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Thread: Personal Woes and Advice 6
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2019-06-13, 10:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
Group sessions tend to not work well, because people aren't generally comfortable treating this sort of thing as a valid trigger. So I tend to end up in situations where I just get it set off repeatedly. Because people tend in general to think that pushing therapy is good and harmless, even if I say it is a trigger for me.
And the fundamental trigger for me is the power imbalance. The situation where the professional could say that I said or did anything and be treated as reliable. Whereas me trying to defend or protect myself is taken as a sign that I'm clearly too sick and need to be forced back to treatment (with the same person causing the problem).
And I don't trust all the reports that say this doesn't happen or isn't common. Because as far as any official statistics go, what happened to me and other students didn't happen. And people who tell me that there's nothing to worry about tend to turn around and say I must be wrong about what I remember happening.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
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2019-06-13, 11:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2017
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Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
Fair enough. I wasn't sure if having others around might defuse the power dynamic a bit. If not, that's understandable.
And the fundamental trigger for me is the power imbalance. The situation where the professional could say that I said or did anything and be treated as reliable. Whereas me trying to defend or protect myself is taken as a sign that I'm clearly too sick and need to be forced back to treatment (with the same person causing the problem).
And I don't trust all the reports that say this doesn't happen or isn't common. Because as far as any official statistics go, what happened to me and other students didn't happen. And people who tell me that there's nothing to worry about tend to turn around and say I must be wrong about what I remember happening.
I kind of wish there was a service people could go to/call where you could vent, and they'd try to help you with issues, but without any sort of medical authority over you. Maybe even something anonymous. Something like the various LGBT help lines that exist, but for general use. That might allow folks with trauma like you to be able to talk with someone without the trigger you have being set off. I don't know if such a thing exists, (one does here in Canada, but solely aimed at kids/teens) but it feels like it would be helpful for a lot of people.
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2019-06-13, 11:44 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
Unfortunately, while some things like that do exist, they tend to mostly want to try to push people into therapy. And with things like this simple venting isn't that useful.
I wouldn't say situations like mine are the norm. But I would say something can be common enough to be a concern without being the norm. But talking about it often feels like it's not ok to be critical of the mental health system at all. Or that if you are it means you think all treatment is bad. That last one drives me up a wall.
I think there's a lot of people who do get helped. But I also think the system is set up in a way that tends to enable abusive people who know how to work the system. Mental health is an easy way to discredit someone and to make it ok to others to override the person's choices.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
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2019-06-13, 11:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2017
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
Small but important quibble: what actually happens is that when someone else is cutting the checks for the therapists, their interests and yours can diverge. This is something that gets seen an unfortunate amount at institutions. Outside those situations, the fact that you can fire your therapist means that they're a lot more conscious of your needs.
I do agree that therapy is bandied about as a cure-all, often in the sense of just trying to get people to stop feeling emotions that others find uncomfortable. And while I'm sure that there are discussions going on somewhere about people who have had triggeringly bad experiences in therapeutic contexts and how to help them, I wouldn't know where to find them.
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2019-06-14, 07:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
Somewhat true. There was definitely a conflict of interest there. Although given what was going on, I think even outside of an institution I would have been afraid to fire him. I don't want to go into it too much, but I felt that the threat of forced hospitalization based on issues that I wasn't actually having was definitely there. The implicit threat was that I'd be considered a potential school shooter - even though I had made no threats and would never have hurt anyone. Unless "being depressed and wearing a lot of black" is a potential school shooter, or using everyday phrases (think "I'm going to kill that kid if he wanders off early and leaves the rest of us to handle his stuff again").
I have unfortunately experienced more minor stuff outside of institutions as well. Nothing as terrifying. I did have a guy try to diagnose me as borderline personality disorder while using the fact that I had a girlfriend in college as a major symptom. And I've had one instance where me reporting back that I had stopped a particular antidepressant due to it triggering suicidal impulses was listed simply as me being noncompliant with prescribed meds. Those do make me nervous, especially given medical records are a thing and they tend to be treated by future practitioners as basically true. So having stuff like that in the record can make it very hard to access treatment. I've already been subjected to the whole "oh it's just your mental illness" for stuff that very much turned out to be something physically wrong with me, too.
I do agree that therapy is bandied about as a cure-all, often in the sense of just trying to get people to stop feeling emotions that others find uncomfortable. And while I'm sure that there are discussions going on somewhere about people who have had triggeringly bad experiences in therapeutic contexts and how to help them, I wouldn't know where to find them.
