Trying to undo the harm from years of misdiagnosis

Short version, I have ADHD & trauma issues and years of therapy trying to fix my supposed anxiety disorder. It ended up doing a lot of damage and I'm kind of trying to figure out how to undo that. I feel like a lot of times that's not an ok discussion to have, and it's hard to find professionals who are open to confronting the idea that therapy could really hurt someone. Especially when it can't just be attributed to "a few bad apples" and continues across multiple therapists. I find the default is often to figure out how I was doing therapy wrong somehow. I don't think I was doing therapy wrong, I just think that I didn't know how to say certain things and it was easier to label me as resistant than to try to look past the diagnosis.

Hello OnlyOnePerson: I see this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to Psych Central. I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

multiple therapist? Geez. Don't think I could see multiple. If that even possible to gage effectiveness if someone uses the rotating door therapy.

Hhhhm.

Yes --often therapists do screw up and they blame the client. If you look around, there are a lot of people who love to blame the client. I don't think it was your fault. Have you tried other things instead of therapy? Therapy is not the only way nor even the best way for people to find relief.

Welcome, OnlyOnePerson. You are not the only person here in this forum, though, who has been harmed by therapy. I'm sorry you have had this experience, too.

It really is unfortunate that our society currently considers therapy the "go to" solution for people who are experiencing psychological distress. It helps some, apparently, but not all and there is little objective information available for people who come or are considering coming to therapy.

Welcome OnlyOnePerson.

Thanks everyone. I think therapy could have helped, but everything kind of got stuck on the idea that my primary problem was anxiety.

I think the old phrase "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" is sometimes true. Like, everything in therapy is so, well, therapized, that you can't just get a straight point across. So if I had concerns about treatment or thought we were missing something, that was an anxiety symptom. If I got frustrated or angry, it was a defense mechanism. Everything was interpreted through the lens of what was really going, to the exclusion of standard explanations. Such as "client has a concern about the method being used here and is upset because it's important and their questions aren't being answered."

I was relying on therapists to be the experts who could take a lot of stuff I didn't fully understand and help me work it out. A lot of the stuff that people say you need to do to really get anything out of therapy, wasn't something I was able to do at the time. I was in a position where I'd been taught to accept abusive behavior as normal and there was a lot of stuff that I didn't really know was contributing, and I didn't know the right words to explain all of my symptoms very well. I told the truth as best I knew how, but there was a lot of times where I might not have used to right words for my symptoms or might not have brought up important information because I didn't know it was important.

I don't really blame the people I saw for not getting it right initially. What I do blame them for is jumping to blaming me for not cooperating rather than considering they might be off base. I think that's where it became harmful and not just a waste of time and money - where the process ended up telling me when I was in a very vulnerable position that I wasn't getting better because I wasn't trying or didn't want to get better or something.

I also found therapy damaging. I was also indirectly blamed by many therapists. Some of them tried to change the subject.

Victim blaming is the hallmark of the profession, as one former analyst said.

Re: anxiety and ADHD, I don't see how therapy would help, certainly was useless for me. I would look at functional medicine and environmental medicine.

As for therapists being experts, I did not find that to be the case. Most of what they said was trite nothingness.

@OnlyOnePerson

Quote:

Originally Posted by OnlyOnePerson Thanks everyone. I think therapy could have helped, but everything kind of got stuck on the idea that my primary problem was anxiety. I think the old phrase "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" is sometimes true. Like, everything in therapy is so, well, therapized, that you can't just get a straight point across. So if I had concerns about treatment or thought we were missing something, that was an anxiety symptom. If I got frustrated or angry, it was a defense mechanism. Everything was interpreted through the lens of what was really going, to the exclusion of standard explanations. Such as "client has a concern about the method being used here and is upset because it's important and their questions aren't being answered." I was relying on therapists to be the experts who could take a lot of stuff I didn't fully understand and help me work it out. A lot of the stuff that people say you need to do to really get anything out of therapy, wasn't something I was able to do at the time. I was in a position where I'd been taught to accept abusive behavior as normal and there was a lot of stuff that I didn't really know was contributing, and I didn't know the right words to explain all of my symptoms very well. I told the truth as best I knew how, but there was a lot of times where I might not have used to right words for my symptoms or might not have brought up important information because I didn't know it was important. I don't really blame the people I saw for not getting it right initially. What I do blame them for is jumping to blaming me for not cooperating rather than considering they might be off base. I think that's where it became harmful and not just a waste of time and money - where the process ended up telling me when I was in a very vulnerable position that I wasn't getting better because I wasn't trying or didn't want to get better or something.

I am not anti-therapy but I am not pro-therapy either. I think in a lot of relationship issues it can be helpful and in many cases of depression it can be helpful. What is not helpful though is if the client isnt benefiting from the therapy to turn around and blame the client for the therapy not working.

I can sooo relate to this, not being able to communicate, or even see my issues clearly enough, then not being able to change the course when I realised something went wrong.

Yes, this.

ex-T: you're angry because you feel I don't understand.
me: no, I'm angry because you don't even notice that there might be somehting to understand! Can you pls trust that if I'm wrong I'm going to notice it eventually, and meanwhile entertain the idea that I might know what I'm talking about?! Grrrrrrrrr

ex-T: you're clinging to the negative stuff, refusing to see the improvement.
me: I do my best to appreciate the positive, but it's kind of difficult when there's this massively painful thing and you're refusing to hear that I need your help trying to make sense of it, or even figuring out how to communicate it effectively!

I have been misdiagnosed and discovered that it continued on as well. A large part of it was due to a new therapist reading my old health records. They always requested me to sign a release form. I always complied.

I entered therapy hurting and left it tortured and lost in my early 20s. It turned me into a monster. I left, because I saw what it was doing to me. I couldn't stand who I became.

The industry can definitely shape a client to fit into a desired diagnosis, usually the easiest and most stigmatizing one. It requires no effort. If a client questions and challenges the therapist, this is a way to mark them like a 'precaution code' marker added to their health record at a hospital.


A PITA - Didgee was labelled one, many times.

I was just a diagnosis (and a devil) to them. Everything I said was interpreted based solely on that diagnosis.

Oh very much this! Or even worse, explaining how anger is a "defense mechanism" and a sign that you're getting close to the real issues.