Dear Psychiatrist: I first met you 30 years ago and I want to let you know how I am doing.
Today I was the proud mother at my youngest son’s wedding — but if I had believed you I wouldn’t have been there.
Two weeks ago I celebrated with my daughter when she received her master’s degree — but if I had believed you I wouldn’t have been there.
A few months ago I celebrated my grandson’s first birthday — but if I had believed you I wouldn’t have been there.
I raised all three of my children as a single mother. I have lived on my own for the last 24 years. I continue to work and have a successful career in a profession I love. I haven’t had a psychiatric hospitalization in 15 years. I haven’t taken any psych drugs for eight years and I have thrived.
But if I had believed you I wouldn’t be here today.
Thirty years ago you said I would likely never raise my children, live on my own or work again.
Thirty years ago my husband (now ex) did believe you — and he wasn’t there for any of this. He left me and our children when he heard this from you.
Sadly, I did believe you when I first heard these words. You see, when I sought your help, I was feeling very helpless, hopeless, and worthless. I had just had surgery to have my thyroid removed. I had two young children and an infant. I was trying to recover from a mild traumatic brain injury. I was having nightmares and flashbacks from childhood trauma that I had successfully hidden in the recesses of my mind until that time.
Interestingly I was still working full-time as an Air Force officer. I was still married and caring for my husband and three children. I was still very much alive and had never considered ending my life. I was just struggling…
I was referred to you by my surgical team because they thought I was depressed. Maybe I was — I had a lot going on. I wanted the support. I wanted to know everything would be okay. I wanted to feel whole again.
Instead of help, I became your victim, the victim of misguided biological psychiatry. I don’t know if you remember me or even heard most of what I told you, but I remember many things you said and wrote in my medical record, things that caused me great harm. Here are some examples:
“Despite the best efforts of a multidisciplinary team, she has failed to respond to treatment.” You wrote this when you ended my career and recommended that I be discharged from the Air Force.
“Factitious Disorder.” This was the diagnosis you gave me to account for my “behavior” that you interpreted as trying to avoid responsibility and get attention.
“False Memory Syndrome.” You said this when I described my nightmares and flashbacks and the confusion and terror I had as I remembered my childhood trauma.
“It is unlikely she will ever work again, live on her own, or raise her children.” Your pronouncement that caused my husband to walk away from his wife and children. Your pronouncement that took me away from my career and community.
And worst of all — your pronouncement that took away my will to live.
There were also things you didn’t say. You never mentioned to me or put in written reports that my struggles began following my head injury. You never spoke to me or put in written reports the cognitive problems I experienced after the head injury. You never spoke to me or noted in written reports that I was recently postpartum. You never spoke to me about what I wanted regarding my career, my family, my life, and you never mentioned the success I experienced at work. You never mentioned that I had thyroid hormone abnormalities and had recently had surgery, except to say I may have also caused this myself.
There were things I learned when I was under your “care.”
- I learned medical and mental health professionals do not always have my best interest in mind when they diagnose me and make treatment plans.
- I learned not to trust anyone, especially those working in the mental health system.
- I learned that your expectations for my future were so poor that I lost all hope that I even had a future.
- I learned that nothing I had to say was important or believable, unless it was what you wanted to hear — so I quit talking.
I left your care after about five months only to be hospitalized for the next 18 months. Although I wasn’t broken when I met you, you certainly did break me. I had never thought of suicide before I met you. After meeting you suicide was constantly on my mind. My future treatment teams had to figure out how to undo the damage you had done before they could be helpful in any way. Sadly, our mental health providers are not taught how to help those traumatized by providers like you and they only had your reports as a basis.
Since there was no mention of my head injury, it took my family five years to get me referred to a neurologist who documented significant issues related to my head injury and offered some support and treatment for that. Since you did not believe that my nightmares and flashbacks were real, it took two years for me to find help and support to begin to process my childhood trauma. It took me 20 years and 39 different psych drugs to learn that my struggles were not going to be made better by pills.
Dear Psychiatrist:
Family, career, community, self-respect — these are the things you stripped from me 30 years ago. It took me over 20 years to believe in myself enough to walk away from psychiatry and psych drugs and regain my life. I did not get better because of anything you did, but I returned to life in spite of you. I was fortunate to have family who cared and access to resources outside of the mental health system. Something that still haunts me is the thought that you probably did this to many others over the last 30 years and many of them may not be as lucky as I have been. Many of them may not have found a life worth living. Many of them may not be here.
I not only survived, but I am also thriving.
Wonderful !!!! We have heard these same stories over over.
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Agreed. It’s the exact same story or a cluster of similar stories each and every time. Literally.
Keep up with the peer support, everyone, if just for camaraderie and online socializing. Don’t go public with this if you’re not comfortable.
