I'm sorry...

Mum dragged me to the GP yesterday (my usual one is away so I had to see a different one) for some benzos in case I 'lose it' on holiday next week. I know that I won't take them, but I went to shut my Mum up, so she will worry less.

It made me wonder though, if I'm so "delusional" (according to people here and my parents), then why aren't the 2 GPs I've seen trying to get me to take antipsychotics?? That's what doctors do, right?! Not that I would take an AP or an AD or anything, but it's confusing to me that they don't seem bothered about stuff that others are saying is "delusional".

How can I figure out what's going on if everyone is giving me conflicting opinions?!

*Willow*

I don't know how it is there but here most gps won't prescribe an AP....they are also required to treat you as if what you're saying is real medically. If psych cleared you then maybe they think it's ok?

GPs can prescribe antipsychotics here, though these may have a preference not to (they may not feel competent enough to prescribe them or something), but they haven't tried to talk me into seeing anyone else or going back to the CMHT or anything. My usual GP said that he didn't think I was faking (i.e. the CMHT were wrong) and that he didn't think my fears were likely. The second GP made no comment about my answers to her questions. I was surprised that she actually gave me benzos because she knows nothing about my case and I told her the CMHT thought I was faking, so she has no reason to believe me over them.

I don't think I'm delusional at all and, on the off-chance that I might be, I've pointed out to my parents how many people are delusional and yet completely capable of leaving a normal life and not considered 'ill' at all, but they're still not convinced about me going back to Uni. My examples are those who believe in god, which is a delusion that society has deemed culturally acceptable and not MI, but I know a load of people who are intelligent professionals who genuinely believe that the universe was created in 6 actual days (i.e. the story in Genesis is not a metaphor), which is clearly delusional, and yet they're fine. So even if I was delusional, what's the big deal?! But I know that medics don't agree with that, so their responses are confusing...

Thanks for the reply though Sometimes It's frustrating when things don't make sense though! :/

*Willow*

Oh they can prescribe them here too but they usually stop at ADs as far as psych meds and refer for the rest...

Yeah delusions are defined really weirdly...pdoc thought psychics were ok due to cultural belief etc....but I always wonder about like the anti- vaccine movement...the guy that started that had his publication retracted and liscense to practice medicine revoked and yet people believe despite a clear indication otherwise...are all the anti-vax people delusional? I mean I think they are but they seem to function well other than that...

I agree. I mean if you were from a different culture, then your beliefs about the spirit world and psychic healing shamanism stuff would've been 'culturally appropriate' too and non-delusional... It just adds to my concern about how subjective psychiatry is, and about how much power society has given psychiatry to medicate away people who are deemed 'disruptive' to society

Definitely want to stay as far away from psychiatry as possible from now on!! :/

*Willow*

lol. It would be called neurology if it were objective, I think psychiatry is by definition subjective, their whole general approach is entirely subjective. I have met very few doctors that actually treat the profession with the same scientific respect one would give to other fields of medicine. I see psychiatry is a knowledge gap profession. There will come a day when these illnesses are seen and treated as real illnesses, but I think that day is still many years off. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropsychiatry

Well long ago they divided neurology into dealing with 'structural' brain problems and psychiatry into 'functional' brain problems with no underlying physical cause, back when they thought that just by looking at a person you could tell the difference, and it's rather silly and arbitrary IMO. People with psychosomatic problems that seem 'structural' in origin initially get referred to a neurologist before it is discovered to be psychosomatic, and vice versa. Pain is subjective and so is tingling and even to an extent numbness and weakness, yet they are considered largely neurological so it's not objective=neuro and subjective=psych. There is a huge gap in knowledge for both specialities. I'm not sure that neuropsychiatry will have all the answers either though. And I'm not sure that objective (diagnosed by a blood test or brain scan etc) is the definition of a 'real' illness - just because pain or depression or anxiety or whatever is 'all in the head' doesn't make it any less real for the patient IMO.

*Willow*

Hi Willow,

Psychiatry definitely doesn't have the answers. Breaking free could be your chance to grow. I think a lot of answers can be found through introspection and doing things no matter how small. I started small and worked up to larger goals. I completed high school through adult education, went to junior college and got admitted to university all on my own.

When, you are ready, you can return to university or perhaps find employment.

In 1999, I walked away from them after 5 years of hell, and stayed away for about 5.5 years. My misdiagnosis and the treatment I received drained me and left me lost. If I did not stop the pills and go it alone, I would have taken my life. I wasn't willing to do that. Going it alone taught me I had strength and a strong will to fight.

I believe things happen for a reason. It doesn't seem that way until later. Knowing this has helped me get through a lot of difficulties, such as the depression I had in the winter.

