If your doctor wrote in your medical record in the 1940s that you were mentally ill or had a neuropsychiatric disorder, this could have led to sterilization across most of the Western world, or in Germany to elimination. Long before a single Jew was gassed, tens of thousands of lives not worth living were eliminated at the hands of church-goers who were not members of the Nazi party – people like Hans Asperger.
If your doctor wrote in your notes in the 1950s that you were homosexual, this risked being a death sentence if you were running for political office. Having a successfully treated depressive disorder was a political death sentence for Thomas Eagleton in 1972.
There are all kinds of things your doctor might write in your notes today that could significantly disadvantage you in custody battles, in legal cases, when it comes to executing your will, or in getting decent medical care – especially if the diagnoses are psychiatric.
Just yesterday I was reviewing a patient’s records that contained diagnoses like hysteria. Several years later a prolactinoma turned up but the original diagnoses remained and colored care.
The problem with all diagnoses but psychiatric diagnoses in particular is that even when done well they are opinions. Very few psychiatric diagnoses are supported by tests of the sort that underpin diagnoses in the rest of medicine.
Mental illnesses are real but rare. Much less half the people who get a diagnosis, perhaps no more than a tenth, have an illness. But many people with little more than anxiety today can easily get labelled as schizophrenic – particularly if you respond poorly to the treatment you are put on when the system will always want to blame you rather than concede it might have made a mistake.
In America in the 00s, any hint of an emotional swing was liable to land you with a Bipolar Disorder diagnosis. The terrible twos in American children have been reconfigured as pediatric bipolar disorder.
Between changing fashions and just the general sloppiness of psychiatric diagnosis, the chances are that a very high proportion of those who come in contact with the mental health services have diagnoses in their records that could do them harm.
What are your chances of getting these changed?
Prompted by the case of someone, who had nothing more than anxiety but who ended up diagnosed as having schizophrenia and was pumped full of the gamut of antipsychotics and other meds which left her with significant side effects, I wrote to the Medical Protection Society (MPS) and Medical Defense Union (MDU) to get their take on getting medical records changed.
Part of the problem with current legislation is that it treats psychiatric diagnoses as equivalent to medical diagnoses in general. The view is that while a diagnosis might have changed there may have been a legitimate basis for its use in the first instance and it might even be important in future care for there to be a clear record that the diagnosis was used at one point.
What the MPS or MDU don’t seem to realise is that even if I write letters on behalf of my patient saying she was never anything other than briefly anxious and she has no problems now, the fact that a diagnosis of schizophrenia remains, or other diagnoses like borderline personality disorder, when the original problem might have been being beaten up by an abusive husband, when a court comes to consider the issues, a judge or magistrate is likely to make up his or her mind on a risk management basis and this hint of irrationality is often all it takes to deny a mother the custody of her child or other rights.
Once diagnosed, unless lucky, you may be close to fucked.
In the midst of writing to MPS and MDU, I had an email from a woman who got her diagnosis changed. Over the next few weeks we will run a series of posts by her on what happened.
After these posts run and any comments on them, we’ll try to sum up what can be done.
Continued in A Unicorn: Changing a Medical Record
mary H. says
I feel that this is the first of what should turn out to be a VERY interesting series of posts. I feel that one of the main issues here is the fact that, generally, psychiatrists fail to inform their ‘patients’ of anything that they are entering into the records. Having sat in CMH waiting rooms on a good few occasions over the last 15 or so years, it is only in the last 3 years ( with the change of psychiatrist) that I’ve been party to the exchange of news/opinions and joint discussions on the patient’s way forward towards better health. Previously, I would be called into the consulting room to be told what ‘they’ had decided during the meeting. Invariably, the patient would report that ‘they’ had not exactly decided anything – that he’d more or less been told what the next steps would be. Over the last 3 years, he and his GP have a full record of everything discussed at each appointment. Whilst that does not exactly tell him what has been entered into his records, it does build up a trust between the patient and psychiatrist which was missing in those previous years.
