On a regular Tuesday I went to work and my coworker told me she wished that someone like me had killed himself. The person she was talking about was severely depressed and had been hospitalized following a suicide attempt. My coworker found him annoying because he kept asking her for things, like to use the phone. She wished that he had died “so he wasn’t here bothering us.” She didn’t know that I’ve tried to kill myself and been hospitalized. It wasn’t safe to tell her.
This is one of the more extreme comments I’ve heard, but representative of the microaggressions against people with mental health issues and/or substance use disorders that I see regularly from coworkers. I work alongside psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, and other mental health professionals who smile in my face and then denigrate, dehumanize, patronize, judge, and discriminate against people just like me.
As a patient I had already seen and experienced discrimination and maltreatment in the mental health system. I felt hostility rolling off of an ED nurse as she snapped that “strong” people “deal with their problems” rather than attempting suicide. I saw a patient dragged away and restrained to her bed as punishment for talking about suicidal feelings when staff had told her not to. Still, I was shocked at the even worse things that were said behind the nursing station and written in notes. Crying being portrayed as “attention seeking,” symptoms portrayed as faked, harsh judgment, arbitrary and unnecessary control over things like snacks, punitive and unnecessary seclusion and restraint. After many years in the field I often feel a simmering rage and hurt and despair under the surface of my skin that threatens to break out. I push my feelings down, put a smile on my face, and carry on while my soul is bleeding. I work in an acute setting, which is one of the places where the dehumanization, infantilization, judgment, and lack of empathy towards people struggling with mental health and substance use seem to be the worst.
I cope by trying to understand why my coworkers are this way. Some of them have been assaulted and most of them have been verbally abused by people in crisis, leading to fear. Some of them cope with the suffering they see by believing that it is in some way deserved or a choice rather than random and unfair. They want to believe that “those people” are different from them so they can feel safe, that mental illness and/or addiction could never happen to them or someone they care about.
They just don’t understand. Some of them are awful people, but most of them are good people doing bad things. This does not make their behavior okay. It’s never okay to treat someone how patients are treated by professionals who are supposed to be helping them. Professionals who hold a lot of power over them while they are vulnerable. We decide when patients get to eat, when they can use the phone, when they can wear their own clothing, and when they can leave the hospital. We decide when they can be restrained, forced to take medication, and locked alone in their room. Most professionals don’t even notice the discrimination and maltreatment, it is embedded in the culture. The building is on fire and everyone is walking around like nothing is wrong.
I try to do what I can. I treat patients and their families with the kindness and understanding they deserve. I advocate for patients to have more autonomy, their rights not violated. I try to humanize people, point out their strengths and qualities beyond their diagnosis. I try to help others empathize with patients by explaining how their behavior is understandable in the context of their life, the difficulties and barriers they’ve faced, the trauma. I try to help my coworkers understand.
As I’ve walked further and further into the professional side I’ve wondered whether I’m betraying psychiatric survivors too. Whether I’m really changing the system or if it’s just slowly corrupting me. I tread a thin line, unsure if I’m advocating enough but not wanting to push things too far and alienate my coworkers. I’ve experienced retaliation for advocacy. But I’ve also empathized more and more with staff as I get to know them. They’re flawed. They dehumanize and discriminate but it’s what they were taught. I wonder if I’m making excuses for them. I am part of a system that does a lot of harm. I go along with things I know are wrong. I’m complicit. I could be doing more. I know that being “out” at work could help challenge stereotypes and reduce stigma but I hide. I have that luxury.
I feel torn and guilty every day. I wonder if I can still call myself a person with “severe mental illness” when my symptoms are less severe and less frequent. I often feel between, neither completely one thing or another. Pulled in both directions, trying to bridge a gap until I’m stretched thin. It feels like I might break. It’s painful, more so some days than others. Some days it hardly bothers me. But when the familiar ache of depression settles in my chest it can feel unbearable. I’m raw and every unempathetic comment I hear feels like a stab in the chest. I can’t tell anyone. The guilt and self-loathing take over. I’m terrified that I’ll give myself away and be seen as compromised, biased, incapable, having poor boundaries, dramatic.
There’s a deep loneliness doing this work as a professional with lived experience of severe mental illness. There are few coworkers I can trust. But even on bad days my work keeps me moving forward with a sense of purpose. I am here for a reason. My unique perspective is valuable. I have to believe that I’m making a difference, and I will keep trying to live confidently in this uncomfortable space. But I will never truly belong with these people. And that hurts.
One of the issues with this kind of presentation is that it assumes, “they are bad and I am good.” I don’t believe we are either inherently good or bad. The people you encounter may not always be bad—just as we are not always good. Personally, I don’t try to position myself outside of humanity looking in. Instead, I ask: What might I hear myself saying when I am under stress?
I believe every experience is unique. Yes, we can categorize or scale human experiences, but each one still carries its own individuality. People are not flawed, and you are not flawed either. But because you are within the system, it’s important to embody that system and relate to others creatively.
For instance, if someone is acting out—like the woman who told you, “someone like you should commit suicide”—I interpret that as her feeling safe enough with you enough to voice something so extreme and deep personal “thought”. Whether she truly wanted that person to die is another question. Did she really mean it? I don’t know but by her sharing does not mean she is meant to do it in reality.
Thoughts, feelings are much better expressed than act out of obviously. I do not mean to say what you are saying is wrong but just we all humans often say people do this or that not often wondering also out loud how do we do it too sometimes?
Another equally powerful perspective you’re expressing here is this: even if you’re someone living with severe mental illness, you are still a human being who moves through phases and cycles. You’re capable of observing yourself across those states—severe, moderate, and mild—and recognizing the shifts in your own mental health. Others may go through similar fluctuations, too.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with your perspective, no matter which phase you’re in. In fact, many people will likely relate as you speak from that dynamic place: “I felt really bad last week, but I’m on the upswing today.”
The individualistic system doesn’t leave room for multiplicity—it resists the idea that human experience is layered, shifting, and nonlinear. But your truth embraces that complexity.
