Got ahold of my medical records

I think you have reason to be, Newtus. The stuff in my files is pretty degrading, if I'm honest.

I am so angry today. No amount damages or apologies can fix what they did to me. I have flashbacks to the hospital, flashbacks to the rapes in hospital, I'm debilitated from the fear of going back to that place. It never gets better, and money isn't going to fix it.

I can't bring myself to read the records regarding the first time I was subject to compulsory treatment - the time I was raped. I was being raped and nobody noticed or believed me or cared, and they restrained me and it made it easier for the rapists.

I'm stunned. While I know how "they" can be, that is the worst crap I've seen. Not only is it condescending and narcissistic, it also questions you when it is unnecessary and drags up weird stuff.

It's obvious they get a kick out of making you suspicious and treating you like an object. They should have concerns about your wellbeing, nothing else.

I know sometimes they use weird wordings because they honestly just don't trust people and taught not to. I once read my friend's papers (with her permission), from some kind of semi-psychological meeting. They had written my friend claims to have been bullied in school. Claims? The other kids nearly dang killed her! Also I read my own records from the psych clinic more than ten years ago. It was noted that my clothes were shabby and that was seen as a mental illness. Thing is that when you almost have no income as was fact back then, you cannot buy new clothes on a whim. Next time I went in my pajama pants (!), white with huge purple flowers on them, and in the record they wrote I was dressed much better that time. (???)

What does it matter what colors you prefer? Everyone seems to have a preference. That is normal. Myself I prefer grey, black and green. I haven't dared reading anything lately so I have no idea if it's seen as being weird. Luckily my old files are still just on paper and stuck in some basement, they have records on file now and they never seem to consult the old paper records where it says I'm a sexual sadist (a therapist made that one up), and that I was psychotic when I asked a doc why she lied to me (She claimed to be perfect so I must have imagined it...).

Still... what I've seen is far from that crap you got there. While they are busy zooming in on non items, I'm sure they gladly miss the real issues. And treating people like that... like I said that is narcissism on their part. Some docs feel very threatened when they have intelligent patients. I advice you to thread really carefully there, because those docs will destroy you if they can, to remain their grandiose view of themselves. And like it or not, as a patient you are not in a position of power.

There's worse stuff in there, it's just so personal I didn't want to share it. There are all kinds of rude comments about my sexuality (asexual) suggesting that I am a closeted lesbian. Stuff about how grandiose I am for saying (in their words "claiming") that I was attending the university I was actually attending. After I showed them my registration letter from the uni, there is one comment of "Miss Fish Sandwich is a student at X uni, which has been independently verified." There are also almost innumerable comments about my English language skills and my apparent "predilection" to speak French with members of my family, including one suggestion that I spoke French with them like it were a kind of "code" so that the psych nurses on the ward couldn't monitor the conversation. Like French is this crazy made-up language that only nutters speak to trick the kind, benevolent psychiatrists!!?!

I read a risk assessment for another patient once, when I was doing social work, which said "Mr. So-and-so occasionally burns himself whilst making tea." I was like, wtf?? Doesn't everyone??

Sometimes I wonder if they pull stuff like this so that we act out and "confirm" their diagnoses.

I've never found a psychiatrist who was actually concerned about my wellbeing . . . unless "my wellbeing" fit into their little box of "accepts diagnosis and whatever treatment we decide to subject her to".

That is so weird about your pyjamas. For me, it was just that the docs were always middle-aged dudes who barely understood young women or how we often dress. (Read: not tweed suits at all times.)

Mercifully, I am not a patient any longer. Also, I'm a lawyer now -- they can't ***** with me anymore, and I have (a different kind of) power.
The only thing that ever gave me mental health problems was being put through psychiatry.

I can't believe that **** you had to put up with, fish. Hopefully more patients stand up for their rights to fair treatment so this behaviour will eventually cease. I'm not going to let a professional lay into me like that -- I don't care how high & mighty they get. If I sense any incompetence, they're gone. Thank you for posting, if not to empower us all to receive the fair treatment we deserve. I wish you luck on your lawsuit hun.

