Almost All of My Psychiatrists Have Been Confrontational

Diagnoses: Depression, anxiety, OCD, GAD, schizoid PD, Asperger's

Age: 28

This is a major problem I have been grappling with for a long time now. Most psychiatrists I have seen over the years have been confrontational in our sessions to the extent that I withdraw from getting the help I desperately need and I ruminate about upsetting sessions that I have had with them to an extreme degree, to the point of becoming angry almost every day with one of them in particular. This one in particular deliberately started an argument with me, went on the attack, and escalated the argument to the point of repeatedly threatening me with discharge from the hospital for not agreeing to involve my parents (I was told by *everyone else* in the hospital that that was completely voluntary) even though I had no home to go to at the time as my parents were insisting I stay in hospital for a fixed period of time (for some dumb reason). I complained about this experience and got a new doctor in the hospital in a new ward, but I am still extremely angry about how he threatened me like that and took away my power and agency and intellectually bullied me. He even tried denying that he threatened me in the same session and tried minimising what happened the next week by claiming our meeting the previous week was "a bit of a heated discussion".

These experiences have left me extremely angry and hateful towards these individuals. I can't stop playing the upsetting conversation in my head, angrily imagining what I wish I had said. No other experiences in my life have left me repeatedly feeling so upset, angry and hopeless. One friend suggested I may have PTSD as I become as upset and angry about these encounters years after they occur as when they happened (perhaps even more so).

I'm writing this post as just last night I saw a new psychiatrist in hospital on a one-off basis due to Lunesta making me feel deeply "not myself" and reality feeling very unreal. Almost every time I said something to him he jumped on it, tried to find fault, was obtuse, nitpicking, contradictory for the sake of it, it felt like bullying and a few times I was trembling a little bit, it was intimidating at times and this guy was staring me down but I'm very intelligent and I more than held my own. At one point I snapped a little telling and him directly that he's rude and unpleasant to talk to because I refused to answer his question about how much welfare money I'm getting per week (after some exchanges he just told me with regard to him asking me about welfare his reason was "it's for me to know and you to find out", that's when I snapped at him). I am drained, upset and angry by my experience last night and already I'm ruminating about the session over and over, thinking about how wrong and obnoxious he was and what I desperately wish I said instead. It turns out the feelings of "unreality" and not being myself that I experienced WERE caused by the Lunesta as I stopped taking it last night and I feel much much better.

I have two other stories of a similar nature to this, they also left a deep impact. I am NOT a difficult or confrontational person to deal with, I'm quite timid despite my size, just very intelligent and I wonder if this is why they try to put me through my paces, like it is an ego game to them. In all of these cases they tried to wear me down, manipulate/control me, try to force me to agree, minimise and deflect etc. Often I find psychiatrists to be *extremely* cold and/or bad tempered, I consider it very menacing and makes me very uneasy.

Why have so many psychiatrists behaved like this in my experiences? How could bedside manner, social ability and sensitivity not core skills for this job working with the mentally ill? Is this some sort of deliberate clinical practice? Or have I just been unfortunate enough to encounter psychiatrists who mostly are insensitive, confrontational, hostile and near socially inept? I can't even find anything on Google about this topic, I don't understand why I can't find more info about these practices.

I am so angry, hateful and upset about all of these experiences and the mark they have left on me sometimes I break down in tears, the feeling of hopelessness from all the suffering breaking me. I'm sick of it. These people have been very damaging to my mental health, with the SSRIs they prescribed me over the years doing almost nothing but making me feel worse, causing me to miss school due to tiredness, I often wonder if they've done permanent damage (I'm not on any medication at the moment and haven't been for years).

If anyone has had similar experiences please share them and confirm for me in some what that I'M RIGHT and I'm NOT alone and these people have left me deeply upset, angry, bitter and broken through no fault of my own.

Dunno which country youre from but in some countries like the US many psychiatrists are still solely concentrating on medication and are, diplomatically speaking, not very open to the idea that maybe pills dont fix everything. If you have the chance maybe look for a psychologist/psychotherapist for a long-term therapy instead?

I went through a few psychotherapists and psychologists and only one of them helped me in a way. I had to deal with everything myself and analyze everything myself, at the end, only my friend helped me. I feel very tired as well and had a very similar experience with one psychotherapist, so you're not alone. I had something very bizarre happening in my life, and that one therapist thought I was schizophrenic.