Invasion of privacy by mental health workers

I have the same regrets as the OP. I was too vulnerable during my hospitalizations. I was unable to protect myself.

I understand that a person with mental health issues can empathize better but it is not always the best career choice. It completely depends on what mental health disorder the employee has naturally. Or if that disorder was temporary and curable. Not many mental diagnosis fall under that category. I have 2 friends who work in the mental health system and have mental problems. Actually, the worst damage was done to my friends because they had no ability to separate from the job due to their strong empathy. Both of them are unemployed and unhealthy.

Personally, I don't want a person who has mental issues guiding me with my care.

I have been down that road in drug rehab. A huge amount of addicts in recovery want to help other addicts which is good and caring in theory. In my case I became romantically involved with my counselor and they actually brought drugs and alcohol into the relationship. Come to find out this person was falsely claiming to have 10 years sober.

There are counselors who because of their employment feel the need to hide a relapse or mental health symptoms.

tnt

Thanks for posting this, glok! The scariest stat:

"Lawyers are subjected to more psychological screens than psychologists are."

You have got to be kidding me!! I quit a therapist after I talked to her about having problems with my ADHD. Her reply was my case load has tripled and I also have unmedicated ADD! Seriously wack!

I don't think we have a Baker Act here thankfully because it sounds like being freaking arrested. I had an awful SI that was obviously no accident. The E.R. Dr. gave me 20 staples and sent me on my way after I told him I fell through glass.

I never received that treatment during my 8 hospital stays or so in early 90's. Was this in a Metropolitan or rural area? I was in the one of the best hospitals (and very historical psych hospital that trained the majority of the psychiatrists on the East Coast during early 1900's).

I had a head nurse snap at me because I was depressed, a psych tech who called me crazy to my face (He had nothing to say when I told my Psychologist and the three of us met together). When you're hospitalized you're at the very lowest and most confused point in your life...and you get zero guidance. During group therapy the Nurse and Therapist would say nothing for 45 minutes. I could have badly used some direction. The Head of the Ward (M.D.) would actually say during the admission meeting (with Social Worker, Nurses, etc.) "What do you want to get out of this stay?". What??? I barely know who I am at this point!!! I came to you for guidance!!!

When I received ECT during 3 mth hospital stay the staff completely forgot about me. (I was completely out of it, of course.) They would wheel me into the basement three early mornings a wk and leave me alone in the hall until the Dr and team showed up. Then be wheeled into a tiny basement room with a tiny window.

split image-

It is refreshing to hear from someone in this business who is smart and motivated and really cares about the people under her care.

But I believe in reading my post about being tortured and molested in physch wards, most did not take note that it happened thirty years ago.

By making such sweeping generalizations -that all MH providers are evil-I believe I have done a disservice to those who DO care.

There will always be those who are drawn to this profession for the wrong reasons, but it is what it is and we just have to be pro-active about our own care, and help take care of each other.

As for the things I have endured by not being correctly diagnoses for forty years-are in the past, where they belong. And that is where I will keep them.

And for any newcomer who has been following this thread, don't be afraid to ask for help. The invasions of privacy and the other injustices are few and far between these days.

I know how you feel. I have seen so many pdoc's for second/third/fourth/fifth opinions and they all know about my sex life, childhood traumas, 'delusions' of mine, etc etc. And these are all on record somewhere. Horrible. I was also ill while I was a teenager, and a creepy pdoc working in hospital asked me if I was a virgin, and when I said yes he looked really surprised but also...approving? weird as hell and creeped me out so much. Why did he even have to know whether I was a virgin or not and how many boyfriends/girlfriends I'd had in the past? I was 15! I've also had a few T's ask me some unusual sexual-undertone questions which are unrelated to my therapy and mental health issues, and I think they ask just because they can.

Going to inpatient for me can be very traumatizing, and when I do have to be admitted, I almost always take something before going in. I have been leered at, left half dressed, always "skin checked" (bare all), constantly watched by a disgusting male security guard with NO healthcare training, had procedures done in the halls of the ER where civilians, police and healthcare workers were present, I have flipped out (screaming/cussing ...which is NOT me at all) and walked through **** barefoot in dirty halls. This is NOT 30 yrs ago but over the past 8 years, 5 different units and maybe 18 visits.....

I have had male patients from other rooms standing over my bed at night and also been asked these types of beyond intrusive questions REPEATEDLY in the same visit just because one person is too lazy to read the file or get the information from a computer. I have had the lewdest comments made to me, the most debasing things done to me in psych units...
yeah, the really nice expensive metropolitan ones.

The lack of privacy and access to my psych/med files by insurance companies, and just about anyone else is just beyond comprehension. Patients constantly listen in to your conversations with nurses and med nurses and make sport of it. Nurses won't come out of their glass safe houses to talk to you nor ask others to wait back away from you when you are talking to them. They just want you lined up and close by so that they don't have to actually talk to you or find you. They don't come out to protect you when other patients nut up and get violent...they don't watch you while you are drugged and asleep.
We are NOT protected even in the so called "nice" wards.

I am routinely asked to sign forms without a form or agreement attached because workers are too lazy or busy to even show me the document I am supposedly electronically signing. I threw a fit about it one time and she did not even HAVE a copy of the legal document on her cart to show me what "she said" I was signing. They ASSUME you are completely STUPID.

You can say NO to any question or procedure you want...but there may be consequences... I have seen the elderly abused and the weakest victimized. I have to have some strength left to even be go in for "emergency stabilization." There are not enough staff per patients, and the staff attitudes/behaviours change when patient advocates and docs on the ward. 12 hr shifts are too long for the staff in there...and they aren't paid much at all. No one there really knows what the rules are and each employee interprets or remembers them however they feel in the moment. If you can't get something on one shift, either go to another employee or wait until the next shift.... It is LUDICROUS.

You can't be particularly nice...but always polite or you can be hurt. I learned the hard way that 'just shutting up and dealing with it' only makes things 10 times worse.
In the rest of the world, I am always considerate and polite, but in there...no. If you don't stick up for yourself and advocate for yourself, you will not get what you need.

We have to advocate for ourselves and others. One thing I learned, was always to contact my pdoc and T before going in to help get me in and out safely and have them contacting people in the hospital and putting them on notice that they are being watched and monitoring my progress. I have had to write letters and make calls to so called "patient advocates" who can't be bothered to even come on the ward to talk to you...

Yes, there are good mental health care workers that care and want to help....and yes there are 'control freak underpaid I don't give a sh*te about my job' workers.

Yes, it can be helpful and the right thing to do to go inpatient at times...and at times has been helpful, but the real risks are there and to ignore them or invalidate/negate what happens on the units is shameful.

Maybe one day with the mental parity laws included in Obama care, perhaps we will get the true treatment levels and quality of care that we deserve and not shuffled in and out with another label stamped on our bared butts.

Wysteria