Journal Entry

5/25/2008
to think I once trusted my emotional health and that of my mind to a group of so called professionals who claim they are well trained and have much experience helping people like me. to think I was once so foolish to have trusted a part of me to these so called professionals, who claim to also be mds, medical doctors. I was such a fool or maybe I was so naïve and trusting I couldn’t think or believe anything else.
When I was seen in the er in such a state of emotional distress these very well trained doctors of the mind, experts in human behavior said because of how I spoke, my thoughts were disorganized and I cannot think in a linear fashion nor can I stay on topic. Well excuse me experts, when any of you are very upset, emotionally distraught are any of your thinking proceses logical, in a linear fashion and can any of you keep on topic? When trying to figure out a mystery, a puzzle, what confuses any of these experts do they, can they start from the beginning and do they know where the beginning is and go from there or do they search for the beginning and if they do , how do they search? Do they look everywhere, do they consider everything or are they such experts they don’t need to do any searching, any looking because in their expert knowledge they know exactly where to look for the beginning and can proceed directly from the beginning to the next point and so on to the end?
What these experts expected me to be able to do when I am clearly in a state of extreme emotional distress is simply too high, impossible, totally illogical and quite unreasonable. But they are the experts, they are very well trained and they know, this is how anyone should think no matter what state of emotional distress. They have two initials after their names, md, what does those initials really mean? Medical Doctor? How about Mind Destroyers? Or this, Mind Decievers since that’s what these people do, deceived me and almost destroyed my mind and since they say they are experts in the mind, why medical and not mind?
Healers? What kind of healing do they actually do? When someone is hurting inside these healers want to heal by hurting the brain, by damaging the brain and these experts claim giving drugs these experts know damage the brain and claim these drugs are the only hope for life, to have any kind of life. What kind of life if that life means an earlier death? And what kind of life is it if that person ends up looking like some freak, uncontrollable body movements that make that person fling arms everywhere and have legs that don’t work so that person needs a walker or a wheelchair and can’t depend on the legs to do what legs should do, keep that person standing tall and get that person to wherever that person wants to go.
These healers of the mind do much to damage the brain and claim this is how they heal. How can damaging the brain that isn’t damaged help a mind that psychs aren’t sure where the mind is located, heal? How can these experts in human behavior be so unaware of their own behavior? How can these experts be so blind to themselves? How can these experts claim to know others so well yet not know themselves as well?

ALTERNATIVE IN NAME ONLY

I have three movement disorders, drug induced Parkinson’s Disease, Dystonia, and Tardive Dyskinesia. All my movement disorders are caused by long time use of psych drugs.
I went to an alternative medical clinic believing the doctors and other practitioners and I would work together and help me withdraw and recover from the damage pysch drugs did to my body. I met once with the State expert that was recently added on staff. I was told I need psych drugs in order to function, my brain is damaged since birth and psych drugs are my only hope for life, a conclusion this State Expert doctor derived from closely reading and studying my records. I was offered an alternative treatment for psych drugs, opiates. Some alternative. Trade one set of problems and addiction for another set of problems and addiction.
I have Parkinson’s Disease the main characteristic is stiffness in posture and moving. I have been told for so many years how I am just anxious and very tense when I was displaying side effects of psych drugs. I am still very stiff and rigid and again not one person at this alternative medical clinic is taking into account the over 36 years I’ve been taking psych drugs. I am being gently chastised and taught how my mind and emotions affect my body, ignoring any of my attempts at addressing the effects of psych drugs and my movement disorders as a possible cause of my stiffness and rigidity. I am asking myself, why do these people call themselves alternative medical practitioners when in reality they all do what all other medical clinic doctors and practitioners have been doing, ignore the effects psych drugs have on my body and only address and treat my mental and emotional condition.

