Being taken seriously...?

I'm just curious as to other people's experiences when they first 'seek help' from a doctor or therapist, and how they rate the service. I live in the UK, but I'm interested to hear what other people thought of the wonderful 'help' we're so often told we can get.

The first time I went for help was from a student councillor during my first degree, as I was suffering badly from an already long-term depression, not to mention having great difficulty finding a job to support my living alone in a strange town, and trying to find ways around my openly sexist tutor's efforts to prevent me doing a good final year biology project... and I felt it all was going to seriously affect my grades (and therefore life prospects) for final year. The councillor they gave me was a student herself, or as good as: a trainee. She listened to everything I had to say, and scribbled a lot, but really was no help at all. If anything, I felt like I was probably helping her more in some kind of work placement. I failed my first degree nonetheless, and perhaps the best thing she advised me to do was "see a GP". Great stuff.

So, I went to see a GP. I've had many GPs over the years, although I abhor going to doctor's surgeries and hospitals and having to pour out the murky depths of my wretched soul to someone in an impatient five-minute gig, hoping they'll help somehow. Most of these GPs have been incredibly keen to dish out pills like sweets, which, after I look up a chemical run-down of them afterward, I'm almost always put off taking. But most of them are loathe to sign you off work if you happen to be having a severe episode or nervous breakdown...!

I get signed up for a real councillor, eventually, after several appointments over time. At this point in my life I was probably the lowest I have ever been. I wanted to be dead. If they didn't help me, I said, there was a good chance I would be. How long did it take to get an appointment? Six months. That appointment would have been very useful if I somehow hadn't even managed to make it home past the railway bridge that evening.

The NHS councillor was, actually, a small amount of help. But not because he actually took me seriously, I felt. I felt all along that he probably wasn't - I was explaining things like lack of confidence, and anxiety... and he would refute that I had a lack of confidence; I would mention that my family wasn't the problem and he would insist my mother was the root of all evils... I mean, I felt the man wasn't even listening. But he did say one thing that helped. When we were discussing suicide I said that I felt death would end my frustrations and constant feelings of anxiety and discomfort. And he said "how do you know death's the end?" Good point. It made me think. But still, the guy wasn't listening to the things I was trying to get across. Apparently my articulation and mask of confidence was enough to baffle him into thinking I wasn't really depressed and suicidal.

Anyway, many GP appointments later and after deciding I simply didn't want to be a sertraline guinea-pig and didn't like the feeling xanax was generating in my brain (and I'm not impressed by the science tat behind the notion of fiddling with people's seratonin uptake to solve all problems), I gave up on 'help'. This 'help' was less help than no help, and it simply frustrated me how awful the therapists and councillors and GPs were at their jobs in dealing with people like me. I don't know if it's peculiar to the UK, but mental illness is still kind of taboo here, still something you're supposed to "just shut up and get on with" or ignore, or not talk about, and people just don't take it seriously. That is, until some loved one blows their own head off with a shotgun or is found hanging off the landing, right? Right. My family don't take it particularly seriously either, not even my manic-depressive mother, and I was clearly a kid with problems who nobody noticed needed fixing. No-one else appreciates the gravity of mental illness, seemingly, except the people I know and speak to who have Asperger's or SAD, or are depressed or bipolar. People who know what it feels like. The rest of the population seem to stand there blinking like cows when you mention "clinical depression", "social anxiety", "BPD" or the like.

In short, the help has been terrible. Thank God I don't need it any more, because the appalling quality of the 'help' forced me, in the end, to help myself. It hasn't been an easy ride, though, and it could have been better with some decent professionals and decent attitudes. I could even be a different and much better person if I'd had the right therapy at the right time, i.e. in childhood.

It's an interesting fact that certain other people I know have had all sorts of help and time off work and support and therapy and monetary funding, some of them being complete jokers. It's infurating for actual sufferers like me. I'm sure one guy was given a lot more attention because he had a bad knee as well as mental illness. Right, show them something tangible or broken, and they seem to love it. Go into the doc's with just an invisible problem in your head, and it's a different story.

Anyone else feel the same?

Hi,

I also started out seeing a counsellor at my college, but I thought that she was helpful to me. She wasn't a student though, and was there full-time and was probably in her 40's or 50's. She basically just listened and tried her best to get me out of thinking negatively. Anyway, I also @!@@@! up my first degree and just decided to leave it. I then also went to a GP, but my GP is a very nice lady who has a very nice assistant too. From there, I have seen a psychiatrist and therapist.

So, I guess that I am reasonably content with the treatment that I have received, and I can only imagine how annoying it must be not to feel like you've got anything at all from your treatment. Have you given up hope completely?

Kevin

Most doctors aim for basic means of living then shoot you out the door. I use to have a good doctor who tried to get me the best possible life I could have while not being psychosis. Although I had 2 pyschosis in a 5-6 year span while I was with him, I don't blame him it was my fault both of them. I stopped going to appointments and one time stopped taking my medication. Otherwise I was happiest I had been. I completed my schooling found a good job, lived abroad and learn another language. While with my new doctor I have lost a job and not been very happy. I'm planning to giveup with him after my medication is lowered enough so I can live abroad again and by medication there.

I would try to get a new doctor but I'd rather just bide my time and get my medication lowered and then leave completely.

Do you feel that you must have a doctor to see all of the time? From the way you have phrased your message, I am thinking that doctors play a huge part of your life. I'm not saying that this is unhealthy, but could you try to be a little more independent of them? Like, I only see my doctors once every 6 months now, and that's usually only to update my prescription.

I don't feel that at all but I am on extended leave from the hospital and if I was to not showup to appointments they would commit me again.

I am recovering and relapsing all the time, communication is one of my big problems. its the reason why I'm not working and have a hard time keeping up with a relationship, like the one I'm in now.

I went to the doctor for depression ages ago and to see if I could be "such and such" because only I know how I feel and when I did my GP thought hmm she's asking for help, so there must not be too much wrong with her.

This time I was referred to my doctor, through a mental health service and my job network.

I do feel like I can't be honest with how I'm feeling and what I do, which I know is not good in the long run but I don't want to be put on medication that I may not need.

whero, thanks for clearing that up. I was in hospital once but my psychiatrist was on holiday during my stay there. So, I only had his assistant. This really pissed me off and, so, I discharged myself and never went back to see the psychiatrist. I never liked him originally anyway.

TigerRose, if you ask anyone on this website, they will tell you that they have never been completely honest with their doctor. I certainly haven't because my 'true' nature is just too dark to share with a professional who has the power to lock my ass away!

Kevin

Which is exactly why people either don't get diagnosed properly.

But yes that's right we also don't tell to save our asses, I agree 100%.