His care coordinator’s plan for the day when the drugs have been withdrawn is “we’ll ask _______________(present psychiatrist) for his diagnosis of your condition so that your records can be adjusted and brought up to date”. I guess that ‘brought up to date’ is not the same as ‘wrongful diagnoses will be removed’ but I would like to feel that the previous psychiatrist is man enough to add into the notes the exact sentences that he used in a recent meeting ( the only meeting since change of psychiatrist) which were “I found your case a mystery and didn’t know what to try next. I could see you were in crisis and admission to the psych. unit was the only thing left to try. I haven’t ever seen you looking as well as you do today and I’m very pleased to be able to say that”.
The reason he hadn’t seen him looking at all well previously was that he only ever saw him in a crisis therefore his records can only show that side of the patient. I would have thought that a ‘medical record’ might have shown ‘follow up’ work and not simply ‘added extra meds./ changed med. dosage’ etc. Maybe it does – but there would be very little that could possibly be put in there and certainly no progression towards an overall improvement to be shown.
I would guess that his present records are possibly the originals of the notes that he and his GP have received – those show progress towards a goal and are written truthfully and illustrate exactly how difficult the road of withdrawal is proving to be. What more could anyone ask for? On the other hand, should we stand for any less? In all walks of life ‘where you’ve come from’, ‘where you’re heading’ and ‘how you get there’ are all important – but surely, having got there, the past becomes exactly that – the past; how things were and how they were overcome should remain, but only be relevant if the patient is ever again in need of further support – at which point the mistakes of the past should be noticed and avoided at all costs!
Johanna says
These days, at least in the USA, a diagnosis can be little more than a glorified billing code. You may be diagnosed with whatever disease the doctor (or his employer) gets paid the most to treat—or saddled with a “Serious Mental Illness” because the insurance company will deny treatment altogether if you’re diagnosed with a “mere” life crisis. As one psychiatrist admitted recently:
“I am often amazed at how imprecise we are in our diagnoses and their treatment implications. At times, this is due to insurance pressure or our own “worry” about reimbursement. I recall a colleague telling residents to avoid the diagnosis of adjustment disorder because there is little (or no) reimbursement for it.”
That’s just the beginning. Too often it works like this: The doctor wants to use a particular drug—whether from laziness, a sincere belief in its powers, or because he thinks that “practically speaking,” drugs are all he can offer. It doesn’t matter. In order to get the drug paid for (especially if it’s new and rather expensive) he will issue the diagnostic code most likely to get the drug approved. Is it only officially indicated for Bipolar I Disorder? Fine. You’ve got Bipolar I Disorder. Far from feeling guilty, the doctor may be proud of being such a savvy practitioner, helping patients negotiate a dysfunctional system to get their needs met.
It’s called “upcoding,” and it’s everywhere. Go to extremes with it, and you might get prosecuted for fraud. But within the middle ranges, you will find platoons of respectable consulting firms devoted to teaching you how to do it better. It’s not confined to mental health, but that could be the place where it does the most damage to patients.
susanne says
Regarding what is put in notes I’d like to flag up the seemingly minor belittling and undermining comments which colour people’s judgement of individuals who have no choice of the health workers they are referred to .The title of this could as well be ‘Who do they think they are!’ So many offensive comments such as she is drab, dull and unfeminine by a newly qualified GP , she started to wear more feminine dresses, by a psychiatrist – who wore very tight trousers himself by the way ,Many women especially those in mother and baby units play the sucking up game by dressing to please to avoid over medication and a get out sooner . ‘ I think she might have personality disorder – no discussion with ‘she’, In a GP
referral letter; she is taking budgie food – of a person trying herbal medicine; by a student – she thinks her mother had cancer – she knew her mother had cancer; by a physiotherapist – the only sentence on file – she said she is in a bad mood today- no context given; another GP to an elderly woman – you’ll have to take HRT that’s what we do here, implying ignorance. Same GP to a person who had had a period of depression many years ago – you must take medication – again ‘ that;s what we do here’ – who was your last doctor I will write to him for information about you; a psychiatrist out of the blue in an outpatient clinic ‘how heavy are you ? I’ll get a nurse to give you an injection’ no explanation as to why? Informed consent anyone? All this kind of stuff is hard to challenge just as is the looking up and down ,the hand on the lady’s knee as she sits on the side of the bed , ‘nice strong legs’ When groups sit around chatting about this stuff it is well understood as humiliating and an abuse of power . Thankfully after years of resistance people have more right of access to their notes but it still goes on – , just black humour, just blowing off steam – just doing a socio/psycho assessment -without your knowledge.
mary H. says
I guess it’s high time that we had access to our medical records ‘on demand’ rather than having to request ( and pay for !) them. Who knows how many entry pages are withdrawn before our ‘request’ is granted!
susanne says
Or how many files get ‘lost’ altogether – down that black hole of disappeared files Mary H!
