gurneyhallack

Thank you for the work you are doing, it is valuable and important. Because the are the wealthiest members of congress and the senate, I am curious. What are the holdings of senator Diane Feinstein and congressman Darrell Issa?.

I am really curious about this. I do not want free counseling, I do have an excellent therapist. But I do have an enormous stigma against mental health care, and am upfront about it. Specifically medical and psychiatric care. I am not going to go into detail, but my experience has simply largely been bad. I have autism, I was too high functioning in some ways and too low functioning in others, and nobody knew it was autism until I was 16, so out of desperation I was put into a residential facility when I was 8 for 6 months. That place was abusive, it was eventually shut down and a couple people got jail time, I am part of a class action suit now. I am 38 now, am diagnosed with PTSD from that and a unusually abusive childhood, and have been hospitalized 3 times in the last 21 years.

When I was 17 I was molested in a psych ward, though in that case I never told anyone. When I talked about this to a psychiatrist in on one of the two other visits many years later I was shouted at, and my medical information divulged. The last visit was somewhat helpful, I was treated respectfully and given resources. There have also been 2 visits to the emergency room in my life. I was treated rudely and dismissively, told I was not really suicidal, it was all manipulation, and one nurse went on about Jesus for quite a bit. I do not know what to say.

I did have that one okay experience. And therapists, social workers, counselors, groups, all such things have done so much for me, I cannot speak highly enough about therapy. But I have completely sworn off psych or medical mental health care entirely. One okay experience is not worth the 5 other total bad experiences. I will keep working in therapy and will keep myself safe, but in the end people do die, I will never walk into an emergency room again under any circumstances is my feeling, and know the words I need to say so its highly unlikely to happen involuntarily, that is my feeling at this point. I am not really talking about my experience, I have good therapy.

But psych care or whatever, when a client tells you they have objectively almost entirely had poor experience, that their sole positive experience was only so good, how do you approach that?. Because I will never seek, and will act and hide as much as needed, to prevent ever doing anything to do with psychiatric care again under any circumstances. If it was solely me it would be less relevant, but its clearly not, many people feel this way. Is their something we're missing?. It seems like most suicidal stuff is based on trauma and chronic issues, yet all psych care is designed for acute and temporary problems. How do you encourage people to see it differently?.

Thanks so much for the reply, it was helpful. What about Senator Diane Feinstein's holdings though?.

I just wanted to say your kind words, really speaking to my question, it means a lot to me. I do understand how poorly funded the system is. I try not to blame the people in it, its hard at time, but I know just how difficult people's situations are when there are so few resources to help them. I will keep working in therapy, its been 2 years and she is wonderful, and group and the mental health drop in center I attend. There is even a practical social worker/case manager, I have a lot of really great support. Its just the system, the lack of resources, I have no doubt psych workers wish it was different as much as I do. Anyway thank you so much again, your kind words and real depth in your answer mean a lot to me, and I hope your day can be just a beautiful one. :)