A reason to be sceptical of psychiatry and psychiatrists

Just been looking through my psych correspondence. There's a copy of a letter from my then care co coordinator to my pdoc where she mentions to him I've spoken several times about my balance and difficulty with practical tasks . She then goes on to say I know that dyspraxia is quite hard to diagnose(something I never said). That was back in March 2008. Well I got an additional appointment on the back of that where the pdoc asked a couple of irrelevant questions and then rather huffily dismissed the subject. The subject has never been raised again by a professional although I occasionally drop the words dyspraxic and dyspraxia into the conversation. It seems to me completely irresponsible and bad clinical practice that a pdoc would dismiss something as a possibility after a few questions that really had no bearing on the matter at hand. Even if they had been relevant I doubt a 5 minute conversation would have been enough to arrive at a definitive yes or no as to the possibility of dyspraxia. It's crap like that that helps people to be sceptical about psychiatry and the intelligence of psychiatrists.

Psychiatrists tend to be dismissive if you have the intelligence and insight to have noticed things they haven't picked up on. Then there's the fact that if you have a psych diagnosis everything is seen through the lens of that diagnosis. The trouble is psychiatry in its ignorance fails to take a holistic approach. Couple that with the fact that a psychiatrist may not be the sharpest tool in the box and you have a recipe for bad treatment.

  • A small negative point, that could have ended very negative... I had the trunk full of photo's for my mom... Also a safe (little model) with the keys on it, with a wallet with 150 Euro's in it... (the loot from my last visit to my mom's house, that I would now faithfully bring back (and managed...). Also my toolbelt... Somehow I pressed the remote button to open the trunk... For more than half an hour the trunk stayed open in the street while I was up talking to the psychiatrist. Nothing was missing from my car... The toolbelt, the little safe, the foto's, everything still there. I guess a possible thief would think of this as 'too good to be true, the owner is probably literaly watching this car right now...) But I was double guessing the damn medication at that point...

    It happens to the best of us... but after it happens, they're not the absolute best anymore :()

  • I'm now seeing a psychiatrist that seems to explain everything from a point of view of autism... 

    She gave me an important insight today: 'if she would be having psychological issues, she would be in any case unfit to judge her own state of mind, let alone prescribe her own medication'... 

    It seems that those frogpills I'm taking now would provide a kind of sunglasses for the brain... Less input would come through, easier for the poor brain to handle... It frightened me, would I still be able to drive a car? That seems to be fine... I drove my wife's car for 150km today. Visited the Psychiatrist, bought a piece of furniture in IKEA (proof of concept), visited my mom in the retirement home, went foodshopping. 

  • forgive the phrase 'usually I'm never' ... In Dutch it is a permitted expression, but I think it's frowned upon in English...

  • Usually I'm never diagnosed with depression. Just the monotonous talking and rational self-observation...

    Before, I took lithium. My brother took this too. He kind of diagnosed me. The doctor went along in prescribing it, she insisted I would see a psychiatrist soon after, and I did, and the psychiatrist just asked me: 'ok, I see you already take medication, how do you feel...' and since the answer was 'better', that was the end of that discussion. For ten years it worked like a charm, but I felt the need to lower the dose, because my action radius between peeing was a bit short... and the tremor...

    When you're an autist, you're trapped inside yourself, it's depressing to see that your opinion is easily overlooked... but fighting the depression is not tackling the rootcause.

    On the other hand, if you have a heavy cold, taking something against coughing may make you feel better...  

  • It sounds like you’re doing really well MDC. I recently started to take antidepressants. I was terrified of taking them because I didn’t think I was depressed, but my instincts told me to take them and they started working almost straight away. They have quietened my mind down a bit, but I’m not currently considering them as a long term option, but so far so good. 

  • I have to testify that talking to a psychologist helped me a lot. I have this theory that I'm very literal minded, and when she tells me she's convinced that it is possible to have positive experiences with work done by a handyman, it keeps me going, it allows me to give it another go. I don't have to give up on my usual carefulness... I still make a cost/benefit analysis, the difference is, I keep going and the results are a decently maintained house and a satisfied household (of 4, of which 2 teenagers) (hah, this was a to the point reply ...:))

  • I also see my psychologist again after two months. She noted I saw a 'complot theory'... I do have to correct her, I just saw that with my judgement left unchecked, my brother in law and niece would have made a suboptimal decision for the future of my mom. And that would have been obvious after a while. I think I'll have to reconsider seeing her. My psychiatrist seems to think that all my worries and panic attack from the last few days is explained by autism, having lots of thoughts, decisions, doubts, uncertainties, not sleeping for five days, feeling a heavy task of deciding together with my mother about her future (retirement home, service flat, back to her own house...), not feeling understood by my niece, and coming to the conclusion that my brother in law is a bit of a sfincter (feels left out, then doesn't even offer to drive my mom to her the retirement home, first offers to take her in in his house, then tells me that in this state he can't do that...

    Again, I wish I know how to start my own subjects, I realise I'm only indirectly jumping on other's people subjects... Sorry.

  • I apologise for hijacking conversations, although there's a link to the subject. I take Abilify (aripiprazole) now. Any experience anybody? 

    Today I entered an IKEA shop. I even had food there, where normally I would have run out of the door as soon as my shopping list would have been complete. I decided having a meal at the regular time is important and it wasn't all that crowded :). That's a quantum leap, the time I went there before, the whole family was there, and it was hell. I once said that Dante forgot the mezzanine level 3b in hell where they have an IKEA for sure...

  • The whole mental health system is changing, they’re not able to sustain the medical model of treating the symptoms with drugs so they’re moving towards a recovery model, which is going to take some time. The best chance people have is to take more responsibility for their own health and help those who can’t because there’s a big old muddle going on there, within the mental health system. I worked in the services for a while, as a mental health nurse and as a social worker and the services are generally so stretched and the staff overworked and unsupported and working to the old model, that things often get missed etc. Often, if we can articulate to a certain degree, how we’re struggling etc, they think we’re doing ok, we can cope so we don’t need support. I have worked with some very good psychiatrists and I wouldn’t like their jobs. I wouldn’t like the responsibility of prescribing those heavy duty medications and from my experience, as a worker, there’s little scope for alternative forms of treatment under the nhs, so it’s very discouraging.