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“For instance, if someone is acting out—like the woman who told you, “someone like you should commit suicide”—I interpret that as her feeling safe enough with you enough to voice something so extreme and deep personal “thought”. Whether she truly wanted that person to die is another question. Did she really mean it? I don’t know but by her sharing does not mean she is meant to do it in reality. ”
Considering they behave like this in front of patients, it’s entirely possible she meant it. And either way, it’s still too harsh and brutal to say about a patient – if you’re thinking that way, you just shouldn’t work in that field. In the mental health field, poorly done work is (much) worse than not doing anything at all.
I’ve done care work with vulnerable clients. Some of the workers are simply aggressive and without empathy from the day 1. There’s no real (good) reason. They weren’t even stressful places to work at. As adults they have responsibility for their actions.
I don’t know why this is so hard to accept for some. It’s just reality. Not everyone is a good person who is trying their best. Many are just doing the bare minimum and simply considering how things affects themselves. Many do care work just because they have to do something to get money. They actually seem baffled when someone else has ethics. They don’t consider their clients people in the same way they think of themselves.
“I don’t believe we are either inherently good or bad. The people you encounter may not always be bad—just as we are not always good. Personally, I don’t try to position myself outside of humanity looking in. Instead, I ask: What might I hear myself saying when I am under stress?” There is a time and place for questions like this. But you’re acting like everyone is fundamentally the same and has the same moral character. You’re acting like people don’t have the ability to make good or bad choices, and like that doesn’t tell anything about them. Like everyone is simply always reacting to (bad) circumstances instead and that’s all. The problem with that is that practicing that kind of thinking removes all real responsibility. I also think it makes it impossible to give people credit for right choices either. It’s not always easy to be a good person. It’s an active choice more people could try a bit harder to make.
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“They don’t consider clients people in the same way they think of themselves.”
That’s the crux of the problem.
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Mira, thank you so much for your comment. I totally agree with you!
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“Not everyone is a good person who is trying their best. Many are just doing the bare minimum and simply considering how things affects themselves. Many do care work just because they have to do something to get money. They actually seem baffled when someone else has ethics. They don’t consider their clients people in the same way they think of themselves.”
This is such a true comment. I saw that when I was in care work and I see it regularly as a patient. Most of these people went in for the wrong reasons. I have a cousin that became a nurse purely for the money. She won’t even care for her own mother or daughter. We need to remember this.
I had a primary care doctor run out of the room screaming she doesn’t give care to patients in organ failure earlier this year. She refused to give a patient with systemic disease care. Unfortunately, most doctors want healthy patients. They no longer want to give care to patients with systemic disease. Our system allows them to refuse to give care to patients they don’t like for whatever reason. The system needs to fail and the bad clinicians with it.
As a patient that has a diagnostic list a mile long of everything wrong in my body, I have had way too many chances to interact with bad people in healthcare in multiple states and multiple medical centers. Almost every time I try to get care, I just get abused these days. They all tell me to find someone else. Someone else will help me. I have decided that “someone else” is an elusive unicorn. I am no longer getting care. Because there is no care to be had anymore. They don’t want to admit they are doing more harm than good these days.
As for ” simply considering how things affects themselves.” I see this all the time. Everything is about them. They believe their feelings are more important than human life. They believe someone disagreeing with them is a form of abuse. They call security inappropriately on patients because the patient asked a question. The worst part is most are unprofessional. When their patients know far more about their problems than the other way around that is a crossing of boundaries and is extremely unprofessional behavior. Believe it or not, I am not there to listen to every doctor, nurse, dietitian, therapists, or any other staff members problems. I am there to get help. Not for others to dump their burdens on.
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I always find it ironic when people’s initial reaction to hearing about trauma is to sympathize with the side of the abuser more than the abused. (Ask me how I know.) Why are you sympathizing more with the professionals enacting this abuse than the patients receiving it? Why? What are you getting out of “humanizing” them? They are not the ones being dehumanized in the first place! They are dehumanizing others! If they are being dehumanized in any way, it is only through their own actions speaking for themselves. They are giving up (some aspect of) their humanity by dehumanizing others. That is not being done to them by others, they are literally doing it to themselves. They are not victims, they are not the ones in need of understanding, sympathy, humanization; their patients (i.e. abuse victims) are. All of society already understands & sympathizes with & humanizes them, and all of society already misunderstands, mistreats, and dehumanizes psych patients. Can’t you see that? That’s kind of the entire point of the essay (or a big part of it, at least). It’s like when people are having a discussion about class and there’s always that one person who jumps in & defends billionaires…
To echo what Mira said, “You’re acting like people don’t have the ability to make good or bad choices, and like that doesn’t tell anything about them. Like everyone is simply always reacting to (bad) circumstances instead and that’s all. The problem with that is that practicing that kind of thinking removes all real responsibility,” and I couldn’t’ve said it better myself. I don’t entirely agree with the notion that “a person’s character is defined by their actions,” because I think that is way too black-and-white, and life has a lot more nuance than that. I.e. we all make mistakes & sometimes we act out in response to environmental pressures/stressors/dangers where there was really no “right” choice, and I don’t think it’s fair to judge a person by that. However, if a person is consistently acting a certain way, and it’s not out of concern for their own safety/survival, it’s not because they have no other choice, it’s simply because they can, because they have the power/priviledge/luxury to do so, then can we really say that has no bearing on their character? And even if it’s because of a system they were brought into, sure they’re not responsible for the whole system, but are they not still somewhat responsible for their own actions/being complicit within that system & taking the path of least resistance, choosing not to challenge it by using their own critical thinking & moral compass? Like Mira said, “As adults they have responsibility for their actions.” These people are adults & professionals. Sure, they’re human & imperfect & may react under stress, but that is not what this essay appears to be talking about, and they really ought to be held to a higher standard than they currently are. They’re not children, and they’re certainly not victims. They do not lack agency. If the job is too demanding for them, they should’ve picked a different profession. Additionally, despite the fact that the “mentally ill” patients are often seen as lacking agency, they are still often held to a much higher standard of responsiblity for their actions. They are judged far more harshly, blamed for acting out of self-protection, and given less than half as much sympathy/compassion/ excuses as their abusers, despite deserving much, much more, given their circumstances.