I haven't found the discussions like that going on anywhere, honestly. Maybe the occasional anecdote. But I think it would need real, professional research, and it seems like the mental health community is just barely starting (in the last maybe 2 years) to acknowledge that some people can be harmed by therapy at all. The idea of genuine trauma caused by treatment seems to be off the radar.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
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2019-06-14, 09:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
In terms of scholarly articles there are a fair number after even a cursory google scholar search looking at negative consequences from psychological therapy. How this translates down to individual practitioners probably depends on where they're located and the scrutiny they're under. Large organizations in urban centers (hospitals or the like) probably have more scrutiny that an individual private practice or similar type situation. Therapists at schools/businesses probably have significant less scrutiny as well since psychological therapy there is an ancillary service/benefit rather than a primary one like it is at hospitals or other health care organizations.
Clearly individual bad actors are also a problem as they would be in any profession particularly in cases where its simply one person's word against another's.
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2019-06-14, 09:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
I'd be interested in seeing the timeline breakdown. I have noticed that there's been a surge in research on negative therapeutic outcomes in the last few years - information that wasn't available when I started looking a decade ago and may not be on the radar of a lot of people currently practicing. That said, the idea of genuine traumatic reactions to therapy is somewhat different than just a negative outcome, in terms of effects on future treatment.
There's definitely a reputation that schools, especially smaller schools, get the bottom of the barrel. And that combines somewhat with the idea that "a therapist" can handle anything mental health. Which can lead to its own problems if the therapist isn't actually qualified to handle a particular issue.
A lot of people suspect bad actors of a certain type are drawn to positions of power. Mental health work being one of those. Any case involving a serious power imbalance (including issues of social power difference) is going to be vulnerable to that.
I'd also just comment that being able to explain a traumatic memory clearly takes a lot of work. That's part of my memories as well. When you're in or just getting out of the situation, the memory itself is often too strong to just talk over. But that takes away your credibility if you can't discuss an abuser's behavior calmly and rationally, even if that's the standard trauma reaction.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
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2019-06-14, 09:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
I will also say search engines are really, really annoying sometimes. It's nearly impossible to search for research on therapy causing trauma. Because searches work off of keywords and not natural language.
Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
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2019-06-14, 10:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2013
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
As a member of a professional body, this lack of professional oversight is terrifying. In Canada, the profession worked with government to develop a regulatory professional body precisely to deal with these issues. They were thorough at it that in my province (Alberta), other professional regulatory body just refer to the Provincial Act that established the Engineering regulatory body instead of codifying separate acts for each profession.
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2019-06-14, 12:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
We have regulatory bodies here too. The problem is when the victim isn't seen as credible enough in making a report. This is going to be especially difficult when it comes to people with mental illness. His explanation was that I had a disorder that was causing paranoia and that's why I was saying what I said. And he was just trying to help a student who was too sick to realize she needed help and make sure no one was in danger.
Regulations don't help unless you have some underlying measure to ensure people who aren't typically seen as credible can have access to make complaints and have them be taken seriously.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
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2019-06-14, 01:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2013
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
I guess my perspective is that the concept of "getting an objective second opinion" should be easily done. In the age of digital communication, I don't know why it cannot be possible to:
1) file a complaint with the relevant body
2) get an independent review from another specialist that can at least inform where there may be issues.
3) If there are signs of issues with the practitioner, call them in for a hearing.
I don't know if it is too risky to use a confidential clause and a recording device for such records that can be accessed as a "third party" to break the power imbalance of "professional vs. Client".
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2019-06-14, 03:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2017
- Gender
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
(Note, I'm also a Canadian Engineer, so I get where you're coming from, but...)
Unfortunately, professional bodies, even here in Canada, have varying levels of effectiveness and oversight. I know a few people who have to report to their own professional associations, and those associations do almost nothing for them outside of being a name. Not professional practice insurance, not mediation, not anything useful.
In the US, the effectiveness of a body will highly depend on the individual state, as many aren't national, and how thorough the oversight is.
For WarKitty's specific situation, I'd also assume the incident was a number of years ago. There may be little that could happen at this point, anyways.
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2019-06-14, 03:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2013
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
Clarification, I'm a grad student who returned to school due to lack of EIT positions not getting filled with people getting hired back from the initial mass lay-offs.
