The news today in the UK is that nearly a quarter of young women have mental health problems – Here.
A similar message appeared in this article from New Zealand a few days ago – Demand for university counselling services grows 25 per cent in two years – the text without photos and videos is below.
North or South
University students say they are on suicide watch for friends and flatmates as demand for on-campus counselling grows. One in 13 university students – 13,000 in total – accessed campus counselling services last year, nearly a 25 per cent increase on the 10,500 who used the services in 2015, according to data released to the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA).
Universities have increased their offerings in response: Waikato University recently recruited a full-time mental health nurse, Lincoln has enlisted a GP to develop a wellbeing strategy, Otago University hired three clinical psychologists in a restructure of its student health service, and a University of Auckland spokeswoman said it added two positions to its student wellbeing team “due to the growing need for support”.
A recent NZUSA survey of 1762 students found a third waited more than two weeks for a counselling appointment. Wait times range from two to five weeks at Victoria University, are about three weeks at Canterbury University, one week at Waikato, or under a week at Auckland. Otago University was “delighted” not to have a waitlist “for the first time in our recent history”, a spokeswoman said.
* ‘Here-and-now tsunami of need’ for mental health services puts students at risk
* Students march on parliament to demand better mental health services
All universities offered same-day “crisis” counselling sessions – some students said they felt they had to exaggerate their distress to get a timely appointment.
Several students spoke to Stuff under the condition of anonymity about their difficulties accessing help after public providers rejected referrals from university counsellors.
University counsellors can refer complex cases like eating disorders, post-traumatic stress and suicidal thoughts to district health board (DHB) specialists. Official Information Act requests to five DHBs in university regions for the number of referrals were unsuccessful, as most recorded the referring GP rather than the university health centre.
Students said they were routinely supervising friends to keep them from harm – or that they were the ones being cared for.
“Pretty much all my friends have been through the exact same thing … It’s got to the point where we’re all having to take care of each other,” one student said.
She claimed she was pressured to discharge herself to her hall of residence during three suicidal presentations to Wellington Hospital’s emergency department. The responsible DHB, Capital and Coast, said patients and their assessors agreed upon a “crisis resolution plan” before discharge.
One crisis team worker “kept telling me ‘no-one feels happy all the time’. I’ve even been told [by hospital staff] ‘you haven’t tried to kill yourself yet, so we don’t think you’re going to’,” the student said. She attempted suicide for the second time in March.
“Feeling dismissed and not taken seriously by professionals has put me and so many others that I know off of seeking help when we desperately need it.
“It can be really hard if you have a friend who’s suicidal and you’re in the middle of exams but you’re the only help they have.”
Universities New Zealand (UNZ) chief executive Chris Whelan said institutions’ counselling spend – up from $14.9 million in 2013 to $17.3m in 2016 – had failed to keep pace with what the organisation called “a here-and-now tsunami of need” in its submission to a Government mental health inquiry. Universities had become “a substitute for underfunded community mental health services”, it claimed.
Massey University had experienced the biggest jump in demand for counselling since 2015 (69 per cent), a “difficult” situation its student president, Ngahuia Kirton, attributed to greater willingness to seek help.
Victoria University had the most students accessing counselling, at nearly 10 per cent. Students’ association president Marlon Drake said demand was so high that “we have students choosing not to see a counsellor because they do not want to take somebody else’s session”.
“In Wellington, we have a really high cost of living. It’s a university where students have moved away from home. All those support systems they used to talk to, that’s all gone and then [there is] this new environment in this highly transformative part of their lives,” Drake said.
The students’ association was “constantly lobbying” the university to change its academic practice to alleviate pressure during exam time. “It makes no sense if you’re a student taking four or five papers that you have all those assessments lined up at the same time. It’s just unnecessary.”
Victoria University psychology professor Marc Wilson said it was possible the growing demand for services was fuelled in part by more willingness to seek help.
However, research indicated stress, depression and anxiety among students was growing – problem behaviours related to those disorders were up “perhaps as much as 10 per cent”.
“The pressures are the same, but they are bigger,” Wilson said.
“Where it might have been possible in years past to work a couple of days to pay your rent, you now have to work three, and that is time from study. Time [away] from study adds stress because you’re spread too thin, and it becomes a vicious cycle.”