Furthermore, it is wildly inappropriate to be defending someone saying these thoughts about a suicidal patient OUT LOUD to a COWORKER while AT WORK! To say, “I interpret that as her feeling safe enough with you enough to voice something so extreme and deep personal ‘thought'” is, in my opinion, very, very much missing the point, to say the least. It doesn’t sound like this person was confiding in a friend about an intimate, vulnerable, “extreme and deeply personal” thought that she wouldn’t feel “safe” enough to share with anyone else; she is safe by virtue of the institutional power she holds that enables her to wield power over the very patient she speaks ill of. The same institutional power that makes people like the author of this essay feel NOT safe enough to be “out” at work & have to publish this anonymously. Thoughts like these aren’t taboo to say out loud; they are spoken of freely and acted upon publicly TOWARDS the patients themselves. They are a FEATURE of the psychiatric system, not a bug. This person thought nothing of how her words might affect her coworker and what their personal history/traumas might be, who does NOT have the safety & privilege to share THEIR thoughts out loud at work.
Lastly, I take particular issue with your first paragraph. It is really quite ironic to me. You say, “Personally, I don’t try to position myself outside of humanity looking in,” which is actually exactly what you seem to be doing. Then you go on to say, “Instead, I ask: What might I hear myself saying when I am under stress?” which one might think is a segue to talk about those experiencing acute crisis, i.e. psychiatric patients, and sympathize with their position, like why they may be acting out & how it makes sense in the context of their life/traumas/stressors, rather than seeing them as purely broken & defective, and seeing their behaviors as “symptoms” of an “illness”– but no! Instead you defend their abusers– the professionals whose job it is to be helping them– as some kind of pitiful victims. And to backtrack to your opening sentence, you say, “One of the issues with this kind of presentation is that it assumes, ‘they are bad and I am good.’ I don’t believe we are either inherently good or bad. The people you encounter may not always be bad—just as we are not always good,” which again, sounds like you would be talking about psych patients, but no. And ironically, the very “good vs bad” dichotomy that you are accusing the author of employing here (which they are not) is exactly what the professionals they are describing are guilty of! “Those mentally ill people are bad and I am good” — that is kind of the definition of sanism.
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Thank you for your reply, I think this embodies the reactionary rage that I am sure many people feel when reading what seems like a defense of clearly indefensible actions.
With that said, I think you fall into the same trap as the system. We can simply denigrate behaviours without needing to dehumanise the people partaking in them. To dehumanise the people is to perpetuate the very harm that we’re fighting to abolish.
In this way, we humanise the users (abused) of these services, and we humanise the clinicians (perpetrators) of these systems. ONLY when all people are seen and treated equally is there a pathway forward that no longer involves dehumanisation and discrimination leading to harm.
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I think you’re slightly missing the point of what I was saying. Otherwise, perhaps we can simply agree to disagree, but I will attempt to clarify first.
What I meant was that the clinicians are not the ones in need of defending or “humanization.” No one is dehumanizing them, so there is no need to counteract any dehumanization that is occuring, because there is none. The ones being dehumanized are the patients/victims. *They* are the ones in need of sympathy/defense/humanization.
HOWEVER, that being said, I also believe that there are two types of dehumanization, and perhaps I should’ve made that distinction more clear. First, when others dehumanize someone by disrespecting them, abusing them, othering them– essentially, treating them like they are less than human. Second, when someone dehumanizes *themselves* by treating others disrespectfully, abusing them, othering them– essentially, giving up their humanity (or some part of it, at least) by treating others in unjust ways. See the difference? External vs self-inflicted.
When I was talking about the kind of dehumanization psych patients experience, I was referring to the former; when I was talking about the kind of dehumanization that abusive clinicians undergo, I was referring to the latter. I think it is quite clear that I am not advocating for the *external* dehumanization of abusers/perpetrators, I am simply acknowledging that they have already given up (some part of) their humanity by choosing to dehumanize others. I do believe that they can regain it though, through active repair & growing & changing going forward.
Maybe you still disagree with me, and that’s okay. But I don’t agree with this “only when all people are seen and treated equally” argument, not in this contest at least. It feels a little “all lives matter” to me, if you know what I mean. To say “black lives matter” isn’t implying that other lives *don’t* matter; but “all lives” aren’t currently under threat, so that would be kind of redundant. It only makes sense to focus on the ones in most danger. Equity over equality is my philosophy.
I do not believe I “fall into the same trap as the system,” nor is this “reactionary rage,” and what I’m saying does not “perpetuate the very harm that we’re fighting to abolish,” in my humble opinion. I don’t know about you, but I do not think of accountability and justice as harms that we are fighting to abolish.
Additionally, on a more *human* level, abuse victims/survivors are human too, and I think it is ridiculous that they are so often held to a higher standard than perpetrators — or anyone else for that matter — of constantly having to filter and downplay their feelings and live up to the highest ideals of mercy and compassion, despite being in the most pain & in most need of such things themselves. This double standard for abuse victims/survivors needs to change. If perpetrators do harm, they are humanized & empathized with & all is forgiven & they are in no way condemnable, but the moment abuse survivors want them to face any kind of consequences for their actions, they’re accused of “perpetrating the same harm” and this is condemned. Wait, so why is it only okay when they do it? Also how is that “the same” at all? Hitting back is not the same as unprompted hitting. I do not necessarily believe in a “turn the other cheek” philosophy. Judging someone by a) something amoral or b) something outside their control, is different from judging someone by how they treat others (given context & that they have other choices and are not simply acting out of desperation, self-defense, or crisis).
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I meant “context,” not “contest,” in paragraph 4. Also meant to say at the end, after “Judging someone by a) something amoral or b) something outside their control, is different from judging someone by how they treat others (given context & that they have other choices and are not simply acting out of desperation, self-defense, or crisis),” that additionally, “discriminating” against someone for discriminating against others, is not itself an act of discrimination, in my opinion. Judging those who are bigoted for their bigotry is not itself some act of bigotry. I don’t believe in that logic. Therefore, what I am describing is not, and CANNOT, be “perpetuating the same harm,” by definition.