According to the doctor I see at the Alternative Medical Clinic people who are disabled since childhood know how to ask for what they need but people who are disabled as adults don’t know how to ask for what they need. I asked the doctor for one of my medications to be renewed. The doctor did not hear me correctly. What she heard me asking was for a medication prescribed by another one of my doctors. I repeated the name of the medication many times and I wasn’t heard correctly. Finally when I referred to the medicine by it’s dosage suddenly the doctor heard me correctly. I never had this trouble with any coventional medical doctor, just this alternative medical doctor.
My conclusion, it doesn’t matter when a person is disabled. What does matter is whether the doctor will listen to the disabled person.

Abuse is abuse no matter how abuse is used. Many doctors and psychs use abuse as a type of treatment, as a way to promote healing. The more obvious ways abuse is used to help are physical restraints and the isolation room, better known as the padded cell. Then there are the more subtle ways of using abuse to test for emotional health. Are doctors and psychs testing a patient’s emotional health, or is the test a form of emotional abuse ?
When people who are trained to heal use abuse as a treatment method, how can abuse be stopped or even eliminated?

I’m doing very well tapering off remeron. I’ve been able to cut down by 10mg and I’m still doing well. Sad to say the alternative medical clinic where I thought I would get help and support, I’m not. Not at all. I realized by going ahead with a taper without consulting anyone there, without asking anyone there for their permission or advice I’m deliberately trying to be provoked into an anger reaction. Happy to say none of the practitioners are getting what they want.
It’s just a repeat of the emotional abuse I endured as a child and as a psych patient which I have gone in great detail with the therapist I see at the clinic. When I saw the doctor there I wondered why she repeatedly misheard the medication I was asking for, lyrica. She kept telling me celebrex. When she read off one medication after another on the medication sheet I always give her I finally had to say, since she skipped lyrica, it’s the medicine that’s 75mg. The alternative medical doctor had no choice but to give me what she forced me to beg her for. Some alternative medical treatment. Abuse is abuse even when abuse is called help.
I went back in my hospital records and this was my drug cocktail back in May, 2004 when I was hospitalized because I was termporarily paralyzed from the neck down.
I did check my pharmacy records because I could not believe I would agree to this:
Klonopin 0.05mg 5 HS
Remeron 45mg 1HS
Eskalith-CR 450mg 1 BID
Seroquel 200mg 4HS
Geodon 20mg 4am, 4pm

As for my temporary paralysis being psychosomatic, manifestations of an emerging character/personality disorder, I do believe I have every right and every reason to be angry, outraged, and very mistrusting of the psych and medical community.
I am very sad realizing that even alternative medicine is trying to prove what psychiatry said about me is right. That I am very mentally ill and that I do need psych drugs for the rest of my life. I do feel betrayed because I trusted the therapist there. Psychiatry and the medical communities hate to be wrong, especially when both communities know they have been and are still being very very wrong about me. All I can say is what I am doing, how I am responding to the repeating of the emotional abuse is not stopping medicals and a psych from continuing to emotionally abuse me. I’ll find a good reason to leave this alternative medical clinic so my abusers there cannot blame my leaving on some mental illness.
All I can say for sure, if I had not come off the abilify almost a year ago, no way would I be able to handle the increasing intensity of the emotional abuse I’m enduring. Medicals and psychs don’t want to be wrong about me. I say too bad because they are. Just because they can’t live with their mistakes doesn’t mean I have to keep covering their behinds. They are showing me they all are more than capable of covering their behinds quite well without any help from me at all.

Many times I asked a doctor for help tapering off my cocktail of psych drugs. The usual answer was no because the doctor was afraid I would get depressed again. My family also said the same thing, how afraid they were I would become depressed again. My friends also told me without psych drugs they were afraid I would become very sick again. What I never understood, if these doctors, my former psychs, my friends, and my family were so afraid I would become sick, why was I the one forced to take these drugs? Why weren’t these people forced to take psych drugs since they were the ones who were out of control of their fears for me?

