Well so far over the last ten years personally ive seen and been treated by about 50 different specialists, hospitals, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and of course the happy pill popper the GP.
Ive been told to take pills, not to take pills, to exercise and not to exercise, ive been told I have one diagnosis then been undiagnosed and now I have another which they cant decide if its Fibromyalgia/Chronic Fatigue or ME.
Due to a third psych assessment with a second mental health team I no longer have bipolar and im labelled as emotionally unstable instead ?*&>?
Most of you who know me will know why these labels have been given and will probably disagree with the emotionally unstable one due to knowing why I got to this point in my life which was through severe and long term domestic abuse and violence.
All hidden of course, because who's gonna admit to being beaten up and spit on behind closed doors, especially to authoritative scary mental health people like the GP/Psych etc.
In fact who admits any kind of fear to a complete stranger ?
So each specialist saw a small slice of me depending on which way I was self medicating from all the trauma, how low or fearful I was from domestic abuse and diagnosed accordingly.
So how does one diagnose properly ?
Does diagnosis help or hinder ?
And should we just come back to who we are and work on ourselves without accepting others opinions ?
Should we research our own symptoms and make our own minds up ?
At the end of the day when it is mental health related its a minefield and nobody ever spends enough time getting to know the patient.
The mental health services have pathways & processes, they discharge too soon and most of their systems don't work as no one person is the same, the staff are really battling very high work loads and I think no promises of help is better than false promises ?
My personal experience of the mental health services is that they kept me in a place of fear and kept the cycle of abuse in motion by offering to help me then not even calling me back when I did need help.
One day the care manager even put the phone down on me at 5 minutes to 5 on a Friday afternoon telling me that I was "making her life difficult" when I called back to beg for help the phones had turned over to out of hours, needless to say by Monday I was being stitched back up by A & E.
Ive written this as last week I saw one GP who told me to up my meds, (Amitriptalyne for fibro pain, Naproxen for pain, Zopiclone for sleep and lorazepam for anxiety/panic attacks) this week the same surgery and different GP told me to stop taking the meds at all, for the last 3 years the GP has been trying to get me on Lithium for a disorder called bipolar which I have now had re categorized as PTSD / ME/Fibromyalgia and Emotionally unstable due to trauma.
So this has left me with a dilemma, the GP now ignores my physical symptoms and puts it down to my mental illness, the PTSD.
The mental health services have labelled me difficult and have told me that It is "their clinical decision" that I need to get over my problems of dealing with the horrible, obnoxious CPN (community psychiatric nurse) I have been assigned and just accept it.
I told them that is is my own "clinical decision" not to work with such an arse which is not therapeutic to my continued care needs and thats where I am now.
So this week I went to the chiropractor and the dentist instead and Im feeling much more listened to.
Which begs the question, when dealing with mental health is diagnosis a good thing or a really bad thing ? Comments please, very welcome to share your story ... Claire Jones Founder Sunshine and Showers.
Ive been told to take pills, not to take pills, to exercise and not to exercise, ive been told I have one diagnosis then been undiagnosed and now I have another which they cant decide if its Fibromyalgia/Chronic Fatigue or ME.
Due to a third psych assessment with a second mental health team I no longer have bipolar and im labelled as emotionally unstable instead ?*&>?
Most of you who know me will know why these labels have been given and will probably disagree with the emotionally unstable one due to knowing why I got to this point in my life which was through severe and long term domestic abuse and violence.
All hidden of course, because who's gonna admit to being beaten up and spit on behind closed doors, especially to authoritative scary mental health people like the GP/Psych etc.
In fact who admits any kind of fear to a complete stranger ?
So each specialist saw a small slice of me depending on which way I was self medicating from all the trauma, how low or fearful I was from domestic abuse and diagnosed accordingly.
So how does one diagnose properly ?
Does diagnosis help or hinder ?
And should we just come back to who we are and work on ourselves without accepting others opinions ?
Should we research our own symptoms and make our own minds up ?
At the end of the day when it is mental health related its a minefield and nobody ever spends enough time getting to know the patient.
The mental health services have pathways & processes, they discharge too soon and most of their systems don't work as no one person is the same, the staff are really battling very high work loads and I think no promises of help is better than false promises ?
My personal experience of the mental health services is that they kept me in a place of fear and kept the cycle of abuse in motion by offering to help me then not even calling me back when I did need help.
One day the care manager even put the phone down on me at 5 minutes to 5 on a Friday afternoon telling me that I was "making her life difficult" when I called back to beg for help the phones had turned over to out of hours, needless to say by Monday I was being stitched back up by A & E.
Ive written this as last week I saw one GP who told me to up my meds, (Amitriptalyne for fibro pain, Naproxen for pain, Zopiclone for sleep and lorazepam for anxiety/panic attacks) this week the same surgery and different GP told me to stop taking the meds at all, for the last 3 years the GP has been trying to get me on Lithium for a disorder called bipolar which I have now had re categorized as PTSD / ME/Fibromyalgia and Emotionally unstable due to trauma.
So this has left me with a dilemma, the GP now ignores my physical symptoms and puts it down to my mental illness, the PTSD.
The mental health services have labelled me difficult and have told me that It is "their clinical decision" that I need to get over my problems of dealing with the horrible, obnoxious CPN (community psychiatric nurse) I have been assigned and just accept it.
I told them that is is my own "clinical decision" not to work with such an arse which is not therapeutic to my continued care needs and thats where I am now.
So this week I went to the chiropractor and the dentist instead and Im feeling much more listened to.
Which begs the question, when dealing with mental health is diagnosis a good thing or a really bad thing ? Comments please, very welcome to share your story ... Claire Jones Founder Sunshine and Showers.
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