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Hi Jasmine,
I actually don’t disagree with you, but rather adding that (as a clinician and person with LE, for context), you can be dehumanised in a multiplicity of ways, simultaneously.
I am simply cautioning us to not demonize the people who do harm, because we simply repeat the cycle. That’s all I meant.
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“Equity over equality is my philosophy.”
Mine, too.
“…”discriminating” against someone for discriminating against others, is not itself an act of discrimination, in my opinion. Judging those who are bigoted for their bigotry is not itself some act of bigotry. I don’t believe in that logic.”
Nor do I.
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Ayden, there’s a big difference between “demonizing” people and holding them fully accountable.
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“I don’t know about you, but I do not think of accountability and justice as harms we are trying to abolish.”
A concept rarely prioritized in the field of “mental health”.
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“I don’t know about you, but I do not think of accountability and justice as harms we are trying to abolish.”
Accountability and justice — two concepts rarely prioritized in the field of “mental health”.
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For some reason it won’t let me reply to your second comment, but actually, you know what? Nevermind. I completely disagree with you. It’s not repeating the cycle, it’s breaking it. Forcing abuse survivors to shut up and be polite about it is what’s repeating the cycle. Perhaps this reddit post will help you understand (I did not write this, but strongly relate to it): https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/comments/1jnqssr/im_sick_of_tone_policing_abuse_survivors/
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“They are giving up (some aspect of) their humanity by dehumanizing others.”
Yes, and most will never see what they are doing.
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Thank you! So glad someone understands what I actually meant by that!
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I also understood what you meant, Jasmine and appreciate that you said it.
It makes it difficult if not impossible to interact authentically (human to human) with another human being whose goal is to dominate, control and dehumanize us, in whatever form that takes.
Occasionally it even happens during some of the exchanges I’ve read and experienced on this site. This is something others have tried to point out as well, sometimes reacting angrily (which is understandable), other times as gently as possible.
Abusive behaviors can be subtle and manipulative, and sometimes it can take us a while to see things clearly. Especially if we grew up loving someone who abused our love and trust and confused us, leaving us longing to connect more deeply with someone, wanting to touch and be touched in those neglected, authentic places in our souls.
Unfortunately, our culture encourages and rewards abusive behaviors, adding another toxic ingredient to the mix. It teaches us to dehumanize others, based on all of its fictions that deny other people’s realities and our shared humanity.
Society and culture teach us that we not only have the right but the duty to decide the fates of billions of other souls.
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The pleasure is mine, Jasmine ☺️
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Tree and Fruit, I’ve noticed that some of your recent comments seem aimed at publicly challenging me. If this is intentional, I suspect it may be related to our past disagreement. I want to clarify that my direct communication is not meant as an attack—assertiveness is not abuse. In the future, I’d appreciate if you would address concerns with me directly.
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If I had a bone to pick with you, I’d address you directly, Birdsong. But I don’t.
In my reply to Jasmine on this thread, I was thinking about a brief exchange I’d had with someone who, much to their credit, later realized their mistake and sincerely apologized. This person wasn’t you.
I hope that clears up any misunderstanding.
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Glad to hear that. But if there’s truly nothing behind it, I’d appreciate if it didn’t keep happening.
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It took me a minute, but I’ve decided I won’t be returning to the forum. And in case you were wondering, I also won’t be receiving notifications about new comments, Birdsong.
I’d intended to do this anyway; our latest exchange just gave me a push in the right direction, reminding me about who I am and where I belong.
I’d say it’s a win-win, but I’m not at all convinced this is a win for anyone.
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The choice is yours, Tree and Fruit. Wishing you peace as you move forward.
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I agree with everything you said. Unfortunately, I don’t think people recognize that they are treating people without mental illness this way too. From the cancer patient, to the person with pancreatitis, to the patient in organ failure, whatever other conditions the patients may have, they have dehumanized the patients. They are oblivious to the harm they are doing. It is not just harm to the patients. Their abuse hurts the family and the community. The abuse towards all needs to stop.
I was denied a drink 7 years ago by a nurse because she believed that dying people don’t deserve to drink. That is abuse. And I would be dead if everyone had her mentality. As a patient, I have endured physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse and verbal abuse. I would like to say it is not the norm but unfortunately it is very much the norm. In fact now when I go see a doctor, I go to check the box and try to get out of there with the least amount of harm possible. I stopped aiming for no harm because the clinicians kept failing epically at hitting that bar. So many other people talk to me about the abuse they have endured by clinicians. I am not an exception. I am the norm. The number of people that I know that have died from medical negligence is atrocious.
It is a major problem that we are allowing patients to endure all forms of abuse without any consequence to the clinicians. That is the problem. We need to stop rewarding these people’s bad behavior and start punishing it. They have had too much benefit of the doubt and now they have just gotten worse. People are dying unnecessarily in the US because we failed to appropriately punish bad behavior. We are rated poorly compared to other industrialized nations. Plain and simple patients are getting bad care. It is time the clinicians wake up and realize their behavior is creating the healthcare crisis. They don’t need our empathy or compassion, what they need is to be rebuked. Because their behavior is not okay. It harms others. They have been enabled long enough.
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“Thoughts, feelings are much better expressed than act out of obviously. I do not mean to say what you are saying is wrong but just we all humans often say people do this or that not often wondering also out loud how we do it too sometimes.”
Disgusting.
But a beautiful example of self-serving rationalization to excuse unacceptable attitudes and behaviors from people who should know better.
Thanks for proving how effortlessly some therapists let themselves off the hook.
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CLARIFICATION:
But a striking example of self-serving rationalizations used to justify unacceptable attitudes and behaviors from people who should know better.
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“Thoughts, feelings are much better expressed than act out of obviously. I do not mean to say what you are saying is wrong but just we all humans often say people do this or that not often wondering also out loud how do we do it too sometimes.
