I'd like to dedicate a thread to helping out our friend HD7970GHZ, who has been going through hell with the healthcare system. I have my own ideas and suggestions, and would like to encourage anyone and everyone out there to chime in and offer their own ideas. Let's lend a helping hand if we can.

HD, having read some recent posts, first, I'd like to state my understanding of your situation - You were greatly wronged by the healthcare system ... your records were falsified, your reputation was tarnished, you were abused and otherwise traumatized. You are/were considering legal action against them. During this process, and generally, you tend to express your anger in emotionally charged outbursts when you're in "emotion mind" ... you tend to say things that worsen your situation. Also, you are easily attached to people in your life (e.g. therapists and people in DBT group), and are devastated when they abandon you. Your mind keeps replaying this trauma, and you are held hostage by the resulting anxiety. Right ?

Healthcare system
----------------------

The first thing I want to say is that the reason a lot of us are disappointed by the healthcare system is our expectation and/or assumption that the system is reliable and infallible, and that it is run only by competent professionals. In our fragile and vulnerable life situations, we surrender the burden of our problems to them. In doing so, we expect them to be able to help us. Simple, right ? We're sick, we go to the doctor/therapist, they prescribe treatment, and we get better, right ? And, herein, lies the problem ... in its entirety ... one word "expectation" !

Maybe in an ideal world, where the science of psychology and psychopathology was exact, meaning that a doc could look at you and say, you have "XYZ disorder" and that XYZ treatment will fix you in XYZ amount of time. That, plus all the nurses and assistants knowing everything about ***your*** BPD condition and symptoms, and clinics having all the resources you need at hand, and so on.

The healthcare system (esp. mental health) is far too complex for it to be exact or even come close. In fact, even your diagnosis is partially dependent on whether your insurance will even cover your treatment; doctors' decisions are influenced by this.

Also, when it comes to which drugs and what doses, it's all trial and error, at best ! The functioning of the human brain is barely understood. Also, think about how some patients (homeless, junkies) abuse inpatient facilities just to get free meals. Some geographical locations (perhaps big cities) are able to offer better care than other areas, so there is a fair bit of luck involved in finding a competent team of professionals to help you.

Yes, we expect professionalism and courtesy and a certain level of competence from the system, but the system is ultimately run by human beings, some of whom love their jobs, and others who are simply in it to pay their bills, most of whom cannot possibly understand the magnitude of a patient's life problems because they don't suffer from the same problems themselves.

Therapists - It takes an infinite amount of patience to listen to a person's problems and figure out how to help them and get them to help themselves. No matter how well qualified they are, they are just people, with their own problems at home and in the office.

What I'm getting at is this - The mental healthcare system, is an infinitely complex function of laws, economics, politics, human nature, and luck. And, for a multitude of logical reasons, and despite its best intentions, the system is largely imperfect. So, we cannot and must not put all our hope in it. Period.

And, once we realize and accept this about the system, we can ease our expectations of it. We can then go in with a better prepared mindset and not rely on it with no backup.

I am not trying to trivialize or minimize your troubles, I am simply attempting to look at the whole picture in order to best suggest how you should proceed.

What the system did to you was horrible, no question. But, ask yourself - is legal retribution really what is best for ***you*** ? Is "justice" what you're seeking ? Does justice even really exist ? And, is what you are seeking worth the effort and stress it will take to obtain it ?

What if, on the other hand, you decided that what happened was horrible, but was nothing more than a learning experience for you ? Perhaps you learned not to trust the system as easily, not to trust therapists as easily. And, you learned that you cannot place the full burden of your problems on the system for it simply cannot take that burden.

And, having learned your lessons from this experience, you can put it in your past, vowing never to make the same mistakes again.

Why should this experience become an everyday ordeal for you for the rest of your life ? Why should the experience ***define*** you ? To me, you are a child of God and a fellow human being. To yourself, you are "HD7970GHZ". To your parents, you are a child. To the people who wronged you, you were someone they didn't like. And, I'm willing to bet that there are many people out there who LIKE you.