It isn't easy, but don't let that discourage you. Good luck.

Hi Didgee! Thanks for your reply. I appreciate you altruistically taking the time to share your experiences with me, a complete stranger.

I definitely introspect a large portion of my waking hours, yet I find no answers...I'm dubious that they even exist. I read recently that 'the purpose of life is to live with purpose', but I don't think that's quite accurate: I think that life is pointless, but that finding a purpose makes it more bearable, and so I've been searching for a purpose. I thought that it was helping others with MH by using my experiences, and that was a large part of my presence on this site, but, even if we classify my experiences as MH and not faked, who the hell am I to offer any sort of 'advice' or 'support' to anyone else when I don't know how to tell Up from Down, or even if Up and Down exist as tangible entities??! My feelings aren't real, and neither are my thoughts or memories, and everything is so subjective anyway, so why even bother typing them out?!

So...how to pass the next 50 odd years of my life when a day lasts longer than a month??? This is the question that consumes me. I don't want to be the bomb that obliterates the people I love when I explode. Nothing else matters when you come down to it.

......I've spent the last hour debating whether to even post this, or to edit it down to just a basic thanks for Didgee's reply. I suppose that is the only 'fact' of my writing; that I am grateful that she took the time to reply. Everything else is just...idk?...so I feel that I should delete it, but it feels a bit inauthentic(?) to delete it into oblivion (although I'm not even sure that 'inauthentic' is the right word...do these words reflect me right now?? I suppose if they demonstrate confusion on my part over the very fundamental aspects of human existence, then I think that would be a reasonably accurate portrayal of my recent experience as far as I currently understand it. Anything else conveyed is accidental: words hold power, perhaps meanings that I hadn't considered, and writing them down gives them a sort-of factual/tangible quality that they do not possess when mere thoughts, which makes me uneasy.)...And now my head aches! Another reason why I have avoided posting lately; expressing myself in a way that is accurate is too much hard work, trying to figure out what is/not accurate, and even then, after all of that, it just feels...futile...but then isn't everything when you really boil down to it?!

*Willow*

Hey willow nice to see you again! How was your trip? I'm hoping to see pics on the little thread of happiness

Also this video made me think of you...clearly the solution is to become a life coach.....

Willow, in my opinion I think you're seriously over thinking all of this. Your experiences are valid. Everyone's experience of reality is subjective. That's why psychiatry and psychology are such inexact sciences. I hope you keep posting. I think you are a valuable part of this community.

I don't really know how my trip was, but thank you for asking. I don't know how to adequately describe the sensations I experienced or their meaning. If you would like to see pictures of France, I could try to post some for you. Personally I think France looks much like Britain, at least the bit I went to did. Not like last year when I went to Lanzarote, which is volcanic and so looks different.

I'm assuming that this video was made in humour, but it just highlighted to me the pointlessness of a career in clinical psychology. I don't think becoming a life coach is the solution though. I'm not sure there actually is a solution to life's pointlessness.

I wonder if you misunderstood me? I'm not just talking about MH, I'm talking about EVERYTHING. How do I know what my favourite colour is? How can I convey it to another person because their experience of each colour will differ from mine? How do I know if I like something? How do I know that my memories are accurate? Memories can't be 'accurate' or not, because they are subjective. Perhaps I am thinking about things more than the 'average person', whom ever they may be, but now I can't stop wondering why nobody else seems to be concerned with words and feelings and meaning and subjectivity? How do they ignore the fact that everything is subjective and that the words they use cannot accurately convey their meaning? How can they not be bothered by the inaccuracy of it all, or the way that people take words as facts? If I say 'I feel x', how do I know that I feel x? What if I'm labelling it wrong? What if it's actually y? By using the word x, I've reduced complex sensations into a word that may not accurately convey what I mean. And, if I've used the wrong word, then I've lied, maybe not deliberately, but I've said or written x, but that's not my true experience. What if x is the right word for what I feel, but that the person I'm talking to experiences x completely differently to me, and so they then have an inaccurate idea of what I mean? It's just a minefield!