Yeh, I know what they think about asexuals. They pushed me very hard when I was your age, asking a lot about sexuality. At the end, I just claimed to be gay to shut them up. And they did. It's sad that so little has changed, I went through crap 20 years ago and they still do that stuff...

The people you have dealt with seem very disturbed. The text reads that if they could have questioned your skin color, they would. They sound almost disappointed they couldn't scrape your color off and go "Hah!".

I hope it's OK I'm gonna stalk you on this subject, it brings up so much in me, also having gone through crap. I thought it was over when the only contact I have with my clinic is med refills over the Internet and the odd doc visit. I really thought I got away. Still, two of the nurses there managed to hunt me down over the phone and threaten me with stuff like taking my meds if I didn't agree to having my records falsified, and since they were two, I was "psychotic" for thinking they treated me bad. Told one I never had a diagnosis as anything in the psychotic direction (I have Asperger's and ADD), thinking I could take that weapon off her. She just said.... "You THINK you don't have that diagnosis....."

So... all the abuse from them I escaped sort of came back to me. It's almost been a year now and they been calm about things, but now I know as long as I need meds prescribed and possibly my disability verified, I can never leave.

I wish you all the best with your case. I hope you nail them bad.

Beat the **** out of them for me! Tell us how it turns out!

When do I get to stop fighting this and just go on with my life?

And, why does everything I do turn to **** and become a burden instead of progress?

well if everything i did turned to little six pointed stars id be pissed too.

I dunno, I've been in unbearable psychological pain for a few years now and somehow finishing the bar exams but doing horribly on them has just broken me. I'm what a pdoc would call "depressed".

I'm just a worthless, schizophrenic animal. I can't figure out why I'd ever have been treated that way unless I really was.

Fìsh, my dear friend... You are N0T worthless, nor are you an animal. You are a beautiful worth while humanbeing, filled with integrity, character, and intelligence. You are funny, smart, strong, honest, loyal and outspoken, and it sucks wet rabid dog arse that you were handed such a ****** deal and abused by people who were SUPPOSED to be trustworthy. You are an inspiration, and inspirations are NEVER worthless!

Thanks, Trippin. I get really down on myself. I don't think there will ever be answers, I guess. Even winning isn't answers, it's just erasure. I still have to live with the pain and no explanation.

T keeps trying to tell me that the "explanation" can only come from the psychiatrist's worldview . . . that they explained what they did to themselves through their own psychiatric paradigm. I just don't get it though. Those are a whole lot of highly educated, presumably intelligent people . . . how can they believer (and force upon others) such utter ******** and nonsense? I'm not ready to believe in a world so sick as that.

It's easier somehow if the problem is with me and not the entire system. At least I can theoretically fix myself.

I understand what you mean, and call me cynical, but from where I'm sitting systemS are run by sickos, which make for sick systems. I wish the world was pretty and unicorns shat rainbows, buuut, I wouldn't be very prepared for life that way, and I MUST be prepared, ready... You can still work on yourself, I heard there's always room for improvement, but you're not broken fish, just wounded, and with the proper bandages, you can heal...

Where are the proper bandages, then? I think I've tried everything at this point . . .

Also, why the **** do I have to heal myself? I didn't do anything wrong. Why the **** don't the bastards who did this to me have to repent and suffer for the wrong things they did?? I ****ing hate the world.

I think I have a distorted sense of the world's potential for fairness. I blame the law studies. I spent six years of my life in an environment where everything was about justice and fairness. None of that exists in the real world. ****ing lawyers.

I think fairness and justice are subjective, regardless of what the law and church both preach. Eg, If I believed avenging my brother's death was fair and just, and I hunted down his murderer, seriously now, WHO could argue with me about MY sense of justice? IMO, I think law HAD to stipulate the criteria for fairness and justice to curb the people who understand that it is ultimately subjective, in order to maintain order.