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Your story has moved me to tears and anger. I admire you so much for your courage and fortitude. I am also a psychiatric victim and survivor and have published three blogs in Mad in America. We whose lives have been destroyed by psychiatry have great solidarity. I give you my virtual hugs and best wishes.
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I’m glad you “not only survived, but” are “also thriving,” Martha. I agree, the scientifically “invalid” psychiatric and psychological industries have majorly betrayed their clients.
But you do bring up a point that I think is very important, “Thirty years ago … my husband (now ex) did believe you — and he wasn’t there for any of this. He left me and our children when he heard this from you.”
A non-medically trained, DSM deluded, psychologist’s misdiagnosis destroyed my marriage decades ago too. There should be a price to pay for such a psychological non-“holistic, Christian” “marriage therapist’s” / psychologist’s blatant malpractice … since she seemingly wanted to cover up the abuse of my innocent child, for her pastor (and this seemingly is a systemic problem called “the dirty little secret of the two original educated professions,” according to ethical pastors of a different religion) … and according to my child’s medical records.
Both the DSM deluded psychological and psychiatric industries are literally systemic child abuse cover uppers, according to the actual medical evidence, and they nose themselves into the lives of innocent families, and sometimes perhaps ignorantly, but sometimes definitely intentionally, try to rip families to shreds.
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/01/23/18820633.php?fbclid=IwAR2-cgZPcEvbz7yFqMuUwneIuaqGleGiOzackY4N2sPeVXolwmEga5iKxdo
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/heal-for-life/
I have both medical and legal evidence of these systemic crimes … not to mention also evidence of the systemic child abuse covering up crimes of my ex-religion.
https://books.google.com/books?id=xI01AlxH1uAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary
_r&cad=#v=onepage&q&f=false
i’m one of the likely many “widows” mentioned in the Preface to that book, which was written right after I’d handed over a medical synopsis of the malpractice I’d dealt with to my former religion.
But I’ll ask, how is ripping marriages and families to shreds, considered “medical care,” psychology and psychiatry?
I’m glad you’ve escaped and healed, Martha.
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It is interesting to point out that equine therapy, which may likely have helped you, and art therapy, which did help me … but neither of which financially benefits the medical / pharmaceutical industrial complex … may be the best healing modalities, for the legitimately distressed human beings?
Although, I am a big believer in other arts (like music and writing) and nature based (like mere gardening) natural healing methods / non-“therapies,” too. Some day, the reality that bad things sometimes happen to good people, needs to be admitted to.
I hope both psychology and psychiatry will some day stop denying this common sense reality of life, and stop coerce and force drugging all legitimately distressed humans.
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Your story touched me deeply. I’m happy you’re thriving! I also was misdiagnosed and lost everything. I no longer believe in the devastating biomedical farce that has ruined and ended too many innocent lives. Psychiatrists and the profit-driven system that supports them act with impunity, but they can’t prove a single thing. The injustice blows my mind.
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I was put into a bug infested motel room by Telecare. The bedbugs tried to eat me. I took photos. They called that room “mental health care”.There was no heater. No food. No meds and that’s mental health treatment too.
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Martha thank you for your story. So much loss and survival
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and yes someone else they seem to love dividing and breaking families. There was one psychiatrist who did everything he could to promote family conflict. So manipulative and clever. Do not seek healing at the feet of those people. How we have survived I do not know.
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Of course this is rather one sided. The domination and usurpation of your life, money and brain did after all keep your psychiatrist in the comfort they were accustomed too. And deadening your heart and brain helped to fatten up his children. One will go to Oxford and help usurp millions (of people) for billions (of dollars).
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I totally agree No-one! Some-one never lets psychiatry tell how misunderstood they are!! They gotta keep their families lifestyles just as they’ve become accustomed too! Provare college preps & Ivy League schools are EXPENSIVE. No-one is right! Psychs aren’t all bad.
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What No-one says is no exaggeration. The dynamics at play are essentially about maintaining a status quo that keeps the psych professionals and their families at a social and financial advantage, something usually driven by a subsconscius desire to feel part of the ruling class.
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This story is so joyful, but it makes me sad as well because it reminds of the doomsday prognosis given to me once upon a time by a tunnel-visioned psychiatrist who disregarded the circumstances that didn’t just contribute, but were in fact responsible for the state I was in. The doctor seemed almost delighted writing me off with an assurance that crushed my fighting spirit, his making such a dismal declaration seemed to make him feel quite good about himself which I think explains why this kind of medical maltreatment happens to people so often.
That so many supposedly well-educated people fall for psychiatry is hard for me to fathom, that so many supposedly well-intentioned people have so little insight or common sense I think proves how much people are conditioned not to question their doctors.