I used to have clarity about these things. I never realised how important a word was before. But now I think the clarity I had before was just an illusion. We're all just using words to try to describe things we don't truly understand, and we're all hearing and reading words and thinking that we understand what the other is saying when we're not, when we cannot. How can I reduce the complexity of my confusion into something that another can understand when I can't even understand it? And since I can't, why work so hard to try? And even if I could, does that then change anything? Even if I use words that another feels they relate to, or I read words that I relate to, the experiences are not the same because it is all subjective. My experience of red is not the same as yours. My experience of sadness is not the same as yours. Do red and sadness even exist?? They are not tangible, but opinion. If I write that x is red, then that becomes a fact and a truth for you when you read it. I'm not deliberately lying, but what if you saw the same thing and thought it orange? One is not right or wrong about subjective things. I am not lying or telling the truth about my MH experiences; I am both and neither at the same time. And so it becomes meaningless at the end of the day. I write about things that do not exist, and to what end?? I just go around and around in circles trying to narrow down my explanation, giving myself headaches with the exertion, to explain the unexplainable. Did I have a good holiday? What does 'good' mean to me? What does 'good' mean to you? Even if I say yes, good is an opinion and not a fact. I went to France. That is the only thing that is a fact that I can prove. Whether it was a holiday depends on our definition of the word holiday. But if we both agree that a holiday is visiting somewhere you don't normally live and not working while there, then we can agree that I went on holiday to France because both of those aspects can be verified and proven one way or another. Whether it was good is even fuzzier. And so if you cannot accurately convey the things you are trying to convey, the whole act of trying become pointless, and yet we somehow keep doing it anyway! I know that this makes no sense and yet I keep trying to refine it so that it will! I'm trying to achieve the impossible, when I should just give up and go to bed!

*Willow*

I didn't misunderstand you, I know you were referring to everything.

Well, I'm an "average person" either, but I live my life without regrets. I don't get tangled up in questions like this because it's just not a part of my personality. I've accepted that everything is subjective and I did a long time ago. I just figure it's a waste of my time to question every thought that comes through my head and evaluate how others experience the same thoughts. But that's me.

I can see that you're obviously extremely confused. I wonder what would happen if you just accepted your thoughts and feelings for one day without judging them or questioning them? You seemed a lot better off when you weren't doing this to yourself. Just a thought.

Hi willow...Europe looks totally different that the US so I would like to see a few for sure.

So the clinical psychology thing is the kind of thing I wish I had seen before grad school....ie if you realize what you're getting into and it still sounds good then go for it, and if not there are certainly alternatives where you can do similar or even better work without as much school. For me a masters degree would have made me much more employable in industry and I would be making a lot more. Getting a PhD put me into a huge pool of people competing for a tiny number of academic jobs....nobody calls me doctor except junk mail...seriously once you graduate you don't even care...it saves the confusion with MDs...the last thing you want is someone shoving a boil in you face or some convo about whatever STD they are too embarrassed to talk to their GP about...I think being a life coach actually opens you up to more treatment options and they don't have to be validated...if drinking spring water proximal to Stonehenge in the solstice works for someone you can help them with that...but you could go classical as well...whatever works....just my opinion...

It started with trying to figure out what my feelings meant, to decide one way or another whether I was faking stuff or over exaggerating etc. I'd never really thought about the subjectivity of human experience. I guess in some small way I was aware of it, but now the realisation permeates everything. I don't know how to un-know it. And that just makes it even harder for my brain to figure out how I am feeling, but it's like a problem that my brain can't stop trying to solve. And so I want to talk to someone, anyone, to help me solve this problem; perhaps why I'm back on PC. Yet, even if I got someone to listen, words are inadequate to accurately express what I'm feeling, and even if I could find the right words, my experience of sadness or happiness or anxiety or whatever will be different from yours...so I know that the questions I have are unsolvable, but I don't know how to just accept that and get on with life regardless. Maybe this stupid thought-frequency is designed to torture me in this way?! I wouldn't put that past them! It is sooooo loud right now (it's actually now louder than the headache I've had for 2 days), and it's taken me over an hour just to write this, so I will give up now.

*Willow*

This was in Quimperle where they have lots of Tudor-style buildings.

*Willow*

This is the French countryside in Martinet.

*Willow*

There were roses everywhere, which was quite pretty.

*Willow*

Wow it is beautiful there more so than I would have imagined...thanks for the pics!

Paint in France is relatively expensive compared to other things, so most buildings look distressed, which I think is sort-of pretty.

What do you think of the pics Sometimes? Much different from America??

*Willow*

Those buildings look like they have a lot of history to them.

Hugely different...the part of the city I live in was built in the 1970's so it's all modern brick with minimal architectural details inside or out. Where I used to live for the 8 years before that it was built just after the Chicago fires so like 1920's so it was mostly brick for apartments but with little flourishes in the concrete and the houses were kind of those gingerbread look ones. I grew up in a house type called a ranch which I think is distinctively us....very much about the practicality of no stairs and made for affordability. Everything in Europe has this look like it been there forever where here it could have been built yesterday...

http://www.innatkellysford.com/image...RanchHouse.jpg

Here is a typical ranch house as you can see it screams boring...but it's very convenient...