Mental Illness and Diabetes: A Patient’s Thoughts

I have listened to all my psychs, many doctors, and my family tell me having a mental illness is like diabetes.
Mental illness is not at all like diabetes. A doctor can detect diabetes with a simple blood test. No psychiatrist can do the same with any mental illness.
There is a specific chemical imbalance that causes diabetes. None of my psychiatrists can prove a chemical imbalance is the reason I keep talking about the ways my family emotionally abuses me. No psychiatrist can prove a chemical imbalance causes me to say I was raped by a convicted pedophile.

THE WILL TO SURVIVE

I had been separated from the family ship. My little lifeboat had sprung many leaks and was sinking. I saw a cruise ship on the horizon and waved frantically to attract attention. I was losing all hope but the cruise ship changed it’s course and headed my way.
By the time the cruise ship got to me I was swimming in the ocean and tiring fast. I could see a group of people sitting on the deck drinking from their martini glasses and having a good time. I called out in distress and one person threw me an inner tube. I could hear snippets of their conversation carried to me on the wind, will she make it, should we do something more to help her? One of them warned the others I might be dangerous. People decided, if I drowned then I was a bad person, but if I managed to save myself, then I was a good person.
The sea was very choppy and the inner tube disappeared beneath the waves many times. I struggled and called out for help but no one did a thing but watch and ask the waiter to refill their drinks.
Thru sheer strength of will I used the inner tube and got to the cruise ship. I was praised for having the strength and courage to save myself. I stood there looking at all of them, dripping wet and so tired I could barely stand. There was such rage in me but there was nothing I could say. I took the towel they offered, dried myself off and refused their offer of a martini. Later, as I was falling asleep I heard the people congratulating the one who threw me the inner tube. That person was praised for having the faith and courage to throw me the inner tube. I fell asleep wondering how they can tell each other they helped me find the courage and the strength to save myself when all they did was drink their martinis and watch.

Same Wavelength, Different Channel

I used to grow so angry at people when told I need to say what I mean. I would be told what words would be better so others would know what I meant. I never could understand why I had to use their words, their phrases when, to me, the words and phrases I used conveyed what I meant to say much better.
To every action there is a reaction. When my doctor told me to take a drug and reassured me there are no side effects, I instantly branded the doctor a liar. I was so upset because I had learned to trust this doctor and felt betrayed. I wondered why the doctor looked so happy when saying this until I realized, side effects had a different meaning for me than to this doctor. This is a great breakthru realization for me. I realized I was always using the right words to me, I was saying what I was meaning, it was how the other person interpreted my words that caused so much confusion and distress and upset.
Now that I understand I still will use my words but ask when misunderstood, what does the other person think I meant by what I said. I need to be clear about how others interpret the same word as it’s obvious to me the same word does have many different meanings.
I do speak English and English is my only language. It’s how I interpret English that caused me so many problems and so much heartache.
I can now trust the doctor again. I realize the doctor has no idea what side effects I am talking about. We live on the same planet, speak the same language, but interpret the words so differently. I see it as being on the same wavelength but tuned to a different channel.

Drug Pushers in White Coats

To me all doctors are nothing more than well trained, board certified drug pushers in white coats who all mean well. That to me classifies all doctors as the worst kind of drug pushers alive.
I go to a doctor to get relief from pain. I am probed, prodded, weighed and assessed and then given the appropriate drug to ease my pain, to make me happy. That’s the whole purpose of me taking a drug, to ease my pain so I would be happy again.
The World Health Organization defines dependency as the need for repeated doses of the drug to feel good or to avoid feeling bad. I was a psych patient forced to take varous psych drugs for over 37 years. I was in denial of my drug addiction until I have lowered my dose of abilify, an anti-psychotic and now am in constant, terrible pain. Warm baths help, so does massage but all are temporary fixes and so temporary now they are no longer acceptable. In order to relieve my pain I would need to be constantly in a warm bath or receiving a massage. I have no choice but to resort to drugs to relieve my pain, to be happy again.
I do have a choice, anti-psychotics which will stigmatize me and get me treated like dirt by most doctors who are afraid of my “madness”, or I can be dependent on drugs that doctors can accept and not have the stigma of dirt and shame and disgust associated with my name when I walk into a doctor’s office.
I had a hard time accepting my drug dependency, that I am a drug addict. I am not a drug addict of my own free will but was made into a drug addict by kind and well meaning doctors who don’t realize what they are truly doing when they prescribed me drugs to ease my pain, to make me happy again. Or do they know and prescribed drugs to me anyway deciding for me it’s better for me to be addicted to a drug than to be so unhappy.