So, the point is - none of those "definitions" are really YOU. Everyone on this Earth has their own view of you. Similarly, your past experience is NOT YOU, it simply HAPPENED TO you. So, you have the power to distance yourself and separate yourself from it. You are FAR MORE THAN and FAR BEYOND the experience.

Try to process the experience, grieve it, but learn from it, and take whatever actions you deem necessary (legal ??? or not). But once you have taken those actions, put it in your past, where it belongs - the therapists, the doctors, the nurses, the clinics, everything and everyone.

Don't give them power over you. They don't own you. They don't define you. They cannot make you feel bad unless you let them. Imagine them sitting somewhere in the world thinking "I hope HD has a miserable day today". Will that ruin your day ? Or, will you thinking about them ruin your day ? Who has a greater influence over your life ?

You had the misfortune of crossing paths with them in your life. But, you now have the opportunity to put them and the whole experience behind you, and move forward undeterred.

Emotion mind and outburts
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I have this same exact problem. We borderlines tend to react quickly and intensely due to overactive amygdalas. Though we probably cannot prevent these rapidfire initial reactions, we can ***override*** them with a more appropriate response. And, if we practice overriding those reactions consistently, over time, we will get better and better and it will become second nature to us. Re-conditioning, basically.

Example - Your therapist cancels an appointment with you, one that you have been longing for all week because you're in love with your therapist and rely on her sessions for comfort and reassurance. Your initial reaction from the amygdala is to say "That b***h !!! I'm worth nothing to her. I don't need her.". Normally, you would pick up the phone and leave this nasty message, but what if you simply wait a few minutes or hours to do so ? The expression "sleep on it" can be generalized to apply here. Maybe after some time, you will realize that there are reasonable explanations why she would cancel, and that she doesn't deserve a nasty message from you. Also, that the nasty message will not help matters any, only make them worse.

This goes back to the topic of control. By losing your cool in response to her actions, you are giving her a remote control with buttons on it that say the following:

1- "Make HD furious (cancel appointment)"
2 - "Make HD overjoyed (extend appointment duration)"

YOU, and only YOU, decide how much that appointment means to you.

When faced with such a situation, try to ask yourself whether getting back at your therapist is more important than the quality of your mood.

Over time, I promise you ... these rational cognitive interventions will become second nature as the mind gets re-conditioned. It requires persistence.

Attachment to people and abandonment
------------------------------------------------

If life has taught me anything, it is that I need to learn to enjoy my own company, because I cannot make someone like me In other words, I am alone as much as a person can possibly be alone, and I have no choice in the matter.

In the past, my assessment of the situation was - I'm a loser, I'm repulsive, I don't deserve these people in my life, these people hate me.

Today, my assessment is more along the lines of - I know my strengths and weaknesses some of which others are unable to tolerate, I'm a child of God, I am proud of myself, others probably don't understand the depths of me, others have their own flaws, human interaction is complex and governed by many unwritten or misunderstood rules.

If someone "abandons" you, it may not be YOU that is the reason. It may be the other persons own insecurities (and believe me, everyone has some). And, this possibly applies even to the therapists who have stopped seeing you. Think about it from their shoes - is it possible that they simply do not have the patience or skills required to work with you ? Maybe they are used to dealing with less intelligent or less complex people and they cannot understand you.

Again, back to the point of not taking it personally. That girl in DBT group didn't reject YOU, she rejected a person she did not feel comfortable talking to because she was married and felt her boundaries were being crossed. That could have been any other guy in group.

Also, more importantly, no matter how many people abandon you, if you keep a positive attitude and hold the faith that you can and will be loved and appreciated, you will discover that this world has an infinite supply of people Go out there and find em ! Whether they are in coffee shops, grocery stores, Meetup groups, bars, or DBT clinics, wherever.

Everybody makes mistakes. No one is born knowing how to interact. The great thing is ... no matter how much you screw up, you always have one more chance (or a thousand more chances) because there are more people out there for you to meet and practice interacting with ! One rejects you, you keep your head up and move on to the next Some of us are luckier than others, some of us have to work our butts off.