Another equally powerful perspective you’re expressing here is this: even if you’re someone living with severe mental illness, you are still a human being who moves through phases and cycles. You’re capable of observing yourself across those states—severe, moderate, mild—and recognizing the shifts in your own mental health. Others may go through similar fluctuations, too.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with your perspective, no matter which phase you’re in. In fact, many people will likely relate as you speak from that dynamic place: “I felt really bad last week, but I’m on the upswing today.”
Dogworld, to me it doesn’t seem as though Anonymous is seeking any kind of therapist-to-therapist coaching/counseling. I think their blog has more to do with wanting people to know how abusive the mental health system can be towards the people it’s supposed to be helping, and how hard it is to work in an such environment with lived experience. In case you doubt that I suggest you refer to the title of blog: “The Betrayal of Professionals with Lived Experience”.
This being the case, I have a few questions you might like to contemplate:
1) Did you consider how knowledge of Anonymous’s lived experience with ‘severe mental illness’ may have affected your perception Anonymous?
2) Did you consider how having such knowledge may have affected your attitude towards and the way you relate to Anonymous?
And finally,
3) Are you by any chance at all aware of how patronizing/infantilizing your comment may come across to Anonymous?
If the answer to any of these is “no”, I suggest you take a moment to truly imagine yourself Anonymous’s shoes, having to work around abusive people day in and day out before handing out well-meant but highly inappropriate advice.
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CLARIFICATION:
If your answer to any of these is “no”, I suggest you take a moment to TRULY imagine yourself in Anonymous’s shoes, having to work WITH abusive COWORKERS day in and day out before handing out well-meant but highly inappropriate advice.
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CLARIFICATION:
If your answer to any of these is “no”, I suggest you take a moment to truly imagine yourself in Anonymous’s shoes, having to work with abusive coworkers, day in and day out, before handing out well-meant(?) but highly inappropriate advice.
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I am sure you are sn empathic worker in a hugely difficult position. What you are describing seems endemic in all state funded care. It reminds me of both Adorno’s work on the Administered Society and Authoritarian Personality. The state controls under the guise of providing care and finds workers only too willing to do that.
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There are a lot of us. I encourage you to take the mask off. As a therapist of 15 years, my biggest strength is my lived experience. My clients are grateful that I don’t hide. I’m a survivor of 3 suicide attempts; I was involuntarily hospitalized 18 times; I’ve undergone ECT 42 times; and I was chemically restrained for 22 years. My story helps others in the field check their bias and rethink their judgments.
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So glad you are in the field. I am also a therapist who shares having been a patient and recovered. Where do you practice? I’d love to be able to refer clients to you if ever I can.
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It seems that you are a kind soul trying to be a soft spot in the lives of those you encounter. I really am grateful for people like you who know the pain and try to bring some relief in scary and horrific circumstances. I met someone like that once.
Your question of whether you are helping or actually adding to the pain because you can’t effect change is really difficult.
It’s a question I have asked many times. If enough people who were not deluded to the abuse of the system, would refuse to work in the system- would the system fail? I do not think we will ever have an answer to that question- there are just too many professionals who are blinded by their own personal beliefs, rationalizations, biases- whatever you want to call it. They spent money on degrees and have to squash the cognitive dissonance. Many times, they actually consider themselves to be good and helpful souls and are not aware enough to consider their actions abusive.
That being said, sometimes one kind person in a harsh place is all you need to kindle hope. Beware though, it is fine to have empathy for abusers and to try to understand them and see their humanity, but many times such empathy does turn into enabling. Abuse is a criminal activity and deserves to be met with justice. The human being behind the abuse does also deserve mercy, but not without justice- these – justice and mercy should not be separated. It is in the separation that we gloss over the crime and thus become enablers with our empathy and mercy.
I, too have found myself in catch-22s, but the way to see clearly is to place your values, your principles above all else. If it is wrong to hit someone and you see someone hit someone else- let your values lead, not your emotional attachment to a person. If you see a patient raped and the rape covered up, go with your values. If you believe rape is a crime and shouldn’t be covered up, then report it. You will probably lose your job, but not your soul.
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“…sometimes one kind person in a harsh place is all you need to kindle hope.”
Annie Oakly, thank you a million times over for beautifully articulating everything I have ever felt and thought about the “mental health” system and the type of people who work in it.
Every single sentence is filled with compassionate wisdom.
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Thank you Miss Birdsong— articulating the way I feel about that horrible industry is actually what you and Mr. NoOne do for me too.
It is an isolating knowledge. Truly I think such experiences fundamentally change you on a cellular level, but if you really face the horror- the reality of the depth of malevolence it takes to participate in such abdication of humanity, you can see things much more clearly.
I used to wonder what horrible thing had I done to be treated so, now I realize there are truly horrible people with seared consciences combined with weak people, who need their jobs, who look the other way, and perhaps some truly conflicted people who know it’s wrong and are trying to bring what crumbs they can, and you have a system that will continue to function no matter what floodlights shine down upon it— it is a self-serving system that will continue to serve itself.
I was 19 in the 1980s when I spent 434 total days in two of their soft prisons.
I knew a soft soul in the second prison. Her name was Adelaide and she cleaned the rooms. I was on “room restriction “ which is solitary confinement. I could speak to no one and Adelaide would come into my room to vacuum and sing sweet spiritual songs and look out the door to make sure no one was coming and come back to me and take me face in her weathered, rough hands and whisper, “You’re going to make it. Do you know that? You’re going to make it. You don’t deserve this and God is going to watch over you.” She told me that over and over, every chance she got and I never forgot what she did. She would also put a peppermint on my bed and smile when she left.
She was actually jeopardizing her job if she got caught and she did it anyway. I was a stranger to her and she risked her livelihood to comfort a stranger.
That’s how I know of one soft soul in harsh circumstances kindling hope.
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Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Your story has left me speechless.
I thank God you are here to tell it.
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I’m glad to be here too and glad that you are too and so many others who survived.
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“It is in separation that we gloss over the crime and thus become enablers with our empathy and mercy.”
Thank you for making that critical distinction.
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CLARIFICATION: “It is in separation [of justice and mercy] that we gloss over the crime and thus become enablers with our empathy and mercy.”
