Lived Experience Forum

[justanotherguy]

Hi @Upndownnupndown 

@Former-Member @NatureLover @Appleblossom 

You have quite a detailed account of the last 20 years, I'm sure the support workers had to try and digest it all before commenting. Even though you are upset it seems like you are starting to put the pieces together yourself somewhat which is good. It's sad that many psychiatrists are only really trained to diagnose what they see and make little allowance for delayed or cumulative trauma (if they are even a thing). I like to think of it as a handful of sand - a single handful is not much, but 20 years of it can add up to quite a big pile. Getting angry over the phone is hard for support staff, but berating support staff for not meeting your expecations is kind of the same thing. There should be a Mental Health Complaints department in each state for you to contact with complaints, I'm sure the forum peer support workers can't really change the system for you. Some people have genuine life-long mental problems and need the ongoing care of a supportive peer workers, while your case sounds like a terrible case of mis-diagnosis or just laziness from the system. It's great you can start to see the things that have led to your distress, I'm sorry your mother was not very emotional towards you, it must be a hard thing to realise.

[Appleblossom]

I also identify as neurodivergent or aspie  @Upndownnupndown Good Luck with it all.  

[Upndownnupndown]

@justanotherguy

Your first contribution on this community forum shares some important similarities with my first contribution. Given this, I've found your first interaction with my thread tonight to be quite concerning.

The first thing you did was to tag in other peer support workers at the commencement of your reply, instead of just replying to me and if you felt the need to for whatever reason, maybe if you felt that they could maybe add anything further to your contribution, to tag them in at the bottom of the post. 

I'd like to clarify some things for you because you appear to have gotten the wrong end of the stick.  these are your words:

"Getting angry over the phone is hard for support staff"

These were my words, taken from my my first post:

"I'm so overcome, that when I called to speak to a counselor on your drop in free counseling service, that the poor person on the other end of the line did her best and she should absolutely be commended for her level of expertise, but after an hour of hearing about my circumstances the call was suddenly disconnected, I assume because she'd reached saturation point and didn't have the experience to be able to deal with a clearly over-stimuated/traumatised person on the other end of the phone. I really felt for her after I realised this, a few moments after the call was disconnected."

I have no idea how from that you deduced that I acted angrily towards peer staff over the phone. I've made two calls to the peer staff over the past month or so, and not again since I realised that they were both therapeutically unstructured and for someone who pre-screenings have suggested that I'm on the Autism Spectrum and whom has a had very large amount of trauma accumulated across the span of my life, beginning since early childhood, some of which the mental health field, both public and private have had a consistent hand in (until the past couple of years), I decided that it wasn't safe for me to do so again.

I've been appreciative of the higher level of care afforded me a couple of years ago when I needed it during an acute inpatient admission of a public hospital of around a week, but having accumulative trauma at the hand of the public and private sector of mental health for 20+ years, isn't my fault and as anyone else would, have a right to own my story.

I've tried to be respectful of the users on this forum and therefore have not put into specific detail, the many such traumatic experiences with the mental health system both public and private because it would be very traumatising for anyone to have to read, as well as to then have to moderate the worst of it out.

Given that you know nothing about my life other than attempting to read between the lines of a couple of contributions on this forum, It just isn't appropriate for you to comment on the therapeutic process between the peer support staff and I, especially when A) you're a contributor and not a peer support worker, and B) you weren't privy to either of the two calls.

I find it quite concerning that someone with two weeks on this forum, is now a senior contributor and contributing in the way that you've done so tonight.

furthermore, I said what I felt regarding feeling being ignored following my first contribution and this hurt was acknowledged so no harm done there, but my feelings were valid as another contributor stated. my feedback may have been unpleasant, but it wouldn't have been any easier to read, than it was for me to write.

I wish to clarify something else that you seem to have gotten the wrong end of the stick over. These are your words:

"It's sad that many psychiatrists are only really trained to diagnose what they see and make little allowance for delayed or cumulative trauma (if they are even a thing)"

I'm not sure how this passage relates to my circumstances considering that over the past 20+ years as I've already expressed in words, most Psychiatrists have diagnosed me with Bipolar Disorder simply because I mentioned it and wondered if I could be Bipolar, and then the rest of them chose to follow suit when I'd mentioned that I still wondered if I had Bipolar Disorder, but still had my reservations.

I was never diagnosed based on what had been seen, nor on hearing about delayed/accumulative trauma (until only a couple of years ago, and of which has been the only first right step in the diagnostic assessment process so far in these 20+ years).

Considering your first contribution on this site, I don't understand why you've chosen to take out of context my contributions and downplay my need for ongoing support. I'm referring to your words again here:

"Some people have genuine life-long mental problems and need the ongoing care of a supportive peer workers, while your case sounds like a terrible case of mis-diagnosis or just laziness from the system"

Please leave the peer support to the peer support workers. I'm trying to move forwards with my life and have made the choice to engage with other community members on this forum as well as peer support staff whilst sharing a slither of my story, and downplaying another new contributor's need for support is completely innapropriate.

Edit: I missed this but again would like to clarify. Your words:

"I'm sorry your mother was not very emotional towards you, it must be a hard thing to realise"

This doesn't scratch the surface of her psychological abuse. It wasn't so much a case of her not being able to meet my emotional needs, but of her actively setting out to use my healthy need for emotional validation as any child would, to condition and psychologically abuse me.

[Upndownnupndown]

@AppleblossomThank you. Fingers crossed that it doesn't end up being just another mirage in a otherwise desolate landscape of hope.

