Lived Experience Forum

[Eden1919]

so i have noticed something of late well i noticed it in some areas of relationships but it is becoming more apperant that it seems to be present in more cases than i thought. the way people who dont have mental health issues talk about people with mental health issues is kind of rude a lot of the time. and when i say people i am speaking mostly about people in the care giving role. now i am NOT saying it is intended to be rude but i kind of find it frustrating and offensive a lot of the time. people talking about you as if you are the illness not that you just have one but that it is you. and also people treating you and talking about you like you are completely incompetent and couldnt possibly know anything about your own mental health or how to deal with it, like when people say "you have no insight" firstly no i am perfectly aware that i am not "normal" i just dont agree with you on what i should do about it but that DOESNT mean i dont understand that i have a problem or that this isnt normal it just means i dont agree with you. but people use the excuse that someone doesnt have insight to justify controlling the persons life and forcing them to comply with the caregivers whishes. (this includes professionals). just because i think strawberries are the best fruit doesnt mean i am allowed to force you to eat them when you think they taste disgusting all in the name of health. there are other ways to get your vitamins and you shouldnt have to do things one way especilally when neither options is proven to be better than the other. 

i hate that people talk about you like you are stupid, incompetent, uneducated, and "crazy" just because some old white man decided that this is a symptom of a disorder back in the 60's and voted on it with some other old white men. (i should say the old white men i am refering to are the type of people for which privledge is simply handed to them for existing) ugh sorry for the rant but i am just sick of people talking to me like i am not capable of making my own choices just because i dont agree with theirs. 

[greenpea]

@Eden1919  HI Eden1919 I hear you.  Perfect example of this is forcing someone to take medication. I know I should but I hate it and I miss some not all but some of my symptoms when I am having a psychosis (the magical parts). Now to have my pdoc say to me if I don't take them she will not see me and I will be sent to public hospital (shudder!) and have depot injections is really upsetting.

I know I have to take them for my own safety and other peoples but please do not feel the need to force it down my throat when I am logical enough to realise that I need them.

[Eden1919]

@greenpea  yes this is so annoying like ok sure easy for the psych to say that but they dont have to put up with the side effects and in my case the side effects made my issues WORSE and my mental health worse i was either crying or sleeping or eating and could hardly do anything else i struggled to talk because my brain felt like mush i would drool my face started twitching i hardly left the house never felt happy and i honestly thought those meds would be the end of me. it felt horrible i wouldnt wish it on my worst enemy even the people who did that to me dont even deserve to feel that way. and the meds didnt even get rid of any of the mental illness symptoms they were trying to get rid of. 

but they go on and on about how you arent safe off them and how you need them or you will go "crazy" well guess what i feel a lot better off them mentally i can think again i can feel good things again i can stay awake i am not in physical pain and i am even kind of managing my studies (i wont do super well but i have a chance at passing) and all this is only because i managed to get off them. sure things are not perfect but they still sucked on meds anyway i might as well at least feel human while i am "crazy" they just talk to you like you would a child who doesnt want their vegetables only you are not a child and have legitimate reasons for not wanting to do something. 

i saw a copy of the DSM V today at the university text book shop and i looked at it and the only thing i could think was how tiny it was.... this big book full of every mental health condition and yet it was so small. you could write a larger book on one single illness and it really struck me that these doctors truly dont know that much at all. for all that they claim to be at the end of the day they dont really know anything at least nothing they can prove. still they have so much power over peoples lives and for that i know that i can never fully trust them again. saying you have to have injections and forcing you to take something so that you conform to societies norms is actually kind of really messed up when you think about it. in some cultures people who hear voices are spirit healears and leaders but not here anyway i just hate how they treat people they are no better than anyone else and yet they treat you like you are incompetent. 

[Serenity1]

@Eden1919 reading ur post - I was thinking I should mention -(but got to the end & you mentioned it)- in certain spiritual cultures how they give guidance & help to people that "suffer" "mental illness"- to encourage & help them to develop what they see as their skills as they are the healers, see-ers & the link between our world & whatever else is out there- other dimensions or whatever -so yeh I agree with you -it is disgraceful how people are treated with mental illness in our society- I don't hear voices- but I have seen A LOT of spiritual things that if I mention to anybody irl they would think I was crazy!- we only see a small percentage of what's going on out there- most of it we can't see as they are vibrating differently to our dimension - some people can see them. there is also spiritual warfare going on at the moment - so yeh it's tough

[Eden1919]

@Serenity1  i certainly think at the very  least wether or not people believe in something spiritually or not they should be allowed to believe what they want. there are people who beleive they see ghosts well we cant prove either way that they can or cant so it should be left up to them to decied how they want to interperate whatever they saw. we shouldnt be telling someone they are "crazy" and trying to force them to subscribe to the rest of societies version of reality. it is no one elses business wether or not that person thinks one thing or not. and for sure they are things we cant explain in this world and may never explain and thats ok too we dont have to know what is more important in my opinion is being comfortable with your beliefs and values. now thats not to say that if soemone is seeing something others dont and is scared and doesnt want to see it that they cant look for ways to make it stop. but i think we all just need to be open to people having different beliefs and let them be so long as that belief doesnt impose upon others or hurt anyone else people should be allowed to just be. and i feel the way people currently talk about mental health does not allow for the person experiencing it to have any say in what they want to or should be allowed to believe. i mean if we are going to say that we can only believe things we can prove then every single religion would be deemed "crazy" but ironically psychiatry has almost as little proof of their theories as religon has of their gods. still if you want to believe in either you should have the right to do so. 

[soi]

l completely get where you are coming from. It is tough, and you do really need to be VERY discerning who you share this KNOWLEDGE WITH. thERE ARE PEOPLE WHO THINK THE SAME AND EXPERIENCE THE SAME THINGS HOWEVER, THEY DON'T HAVE A STICKER ON THEIR FOREHEADS IDENTIFYING THEMSELVES LOL.

[soi]

hi MY NAME IS SOI,
L HAVE READ YOUR POSTS, AND L COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU. ; APPRECIATE YOUR INTELLIGENCE, OPEN MINDEDNESS AND TOUR ABILITY TO ADVOCATE AND SPEAK YOUR MIND iT'S SOOOO GOOD THAT WE CAN DO THIS IN A SAFE PLACE WITHOUT BEING JUDGED, IT'S A SHAME WE CANNOT SAY THE SAME FOR SOCIETY AS A HOLE. tHE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE NOWADAYS CARE ABOUT DOLLARS AND MATERIAL GOODS, when there is so much more out there to be appreciated and explode Sorry about all the capitals didn't mean that, but did not want to retype my post lol. lm new to this site and am yet to get to know the ins and outs of it.