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“The human being behind the abuse does also deserve mercy, but not without justice – these, justice and mercy should not be separated. It is in the separation that we gloss over the crime and thus become enablers with our empathy and mercy.”
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Abusive violent mothers are not held accountable. Their patterns of interaction are drugged with mind altering substances. The violences continue. Then the expected estrangements, alienations and abuses against them are justified and rationalised.
It is cheap societies that are sick. Interventions outside proscribed Pharma, Insurance, Politics, Economics could change course, but they won’t.
Drugging people of any age can never be the answer. Researching only what suits profits can never be the answer.
Forced institutionalisation and length of stay depending on insurance or other funding is not mental health care.
Not providing social supports after miraculously becoming well and being told to leave a facility is not mental health care.
1. Keep all away from any form of drugs, substances, treatments, therapies.
1. Find a highly qualified genuinely caring “therapist” and visit often. Preferably fully private and not using codes, labels, refunds.
1. If children are unwell, sacrifice your jobs, and give them your full time attention; with therapy.
1. The sooner, quicker a child, adult, person can address what is happening and what has happened the better the chances for all to get the support and help needed in real time.
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“If enough people who were not deluded to the abuse of the system, would refuse to work in the system- would the system fail?”
I ask a different question – if enough patients stopped utilizing the abusive system, would the system fail? Unfortunately too many are still seeking to get help. Hoping it will be the next doctor, or the next, or the 100th doctor that will be the one to alleviate their suffering.
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“They dehumanize and discriminate but it’s
what they’re taught.”
I’m not so sure about that… I believe it has more to do with who they are.
Working in “mental health” just gives them a place to enact their tendencies, consciously or unconsciously, blatantly or subtly.
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I was discriminated against as a person with depression and anxiety, and my workplace was the Missouri Department of Mental Health.I was driven to self harm and nearly died from a self infected injury. And all the while rheir website they proudly congratulate themselves as “dedicated to combating stigma regarding Mental Illness.” I won a settlement in court of $25,000 minus the legal fees.I am not supposed to disclose the amount, what they going to do, fire me again? Then I got a job with the VA and went through the same thing all over again, without the near suicide the time, another lawyer, and another $25,000 minus legal fees that I am not supposed to disclose..Nobody wants to hear about discrimination against people with mental illness we’re supposed to shut up and fail in line.
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“Combating stigma regarding mental illness” is code for “Making it safe for us to drug as many people as possible without anyone complaining.” IMHO.
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Yeah lol exactly. It’s not stigma, it’s sanism. The language of “stigma” was originally used by the psychiatric survivor movement advocating to abolish the use of psych labels — which are inherently stigmatizing — before it was co-opted by the psychiatry itself, thus framing the problem as a “stigma” against the legitimacy of psychiatry/their labels.
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The hypocrisy embedded in the “mental health” system is astonishing.
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Yeah, I kind of tend to agree. See response below.
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“enact their tendencies”
What do you believe tendencies are? Are these intractable nonmalleable perspectives of the world? Where do these come from? Are you born with these tendencies? Are they shaped by your family, friends and society?
I think you can take the original poster’s comment more broadly to understand that what we’re “taught” includes not only the professional curriculum (and the ethics and discriminations that come with it), but also our social education, being what we absorb from ours in our day to day lives.
In which case I’d conclude that I believe the post is accurate, we are taught to discriminate (socially and professionally). This is perpetuated by fear, hurt and blame.
I can see a path out, so to speak, but it involves a strength of compassion that I am not sure can be replicated on a large (systemic) scale.
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Tendencies are inclinations people are born with, which means insensitive people with an empathy deficit should never work in “mental health”.
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When I was job shadowing a ER doctor about 25 years ago, I was told always assume the patients are lying. Now it seems they are taught not only to always assume the patients are lying, but they are to assume all patients are stupid, and all patients are out to sue them.
But I agree with you that it is their choice, because I thought that was nonsense. Not to mention think about the foundation of the relationship when you go in with that mindset. You will do harm. And as soon as there is a misunderstanding that relationship will crumble. The relationship can’t withstand any type of disagreement, minor or otherwise. There is no chance of growth in that type of relationship.
I had saw a primary care doctor that thought she was an expert in behavior just because she had an undergrad in psychology. Now she walked herself into a trap of her own making and I nonchalantly told her my education in that area by most people standards trumped hers. She should have figured that out before trying to set the trap for me when I said earlier….So, what I think I am hearing you say is ____(a summary of what she said) is that correct? But no, she missed that clue. But human behavior is complex, and I would not regard myself as an expert by any means of the word. I am an expert in nothing but an avid learner.
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Not quite sure what you’re asking, TooStubbornToDie, if your question is directed at me. But here’s where you and I are in total agreement:
“They [healthcare workers] believe someone disagreeing with them is a form of abuse.”
And unfortunately, this mindset seems increasingly common among the general public.
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“They dehumanize and discriminate but it’s what they were taught. I wonder if I’m making excuses for them.”
No need to wonder. Simply saying “but it’s what they were taught” means you already are.
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Exactly. I find myself taking issue with people chalking every enactment of abuse/harm/bigotry up to “it’s what they were taught.”
But let’s stick with that for a minute. Okay, if that’s true, then let’s teach people differently! It’s not like once a person is taught one thing, they can’t learn anything new for the rest of their lives. Sure, it may be difficult, but if you can learn it, then over time, you can unlearn it & replace it with a new learned way of being.
Quickly, that “it’s what they were taught” excuse falls apart under any amount of scrutiny, and can instead be leveraged as a rationalization as to why people are, in fact, capable of change.
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Agree 100%.
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“But I will never truly belong with these people. And that hurts.”
You’re saying, “it hurts” it means it’s time to ask yourself some uncomfortable questions like, “Why would I want to belong with people like that?” and “Why am I letting my need to belong override my integrity and betray my clients?”
Or more to the point: “WHERE IN THE FUCK ARE MY VALUES???”
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SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!!!