Re 24/5/18 NHS Choices – ‘Your Health Care Records’ -‘subject to conditions (such as risk of harm to self or others usually and as determined only by the health professionals, although obviously necessary sometimes) individuals have a right to apply for access to health records Regardless of When They were Compiled. (4.1)
(Reasonable costs can be requested though if the file is extensive).
Since Data Protection Laws were changed this year May 25th 2018 ,advice given by BMA states – ‘Medical Access Records. ‘Medical Records Access GDPR – Changes to Subject Access Requests and Fees from 25 May 2018’
‘Since Data Protection Laws were changed 25th May 2018 most patients must be given access FREE of Charge except in rare cases. These changes are causing considerable concern to our members (BMA quote)’ . You bet….
It is another telling indictment of the medical profession that it took so long to get to this stage but most of all how incredible that many people are still to afraid to request access to their own records – sometimes simply for fear of upsetting the health professional or of finding them for different reasons offensive or upsetting or very often incorrect.
The are a few Sample Letters on line latest I could find is 1 march 2017 which pre dates recent changes above .It can be used to make things easier but it’s not necessary to use any standard form. Hopefully many more people will access their records although many will still feel too nervous. . Importantly There is a right to add comments although not too have parts of the record deleted.
At the bottom page of ‘NHS Choices Your Health Care Records 24/5/18:- ‘If you think your record is incorrect let your GP or other healthcare professional know and they will help you update it’ . The wording should surely be and you can help them update it. – whatever, it is important to review our own records. One GP flagged up the idea that if GPs have a suspicion that someone has a ‘personality disorder’ they should put a marker on file but without discussing that with the person. What happened to the Jews couldn’t happen here???
Heather R says
Mary, I would never have believed this could happen but we were warned by a friend who is a GP that it does, and had it confirmed by another old friend who recently retired but whose job it was when she worked as a PA in a GP practice, to go through patients’ Notes when anything controversial came up, a law case etc, a serious complaint, and remove/ re write bits to make things look more reasonable from the doctors’ point of view. She said the justification for this is ‘so that the public don’t lose faith in the good intentions of their doctors, so they don’t lose trust in their care and stop going to them for help’. It’s the old ‘greatest benefit for the greatest number’ kind of thing, which is used across various authoritative bodies, like ombudsmen, and MI6 for example.
We put the system to the test. To our utter amazement, we proved that indeed this does happen. By chance we did have copies of medical records from way back because of our problems with sheep dip family damage when we were farming. We’d needed them to try and get a referral to an expert in another county. That was before the well intentioned but ineffective and expensive ‘Patient Choice’ was brought into being. (Which, by the way, only applies to physical Illness, not mental illness – aftter all, if you are mentally ill how can you be trusted to need to make a choice between doctors and therapists….).
So, we have Notes before and after. We also have one hilarious entry in Notes made by a GP which he thought we would never see as he had them pulled out before we got them. I had had an allergic reaction to being accidentally caught in crop spray in hot weather, and had been given Prednisolone steroids. But I had a terrible reaction to them too. He told me it wasn’t possible to have a reaction to steroids, because steroids were used to TREAT allergies, so what I was reporting was total nonsense. He felt I needed instead to see a psychiatrist! Backed up by a nurse who was a long time friend, I asked instead for a referral to an allergy specialist. The letter I was grudgingly given from him and sent secretly, stated that, in unnecessary reference to my home and husband, using words to the effect that our home was large and ‘there had been plenty of money around once but there was no evidence of it now’and that ‘she wears the trousers in that marriage’…
Our home is large, but used for teaching too, so partly a business, and yes, I did stand up for myself more verbally than my bemused husband when this GP was haranguing me, but he was quietly thinking things through and working out how to save the situation. He is not a big talker but he’s a great thinker! The steroids caused the joints in my neck to swell, causing cranial pressure, I had heart pains extending down the arms, and my diaphragm went into spasm. This was apparently ‘all in my mind’. The allergy specialist (who knew the nurse who, on our behalf, attested to our good reasonable character over 20 years), did allergy tests and proved we were right. Some time later we asked for our Notes, paid the normal £50 for photocopies, but there was obviously a page missing. It was the second page of the letter sent to the allergy specialist by the disgruntled GP. So we asked the secretary of the allergy specialist for it, and there it was, full of derogatory and prejudicial remarks about us and our home! Maybe designed to rubbish anything we said. But it didn’t work. We left that GP practice, but the doctor in question, treating various friends, seems to use steroids a great deal. So we had a lucky escape.