Meaning I'm still an idealist.
It's more the case that we know where we should be, and the lack of drive to _get_ there bothers me.
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2019-06-15, 07:58 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
A lot of the problem is ensuring an objective independent review. It's a fairly common complaint that practitioners tend to be biased in favor of prior diagnosis. And the nature of mental health treatment means they're already on the lookout for people who don't think anything's wrong or don't understand. In fact that's one of the major worries a lot of people have about misdiagnosis, that further treating professionals tend to assume the diagnosis is correct, and symptoms are often vague enough that someone looking for confirmation can find it. An independent review won't help if the reviewer is going in with the idea that it's probably nothing.
That's actually been part of my complaint - that when you see someone else and report an issue with another professional, the default assumption seems to be that there's something wrong with you that's making you say that.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
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2019-06-16, 01:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2013
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
I know this is really stating the obvious, but that's not how peer-reviewed analysis work. You really should start from scratch, with ideally the person managing the application for a second opinion filtering the application so that the previous diagnosis is not known, only the symptoms.
But professional elitism and complacency is really a difficult beast to combat, since you need to balance between confidence and over-confidence.
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2019-06-16, 03:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2010
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
When it rains, it pours.
Two years ago I had to deal with this. Fortunately, the worst seems to be over (and I had a release), but it's still a daily struggle.
Four months after that I hurt my abdomen doing sit-ups. It still hasn't healed and doctors are baffled.
One year ago I hurt my ankles by walking more than I was used to. They still haven't healed and doctors are baffled.
In November I had to deal with this.
Two weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night with severe abdominal pain. A ct scan at the emergency room revealed that this pain had nothing to do with my prior injury, but was, in fact, mild pneumonia! Although the worst seems to be over, I still have a cough that my doctor says could last 6-8 weeks.
On Thursday I noticed some mysterious, small red spots on my calves.
When I got to work on Friday I had a pain in my knee that caused me to limp for a few minutes, after which it felt better. The same thing happened Saturday.
My financial life is, and has always been, a disaster.
Despite being a loving, loyal, listener, I've spent most of my life single.
On Friday I got a message from my (potentially dangerous) ex, after seven months of silence.
Later that day I began thinking about this.
I try to remind myself that there's always something to be thankful for, but I'm really, really frustrated.
Bleh.
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2019-06-18, 12:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
One more thought on therapy, more musing than anything:
I've been told a lot things like "therapists aren't mindreaders" and "they can only work on what you bring to the session." Which, I understand, but it also seems like it's putting a lot of work on the patient to basically be the expert? Like I've definitely had cases where I was dealing with abuse, but to me what was happening was so normal that it wasn't worth bringing up in therapy. I feel like what I actually needed from therapy was someone to say "hey this thing that you're used to seeing as normal is actually pretty out there and it's causing you a lot of problems." But it was somehow my responsibility to bring it up, despite my having no reason at all to think I should. And it was my fault if therapy didn't work because I didn't bring it up.
That's part of how I feel like "you need therapy to benefit from therapy" comes up as well. Like I had to do all the work on my own of overcoming all the gaslighting and manipulation and being able to see and name what was going on. And then once I do 90% of the work while therapy frankly actively impedes it by focusing on other things, then I'm considered "ready for therapy" and actually able to receive help without being blamed for not doing it right.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
CATNIP FOR THE CAT GOD! YARN FOR THE YARN THRONE! MILK FOR THE MILK BOWL!
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2019-06-19, 09:37 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2017
- Gender
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
Yeah, you're responsible to bring them information, but THEY are responsible for drawing that information out of you and getting you to notice what's wrong so you can tell them about it. It's a very difficult situation for all involved, I'd imagine.
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2019-06-19, 03:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2010
- Location
- Sad place
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
Now that I have graduated, I have come to realize that I carry a deep grudge towards two of my professors. Not being able to process the negative feelings, I sent an angry e-mail to one of them a couple of days ago. I didn't hold anything back, because she had always been an arrogant ******* who had never paid any attention when I tried to tell her something. I was astonished when she replied (instead of just ignoring me) and she actually seemed sorry for the way that I felt and for the fact that I wasn't able see anything positive in the years that we spent together. Now I'm thinking that I should write something nice to her and try to reconcile, but I don't know what to say. Nevertheless, I am considering sending another angry e-mail to the other professor too, who was the ultimate ******* and quite the bully towards clueless freshmen such as me three years ago.