Youth mental health expert Dr Sue Bagshaw said anxiety and depression have become a global concern as our brains struggle to keep pace with technology-driven lifestyles. The World Health Organisation estimated close to 10 per cent of the world’s population was affected in 2013, a nearly 50 per cent increase since 1990.
Common mental disorders are “more obvious” in young people because the amygdala – the part of the brain that processes emotion – is still developing its responses to stress, Bagshaw said. Past trauma can accelerate its development, but many people’s don’t develop fully until they are about 25 years old.
“For university students demands are high in terms of the cost. If you fail, it’s not just pride – it’s a hell of a lot of money,” Bagshaw said.
Students said self-medicating with alcohol and marijuana was common, particularly during periods of high stress.
“If it’s exam time the doctor might be booked and then some of us might not get our medication,” one Victoria University student said.
A Facebook group guided that student towards a psychiatrist known for prescribing ADHD medication after an initial appointment with a different, private doctor cost $400 . The waitlist for a publicly-funded ADHD assessment is seven years long, according to UNZ.
The student conceded seeking medical advice online was “pretty dangerous” but said it was the only affordable option.
UNZ has claimed students who arrived at emergency departments with mental health concerns waited up to 10 hours for help, while others were put at risk by being sent back to their university halls.
A 2017 Massey University graduate said she became police and hospital support for a friend with bipolar disorder. She took her to the emergency department during multiple manic-depressive episodes, where they would wait up to six hours overnight to be seen.
Once, she helped crisis team staff coax her friend out of an emergency room bathroom when she “freaked out” and locked herself inside. “It just becomes sort of a normality,” she said.
Another 21-year-old student said her partner force-fed her medication during depressive episodes.
“I try to hurt myself or pull out my hair or run away … It’s not really something a partner should have to do, especially at this age.”
A DHB psychiatrist prescribed her anti-psychotics but warned her away from the waitlist for therapy, she said.
NZUSA wants Health Minister David Clark to expedite a promised $10.5m initiative to provide free counselling to under-25s.
In the meanwhile, students’ associations are focused on harnessing the “empathy” apparent in the student population, he said.
“Sometimes reaching out to a friend might be the difference between them having a good day or a bad day, dropping out of university or staying, or in the worst case losing their life.”
[Aside from the ludicrous Stuff about amygdalas this article is fairly standard].
Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder
As sure as eggs are eggs, most of these students, especially the women, will be diagnosed as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. A very large proportion of people hitting mental health services – from N Zealand to the USA get this label today.
Tons of doctors and others ask me – what is this Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, which seems to have come from nowhere and now seems to be applied to so many?
It used to be called Borderline Personality Disorder in DSM III
“characterised by a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, impulsiveness, recurrent self‑mutilation or attempted suicide, frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment and marked and persistent identity disturbance and a generalised sense of boredom and emptiness”.
Before DSM III, it used to be called Hysteria. Here is Sydenham in 1681:
“the very slightest word of hope creates anger… They have melancholy forebodings. They brood over trifles, cherishing them in their unquiet bosoms. Fear, anger, jealousy, suspicion and the worst passions of the mind arise without cause… there is no moderation. All is caprice. They love without measure those whome they will soon hate”.
For millennia, men looking at this have seen the wandering uteri of women, or their weak nervous systems or their organic mendacity.
The exception was Jean-Martin Charcot who in the 1870s said that men could become hysterical too. No-one paid any heed to him. This idea was as incredible as if he had said you know men have uteri too.
Forty years later, men were becoming hysterical in their tens of thousands on the Western Front, while women were running the hospitals and doing the surgery in Britain and Germany – until Armistice Day when men were restored to their rightful place.
His teria topy
A woman diagnosed as hysterical by a male doctor today might well have a case to take a lawsuit against him or the services. Certainly there would be a case to take to the Regulator or others to get a medical record doctored to remove this slur.
There is no substantive reason why exactly the same rules shouldn’t apply in the case of a diagnosis of Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder.
The defence in such a case would likely be that there had been suicidal behavior – but this will almost certainly have followed the prescription of a psychotropic drug. I get to see many completely normal women diagnosed with EUPD following an antidepressant induced suicidal event.
It would be fascinating to see if women diagnose other women with EUPD as often as men do.