Hopefully this story will be read by many in the “mental health” field, but I fear most who do won’t take it seriously.
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I’m so glad you’re here and that psychiatry is out of your life for good. I hope someone reads this and begins to deprogram themselves from psychiatry’s lies and tyranny.
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The most dangerous thing one can do is turn to a psychiatrist for any sort of mental or physical issue. Their inept training and “treatment” disables and kills innocent people, and they refuse to take responsibility for any of the damage they cause. It’s beyond criminal, it’s downright evil. I’m so glad you were able to escape and live the life they said you would never have. What a beacon of light and hope you are to others. Thanks for sharing your story.
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Early in 2003 I received a diagnosis from a psychiatrist that indicated I was overreacting and hypervigilant in terms of a skin condition I had. If I had taken that as a reality I would not be well today at all.
I am grateful to Martha for her story, it is going to be a beacon to help many people…
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Thank you, Martha, for so clearly and eloquently describing what can happen when not only psychiatrists but any traditionally trained clinicians fail to understand that emotional and behavioral health “atypicalities” and disturbances are much more complex than simply biological mis-firings in the brain. The latter certainly can pertain, but if a patient’s personhood and full self-articulated story are not respected and taken into account, no real healing or successful transition through a difficult time in that person’s life can be achieved.
Peer supporters know this, and properly-trained psychiatric rehabilitation practitioners who understand recovery know this. My hope is that proper training for psychiatrists, psychologists (like me), counselors, pastors, social workers and all sorts of ancillary medical professionals will finally include this essential perspective.
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Sadly, Martha’s story, or something strikingly similar, is all too common among those of us treated in the mental health system 30 and 40 years ago. I was likewise told I would never finish college, hold a job, have a family (or maintain any long-term relationship) or be able to remain “stable” for any significant length of time.
Thankfully, like Martha, these “experts” were wrong. My life story confirmed the 30-year longitudinal studies published in the late 1980’s by Courtenay Harding and other researchers that mental health recovery is not only possible, but should be the expectation — for even those with the worst conditions. As it turns out, even carrying a diagnosis that qualifies as a “severe and persistent mental illness,” I have experienced near complete recovery and am thriving in all of those areas in which the “experts” predicted I would not.
In the past 25 years in my work with peer specialists (and for much of that time as one myself), I have witnessed innumerable times the healing hope brings. In my own story, peer support played a key role in restoring my belief in achieving a life worth living after those early experiences with psychiatry. Later, in my recovery journey, having mental health providers who believed in and expected recovery also made a huge difference. Over the years, I’ve encountered many mental health professionals who have given me hope and worked with me to take big steps toward a better life. I’ve also stopped seeing many (and been told about many more) who have not.
Today, it should be an expectation we collectively hold of the mental health system that anyone struggling with mental health challenges have access to peer support (if they choose) and mental health providers who not only believe in – but expect people to recover.
Thanks Martha for sharing your story and illuminating the vital role hope plays in our lives.
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Beware of the New Psychiatry also.
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Dear psychiatrist – I survived! My God – I have to inform this psychiatrist if I actually managed to survive! In the interests of maintaining a healthy life expectancy, next time I think I might see someone else.
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I too am moved to tears and anger – and admiration – by your story. I identify with almost all of it – mainly apart from the marriage and children aspect – but in principle, including the damaging and appallingly hurtful and totally wrong medical records entries. How wonderful and inspiring all that you have achieved and come through and recovered from. Thank you so much for your sharing your courageous and brilliant journey.
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Thank you, Martha.
I am going through a very similar experience. Thank you for giving it attention and helping me to see that I am not alone. I experienced PPD and as a result was sent to the hospital, drugged to the point of near death and now survive with Tardive Dyskinesia.
I explained this strange phenom to doctor’s who simply said I was making it up.
I was a guinea pig for a variety of prescription meds. I lost my home, my marriage and my child. I have picked myself up three times from compete devastation. I’m now unhoused and unemployed because in my last home, I was sexually assaulted by a neighbor, and I phoned police for help. They came for a wellness check for ME and arrested ME because of a history of incorrectly diagnosed mental illness.
If the staff who drugged me had listened to my knowledge of my body, I never would have been given Zyprexa. If the states had connected knowledge bases, I would never have been given Zyprexa, which was acknowledged by courts in Pennsylvania to cause heart attacks in patients in 2005. I was given a Zyprexa induced heart attack in Colorado in 2011.
Life has been up and down. I’ve been to hell and back. Right now, I’m surviving, and I hope to thrive again soon.
Endless Gratitude!
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Martha barbone thank you for sharing your experience mine similar as many of us have experienced. Thank you
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Thank you so much for sharing your harrowing story Martha.