Other proofs we have are seen are the differences between our son’s and my Notes before and after he became ill and died. The intention after he died (and we wrote to the GMC) obviously was to make it look as though I had suffered anxiety all my life therefore any evidence I might report, would need to be looked at in the light of my reasoning being suspect. I had only ever had ‘anxiety’ symptoms twice for short periods, once aged 25 when my mother had quickly died from undiagnosed breast cancer and I too developed a breast lump after being given a hormone due to an obstetrician’s mistake, and once many years later being apparently ridiculously ‘anxious’ about the symptoms the steroids had caused. This branded me mentally ill with ‘anxiety’ for life, and thus I must have caused my son to be predisposed to ‘anxiety’ too, hence his suicide!
So, yes, the Notes are a weapon which can work against one’s attempts to get honesty and justice. When I was a junior social worker in an MSW Social Service Department, we had a code of practice never to put comments in Social worker Notes which were unsubstantiated and which passed our personal opinions about a patient. They were also passed between social workers for scrutiny for fairness. That was in the olden days when everyone knew accountability was enforceable and vital for patients’ trust in us. Which is where we came in….
Jane says
Very interesting information, Heather, thanks for sharing.
In my case, the main impact of a wrongful diagnosis and therefore (as far as I’m concerned) totally incorrect information in my medical records is that I have to re-apply for my driving licence on an annual basis – a waste of my time, the DVLA’s time and the medic’s time (who are consulted about my ‘mental stability’).
A minor inconvenience really, compared to much more serious and devasting harms (caused by medics inability to recognise really quite obvious iatronic akathisia) but nevertheless a frustrating inconvenience and an unjust one.
I have tried to challenge the wrong diagnosis but I’d be better off ‘banging my head against a brick wall’ as it’s imposdible to get anywhere on this and even if it was agreed that I was mis-diagnosed it’s still impossible to get your medical records amended under the current system. So I just have to ‘shrug my shoulders’ and put up with the nonsense and steer clear, best I can, from medical folk …. I now much prefer the ‘birdseed’ route of natural remedies. My only visit to the GP is to present myself as sane at re-application for driving licence time of year!
I know that, compared to many others, I had a lucky escape from the clutches of psyche pharma and for that I’m very grateful. I was told I’d need medication for life – ha, ha !
And that would almost certainly have been a significantly shortened life!
Fiachra says
I notice this discrimination in MH in medicine but I don’t notice it really anywhere else. I think it’s to do with the money MH brings in to medicine. I think It’s also to do with the fact that if a person is seen as human, it’s difficult to harm them.
If someone were to suggest that a person might be violent because they’re Irish or because they consume alcohol, there’d be grounds for discrimination. But in MH terms this goes on all the time.
Carla says
Any label, for all the wrong reasons, is dangerous.
It is like accusing an innocent person, of a crime they did not commit.
When the sneakily place an incorrect label on you, without you knowing, it is defamation of one’s mental integrity. CB
PD says
It’s undeniably difficult in psycho-active drug withdrawal for doctors and patients to make sense of what is happening, and mistakes in diagnosis occur. Patients often buy into them if they don’t understand what’s happening to them. Tapering too suddenly, seems to cause a level of mental confusion and other symptoms which appear “psychiatric” in origin but which may disappear or change when withdrawal is over. However, when these symptoms last longer than a few weeks doctors are convinced that they cannot be chemically induced and that they have to be part of the problems that the patient has and this is difficult to overcome.
Persuading medicine that withdrawal effects can be long lasting is one contributory problem as unfortunately medicine is very resistant to this suggestion in spite of a great deal of anecdotal evidence. Understanding how withdrawal effects might manifest mentally is the other challenge as even psychiatrists who believe that physical withdrawal symptoms exist, fail to see the impact on emotions and behaviour…or brain chemistry for all I know!