Keep smiling, keep trying, keep learning from past mistakes. This is one area where there are no hard and fast rules ... you have to figure this one out by practice and persistence.

Self-esteem definitely helps draw people closer to us. But it has to come from deep within us. So, whatever is deep in there causing us pain has to be dealt with. I've discovered that my self-esteem derives simply from me knowing my strengths and weaknesses. Figure out what makes you confident ... on the days that you DO feel confident, what's different ?

And once again, please don't give anyone a remote control with buttons that link telepathically to your brain. No one in this world has the authority to declare you a reject or outcast or whatever ... that is, no one but YOU !

To summarize my novel, I really think that what you need is a fresh perspective on life.

Remember that our mind is probably our biggest enemy, because most of what the mind tells us is noise. That's where all the anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, exist. If we can somehow step away from the mind and observe it, instead of becoming caught up in it, we can tame it and restore some level of control and stability in our lives. If we let our minds run loose, we surrender control and risk dire consequences.

The serenity prayer applies almost universally - think about what you have control over and what you don't ... and let that guide your decisions in how to respond to people and situations.

Let's try to live in the NOW, be present, be alive, and live each moment fully and well, instead of constantly using the present as a stepping stone to the future. If we keep chasing the future, we're chasing an illusion that keeps running farther away, like the carrot dangling in front of the donkey. By living well in the NOW, we build a good future, one moment and one positive experience at a time !

Don't focus on what's RIGHT and karma and justice and good and bad and evil. Idealism is great in a work of fiction, but out here in the real world, idealists suffer ... a LOT.

Sometimes, we work for years and years trying to better our lives, trying this and that, working hard. Well, maybe we need to work SMART instead of HARD

Maybe, we just need to look at our problems through a slightly modified lens. After all, who the hell in this world is the authority on how to live life ? No one. Not the best selling authors, not our therapists, not God, not anyone. So, how we live our lives and better our lives is ultimately up to us ! It takes trial and error.

I sincerely hope this helps you some, HD.

[HD7970GHZ]

Lilodian, I can't express my thanks. I will be posting back soon. I am on cell phone.

Some more thoughts that came to me that I wanted to share:

The world, and life, is full of external influences, all of which can potentially directly impact us ... the weather, traffic on the roads, the checkout people at your local grocery store, the people at your job, to name a few.

How then, can we expect a smooth and carefree worry-free life unaffected by these influences ? In other words, if we look for things to worry us, there is an infinite supply of them ! The point is to ***be smart and selective about which of those influences you let into your mind and heart***, and to expect and accept a certain level of risk when dealing with life. Because, if you leave yourself unprotected to all these influences, you are open to attack at anytime and from anywhere !

It is a normal part of living on this Earth to run into difficulty. So, we must ***pick our battles***. It is a given that we are going to run into hardship. So, why then, do we get all anxious and bent out of shape when it happens ?

If you ask me, the reason, again, is that we let down our guard ... we trust that an experience is going to be a good one, that people are going to treat us well, that doctors are going to fix us, whatever. Then, when things don't work out as expected, things go from WHITE to BLACK ! Black and white thinking

The approach taught by the book "The Power of Now" is to not let your mind and body waste away your emotion on insignificant everyday struggles, but to keep that emotion in check, and ***consciously choose to feel it when the time is right ... example, when we are in love with someone and we want to express that love for them***.

If the mind is given full control, it will waste away precious energy and emotion on insignificant matters, leaving us drained and exhausted. So, it is important to step away from the mind and harness it as a tool to be used when required, but not left running loose all day long.

[HD7970GHZ]

HD, having read some recent posts, first, I'd like to state my understanding of your situation - You were greatly wronged by the healthcare system ... your records were falsified, your reputation was tarnished, you were abused and otherwise traumatized. You are/were considering legal action against them. During this process, and generally, you tend to express your anger in emotionally charged outbursts when you're in "emotion mind" ... you tend to say things that worsen your situation. Also, you are easily attached to people in your life (e.g. therapists and people in DBT group), and are devastated when they abandon you. Your mind keeps replaying this trauma, and you are held hostage by the resulting anxiety. Right ?