But the bottom line is that when society is distressed, its individuals are more likely to attract meaningless diagnostic labels of the mental health sort.
mary H says
Am I right in thinking that, with the label will go a drug or two to settle things down? When that doesn’t happen there will be an increase in the dose of the said drug. When that fails, it will be changed for a different drug. That will increase and, in time, be swapped for a different drug. The psychiatrist will become bewildered – why is nothing settling the condition of this patient? The patient’s carer will suggest a DECREASE in dose …… and will be treated as if she’s completely mad and told, in no uncertain terms, that a ‘decrease’ cannot possibly be the answer. What a sense of achievement that carer will feel when, actually, she finds that her idea WORKS. This is not a fairy tale – it’s real life……..just like the lives that they mess around with while experimenting with this ‘cure’ and that ‘happy pill’ with such disastrous results.
annie says
The Authorities are going ‘overboard’ with throwing billions at Child Mental Health..
When is too much ‘talking’ quite dangerous?
A genuine child having genuine suicidal ideation is very important, but, isn’t it worrying that tens of thousands of young people are entering the world of mental health, as pointed out with the likely possibility of psychotropic drugs at the end of it..
Recently Prince William gave an extraordinary public display of his feelings on the BBC about his mental health when he was an air ambulance pilot seeing death of children for himself and how he sought professional help so as not to involve his family as he went ‘over the edge’..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-46279724
My ex partner of 20 years was an Air Ambulance Pilot.
The Seroxat saga was so raw, so desperate, so mind numbingly awful for a couple of years and that could have broken anybody..The huge garden wasn’t brilliantly gardened, the house was neglected, there were no hot meals waiting for him in the early hours of the morning as he finished his shift and drove the one and a half hours home after navigating the Scottish black and bleak Scottish storms..he did not seek professional help.
Very, very few firemen, surgeons, war torn journalists, foreign aid workers, etc., give rise to their own feelings as they do their jobs and face grisly deaths every day of the week.
Is it really going to help young people seeing older people wobble…
Is there too much namby pamby about our delicate minds that gives rise to an overload of sympathy and mental assistance or would it be cruel to deny each and every young person a route in to a mental health system that actually thinks psychotropic drugs that can kill and given out indiscriminatingly and when it all crash lands, everyone can just walk away …
The turbulence increased dramatically, when I spoke to a child psychologist who arranged a meeting with the Headmaster of the Grammar school to talk about Seroxat. She asked if I minded if he was present? I could see this man getting visibly excited as I told my Seroxat story, he eyes were on stalks…his subsequent letter demanding my home educated child would not be welcome at his school to sit her exams meant another battle, another strength, I had to win that one, too..
Too much honesty and too much self-analysis could land too many young people in to a route of real self destruction, worse than their wildest dreams …
Johanna says
Wow–there is an awful lot to “unpack” here! Just put it up on Twitter — hope to draw lots of comments. Meanwhile, a few bits of Trans-Atlantic Trivia:
Here in the USA the term Borderline Personality Disorder is still in full swing. My online sources say that’s the official DSM-5 term. No one has ever heard of EUPD. BPD is supposed to involve a chronic pattern of stormy personal relationships and “manipulative” behavior in a frantic effort to avoid abandonment. It’s one of the few conditions for which long-term therapy (“Dialectical Behavior Therapy”) is advocated.
It also carries a real burden of stigma, and is often a label slapped on women patients perceived as “difficult” or “needy.” But the US military has also deployed BPD as a label in order to deprive vets of treatment for PTSD — because BPD is almost by definition a problem you had before you enlisted. It may also be misapplied to teens the system has no time for, because teens are perceived as “stormy” and “manipulative” anyway. Girls especially.
For someone presenting with a relatively sudden or recent descent into emotional chaos — for instance, someone with possible drug-induced akathisia — Bipolar Disorder is the most common label over here. This applies to youth and adults alike. It leads to lots and lots of new drugs, but almost never to a second look at the drugs someone may already be on.
As for Hysteria? People do use “hysterical” in everyday conversation for folks who get overly upset about non-lethal problems. It’s usually applied to women, and in men it is stigmatized as “girly” behavior. HOWEVER … I was always taught (in highly conventional college courses and pop-psych books) that Hysteria as used by psychiatrists was VERY different from either Borderline Personality Disorder or simple over-emotionality. Almost the opposite.
“Hysteria” referred to physical symptoms whose real cause was emotional distress — and this occurred precisely because the sufferer could NOT express, or even admit to, forbidden feelings. We learned about Freud’s patients Anna O., who was suppressing all sorts of emotions as she cared for a dying father, and Elizabeth von R., who developed paralysis to avoid dealing with sexual feelings for her brother-in-law.