All you can do is prove that you have recovered….if you have. The longer your record is untainted with mental diagnosis the better. However, as with any labelling, once labelled you need to consider that any behaviour, points of view or symptoms that you might report could be evaluated against the label. It is therefore incredibly difficult to deal with medicine at all and this is perhaps why people diagnosed with severe mental illness give up and no longer visit a doctor.
annie says
Thanks for sharing ..
RxISK @RxISK
Should you be able to get a psych diagnosis deleted from your med records? @DrDavidHealy thinks the answer could be yes. https://rxisk.org/changing-your-record/ @ChrysMuirhead
https://twitter.com/RxISK/status/1022171614501392384
RxISK @RxISK 14h
Thought you might have a tale or two to share … 😉
Sarah Hancock says
I went to amend my health Dx to clearly state the Sx of schizoaffective disorder bipolar type with catatonia were from a known physiologic cause (ToxicEncephalopathy from candidiasis), for which I’ve now been treated witha complete amelioration of symptoms.
Kaiser refused to amend my medical records unless their own Dept of Psychitry doctors could assess & confirm my new diagnosis. So my question is: How could MDs who initially misdiagnosed me be trusted to confirm a Dx they’d missed for 17 years?
Karl says
I’ve experienced all off this since quitting Seroxat I’ve been off over six years I haven’t taken anything since for five and a half years. I’ve been feeling desperate lately I have seen neurologists it’s all denied. I have this symptom which has been worse lately I have these sudden headaches where my jaw is involuntarily moving from side to side like someone on excstasy which I have never taken it can last five minutes to an hour feels like I’m having a stroke or somthing. it is terrifying the hot weather at the moment has made it intense and more often.What is this a form off dystonia ? Minor Seizures ? It started since I quit Seroxat had 18 months off chronic insomnia then these symptoms started Both neurologists wrote on my notes he thinks he suffers from long term withdrawal syndrome but they put it down to migraines which is absolute rubbish can anyone relate I feel desperate for an answer or someone who can relate who’s had long term withdrawal.
tim says
Labels for Life.
Labels that destroy every aspect of a chance to live a life.
Labels that relegated our child to an attitude from her tormentors of “Lenbensunwertern Lieben”. Life not worthy of life.
Labelled, and iatrogenically devastated in body, spirit and soul.
All self-worth exterminated.
Existing in a forever-twilight world.
Every day and night permeated with the terror of being kidnapped again, and forced to take a cascade of unspeakably toxic psychiatric drugs.
Who wants to meet and marry those whom psychiatry has so casually labelled?
Who wants to love them when we’re gone?
Life’s very sweetest moments ever denied for only having an easy to diagnose, intense akathisia induced by SSRIs.
Dangerous drugs that were so inappropriately prescribed for exam stress.
Exams never taken as those who reduced a gifted, beautiful and inspirational human being to a state where she seemed to be regarded as, and treated as Untermensch – sub-human.
Abducted, tormented, ridiculed and abused.
When an adult child (or what is left of that child) returns to sit in a corner, huddled, foetus-like and with features of tardive dyskinesia: – to cower with
hands, wrists and forearms covering and trying to protect the face and head from something too horrid to imagine.
What has been done to our loved-one?
There Never Was Any Mental Illness:
Only a carousel of unrecognised, common, life threatening ADRs.
Seven years of youth and joy stolen by those who remain unanswerable, untouchable in terms of being called to account.
Those who are self-absolved from any duty of candour. Supported by a similarly absolved Guild.
“Mental illnesses are real but rare. Much less than half the people who get a diagnosis, perhaps no more than a tenth, have an illness”.
So why not watch and wait before labelling?
Why not observe, recognise, diagnose and treat akathisia?
Presumably psychiatry cannot code and access the “money that follows the patient”, without labelling?
More labels = more money?
More Serious Illness = more serious money? I don’t know.
Serious and life threatening adverse reactions to psychiatric drugs are common. They are commonly misdiagnosed as psychiatric illnesses, and “treated” with
more of the drugs that caused them.
Adverse effects of psychiatric drugs cause iatrogenic changes in thinking, emotions and behaviour which are associated with distress and problems functioning, in social, working, and/or family activities.