A Cover Up

My family was very upset with me because I made a decision concerning my health care without consulting them. I never asked them for advice concerning a biopsy on my vocal cord but had made an agreement with the ENT to postpone the biopsy. My medication management psychiatrist was frustrated with as I kept refusing to transfer all my care to him. I’m not sure how or what my psychotherapist thought of me, all I know the therapist was frustrated with me too.
I woke up in a psych hospital with scabs on both sides of my head. I asked the staff if I had been given ECT and all I was told was to let the scabs fall off naturally. After I was discharged I received the insurance report stating I had been at another hospital before being transferred to the psych hospital I woke up in. I asked my parents why I was at the other hospital and they told me I never was there. I also asked my parents if the psychs had given me ECT. I was reassured there was no way the parents would permit ECT to be performed on me.
I went back in my insurance records and discovered I had been at that other hospital twice before. A friend told me ECT is done at that hospital. All the family needs to do is get a court order. I’m sure the therapist I was seeing once a week was consulted to see if ECT was needed. My psychiatrist must have been consulted too. A lot of people went thru much trouble to hide the fact I was at the other hospital, but insurance records don’t lie.
There is nothing I can do except accept the fact ECT was given to me per my family’s request. I felt so helpless, so powerless, so confused by everyone being evasive and not directly answering my questions. When I found out the other hospital does administer ECT, a deep feeling of sadness overcame me.
I realized a lot of people tried to help me. I know they meant well but if they were made aware of all the consequences of their actions will they change? I doubt it. I am a labeled person and what I say is dismissed as signs of my disease reemerging.
I don’t know why my family ordered the psychs to give me ECT. I only know whenever I showed any signs of independence my family saw to it I would become even more dependent upon them.
It took three separate hospitalizations, all done in secrecy, to make me so unemotional. As much as the family and various doctors provoke me, I do not react. I know people are not happy with the results. I have been told by my mother how much she wants the person I was back again.

Therapy

I am so tired of therapy that I quit, in total disgust. I wanted to talk about my present problems but the therapist wanted me to talk about what happened in my past that was similar to the present. I went back and started to talk about my past only to constantly have what I was saying redirected. I got so sick and tired of taking the blame for psychiatry’s failure to help me that I quit.
I would tell the therapist how angry I was and wanted to discuss what the therapist did that made me angry. I would become angrier when therapist after therapist denied doing anything that would make me angry and tell me I was really angry at something or someone in my past. I would say, no I’m angry at you and what you said. The therapist’s usual reply was, something happened in your past so let’s discuss what happened in your past then you can deal with why you’re angry now. I would insist what the therapist did made me angry and the therapist would pull out the prescription pad and tell me how much I needed an increase in my drugs as I was out of control of my anger.
Therapy didn’t make sense to me until I made sense of therapy. I realized therapists thought I was delusional which was why I was never believed. I found someone who did believe me and that’s how my Journey to Wellness started.