Again, it was mostly women diagnosed. But ill-defined symptoms in soldiers were also said to be “hysterical” illnesses rooted in a fear of returning to combat. Classic Hysteria is regarded as rather rare these days — although the much more vague “somatic symptom disorder” is used to label as a Mental Health Problem any physical complaint that can’t be easily diagnosed and treated.
Official mental health groups like NAMI and MHA push the line that BPD is only stigmatized because it’s not considered a Real, Biological Illness. They put heavy stress on the search for genetic roots and drug treatments for BPD. Supposedly this will lead to less stigma and more effective help. However, if you look at the results of our “Bipolar Explosion” of the past 20 years, it seems more likely this will make matters worse, not better.
tim says
We are carpet bombed relentlessly with the endless propaganda of the psychiatry-pharma symbiosis.
For those whose lives are destroyed by psychotropic drugging, this is exquisitely painful and inescapable.
Marketing masquerading as medicine.
The Pied Piper is in our schools, colleges, universities and is about to infiltrate the workplace.
The mission is marketing, marketing, marketing – not care and compassion.
The unquestioning mantra –
“These drugs save lives” is a programmed regurgitation devoid of any reproducible evidence to support an apparently indisputable “fact”.
The media repeatedly thank the antidepressant pushing “experts” with hallowed tones and sycophantic, programmed respect.
Their first question should, of course, invite disclosure of financial conflicts of interests.
This is never addressed.
Who will give these vulnerable, stressed and distressed populations the insight and awareness into AKATHISIA, iatrogenic “pseudo-biploar disorder” – “Emotionally Unstable Society Disorder” – PSSD. SSRI/SNRI induced hair pulling self harm and suicide? – Iatrogenic, label-for-life dependent, societal rejection and exclusion?
Well meaning partners “force-feed” “medication” into their loved one in the false belief that they are saving them, yet so often these drugs destroy.
Parents, siblings, lovers, flatmates, cruelly coerced into causing physical. psychological, emotional, social, spiritual and economic bodily harm.
On occasion – death.
Who will inform their bereft parents truthfully?
Who will explain that coerced, non-consented, psychotropic drugs have emotionally blunted their children, and stolen their character, charisma, drive, personality and their future?
Stolen our children from us.
Stolen our joys.
Stolen our hopes and dreams by stealing our children’s hopes and dreams, and stealing their future, as well as our future.
Who will inform parents, partners and loved ones that the anger-anguish outbursts, and their estrangement are prescription drug induced, iatrogenic and were avoidable?
Who will confirm that this is not “emergent mental illness?
That the worst possible medical practice is to give more and more, and more drugs?
This propaganda is organised, orchestrated, global and constant.
This propaganda dominates the media without pause, whilst both real, and fake- news stories wax and wain.
This propaganda follows the rules and principles defined and documented in the mid-twentieth century.
Repetition, repetition, endless repetition.
Their “factual basis” is an apology for science, but of course, these astute medical marketeers have no respect for, and no need for diligent research and fastidious scientific method.
“THERE IS NO NEED FOR PROPAGANDA TO BE RICH IN INTELLECTUAL CONTENT”.
Joseph Goebbels – Third Reich.
Asta Engebretsen says
How eloquent and accurate is your description of the terrifying destruction of the lives of millions of sensitive human beings by (what I want to believe are well intentioned professionals) who are caught up in the web spun by big Pharma that has no conscience. Well said Tim.
annie says
Here you are Tim, listen to Professor Hamish-McAllister-Williams in the video provided and his unequivocal view that ‘most doctors are aware of discontinuation’ plus other stuff …
2 thoughts on “How Much Money Does Hamish McAllister Williams Receive From Pharma?”
https://truthman30.wordpress.com/2018/11/22/how-much-money-does-hamish-mcalister-williams-receive-from-pharma/
plus ‘lifesaving’ …
tim says
Thank you Annie.
I have listened to it.