Have you ever seen/heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? It’s like psychological theory portrayed by this pyramid-thingy with “basic needs” at the bottom and the idea is that you can’t fulfill those higher-up needs until you’ve met the fundamental needs first, and only then can you advance to the next “level” of the pyramid. Well, in the original Maslow’s hierarchy, physiological needs (i.e. food, water, sleep, etc.) are at the bottom, physical safety comes next, the third level is love/acceptance/belongingness, then self-esteem, and finally, self-actualization at the top. Now, I’m not the first to say this– I think I originally saw it on Instagram or something– but I think Maslow got it wrong. Love/acceptance/belongingness are at the bottom tier. Why/how, you may ask? I think that this is evidenced by the fact that people are often willing to give up their physical safety and/or physiological needs in order to belong/be loved & accepted. (As an eating disorder survivor, I would know firsthand.)
HOWEVER– this is absolutely not an excuse, and I do think that once you break free of harmful social norms & let go of that compulsion to sacrifice your values in order to gain approval, you find a much more authentic kind of belongingness/love/acceptance than you ever would’ve gotten from “them”– the ones you are so desperate to please. It may take a long time & you may end up with a smaller social circle overall because of it, but it is worth it in the long-haul because within that circle, you can actually be yourself — even if that circle only starts out with one person, YOU. You no longer have to sacrifice authenticity in order to gain acceptance, freedom, or safety. You no longer have to hide in shame or fear in order to belong, meanwhile knowing deep down that you never fully will.
Speaking directly to the author now, if you ever see this: There is a place for you here, in the psychiatric survivor movement. You belong here. You are safe here. Sure, we are a far smaller circle than the institution of psychiatry, and hold far less power. But what’s more important to you?
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I didn’t mean to imply that living one’s values means you will receive acceptance from the people you wish to be accepted by. It usually leads to the opposite.
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Wait… that’s not what I was saying. I agree with you. Where is your confusion? Let me know how I can clarify…
I was saying that once you give up wanting to be accepted by “them” in pursuit of your own values, you almost definitely will be rejected, and you might be on your own for a while at first. But then you will probably find a much more authentic kind of accpetance among those who “get it” — those outside mainstream psychiatry in this case — although it will probably be amongst a much smaller, less powerful group of people, even “social outcasts” (like psych survivors often are).
It’s kind of like how when someone is stuck in toxic relationships but they keep vying for the approval of people who aren’t good for them, and so they sacrifice being true to themselves in order to keep those relationships because they fear that if they were to be authentic, they would lose those relationships, and maybe then they would be alone & friendless & they fear they would never find anyone ever again. And although the former is probably true — that they will lose those relationships & be alone for a while — the latter is not — that they will never find friends again. It may take time, but usually one will have cleared the way for much more authentic, fulfilling relationships with new people.
Does that help clarify?
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Yes, very much, thank you.
It’s also the story of my life.
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“Most professionals don’t even notice the discrimination and maltreatment, it is embedded in the culture.”
More excuse for people who don’t deserve empathy. Your clients are the ones who do.
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I feel for you Anonymous. I can relate to how frustrating and dehumanizing it can be to both witness and experience cruelties and understand things could be so much better and yet feel powerless to affect meaningful change.
For many years I was employed in an environment that served children, adolescents and young adults with mental health challenges. Later in life, in my capacity as a disillusioned and sometimes horrified, unpaid witness and observer, I attempted to advocate on behalf of mostly poor or elderly patients receiving medical and/or hospice care in larger institutional settings, and in one small, privately-owned Board and Care serving elderly residents.
During my PAID employment, over the years I would frequently hear from parents, non-administrative staff (including some therapists) and various professional advocates how much they appreciated my holistic approach and consistent efforts to keep everyone safe and maintain sanity in a sea of (administrative) insanity.
I’m going to agree with Annie Oakley here in adding we can feel compassion for misguided people and maybe even silently nod in neutral acknowledgment if and when we need to as a way to HIDE ourselves and our awareness . . . as a way to continue to support the individuals we serve who benefit from our presence, empathy and kindness.
The individuals who benefit from your kindness will still benefit from those efforts, no matter how seemingly small. And without your having to actively enable or encourage anyone’s cruelty, self-deception or expressions of intellectual or moral superiority and authority. Or feeling guilty about seeing and silently naming what you’re seeing, but without dehumanizing anyone.
I understand there are very real and practical reasons (financial and ethical) why, in an imperfect world, someone might choose to remain in a particular environment.
I also agree with Annie Oakley in that sometimes we need to claim sacred ignorance in accepting ambiguities in complex situations without simple answers.
That said, there are always exceptions, lines we either won’t or CAN’T cross, something Annie Oakley pointed out in the last paragraph of her comment. Even then, there are no guarantees that the systems we’re placing our faith in to address injustices won’t also turn a blind eye. That’s been my experience.
I remember a professional advocate (a nurse) once telling me that the reason a lot of the Assisted Living, Board and Cares and larger nursing homes and other facilities were only given slaps on the wrist and made to pay fines rather than being permanently shut down was because these abuses were so common, in reality it would’ve resulted in countless individuals having NOWHERE else to go and NO ONE to care for them . . .
It’s okay that you see the world differently and don’t think like most people or feel as if you belong. You’re not alone in feeling this way.
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“I know that being “out” at work could help challenge stereotypes and reduce stigma…”
I strongly doubt it, Anonymous. And wouldn’t advise it.
I’m not paranoid and realize every situation is different. But more and more I’m realizing there’s a reason people hold onto their rigid and/or fixed and naive/uninformed positions, and that in the absence of good reason to believe otherwise, they’re just as likely to dehumanize you. If not in their behavior towards you, in their mischaracterizations and thinking.
In two of the privately-owned places I mentioned in my previous comment, there were nurses and other caregivers who would secretly let me know what was going on, unbeknownst to other staff members or administrators and definitely not the owners.
I knew what would happen if I betrayed their trust and never did. Instead, I found workarounds, without having to say anyone told me anything they wouldn’t be expected to volunteer or say if asked.
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You do have to consider whether talking about it will affect your license (if you have a license)
My son died by suicide so I would have definitely said something to the woman.