Therapy

People enter therapy for many different reasons. Most see a need to change and look towards their therapist to teach them, show them what and how to change. These people get easily frustrated in therapy. No therapist, unless they are very controlling, will sit and tell a patient what to change. However most therapists will sit and tell a patient how to change.
This is my experience in therapy. I did not enter therapy willingly, I was more or less forced into therapy. A person forced to be in therapy resists therapy in subtle ways. I certainly did. I showed that resistance by being offensive, demanding, and totally uncooperative. That worked against me and I was finally told my behavior was so offensive I suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder.
People who are forced into therapy do become offensive. Trying to work with such people is a heartless and often distressing job. I became even more offensive when I was given the label Borderline only proving my therapist right. I left therapy and spent a year discovering myself and making changes. I re-entered therapy willingly. I am not obnoxious, offensive, or demanding. I cooperate, listen without interrupting, smile and laugh, just a totally different patient because I am a willing patient.
Attitude made a difference in me, but so did the therapist. I’ve discovered just as people are different, so are therapists. Afterall therapists are really people too.
Therapy with a willing patient is far easier than therapy with someone forced. But the difference I’m finding is in the therapist themselves. Finding someone who is not controlling, demanding, or manipulative makes the difference for me.

Babies and Psychiatrists

MANIPULATION

Everyone manipulates to some degree or other. There is nothing inherently wrong in manipulating others. Basically I manipulate to get my needs met. The ways I manipulate, that’s what I need to work on. I’ve learned it’s better to ask a person what I want, to give that person a choice.
I am recognizing the ways I manipulate people. I can’t say I will give up manipulating, I learned this behavior when I was a baby.
A baby is the master manipulator of all time. I coundn’t speak but I did cry, I didn’t know what I wanted and left it up to my parents to figure out what I needed. As I grew up and learned about myself, learned how hungry felt, learned how cold felt, learned to talk, I was able to ask to be fed, clothed, have my needs met. My parents taught me how to communicate my wants and needs, but some of the ways they taught me are not acceptable in society.
I can’t really blame them. I started school and was exposed to different, better ways of asking how to get my needs met. However, when I brought these new ways home, they were rejected and the old ways became ingrained.
I entered psychiatry. Doctors, psyciatrists in particular, are the grandest of all manipulators of all times, second only to babies. They are worse than babies in that they deny any manipulative behavior. They hide their manipulations behind the excuse, It’s for the patient’s own good. They determine, enforce, and make the person change with drugs, different programs, and worse, with their damaging labels.
Manipulating is a basic human behavior. I can’t really say it’s good, but I can say it is bad when a group of people use this behavior to denigrate, humiliate, control, set apart with the label Borderline another group of people because they, psychiatrists. do not like the ways their patients behave.

What Makes Me So Different?

I’ve been thinking, if I treat my ns like they treat me but am so different when I’m with others, what makes me different from my ns? The fact that I know better? I know my nfamily knows better too, so what really makes me different from them?

MADDENING DRUGS

All my intelligence and physical tests proved there was nothing wrong with me. My family obviously loved me so my psych blamed my suicidal depression on a chemical imbalance. Depression is anger turned inwards. I certainly was “mad”, mad enough to want to kill myself.
I was encouraged to talk about my family life, and I did. I told staff about my dictator worshipping father, a brother who was sent to juvenile hall for shoplifting. I talked about my brother and sister who hardly spoke to anyone except family members. I told them about my love for animals, the only beings I felt safe to love. I was told many times how well I had thought things out. The psych started me on stelazine which was supposed to help me get in touch with reality.
I was so depressed I was started on an anti-depressant, Elavil. I started to pace the floor and rocked when I sat. I started to have tremors in my hands. I became so agitated Mellaril was added to calm me. I was given Cogentin to prevent side effects such as restlessness or tremors. I’ve been forced to take these psych drugs for over 37 years. I realize I am now a drug addict. My body needs these drugs in order to function properly. Without it’s daily fix, my body goes into withdrawal. I’m in constant pain and now have a movement disorder. I cough all the time and suffer heart pain. I was started on psych drugs because I was mad at people. I am told by people how mad they will become if I stopped taking psych drugs. I was mad when I started taking psych drugs, grew madder on these psych drugs, will be happy when I’m off these psych drugs. Why should I keep taking psych drugs if other people will be mad if I don’t?