I did not find it to be “Rich in Intellectual Content”.
susanne says
Young people are being monitored, observed and judged as never before.. . At least one school is setting aside an hour at the beginning of the morning to observe the children at play in order to identify those who may be having ‘difficulties’. That’s the problem they need to have space to grow without such high levels of intrusion by adults with bees in their bonnets – observing children throughout the day is part of a teacher’s job which has always been done discreetly not covertly.. A clinic in S London treats people with diagnoses of PD including E U P D with therapy as well as drugs – as soon as abbreviations are being used we can know it’s become a ‘respectable’ diagnosis which will fast become another virus (re D avid Healy blog). All want a bit of the action and children have become a target for ‘interventions’ including by therapists notably psychoanalysts who have jumped on the neuro-imaging bandwagon to give their ‘treatments’ more credibility. The brains of young people are being monitored to supposedly identify /diagnose the specific cause of ‘personality disorders’. How can authentic personalities flourish with these levels of intrusion into very intimate parts of their lives from young ages. Many youngsters are adept at mental health speak by the time they go to secondary school – it can be almost a badge of honour to be labeled . There are young people who see what’s going on and are highly cynical of the branding of their generation – but they can’t avoid it – it is everywhere around their lives by now .
mary H. says
I totally agree with you Susanne.
If we look at a bottle of full cream milk – if we can remember such a thing! – we can see that the cream takes up far less space in the bottle than does the milk, we also know that it’s at the top of the bottle. If we compare school children to that bottle, we’d expect to find far fewer at the top of the ladder than in the remaining space. That is the natural pattern in life – there are no winners unless there are losers too. A ‘winner’ doesn’t have to be appreciated any more than a ‘loser’ if the school ethos is that of equality and appreciation of the individual.
What is happening in our schools today though? Most attainment is geared at the ‘cream’ – the ones who learn easily, and the ‘milk’ is pushed and pushed to attain the level of the cream. Is it any wonder that it turns sour? The majority in our schools live with the feeling of always having to ‘do better’, to reach the next level – no one seems to appreciate the effort that they have already put in to attain their present level. Teachers live in fear of ‘letting the school down’ if the achievements of those in their class is not at the expected level.
Due to this, there is very little time to relax and enjoy each other’s company, to discuss the expected level of work, to listen to a piece of work at that higher level to understand where you are aiming. It’s one long treadmill from nursery to A levels – with tick lists all along the way. ‘Could do better’ has become the norm – for pupils, teachers, headteachers and governors. Unless the treadmill is slowed down we can only hope to see more and more children falling off as they journey on.
When we put the possible hidden defects of medicated parents into the mix we enter a further ‘splitting of the milk’. Every child, from the brilliantly capable to the most seriously damaged have a RIGHT to be educated at THEIR level and for society to ACCEPT them at that level.
To create a fairer society we must create a fairer education system. Give children time to be who they are, to enjoy being, to see themselves accepted as useful, and they will accept each other and their differences. Push them, endlessly, to do better and they will always feel inferior and reject their peers who do ‘better’ or taunt peers who ‘fail’ to do as well as them and, eventually, turn that feeling of inferiority on to themselves. A sure recipe for the label of EUSD.
tim says
Agreed Susanne, Thank you.
Also – Old People are heavily targeted by the relentless marketing of psychotropic drugs.
On Monday 19th, November 2018. BBC Radio 4. “You and Yours”.
(At approx. 32 mins).
The Royal College of Psychiatrists Chair of Old Age Psychiatry apparently made the astonishing and blatantly Evidence-De-Based claim that the drugs used for elderly depressed patients are “Tailor-Made Drugs”!
What an outrageous deception.
Yes indeed, every last toxic molecule is hand-stitched by devoted pharmaceutical robots no doubt?
Every old person’s anti-depressant drug dosages fastidiously calculated and micro-managed according to weight, age-related declining drug metabolism, and further adjusted for frailty and diminutive body weight no doubt?
She then stated: – (People) – “Fear they are terribly addictive” –
“well they’re NOT”, she emphasised.
So that’s reassuring isn’t it?
Especially when they may be taking 8 or 9 other prescription drugs.
Good to know that there can be no AKATHISIA or TOXIC DELUSIONS then?
No bleeding, no cardiac dysthymia, no falls and no deaths from fractured neck of femur?
No emotional blunting, no disinhibition, no iatrogenic aggression.
(Just as well with “Zero-Tolerance” of drug induced, as well as other presentations of aggression).
No SSRI induced suicidal ideation.
No “multi-modal” sexual dysfunction unrelated to depression,
(How could elderly people possible wish to express their sexuality)?