However the American Psychiatric Association defines mental illnesses as follows:
“Health conditions involving changes in thinking, emotions or behaviour associated with distress and problems functioning in social, work or family activities”
Hence prescription drug induced neuro-toxity cannot be differentiated by these casual-labellers from serious mental illnesses.
Once the coercive admission for misdiagnosed psychotropic ADRs reaches the point of first-foot crossing the psychiatric “hospital” threshold, all human rights are lost.
The labels then flow like the spring tide.
The drugs don’t work, how could they? They caused this tragedy.
Hence more labels are metaphorically tattooed indelibly on the patient.
They are immortalised in the case notes and are as irremovable as tattoos .
May RxISK and those who contribute to RxISK please find a sound legal process by which to remove these indelible, inaccurate and cruel words which forever confirm non-existent “diagnoses”.
Words which, in our experience, are a sentence to a living death, however courageously borne.
tim says
Liebensunwerten Lieben. – Lives Not Worthy of Life. (Sorry – typo).
Fiachra says
Today, in the UK people often shudder at the mention of the 1930s/1940s Holocaust.
But, I think comparing the present day psychiatric killings in the UK with the Holocaust killings of the 1930s/1940s, is appropriate. As large numbers of present day “Psychiatric Patients” are being killed by their Doctors on the quiet in the UK today, in the name of treatment.
Heather R says
Tim, this is such a powerfully and brilliantly written account of today’s Psychiatric devastation of one human being. One falls silent after reading it. How can one comment with anything worthy of it. The implications of it are so desperately and utterly horrendous.
Anyone in UK who has been following the BBC tv drama ‘Poldark’ (based originally on the writings of Winstone Graham, and funnily enough, which starred some years back Prof Lindford Rees’ daughter Angharad as the heroine, Demelza) will shiver in horror to see what is being done to Morwenna, a beautiful trusting soul whose mother-in-law has branded her as mad, taken away her child, and is going to get her locked away in an asylum for the insane. She has done nothing wrong. She was forced into marriage with an ecclesiastical monster. He died and she is now at risk. We, the audience of 2018, look back at this situation in the 1700s and cluck with self congratulation that it isn’t like that now….
Well, isn’t it? It’s not so baldly obvious, no. But actually, isn’t it worse? What Tim describes shows that even despite the loving sensible attempts by parents
to bring rationality into a scenario which became ridiculous, where care for someone who was first ‘kidnapped’ when asking just for a little medical help through exam stress, even they could not rescue her back again. Madness took over, but the madness was not hers nor her family’s, it was madness of the medics involved. And that madness written into her Notes, will, if not effectively removed, deal her a life sentence. And no one will remove it.
One wonders how on earth we can change this crazy system!! The answers offered to DH after his questioning of MPS and MDU are so predictably smug. How convenient. Keep the unproven diagnosis there ‘just in case’. Johanna’s information also shows how totally mad the money system is in USA. And all the time, the UK media exhorts us to use more antidepressants as, gosh, there are all these folk out there undiagnosed who could benefit…..all those Morwennas who don’t need locking in asylums these days, we can lock them in their own battered minds instead, much cheaper for the NHS, and much more lucrative for the financial winners in all this.
God, what have we become…..how will future generations view us? Poldark as an MP is at least allowed to stand up and say what he thinks, and be principled. We need battallions more like Ross Poldark now, flexing their muscles, not worrying about Big Pharma lobbying and their suing them. Are we more civilised in 2018 than say in 1718 when they did not have the benefit of health knowledge we have. I wonder.
tim says
Thank you for your insight and understanding Heather.
“One wonders how on earth we can change this crazy system”!!
Every erroneous psychiatric diagnosis inevitably leads to an intolerable miscarriage of justice.
The consequences suffered by those labelled inappropriately are far reaching physical, emotional, social, economic, relationship, and societal injury and disadvantage.
Many will be denied the chance of achieving their own family and the joy and challenges of child bearing.
Those mis-labelled endure Rejection, Isolation and Iatrogenic Despair.
The much hand-wringing around the “STIGMA” of psychiatry would be reduced if addressing diagnostic error became the professional priority.
Surely to effect change it is necessary for those who hold the power to afford that change, the humility, empathy and compassion necessary to recognise and acknowledge that psychiatric diagnostic error is indeed a reality?
