Angry with ER doctor--a year later....

A year ago I was placed involuntarily in a psychiatric hospital but first I was in the ER. The ER doctor went out of his way to be mean to me. He was almost yelling at me. He had trouble controlling his voice. It was shaky because he was so mad at me. I was there for self harm but he treated me like a criminal. He lied about me. Said I was suicidal when I wasn't. Said some other stuff too that ended up in my medical records.


Anyway my one year anniversary of my hospitalization is coming up and I realize I am still angry with the ER doctor. I know I need to forgive him for my own sake. To let it go so I can move on. But I don't know how. I don't know how to stop being angry with him. I wrote a letter--and sent it to the hospital. I have journalled about it. And I have talked about it in therapy. I don't know what else to do. Any suggestions?

So Sorry that you've been through this. Some events can be particularly difficult to Forgive. i don't have a lot of advice to give unfortunately other than continuing to work on it during your therapy and constantly trying your best like you're already doing. Sending many safe, warm hugs to BOTH you, @SlumberKitty, your Family, your Friends and ALL of your Loved Ones! Keep fighting and keep rocking NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, OK?!

Best to let it all go. I been a year now. No need to hang on to it. Learn from the experience, and use it the next time you end up in the ER.

If you felt he was truly out of line you can file a grievance with the hospital. I had a similar situation occur and laid a heavy complaint (especially since the admitting psych was pissed at the ER doc too for admitting me and there were no beds so I slept on a cafeteria table bench).

You have rights as a patient. If he falsified your chart you have the right to recourse and have it rectified. It sounds like he is not a very good doctor and by filing a grievance you could at least ensure he will get additional training.

I understand how you feel. I was traumatized by a doctor who had yelled at me and slap by a doctor.

That stinks, I understand why you're still angry with him

I don't have advice

Maybe someone else will?

I am going to come at this from a different angle. You say you need to forgive him for your own sake but is it possible you can heal without forgiving him, at least for the time being.

I found this article you might find helpful:
Why You Don't Always Have to Forgive | Psychology Today UK

I personally would stay open minded about forgiveness, if you feel it then okay but pressuring yourself to forgive him doesn't seem fair to yourself. Is it possible you can learn to heal without forgiving do you think?

Ok here’s my POV....I have a speeding ticket for going almost double a speed limit(35 in a construction zone on the Freeway)the officer both yelled at me and gave me a ticket....honestly he was concerned for my well being and that was his way of showing it.

You’re thinking this doctor was an a hole but I think he was really worried about you and your future and just expressed it in a bad way. If you see the doctor as a flawed but concerned human perhaps you can forgive.

Yelling at a person with mental illness is not excusable just because the ER doc is concerned about someone's well being. In fact, it's likely against the hospital's own Patient Rights agreement. People with mental illness are not doing things because they are bad or behaving badly, and a doctor should know better. Yelling at a psych patient ONLY makes it harder for them, as has happened with the OP. The oath of "first do no harm" was violated here. Just because we have mental illnesses doesn't mean we don't deserve dignity and respect. I'd have filed a grievance against this doctor if I were the patient. If I'm in the ER because of my disorder I guarantee I'm already having a bad enough time without some judgmental ER doctor who doesn't understand mental illness yelling at me like it's somehow my fault I'm sick.

Sorry, not sorry, but no.

SlumberKitty, the only other thing I can suggest to move on is that you tell your story to others. For my part, and having experienced a similar situation, it's been years and I'm not "over it" in terms of healing. But what does help is sharing my story with others and trying to educate doctors that this isn't the way to "help" psych patients. My work doing patient advocacy helps me heal.

Sometimes healing doesn't come from forgiving but helping to change things for others in the future.

I’m not suggesting that the doc was correct but seeing them as human rather than flawless can help if your goal is to forgive rather than sue.

But forgiveness or suing are not the only two options. Filing a grievance isn't suing. A grievance is a report to the hospital, which they usually follow up with with further training for the staff person in question. Speaking to groups and providing feedback on doctor-patient relations isn't suing or forgiving.

To polarize the two options makes it sound like we have to do one or the other to heal, and that's just not true. There are other ways to heal, and none of us are obliged to forgive. And forgiveness also does not mean there are not consequences.

Just because someone is human does not mean they aren't responsible for the harm they have done. Yelling at a patient is downright abusive, especially if you consider the power dynamic. Telling someone to forgive an abuser because the abuser is human and flawed is a flawed logic itself.

When you tell a victim to consider the abuser's problems you bypass the suffering of the victim. And I find your suggestion to do just that: bypass and negate the trauma that the OP experienced from this doctor.

Yes, they are human, and they are also in a position of power, and they also violated ethical boundaries. For me, filing the appropriate grievance with the hospital would help me heal.

I only mentioned forgiveness because SK asked how to do that.

I hear you. And for the most part I agree that when we want to forgive someone that remembering they are human often helps. I guess my point is that she hasn't been able to forgive for a year now, and it sounds like some other kind of closure could help.