Imagine trying to explain to care-home staff:
Could I possibly have PGAD?
And as they’re “Tailor Made”: –
No “Discontinuation Syndrome”, aka Withdrawal Syndrome?
Do they perfect such deceptions and deliberate disinformation individually?
Or, is it another “useful untruth” from the highly organised, relentless propaganda program devised, delivered and monitored by
the Republican Guard of professional propagandists at R.C. Psych?
In possible mitigation, at least she would seem to be in support of “Pets As Therapy”.
(petsastherapy.org).
Once again, a declaration of any/nil financial conflicts of interest would be informative.
Spruce says
Annie I have read the article about Hamish McAllister, and I particularly picked up on the bit about psychiatrists gas lighting patients and others who try to bring to their attention the harms these medications cause. It also mentions how they even do this sometimes with a sort of “glee” or “smugness”.
I can promise you I have witnessed this first hand over the many years of trying to bring to the attention of my ex psychiatrist and my local mental health team about my PSSD, and other harms done to me by over rapid benzodiazepine withdrawal by my ex psychiatrist, and benzodiazepine withdrawal in general.
You would not believe the amount of denials, dishonesty and general nastiness I have had to endure after making a complaint about my ex psychiatrist, after he refused to believe I had developed PSSD from the Citalopram he prescribed, or that I was suffering from long term withdrawal symptoms from the Benzodiazepines he prescribed.
The response I had from the mental health team was really, really, nasty!
I have been left with a DEEP sense of betrayel by almost everyone involved in my health care, which includes GP’s, Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Support workers (from Rethink), the MHRA, and last but especially not least, the PHSO.
I feel DEEPLY betrayed by all of the nasty responses I have had off countless GP’s over the last 11 years of trying to get GP’s to take my PSSD seriously (I have gone into most of them in previous comments).
I feel DEEPLY betrayed by the MHRA who are supposed to be monitoring the safety of medicines, but who I eventually found out are not doing this, are in effect controlled by the drug companies, and are actually causing great harm to many thousands of people through their inaction (I also had to endure being sniggered at by two scientists at the MHRA when I officially reported my PSSD).
I feel DEEPLY betrayed by the PHSO ( these guys were the worst of the lot). I have covered most of how I was treated by the PHSO in other comments.
I feel DEEPLY betrayed by the GP who used to be a psychiatrist and who openly admitted to me he had ex patients with PSSD, but then when I asked him to write to my Psychiatrist, and Dr Healy about his experience with PSSD, he declined to do so, turned quite nasty, and would try and change the conversation every time I tried to bring up about PSSD.
I feel DEEPLY betrayed by Rethink and my Rethink worker who at first refused to allow me access to my rethink notes which proved AWP had been lying about who had put me in touch with a senoir pharmacist to talk about my PSSD (my notes proved it was my rethink worker and not my ex psychiatrist as AWP were claiming). My rethink workers manager came in to speak to me with my rethink worker and almost shouted at me ” we don’t get into arguments with the mental health team so you are not going to get a copy of your notes and that’s the end of it!” I eventually managed to get the notes after my MIND advocate repeatedly asked for them, and I then sent them to the PHSO, who told me that even if AWP had been dishonest in this aspect of the complaint, it was unlikely to change their overall decision (which ironically was that AWP had done nothing wrong, even though I had proved they had been dishonest). * I also later found out that Rethink get funding off drug companies, so that was another betrayel by them.
I feel DEEPLY betrayed by the official response I got from AWP to my complaint (it was very dishonest and evasive, most of which I have gone into in previous comments).
I feel DEEPLY betrayed by the psychologist I used to see who would claim me fixating on PSSD and continuing to complain about my ex psychiatrist was likely an aspect of my OCD. I also told her once that before developing PSSD seeing a woman naked would turn me on and excite me a lot, but now that I had developed PSSD the sight of a naked woman did nothing to arouse me. She responded by saying that me getting turned on by seeing a naked woman was a bit immature at my age (I was only 24 at the time). After officially making the complaint about my ex psychiatrist, she then solemenly told me in the next meeting I had with her, that we needed to look at and explore how my behaviour and attitude was the problem and that we needed to focus on this rather than talking about PSSD and my ex psychiatrist.
