forum and sharing your story 🙂 

[Fiz]

Hi @KnightK4

Sorry to hear of your frustration. I have things pretty mild compared to you and some others. For that I am thankful.

Sadly Doctors are right about things being pretty fuzzy and imprecise. They are only able to take best guesses and the groundwork they use is often shifting as official diagnoses and terms get shifted around to suit the latest theories. Unfortunately, that would make people trapped in that wheel pretty confused - and therefore easily angered.

I take it you posted here to get out your frustration (better than smashing things for sure) and in some part looking for a light to guide.

Assuming the latter, my Mother always taught us that we were the masters of our own ship and when things seemed too tough to pop them aside for a while and look up and outward till something new came along. She would tell irritable-me to look up at the mountains. Soon enough my grumbling faded and I was off playing with my plastic knights again.

I guess to be more direct, I worry that as long as you see your health and happiness as being in the hands of "the man" then it will always seem like you come off second best. And that will hurt.

Is there some way you can start to see that the thoughts in your head belong to you so that in some future place and time you could adjust them for yourself? Can you take a tip from the AA rulebook and let your higher power (life, the universe...) help you find a way to take a step forward 9and be open to it when it shows)?

I hope that helps in some small way.

🙂

[KnightK4]

Thanks Fiz. I had been a patient in the Queensland public health system and the heavy handedness of their control and decision making felt particularly overwhelming at times.

I admit that I'm still dealing with resentment issues here. Not sure I can totally concur with you about being in control of all my own actions, etc. Extreme side effects from many strong medications have often directly affected my behaviour and moods.

I lost my family as a child. I've been dealing with grief issues for much of my life. And certainly done my best. My most recent lawyer assured me that Queensland has a nationwide reputation for having a notorious corrections system.

Hallelujah, maybe everything that happened wasn't totally MY fault! I've survived, and I'm proud of that fact.

Shalom to you.

[Fiz]

@KnightK4

I am sure that not all is roses in the health system. Systemize anything (esp at the hands of government types who seem to have a penchant for hating life) and it tends to create gaps for things (or people) to fall through.

Resentment is understandable. I can wallow in that myself. However, it leads to no good (note how all super-villains lose). Try being grateful for what you do have instead. I know for a fact you have hands that can type, eyes that can read and access to a computer to let you do both. What an amazing time to live in. I dreamed of computers like this when I was a kid in the 80's.

Maybe just try suspending judgment (like you do when you watch a show like Harry Potter or Dr Who) and allowing yourself to consider that your life could actually be entirely in your own hands.

Sure that may seem a bit far-fetched for you when you try to rationalize it but allow the idea, and more importantly the feeling of peace and joy that would bring, to sit in your mind for a few minutes every day. Don't analyze it, just let the idea sit there for a few minutes and then hand it off to whatever you can accept as the thing that makes the clockwork of the universe function (and that sure ain't the govt.).

Suddenly something unexpected will pop itself up in your path; a book, TV show, person, event. If you let yourself embrace that moment and thing there will be something that helps you move forward a few steps and you will be a bit more in control of your own life.

You have nothing to lose trying that for a few weeks.

🙂

[Former-Member]

Hi @KnightK4, such a hard road, I feel for you. Unfortunately it appears (after our many years struggling), it does appear the Mental Health System just isn't working for most of us. I think the social upsurge in preventable illness - drugs, discontented youth and fakers all make it hard for liability insurance to be humane. Trouble is MH suffers are so vulnerable, usually without strong supports and so don't have clout for funding. Dare I say it too, as we age - were expected to have it together. As far as psychiatrists ruining our lives, how can they not when they work with a broken system and depend on drugs that, well... to be kind - they're a temp andaid with permanent consequences. I think a lot of the problem or solution needs to be getting back to 'family' and 'community' - but even that only works when people have values. With the collapse of 'christian churches' everywhere, even in the west, our 'values' our 'faith' as a people is shifting to uncertain undefined ground with no reward or consequence, just death, well, look around - is it really any better? I think even though certain individuals were wolves in sheep's clothing grr, most try hard to 'do what's right'
You on w how the famous actor Tom Cruise feels about psychiatry, well, I think he's pretty much got it right. My 2bros with paranoid schizophrenia only have treatment borders etc when the 'upset' authorities with their conspiracy theories. Yes they are difficult, but why silence them? They are supressed, not cured or relieved of suffering. Its intollerence... and were not allowed to die in the st here like some countries.
I'll shutup now

[KnightK4]

If I 'resent' then I'm a 'super villain'? Well could you do my Joker face paint thing then - I've gotta crawl back to the TV studio ...

I wonder if many of the Jews who had their entire families obliterated in the German genocides turned in to 'super villains' because they couldn't stop the resenting?

Hey, ignore me I'm just thinking aloud. Thank you for your contributions my Space Invader friend. Really!

[Phoenix_Rising]

@KnightK4 I am so terribly sorry to hear of your experiences in the mental health system. Your post reminded me of another thread titled "hospital experiences" that someone started a day or two ago. I too have been significantly harmed in the mental health system. It is an awful system and I can relate to a sense of powerlessness within it. It is very very frightening. I don't think people can really appreciate it unless they have experienced it. I know that within that system we are NOT in control of our own destiny. I long for the day that the system changes...but I fear that it won't be in my lifetime.

[Phoenix_Rising]

I love your positive approach to life @Fiz. However, sadly, the reality is that for many people with severe mental illness (MI), their lives are not entirely in their own hands. For example, they can be forcibly taken from their homes and locked up in hospital. Or they can be ordered by a court to take medication - and be locked up in a psych ward if they don't comply with the order. Within psychiatric wards, horrible things happen like people being forcibly medicated, physically restrained, or locked in a room on their own when they are super distressed and really just need someone to listen and to care.

All of these sorts of things can lead to trauma, which physically damages the brain. So no...even though, as I said, I love your positive attitude to life, this alone will not heal the sorts of harms that @KnightK4 is describing. I know you mean well by your post though, and it is lovely that you took the time to write it and offer support to someone who you can hear is struggling.

[Fiz]

Thanks @Phoenix_Rising

I get that there must be some depressing and defeating things that happen in the system. I sure wouldn't want to seem to be trying to minimize that.

My 2 cents was based on the William Glasser idea that bad things happen and we can't control that more often than not. However we can control how we react. Easier said than done, esp from the outside, and I struggle with that myself more than I would like.

Sorry if it seemed I was trying to minimize. I will step out of this one now as I don't have the ability to share a matching life experience.

🙂