“Instead of help, I became your victim” – That really resonates for me and likely very many who placed trust in a psychiatrist believing they would be receive some ‘help’ or at least a little compassion for their struggles or difficult circumstances. I was in cancer treatment and had been told I had little chance to survive. When the chemo drugs and steroids caused sleep issues I was told I could see ‘someone’ for “help with sleep meds”. This ‘someone’ turned out to be a psychiatrist and agreeing to see her was a huge mistake. The chemo drugs caused many adverse effects, including vertigo, tinnitus, profuse nosebleeds, insomnia and dizziness which led to a fall and significant head injury. (I laid unconscious bleeding from a laceration on my head) The psychiatrist had zero compassion and actually labelled these well-known effects of chemo as a “Somatization Disorder”.
Doctors in general can write whatever they want in a patient’s records. If they feel annoyed by a patient they can write something less than flattering. However psychiatrists can actually defame and ridicule a person’s character and make up derogatory and blatant lies – and they get to do this with impunity! The psychiatrist simply says it’s their ‘opinion’ and the patient has no way to get their records corrected to reflect the facts and reality. If more people knew this no one would set foot in a psychiatrist’s office.
So glad to hear you are now thriving and living a good life in spite of the doom and gloom this soul crushing psychiatrist spewed. Kudos to you!
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Actually you can correct your record.
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it sounds simple “correcting your record” in reality many barriers are put in place even correcting information on adverse drug reactions you as the patient will be blocked. At least that’s how it is in Australia. The original lie will still be in the paper file signed by a psychiatrist it’s does not get deleted. Patient rights in this area are less than their rights (which are virtually non existent) in relation to accessing your records to see what vitriolic lies they spewed out in the first place.
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Dear psychiatrist.
At first I was afraid, I was petrified, thinking I could have to live without you by my side. And after spending nights thinking about how you did me wrong, I just grew strong, and I learned how to get along, so now go on – walk out the door! Turn around now, you’re not welcome anymore. You’ve screwed my brain to buggery like a politician screws a whore, and you want more – and you want more and then still more?
And you’re the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye. Did you think I’d crumble? Did you think I’d lay down and die?
No, not I! I will survive! Just let me take my pie out the oven and then have a good cry. I know I can – I WILL survive. I’ll just stay off the vodka and fentanyl and avoid picking fights.
PS – vampirism should feature in the next DSM. Then you can all feel included!
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World War Two initiated the culture of coercion, hence Popeye. See the deception in it. A fun cartoon of a sailor-man with superpowers is really just naked propaganda for some green gunk we want to force down our children’s throat. “But it’s for their own good” you say. So is psychiatry and execution and incarceration apparently. Even to an unintelligent human this line is wearing a thin.
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Maya Angelou said “Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant.” Thank you for your story Martha. I have worked as a Peer Support for 17 years helping others thrive. I wish your story was unique…but sadly, it isn’t.
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Worked with faculty and students at a major university. I watched faculty in the psychology department bully their students on a regular basis. Unlike other departments where relations between faculty and students was cordial and constructive
When i objected to this practice faculty engaged in assasination of my character and professional standing based on their “professional” opinion.
At another university i was taking a graduate level course in applied behavioral analysis where the instructor wove the final exam and student course evaluation together in such a way that it was very difficult if not impossible to give an objective evaluation of the course without jeoprodizing the students final grade.
In another instance, during a consultation with his instructor, a student was considered a threat because he used the term “bite the bullet” during the conversation. There really is no objectivity or accountability in psychology or psychiatric care
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I think the psychiatric and psychology profession attract some of the most mixed-up people among us.
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Minus the military, husband & kids plus ECT—you told my life story, and very eloquently! Well said. Very poignant. I too came to them with an untreated brain injury that was never acknowledged, childhood trauma, ripped from my family, character assassination, health damage & eventual escape (after 38 years for me). I bet it’s many people’s story. And I cannot express how heartbreaking it is to realize that.
This is one instance where I would not mind being alone as the only one who has experienced something. I wouldn’t wish the mental health system especially psychiatry on anyone!!
Thank you so much for writing this!! And thank you for your service.
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I don’t think anyone “heals” from psychiatry. You either die from it or survive it.
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Hi Martha, I recall meeting you in an online training you co-facilitated for a bunch of Australian folk. Thanks for writing your story, it’s great to know you have reclaimed your professional life and family … you lived to tell the tale. Thanks for sharing, its encouraging for the rest of us.
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I admire you. You have survived. I will never forget my CPS training with you and how much I learned. Thank you for all you have done and gave to me.
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Dear Martha,
Good to hear more of your story and congratulations for thriving! I remember you helping me craft my own lived experience story at a CPS training and always appreciated that kindness. Best wishes!
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