My Red Hand of Doom Campaign Journal (Completed)
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2019-06-19, 03:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2011
- Location
- South of Heaven
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2019-06-19, 06:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
I think a lot of my frustration is with how different the approach has been. Like, if I try a medication and it doesn't work, it's just treated as I had a bad reaction to that medication. If I have a bad reaction to several medications in a row, then my psychiatrist will probably suggest we try a different class of meds. But it's just how the particular issue I have is going. And it's understandable that some medications might have really bad side effects and that might be a reason to be wary.
With therapy, I felt that it was very much different. One, the possibility of negative outcomes was treated as almost non-existent. The idea that it might be hard or you might feel bad for a while was there, but the idea of a genuine outcome where therapy makes things worse rather than better was not. I very much felt that the attitude was that you should try therapy because it can only help.
Two, there's a definite attitude that if it didn't work after a few tries, it's because you are, so to speak, doing therapy wrong. Framed in a way as though you were making a deliberate choice to not actually get better. I've honestly run into this even from therapists pretty frequently, that if you don't respond in the way they were looking for they go straight to "you're not trying." When in retrospect, I was trying, it's just that it wasn't getting the results the therapist wanted. I've run into it more commonly from regular people though - that if after 2 or 3 therapists you aren't getting better, it's because you are choosing to not improve for some reason.Hail to the Lord of Death and Destruction!
CATNIP FOR THE CAT GOD! YARN FOR THE YARN THRONE! MILK FOR THE MILK BOWL!
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2019-06-19, 08:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
I was going to argue this, but then I realized that my own experience kinda proves this to be true in most cases. If any therapists are reading this, I hope you're one of the good ones. If I'd listened to one of the crappier ones, I'd be dead. 2-3 is really not a good sample size from my experience.
And odd, idea, but if therapists aren't working out for you, maybe leave an honest, but bad review? Many have yelp pages or the like, so doing so is pretty easy. You'd be helping others make good decisions if they choose that route to find help.For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2019-06-19, 08:36 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
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2019-06-19, 08:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2019-06-19, 08:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
Find the therapist who right for you. Talk about your problems and daily life. If he or she understand you and you have a connect then that therapist is for you. If not then dump him of her and find a better therapist. The therapist that I'm currently with I know her for more than a decade and I have a therapeutic connection with her.
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2019-06-20, 11:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2014
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
It's like dating, in that it's a lot of trial and error and takes a lot of bad connections to find a good one, but worse because you often have to "break up" for reasons that have nothing to do with the "relationship".
I'm still resentful about an insurance change that happened when I was 13 that meant I could no longer see the therapist who I actually felt comfortable with (I couldn't keep seeing her private-pay because her whole office lost the contract with the insurance I was using and everyone lost their jobs - I have no idea where she ended up, and in the pre-mainstream-internet 90s it was not easy to find a specific person like this again even if they went into a private practice where I could have continued to see her). It took me until college to find one I was comfortable with again (after going through several in high school who were terrible fits), and since she was part of the college's health center I couldn't see her anymore after I graduated. I haven't found anyone I actually matched well with as an adult. (I really need someone who understands that being smart does not make me better at life, and does not give me speeches about how I have "so much potential" because I'm good at math/have a large vocabulary/test well/whatever. I know I'm smart, and that means there are certain kinds of problems I do not have. For example, I have never failed a standardized test required for placement or licensure, because standardized tests are my wheelhouse. It does not help me with the problems I actually have, because there are lots of problems where being smart does not help and some where it's an actual hindrance. )
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2019-06-20, 12:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2019-06-20, 02:28 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2013
- Location
- Uusimaa
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
Bad idea, and the first angry email wasn't a smart move either in my opinion. Be constructive, not an angry mess. That time is gone now, you're an adult and should be able to communicate like one. The idea of sending an email explaining yourself, sure, but "not holding anything back" seems aggressive and unnecessary.
Originally Posted by LaZodiac
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2019-06-21, 01:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2016
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- R'lyeh
- Gender
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6
I'm trying to get past a relationship but it's hard. Neither of us want to really be together anymore, but we just persist. I don't know how to just permanently break it. There's really not much more to tell.
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2019-06-21, 03:02 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2012
- Location
- Shreveport, Louisiana, US
- Gender
Re: Personal Woes and Advice 6