Lilodian,

Thank you for taking the time to post so much on this thread. I will be reading it more than once. I cannot express how good it feels that you took the time to post these things. Thank you.

To answer your first post - yes - you are accurate. I have been wronged and I am have been traumatized and I am just trying to survive all of it... I am bombarded by thoughts and flashbacks of what happened, things these people said and did, nightmares, panic attacks and tons of emotions. I do not choose to think about these things. I would do anything to remove the thoughts and emotions. I still cannot believe it all happened! It's just unbelievable. And to think this could happen to any one of us! These people should be in jail and be stripped of their licenses. But they won't.

I have been broken in two. I am surprised I am still alive to be honest. I cannot bring myself to another mental health professional in the public system. I am terrified of mental health professionals, I am terrified of any public health care system and I am terrified to speak the truth... It is not fair. My therapist's threatened me for God sakes, they said if I kick they'll kick twice as hard - and they said it with a smiling malicious grin on their face. They laughed about what they were doing as if it was a chore and as if they were getting paid tons of cash to protect the union and the truth from getting out. My therapist joked about me not having protection and rubbed in how painful it is... No joke. She did this the last time I went into their building while walking down the hallway. Never seen that side of humanity. But it was deeply disturbing. And to think I was deeply attached to these people and I felt as much for them as I did for myself... It was hell.

What this DBT program taught me is that telling the truth only leads to worse things... That therapists are not safe, that when given the power to destroy someone's life - it does not matter if that person in power is an ethical person - they will all stoop to low levels to protect themselves, even at the expense of someone else's life... They almost killed me. And they knew it...

Absolutely disgusting.

I hope I make it through this because if I do - I will have one hell of a movie to make.

Thanks,
HD

Originally Posted by HD7970GHZ

Lilodian,

Thank you for taking the time to post so much on this thread. I will be reading it more than once. I cannot express how good it feels that you took the time to post these things. Thank you.

To answer your first post - yes - you are accurate. I have been wronged and I am have been traumatized and I am just trying to survive all of it... I am bombarded by thoughts and flashbacks of what happened, things these people said and did, nightmares, panic attacks and tons of emotions. I do not choose to think about these things. I would do anything to remove the thoughts and emotions. I still cannot believe it all happened! It's just unbelievable. And to think this could happen to any one of us! These people should be in jail and be stripped of their licenses. But they won't.

I have been broken in two. I am surprised I am still alive to be honest. I cannot bring myself to another mental health professional in the public system. I am terrified of mental health professionals, I am terrified of any public health care system and I am terrified to speak the truth... It is not fair. My therapist's threatened me for God sakes, they said if I kick they'll kick twice as hard - and they said it with a smiling malicious grin on their face. They laughed about what they were doing as if it was a chore and as if they were getting paid tons of cash to protect the union and the truth from getting out. My therapist joked about me not having protection and rubbed in how painful it is... No joke. She did this the last time I went into their building while walking down the hallway. Never seen that side of humanity. But it was deeply disturbing. And to think I was deeply attached to these people and I felt as much for them as I did for myself... It was hell.

What this DBT program taught me is that telling the truth only leads to worse things... That therapists are not safe, that when given the power to destroy someone's life - it does not matter if that person in power is an ethical person - they will all stoop to low levels to protect themselves, even at the expense of someone else's life... They almost killed me. And they knew it...

Absolutely disgusting.

I hope I make it through this because if I do - I will have one hell of a movie to make.

Thanks,
HD

You are welcome

Yes, the world is a very cruel place. As I mentioned in one of my responses, idealism, unfortunately, has no place here. I think we all get hurt till we toughen up and wise up.

You're right, you shouldn't waste your time or money on another doctor or therapist ever again. And yes, white lies are necessary !

One of the big messages I was trying to get through to you is not just that you don't need the system, but also that I would like you to see your own role in your recovery and feel that you can bring about the change that you need in your life, *on your own*. You don't need them.