shamed by

Pffft! to diagnoses!

But I was in the mental health center playing guess the patient dx, because I genuinely like people and eccentrics are the best and the game keeps me mentally sharp. Schizotypes are very cool. I had honed in on one with a nasal voice and chanced to hear him begin talking about "my ptsd". I heard it clearly because he sat up a little steighter and spoke a little prouder about "my ptsd". Gulp. Touche, universe.

I see the good intention behind labeling everyone whose mental illness was triggered by trauma "ptsd". What's happened though. Is that PTSD has gotten so watered down that people who had NO mental health issues before trauma are going to he underserved.

Diagnosing every mentally ill person with PTSD and a dozen other things may seem like acknowledging that trauma causes mental illness but in actuality it will serve those who deny that trauma breaks healthy people.

No one should be SHAMED. Thats my point. Overusing and misapplying a ptsd dx won't fix a general contempt among mental health workers for the mentally ill. The root of the problem Is these jobs don't pay and they are meant for the half of our workforce that is below average. They need someone to feel superior to.

My darling Fuzzy-

Sometimes the rules they have make it seem as if you live in an African village rather than a huge metropolis. From all you've told me, socialized medicine sucks.

I just hate it that you are in pain because of this. I so wish you could find a decent doctor. I think I might have taken that final exit during this past episode if it had not been for my trauma doc at the VA.

I don't have any advice for you sweetheart, because therre seems to be no solution at present time. But you forget that it's okay for you to vent as well as anybody else does. And we all do! You are so kind most of the time, but you are not a cartoon bear-you are a real person, a fine woman, and you are free to grrr! anytime.

And I wish some of the other posters had remembered what the original post was about and not gone off on their soapbox about other crap.
(And you know I am not talking about you, OE, or you, Calista.) But this person is so so helpful and kind and supportive all the time, to all of us, that when Fuzzy asks for help, she ought to get it.

I love you Boo.

"Most therapists are crap". Ryan the social worker.

I think they are like psychics. Or the obvious other analogy. What they do can be real, but doit 9 to 5 and you start to fake it. Then you have become a charlatán and a huckster.

good for you. Brownnosers make it difficult on the rest of us. Sorry to hear that your self respect has caused you harm. I've been there and it almost destroyed me but I still wouldn't want to be a brownnoser.

Here for you Fuzzybear.

Me neither, Brownnosers do indeed make it hard on the rest of us

He didn't even want me to read books by other therapists, like Lomas and Yalom.

He asked me why I didn't see one of them

That is truly a bad T. When I told mine I was going to stop seeing her for a while and see the trauma guy, she seemed genuinely encouraging and said to check in once in a while and tell her what it's like and if it's working.

wow~ he sounds jealous.

I googled them and I think I'm going to read some of Yalom. Thanks for the tip.

I feel ashamed by my mood swings.

((seekersinking)), that is how most if not all of us who struggle feel. That is why it is important that the therapist we see helps us to feel "safe". A therapist who can be at a distance from our family environment is often more capable of "listening" to how we feel, verses our own family because our feelings are not something a therapist will feel threatened by or responsible for as would a family member.

IMHO, what Fuzzybear is talking about is how a professional can do wrong by a patient that is struggling emotionally by making the patient think their emotional challenges are not important and that the patient should not be "feeling". Acknowleging a patient's emotions is important, always. It is not helpful at all for a patient to be told "not to feel", that is the same as having a patient present with a painful bodily injury and telling that patient not to feel it and shut up. (I have actually experienced that though too)

Each person is going to be "unique" and each person is like a new book with a story too. We all know that one cannot judge a book by it's cover right? Of course the only way we can know the book at all is by "reading and learning what is in that book". That being said, when it comes to working with a patient that struggles with "complex" PTSD, typically that person will have a difficult time sharing their story and especially adding the emotional challenges they had with their story. Many if not all people that grew up in a dysfunctional environment often struggled to hold in their emotional challenges. Often a person's emotional development is "challenged" because of how they observed others in their family also have emotional challenges that they surpressed in unhealthy ways. Happy, safe, contentment, healthy self esteem is often "challenged" in childhood and a child has no way of really knowing how to understand or truly learn how to regulate their emotions. If there is no one present to help the child learn how others can treat them badly and develop healthy ways of protecting their "boundaries" and that they have a right to do so, a child doesn't really "learn" the right way to have a sense of
boundaries and they tend to struggle with their sense of "safety and personal value".

Your "shame" about your moodiness most likely goes way back for you, that is typically the case with many who struggle with PTSD or anxiety disorders. Therapy is supposed to "help" you with that challenge, therapy is supposed to finally be a "safe" place with a person who is willing to "listen" to your challenges and not judge you, but instead help you be ok with "feeling" and finally working "with you" to understand these feelings and finally work through them to where you are comforted, learn how to "self comfort", and develop better boundaries as well.

One of the challenges I have noticed is "am I good enough?". That is a question that every human being asks. We all from an early age look for "approval" and we all watch our parents show us "how" to find some kind of "approval". When a parent doesn't "know" how to help a child with that in healthy ways, if a parent themselves doesn't know how they themselves can have a sense of "self worth", a child will grow up very confused and "anxious". And most people are taught to "do not talk about it, it's no one's business, just put on a pretend face so everyone thinks you/we/our family is fine."

Shame is a lot more common than people realize. If we could listen in on the thoughts and challenges of others around us, we would realize that "most" people struggle with this challenge on some level.