Also one time I went up for an appointment to see my psychologist shortly after making my official complaint and while I was on the bus, just before getting off (it took me about an hour to get to where I had an appointment with my psychologist) I had a phone call from the woman on reception at the local mental health team place where I saw my psychologist (also the place where my now ex psychiatrist worked). She then told me that my appointment today had been cancelled as the psychologist was unwell, and that she wanted to call me earlier but wasn’t able to get around to it (she said this in a non serious voice). She then told me that she hoped she hadn’t wasted my time while actually sniggering into the phone. Even the receptionists turned against me.
I feel betrayed by the ex GP who I wrote to explaining I had developed PSSD, and that I had gone through long lasting and at times severe withdrawal symptoms from the benzodiazepines both he and my ex psychiatrist had prescribed. It was quite a polite letter aimed mostly at trying to raise awareness about PSSD, and how benzodiazepine withdrawal can last longer than most doctors realise. I asked him to reply to my letter. He never did.
I feel DEEPLY betrayed by the crisis team when after making a suicide attempt after years of frustration at not being believed about PSSD, a woman on the crises team who knew about my complaint about my psychiatrist (she told me she was aware of it) actually had the gall to basically complain that I hadn’t made a better job of my suicide attempt, and told me that “if I really wanted to have killed myself I would have done”, and asked me “why didn’t you kill yourself”. She then asked to speak to my mother and asked her if I had a history of violence (I don’t), and then told my mum that if I started acting up or showed any sign of being aggressive, to phone the police and have me arrested (this was the day after I had made a suicide attempt and I hadn’t acted violent or aggressive). Even the police (who were called because I was feeling suicidal) were disgusted by how I had been treated by the crisis team.
I swear on my life everything I have said above actually happened.
I still cannot believe the level of nastiness I have received over the years, after trying to bring to attention the harms I have suffered from these drugs.
No one should have had to go through the horrible response I got. On top of having to endure 11 years of PSSD, and the many years of withdrawal symptoms from Benzodiazepines.
IT WAS GENUINELY FUCKING BARBARIC!
Karl says
I believe you spruce read what you wrote and believe you 100 percent I can relate totally your not alone mate it’s disgusting these people make you mentally distressed they think tablets are the answer to everything.
Lisbet says
Spruce
Thank you for writing this out – it’s not good and has been a horror show for you. But for me it has confirmed the dismissive and cavalier reception and treatment I got from mental health services.
I have recently been doubting myself again, thinking that I just hadn’t approached them in the right manner, that it was my fault they treated me as a numpty.
You have re-confirmed for me that I wasn’t all that wrong in my perception of what was going on.
Disgusting that this happened to you.
annie says
‘Not doing what you’re told isn’t a mental disorder’: Expert accuses the NHS of medicalising bad behaviour after claims one in 18 pre-school children has psychological problems
A report yesterday revealed 12.8% of English children have mental disorders
And it claimed 5.5% of two to four-year-olds have mental health issues
A common problem in toddlers was noted as ‘oppositional defiance disorder’
This is characterised only by bad behaviour and experts doubt if it is real
By Sam Blanchard Health Reporter For Mailonline
Published: 13:20, 23 November 2018 | Updated: 16:53, 23 November 2018
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6421183/Not-doing-youre-told-isnt-mental-disorder-Expert-criticises-NHS-mental-health-statistics.html
If the Daily Mail are going to crib info from the Guardian, they should at least get the sex right of study author, Andrea ..
Now Targeting Toddlers, isn’t this all getting ‘out-of-hand’ …
annie says
Real Experts are galloping along at PAST
PAST (Prescription Awareness & Support Team) Wales
@PastWales
@DrDavidHealy Stevie Lewis @jf_moore
#Prescription Drugs & #dependency, Awareness Day, Young People, #Tapering, #antidepressants, #Benzo’s, #Painkillers ..free tickets email: assembly18@PAST.Wales stating name(s) and organisation.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dsq8V71VAAEAzda.jpg
Welsh Assembly, Cardiff
December 11, 2018
Carla says
Watch Out For The Bullies
They are everywhere.
Some GP’s, some family members, some ‘so called friends’, some members of the medical entities ~ They are lurking there and cannot wait to pounce on you so that they can undermine everything about you!
Honestly, after everything some of us have been through, we still have to sit back in horror and have to tolerate ‘snarky’ comments and unjustified remarks that are not based on facts.
Perhaps, if your health was unjustly taken away from you, most of you judgmental people, especially ‘those who are quick to judge’, would think twice, before you blurt out pernicious comments that are not based on facts.