Those bastards who hurt you, they don't give a dam, that's why they COULD do what they did, and bcoz they don't care, being fair is not on their itinerary.

It SUCKS that we have to find our own bandages, it sucks that most of us have to learn how to wrap them ourselves, BUT, we can either focus on the suckiness of it all, OR, give them the middle finger and emulate the Phoenix. Ultimately, we benefit from our healing, not to prove 'them' wrong, but to grow, to learn, to strengthen, to be better at being ourselves. Thats the symbol of 2.0 in my username, I'm working toward an upgraded version of the self life tried to break... I'm just stubborn like that tho, I'm deathly allergic to 2 things: BS & defeat...

I'm doing a fair bit of reading on the flaws in psychiatry, the flaws in modern ideas of normalcy/madness... I've been going through some minor crises lately. Nothing as monumental as yours, fish. But even though it is really disheartening to know that you'll never know any cold, concrete answers -- At least there is some comfort in knowing you'll never make the mistake of putting your trust in the wrong hands. At least your Mum is learning a modicum of sympathy for your troubles. At least we're all here in the forums for eachother, since we're all struggling with the system in one way or another; prepared to listen when we inevitably break down, only to pick ourselves back up again.

Will a career in neuroscience just lead to me being one of the bad guys or will I be able to change anything? Will my proposed ideas & revisions to the "disease model" just have my co-researchers call me crazy, then get me committed & medicated? *sigh* Suppose I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I read anti-psychiatry stuff when I'm feeling down. It's nice to know there are others out there who see how flawed that system is.

I don't know that I'll NEVER put my trust in the wrong hands, but I will certainly never trust psychiatry . . . whether or not I'll be drugged by them is a totally different question!

Not that I'm a huge defender of the medical establishment, but will they really drug somebody for proposing scientific alternatives?? Frankly, I'd love to see a neuroscientist giving the old smackdown to biomedical psychiatry -- and I'll be your lawyer if you get committed

Maybe you can explain something to me that I've never understood, because I'm not really up to speed on neuroscience. So many people have told me that brain scans of schizophrenics "prove" that there are structural differences in the brains of people with sz and those without. That doesn't actually surprise me, I guess. I imagine (but don't know) that pretty much everything that goes on in the brain can show up on a scan at least somewhat. Why are those scans always held up as proof that sz is a biochemical disease, though? Surely there are difference in the brains of all kinds of different people who are not necessarily diseased -- people who are craving chocolate vs. people who are mortally frightened because they are about the be axe-murdered, say . . . ???

I'm probably not phrasing that so well

The anti-psychiatry books are just giving me a little faith in my ability to figure **** out by myself. It's kind of sad, though, that humanity these days has more faith in systems than the individuals themselves. I wish it were easier to shed that programming. But I'm at least trying, which is more than most people can say. : )

Well... I didn't mean NEVER in a finite sense. I word things incorrectly! Hahaha

I don't know if they'll drug me. I'm just been hypersensitive. One of my biggest fears is that my intelligent ideas will be misunderstood as insanity, my veil of superiority will be punctured, & I'll get thrown into some dank basement with the rest of the failed academics... Extreme? Maybe. But it's valid in some form, I s'pose?

Smackdown?! Oh, it's going to get pretty vicious once I have my credentials in order. I'd love to shake things up.

The structural differences, AKA the holes in the white matter & whatnot, only seems to happen after schizophrenia has been present for a great number of years. Except in a few rare cases. They seem to think this implies schizophrenia is a neurodegenerative disease & that the imbalances of dopamine/whatever flavour-of-the-week neurotransmitters are to blame. However... They haven't ruled out that this could be thanks to all of the drugs they usually pump you full of by the time you reach your 40s/50s.

I'm truthfully not very well-versed & haven't been paying too much attention to all of their developments lately. There's unfortunately so little in the way of new things going on. But I agree with you -- There really aren't a great variety of "control" brains when they try to make their theoretical models.