[tyme]

Hi @Upndownnupndown ,

Thank you for sharing what has worked and not worked for you on the forums in terms of a recent post. 

Sometimes, text-based messaging can prove challenging. I cannot speak for @justanotherguy , but if you have any further concerns, please email us on team@saneforums.org 

Kindest, tyme

[Upndownnupndown]

@tyme 

Thank you for your hasty reply. I've done so already for obvious reasons but really do appreciate your contribution. It takes courage to own one's truth as I've attempted to do from my very first contribution and have been happy to own my mistakes as I've done so on this forum thus far.

[Upndownnupndown]

@Former-Member 

Thank you for your reply. I acknowledge that the public mental health system may have helped a lot of people, but unfortunately I can't share that same recollection (until about 2 years ago, and that was after making it clear that I wasn't going to be mucked around and further traumatised by the system any longer). If my late brother was here to tell his story, he probably wouldn't either.

I wish I had a more positive story to share about my experiences in the mental health system (and dealing with the system over the past 20 years), but at least I've spared everyone the litany of detailed recounts.

I do look forward to putting this horrible 20+ year chapter of misdiagnosis behind me, asap. No one is immune from making mistakes, least not me and I've made many over the span of my life thus far.

I will apologise for some of my content potentially being confronting to other readers and SANE staff, but be that as it may, I've chosen not to minimalise the trauma afforded me by the mental health sector until around two years ago, and I wouldn't expect anyone else on this forum to feel the need to either.

I look forward to sharing the positives around the Governmental supports which have been supporting me for the past 1.5 years now to access programs in the community for people with complex mental health needs, and at a crucial time I will add, as soon as I'm in a more stable place. It has been having a hand in restoring my faith in the system as well as towards society in general, which has also been taking place within the past couple of years. I'm not a bitter person by nature, far from it. It's taken a lot of trauma, incompetence and the challenges of being undiagnosed and with a range of symptoms on the daily, for me to regress to the point that I did over the past 20 years, as well as making the choice to use what I knew were problematic maladaptive coping mechanisms at times, such as substance use, due to an absence of any more dependable tools (until I found the right therapist, online support groups and community support services etc).

It's not all bad news to report! hopefully after this assessment in a little under two months, I can finally find a way to lay the past to rest and start focusing on the future and how to make good of my life experience in the form of contributing meaningfully towards society. I've been advised that I'm going though a grieving period for many things and that this painful process is just going to take some time. 

This is also why I've largely stayed off the forums and not used the thread as a regular blog. It wouldn't be fair to use it for such purposes. Thank you for your reply earlier, apologies for it not containing this more recent and very positive content earlier, I wish that it had.

[Upndownnupndown]

@NatureLover 

Apologies, I just saw this reply and yes, my Clinical Psychologist has started to validate my formative trauma but to be honest, it's been very hard to open up about it because not only is there an overwhelming amount to go though, I don't really know where to start because I've been disassociating for as long as I can remember due to it all, but I'll get there in time. The most important thing is having the right person for the task and that goal has been achieved, as well as obviously having so many other supportive structures in my life now, structures in place due Governmental policy in this area. I wish that I found these community-based support structures with regular activities held and access to a facilitator who fortunately is exceedingly knowledgeable in mental health, years earlier, but better late than never I guess! Not partaking in maladaptive coping mechanisms is also a big part of learning new ways to self-regulate stimuli/emotion levels.

[justanotherguy]

Hi @Upndownnupndown 

I've been very frustrated at the mental health service for nearly 20 years also so I can understand some of what you are saying. The range of emotive adjectives like 'incompetent', 'maladaptive' and all the others definitely suggest a level of frustration and anger, and I can only suppose your phone conversations would have used similar language. Personally I have found commenting on this forum very therapeutic and helpful, the other contributors have their own life stories and probably all started out in similar position to you and me, ie. as patients in a system looking for better answers. I think when you berated them for not responding in a time frame you thought acceptable was pretty harsh, I don't think forums are designed to be an urgent response mechanism unless self harm is evident or other urgent distress. I was upset with my treatment inside the mental health system and have contacted the mental health complaints forum in my state, it was only after that that I came to this forum to try to find better answers. As stated, I don't think it's the job of Sane to 'fix' the mental health system but I'm sure everything that you've said is listened to. If you're getting help in the community that's great! I wish we could all be so lucky.

[Upndownnupndown]

Hi @justanotherguy 

Not that I need to justify myself any further, but for the purposes of trying to act in good faith, I'll do so once more.

"The range of emotive adjectives like 'incompetent', 'maladaptive' and all the others definitely suggest a level of frustration and anger, and I can only suppose your phone conversations would have used similar language."

I'm sorry to be the one to have to say it, but it's not your place to micromanage past telephonic interactions between me and this service. I attempted to set that healthy boundary last night to which has unfortunately been missed. I established that I'd been a bit harsh in my feedback 2 weeks ago and apologised for it the following morning.

I'm sorry, but I do not accept that I was unreasonable to speak up about waiting patiently for, yet not receiving any sort of reply from a peer support worker to that initial post that was posted in the morning, by late that evening. It was written in a state of distress, and I was desperately seeking some support.

"I don't think it's the job of Sane to 'fix' the mental health system"

you mentioned this in your comment to me last night, now again this morning. I'm not sure how you've come to the conclusion that I expect SANE to fix the mental health system. I feel that the current issues come from systemic origins as they always have, but I'm not going to offer any further comment on that topic, on these forums.