A QUESTION

He wasn’t wanted in his first home and found a foster home with a member of a rescue bird organization. I watched a group of people work together so this 51 year old Military Macaw could be rehomed.
First a woman did an intensive home check. A new member offered to bring the bird and cage from the foster home to meet another member who would then transport the bird and cage to the new home. It was agreed, Thursday would be the day to make this happen, and it did.
A lot of people did many simple acts of kindness so an unwanted bird could find a new home. If a group of volunteers can show such care and concern for an unwanted bird, why can't we all show the same care and concern for those less fortunate?

Strength of One

I can expect no help from anyone in the psychiatric community. No one is willing to write a letter attesting to my present mental health. I know that would require them to take a stance against the psychiatrists in the city where I live. Asking someone in psych to declare me sane is like asking to be given a piece of heaven on earth.
I was made and kept ill by psychiatric drugs and psychiatric treatments. I had to distance myself from psychiatry before I could get better. I found a group of people who not only believed in me, but also believed me. I was driven to the brink of suicide many times all because psychs did not believe me or my reactions to these psych drugs. I was put on lexapro and that was the first and only time I had a suicide plan and was going to follow thru. I got myself to the er where the psych resident refused to admit me. I was told if I was still feeling the same way the next day I was to return and he would be more than happy to admit me. Such blatant disregard and obvious disbelief almost cost me my life that night. I was told many times I needed to take these drugs for the rest of my life in order to have any hope of a life. I was told I needed to be forever under the care of a psychiatrist. I quit the psychiatrist. I have found three volunteer jobs and doing well in all three. I am on the least amount of psych drugs and my thinking is becoming clearer, more focused, and my ability to reason is returning. I can get no one in psych willing to risk and write a letter stating my present mental health.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

The damage done to me by my original psych’s diagnosis of me was expanded and compounded by my other psychs who chose to follow their training and believe the first psych and not believe what their assessment of me told them.
I was wrongly diagnosed Delusional by my first psych. I kept being treated for my obvious delusional state by all other psychs. I never got better, constantly grew worse despite all the talk therapy and all the drugs I was given. The more I had my talk redirected, the more I tried to talk about my “delusions”. The more drugs I was given to stop my delusional state, the more “deluded” I became. I was blamed for not getting better despite all psychiatry’s efforts to help me.
I worked hard in talk therapy and became steadily worse. I constantly was ridiculed for my “stories”. The harm done to me by the original psych follows me where ever I go. I sought help from a survivor’s agency but they too chose to believe me delusional. Healing came for me from another survivor who not only believes me but also saw the mistakes made in my treatment was due to psychs choosing to follow the first psych’s mistake. I can try to change people’s minds about me, but until people learn to trust and believe in their assessment of me, no one will believe a word I say. I am horribly damaged because of a mistake made by my first psych. I suffer from an insane game of Monkey See, Monkey Do. When one is wrong and all perpetuate his wrongness, the damage done to me is unbelievable.

Feel Like Me

I’ve been told so many times by doctors how hard it is for them to keep me, a mentally ill patient on my psych drugs.
I’ve told doctors why I want to stop my psych drugs. Doctors tell me I need these drugs because they’re afraid I’ll get sick again. Gee doctor, why don’t you start on an anti-psychotic if you can’t control your fears. I hope you take them long enough so you’ll start to feel agitated inside and unable to sit still,. Then when you have start to have difficulty sleeping, start to take an anti-depressant. When you are unable to understand simple directions or remember people’s names start on another anti-psychotic which might help the first anti-psychotic work better. Better start a drug called cogentin to counter any side effects you may have. If you continue to shake and drool, up your dose of either anti-psychotic and your shaking and drooling will stop. If it continues, up your dose even more until the shaking and drooling stops. If you still can think clearly to make the connection all you’re experiencing is the same symptoms I’ve been coming to you and complaining about for years now. Maybe you’ll take me seriously and won’t dismiss me as just some mentally ill woman seeking attention.