I honestly, don’t have time for individuals who are non-supportive or making up defamatory/inflammatory comments about my general well-being, that are not based on any facts.
Notice, how I am using the word ‘facts’, a lot.
If you do not know anything about what one has to endure, please refrain from all your assumptions and judgements.
Blurting out things that are not true, just so that one can inflate their ego or put someone down for no valid reason, is just a form of bullying, intimidation and harassment and I am beyond this!
Spruce, stand with your head up high and try to stay away from individuals who are not going to support you.
One day, it is all going to turn around and they are sadly the ones who will end up with egg on their face.
If they undermine you, these individuals have nothing else better to do. If they are nasty or are downright malicious ~ keep away from them!
They are not worth your precious time!
If it makes them feel better ask them how they would cope if they were in your shoes for just for one day.
I am sure they would take back every single judgemental, unhealthy and hurtful things they say/do to you, in a single heartbeat. You would be surprised!
Just remember you can’t change the spots on some leopards skin ~some will always be cruel and vindictive and there is nothing you can do to change them.
Sadly, there are more bullies than those who are going to do the right thing by you.
If you know you have residual issues by these ‘so called’ safe meds, there are some individuals who are going to defame your health by their nonsense.
Just tell them to do all their research before they disrespect and judge you.
Unless, it never happens to them, sadly they are the ones who are always going to ridicule and judge you.
Carla says
I believe there is something so fundamentally perverse with the whole ‘safety infrastructure’, within big pharma’s ways of dealing with safety issues pertaining to meds.
Yes, I do get emotional about issues like this because when you take a medicine and it harms you, how long does it take before it is recalled and taken off the markets? Most likely never happens.
Sadly, it is swept under the carpet and continues to maim and induce death, long after someone has set the ‘alarm bells’ off!
Just like you can get flawed batches in any other consumer products, one can also get a flawed batches with medicines.
Why does nothing get done about this?
Is safety of flawed batches of meds a major concern or do those who are meant to be ‘our gatekeepers’ let this continue, shrug it off and pretend that meds that maim and kill never happen?
Off the topic of this blog, one still remains perplexed in how issues pertaining to safety can be of major concerns to some companies especially, when it involves safety with any other products we purchase.
For instance:
If cars have been known to have faulty air bags, they are recalled.
If an electrical product causes smoke or fire, red flag warnings, it is recalled.
If you get seriously injured at work, in some instances, the ‘occupational health and safety’ guidelines are there to protect you, under ‘so called’ workmen’s compensation. (This is not always the case!)
DO some companies still sell products and place profits before safety? ~ I’m sure they do!
If the Laws were tight and extremes disciplinarian measures were put in place, one would tend to do what is right before inflicting harm and putting one’s life in danger.
I believe, we have a long way to go before we see any major changes in our drug laws, until then, many lives are left to chance.
If we were all emotional and passionate about issues pertaining to safety regarding meds, implants of any kind that are placed in our bodies that cause harm or any other medical devices that erode with time, one would not be in synergy with companies who are doing so much harm to mankind.
If one knows all the true complications or all the negative clinical data trials, one would think twice, before taking so many unnecessary risks.
If medicines save so many lives, why are so many others leaving their lives to chance?
How long does it take for man to evolve and get it all right?
annie says
James Moore
@jf_moore
BBC Video Shames Those Struggling With Psychiatric Drugs
#MoreThan2Weeks #PrescribedHarm
http://letstalkwithdrawal.com/bbc-video/
Recent events have conspired to make me reconsider. …
John Read
@ReadReadj
10m
(link: http://www.cee.fiocruz.br/?q=Mercado-estigma-e-preconceito-em-debate-na-abertura-do-2%C2%BA-Seminario-A-epidemia-das-drogas-psiquiatricas) cee.fiocruz.br/?q=Mercado-est… My 3 minute interview at the wonderful Rio conference earlier this month on the Epidemic of Psychiatric Drugs
http://www.cee.fiocruz.br/?q=Mercado-estigma-e-preconceito-em-debate-na-abertura-do-2%C2%BA-Seminario-A-epidemia-das-drogas-psiquiatricas
James Moore
@jf_moore
#MoreThan2Weeks BBC R4 All in the Mind,
@claudiahammond
@ReadReadj
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001b1p
“Less than 2% told about withdrawal effects”