The same humility, empathy and compassion, combined with professional commitment and determination, is required to ensure that the suffering caused by psychiatric diagnostic failure is ameliorated.
The need is vast and the need is urgent.
The following quotation ought to be relevant:
“ANY DIAGNOSIS THAT WE MAKE – YOU SHOUDN”T TAKE THIS AS BEING AN ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY”
Professor Sir Simon Charles Wessely.
30th January 2017.
BBC 2. George The Third – The Genius of The Mad King.
The past-president having confirmed the reality of diagnostic error, why has the Royal College of Psychiatrists ( “Let Wisdom Prevail”) not collaborated with the Royal College of General Practitioners (“Cum Scientia Caritas”) – (Compassion Empowered With Knowledge ).
Why have both Colleges not committed to decreasing the number of human lives destroyed by their practice of labelling people suffering ADRs as being “Seriously Mentally Ill”?
Amongst those psychiatry “doctors” who destroyed the life of our loved one, and all of our family’s lives; there was a cold, palpable absence of Wisdom and Compassion. Empathy was a non-entity.
There was an unrelenting, cruel, arrogant insistence that her potentially lethal, multiple, prescription drug injuries were an emerging cascade of life-long brain “diseases” mandating compulsory life-long toxic drugging.
Why don’t these two Royal Colleges put their commitment where their mottos are and then: — LET EMPATHY and EMPOWERED COMPASSION succeed, and LET WISDOM PREVAIL.
It is the officers of these powerful, privileged academic institutions who MUST put an end to this tragedy.
Rachel Nichols says
Getting my kidneys checked today. May need dialysis but because of my MI label I’m scared of doctors. Even the GPs are crooked as a bent pin! They’re like Big Pharma hookers–they’ll do ANYTHING for a buck.
Anne-Marie says
This is such an important post thank you for writing and airing about it. In a world where we are now supposed to be living in the modern age we are still behind and backwards in many things that need changing, just like this subject. If someone can appeal to a criminal court then why can’t somebody appeal to the medical profession who wrongly labeled them, especially with a psychiatric diagnosis that was false. There must be a process where this can be corrected. Maybe taking the authority or hospital to court may be something to look at?
Being given a false psychiatric diagnosis is a form of harm which could also be preventing the person from living a full life. I wonder if this may come under one of the human rights acts?
Carla says
All I know, is when one comes and pours their experiences out on RXISK,
those who feel threatened or unsettled by the TRUTH,
will undoubtedly, make you black and blue because they are afraid
that it will give more power to the people.
The one’s who have no life are those who mess with life itself. CB
KNOWLEDGE = POWER
Fiachra says
Carla,
I was told that it was always (reasonably) common knowledge that Psychiatric Depot Injections drove people to suicide – but “anyone” reporting this could expect to be “finished off” themselves.
susanne says
For sure people given depot injections including against their will have always thought they were being used as a form of sterilisation –
Carla says
I honestly believe, they use labels, for anyone who ingests antidepressants.
They use these labels so that the harm these meds induce, are not to blame.
Once a dodgy label is tattooed to your forehead, it stays there and if one has no confidence in themselves, one believes it.
So, the ‘vicious cycle’ of handing out other meds, begins.
Next thing you know, you are on an uncontrollable roller coaster of your life.
Thank goodness I was stubborn enough to see the writing on the wall because if I did not listen to my ‘gut instincts’, I just don’t know if I would be here today.
Hence, once the patient has a label placed on them, it gives everyone the right to treat people as if they are not of sound mind.
It strips them of many rights, dignity and respect.
Tim, you write with so much insight and depth and I am so sorry that you have had to witness, as a parent, the devastating effects of what these terrible meds do to your loved ones.
This is a form of control so that people have many of their rights stripped away from them.
To think, that one inaccurate label could do so much harm and ruin lives, is totally beyond my comprehension.
It is a betrayal of ones mental integrity.
I think the ones handing out these labels, have some explanation to do!
Too many lives have been ruined because, it was the “flavour of the month’ and many had no say, at that given moment, with those labels that were not only inflammatory and damaging, but futile!
Heather R says
Picking up on Carla’s point about labelling, and mindful of what my ex-GP wrote about money, ‘ there looks as though there has plenty of money around but there’s no evidence of it now’, one can see how a few little words can swing an opinion, in anyone.
My situation just before taking his prescribed steroid, was fine. I was just completing the text and illustrations for the final one of a set of 6 children’s books and was working to a manageable deadline having signed a lucrative contract for delivery 8 weeks later. There was however no putting back of the delivery date, had I not completed, there would have been major printing schedule problems for the publisher. So I had explained to the GP that it was vital for the shaking hands I was experiencing as a side effect from the steroid, to stop, so I could control a paintbrush as before. The GP wasn’t interested in my financial practicalities, he assumed that because I was concerned about my livelihood, I was short of money. Because I had had the temerity to mention these concerns, he was going to imply by what he wrote about me that I was in penury.
This is where I think those medics making decisions and writing comments are in ivory towers. They seem to think that patients live on air when they are unwell. But we all have financial responsibilities and where a drug renders us incapable of working as before, we have to find a solution or lose out seriously. We all have rents and mortgages to find, petrol to buy, we need to eat food which we have to pay for but this doesn’t seem to be taken into account by the prescribers when things go wrong due to side effects from their treatment. It’s like we are white mice in a glass box and the world can go on without us. Our previous normal lives with jobs and daily routines matter not one jot. But how would these same doctors cope if their own employment and salaries were suddenly withdrawn?
To meet my deadline, I eventually realised that in the 2 hours after taking each dose of the steroid, there was a very short window of time when the shaking eased. So I laid out the pictures like a sheet of stamps and painted them across with a large brush, as one, and then as the shaking time began, used my shaking wrists to dot in the detail as best I could. I had been told I had to finish the 11 day course of steroids or dire consequences would result. I managed to finish the work too, not to the standard I would have wished, but collapsed with heart and chest problems afterwards, and such severe thrush that I could barely swallow. None of this was considered ‘real’ by the GP, it was apparently all in my head. When the books went into a reprint years later, I re-painted all those illustrations.
I got ‘ allergic to steroids’ put in my Notes.
So many people writing here report their incapacities due to the drugs but do the doctors, writing in their Notes, ever stop to consider how their practical lives are messed up, and how on earth they will survive financially in such a ruined state?
Surely a more holistic approach is needed, and consequences of the power of what they write, need to be responsibly considered.
Rachel Nichols says
Round up these lying monsters and treat them like Farid Fata. He was a cancer doctor, but I view him as the perfect symbol for psychiatrists.
How to help people?
1. Tell healthy people they’ll die without drastic treatments.
2. Feed them massive quantities of toxins.
3. Claim they get sick and die “despite the treatments” you provide.
Mainstream psychiatrists are just like Dr. Fara Fata and deserve his sentence. They know what they do is harmful and creates insanity but they do it anyhow.
Despicable!
Maie Liiv says
I wish to have ALL labels removed from my medical records and replaced with only one – Major Medical Malfeasance Syndrome.
Mark says
For this reason cited in the article and due to repeated misdiagnosis and privacy concerns i am choosing not to have my medical records included in the new medical record keeping system in Australia https://www.myhealthrecord.gov.au/for-you-your-family/opt-out-my-health-record
Carla says
Mark, you just don’t know what they can put in these medical records.
I am assuming that once they put a label on you, it can be very perilous in the wrong hands.
I don’t trust those who disparage or downgrade whistle blowers.
They can make one’s life a living hell and no one would give a damn!
DEMOCRACY IS A JOKE!
Brandon D. Zayas says
I’m not schizophrenic but I am diagnosed with schizophrenia. Please help me get off medication.
Brian David Schanel says
I had this happen to me. I moved back into my parents house to save money on rent, and I never had a great relationship with them. One morning my dad started agitating me and a lot of things boiled over and I tried to start a fight with him. He did not jump to fight me but the police were called and they told me I had to go with them. I went without violence and they sent me to a psych ward. This is where a person who I had never met before in my life came up to me and tried to tell me I had schizophrenia and I needed “medication”. “medication” that destroyed my brain and left me feeling light headed. I now have schizophrenia on my record from a “professional” and It is hard to relax and sleep at night knowing I may have this following me the rest of my life even if I get a second opinion. I am trying to work in an education field also and I fear having this diagnoses on my record may hurt all chances of working in an education field. After all, who would want someone labeled a schizo to be around students.