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I hear you, Anonymous –and many of your words echo in my head, as I too am a mental health professional with lived experience. I have found the peer support specialists at my agency to be incredibly supportive and I’m grateful to have a sense of belonging amongst them, as they also have lived experience and feel similarly.
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Thank you for your expressions in this article, Anonymous.
Your experience is valuable to document.
I am not sure exactly when or how, yet I feel this endemic mental health system will be overturned.
I am a long ago (2000) retired family physician & a psychiatric survivor (2012-2016, then divorced the system, found solutions).
My sense: an evolution within humanity is underway. As each individual clears trauma and optimizes themselves, they impact all that they come into contact with/everyone.
I feel we are all connected.
One optimized human being can influence 700,000- this feels true for me. Book “Power vs. Force” by Dr. Hawkins introduced me to this concept.
Groups coalescing these days can lead to huge synergies.
We all are well served with clear focus on what is, avoid being distracted by politics and the unsustainable system of systems.
Challenging yet more and more are attending to self and seeing reality more clearly.
Visioning & Imagination are powerful tools that I use regularly.
Solar photonic light is raining down on the Earth. Light is information and it is assisting a transformation in everyone.
Stefan Burns You Tube channel shares well about this.
I share about paradigm shift on my Facebook Page called “Manic Ministrations”.
I feel pardigm shift is inevitable.
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“I feel paradigm shift is inevitable.”
It absolutely is. And it’s only a matter of time.
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I love this place. The stories can be so honest.
I love this piece. And, I love to offer answers and ideas, maybe different perspectives. A speaking of which…
I spent the last 7 years mulling around in this community trying to recover and learn what I could. I have run into the horrifying things there is to offer in existence and the most incredible. It would be hard to believe that when you found one you would not find the other in some sense. That being said this piece and many like them are great gifts. They are opportunities for us to examine the most difficult things our cultures have to offer and just get them out there, come together to solve them, or further them. Interestingly enough I tend to see an attempt at each when people are authentic.
I see this piece as a struggle and that struggle is with perspective. Each of us thinks a certain way and the very vast majority of us have a hard time thinking any differently than we typically do. Coincidentally the vast majority of us have a very hard time escaping our medicalized injuries or some sort of related severe mental discomfort around these injuries by proximity or personal experience. Is it so hard for us to consider that they may be the same thing or directly related?
I have watched a very small number of people become severely harmed in one way or another and simply get up one day and walk out of it. Most dont. I spent years trying to understand why.
The most poignant reason I see is that they gain perspective. Each one of us is suffering from something and a fact is that the reason we are suffering from it is because we simply cannot see or understand how to change it, or we do not want to. This tells us one simple and important thing. There is in fact a way to overcome suffering in an instant if we simply see what we are dealing with from a different perspective or vantage point. This is reinforced by the fact that I have seen peoples severe sufffering and having overcome it myself, offered advice to overcome what they are going through in very short order usually a week or two, after year and years of severe suffering and pain, but virtually every time they simply ignore, refuse or reject what I say. At first I was angry and frustrated now I do not react because I realized that the number of people who do this directly corresponds to the number of people who are stuck in severe injury. Not a coincidence, and so it seems that most of the time the problems we have are because we simply do not possess or want to posses or choose to possess a different perspective.
Where am I going with this? Well, after I learned some of these things in the harm community I started spending time outside of the harm community, and guess what I saw? Well everyone else I knew was doing the same thing, just some of them were lucky enough to not be severely injured yet, but were all dealing with serious problems that are easily overcome – After having traversed the nine circles of hell myself, I see pretty clearly how people can help themselves, even with small problems, but to my surprise at the time, people really aren’t interested in it, or even listening to someone who offers them a direct way out.
In relation to this piece, I hate to see people bothered the way I was and sometimes am now. There are an incredible amount of solutions and helpful observations in regard to this problem presented here, and make no mistake the problem represented here is rooted in the same way as almost every other problem in western culture.
While I could offer innumerable ways out, the best option is and always will be to gain the experience of getting out in your own way so you can do it again and again.
So the best way each person can do that, in my opinion is perspective.
Look at each of these people and see their perspectives. Each of them has a unique perspective of their situation and the actions of the people they come into contact, and the way their perspective fits into their mindset determines their feelings which then in turn interacts with their nervous system in a physical way which determines the reality of their physical body and their mindset, that then in turn reinforces each – this is to say if they get upset by something, their body may begin shaking which then reinforces they are upset and so on and so fourth.
Some dirty so and so may see this and then act equally bad but in a different way and intentionally agitate this person or someone else around them by commenting on it or whatever they choose top do based on their perspective.
but heres the rub, that is their life and there is nothing at all we can do about it. It is their autonomy, and we can choose to see that as a tragity or any number of things, but the fact is that the moment we see it as anything at all, we begin lying to ourselves and painting a picture that is not true. We do not know what they are thinking and we do not know why they are thinking it, even with as much experience as we may have with that “type” of person we can never know so if we get agitated by it we are choosing agitation.
Have you ever had a friend who laughs everything off, even if it is some great tragity? Have you ever had a family member who gets depresso over anything even if its some that is probably a really good thing?
In the same way that we can escape injury by changing our perspective we can change the cadence our nervous system operates with perspective and a host of other things, but the goal is finding a neutral balance. “Depression” and “Anxiety” are not emotions but physiological reactions to our perspectives, anxiety is a word we use to describe how our body escalates its activity after being exposed to a lot of erratic thinking, and depression is the opposite. The longer we are alive bouncing around between these things the more dysregulated our CNS gets. The more we focus on regulating these things and change our perspectives, we can see things for what they are and not what we “want” them to be whether thats good or bad.
Take it one step further, eating sugar advances our nervous system , and so if we are anxious and eat sugar, we are really advancing our nervous system. Then it crashes because it is exhausted and we experience fatigue if we have been in this pattern for awhile, and then if we are really having a good time we are both agitated and fatigued at the same time because our bodies are exhausted and our minds are scared to death. Sound familiar?
If we eat whole foods, meditate, fast do all sorts of regulatory things we can bring the body back into balance but this really only works consistently if we have the perspective of understanding what other people really are and what they are doing, not emotionally charging people as horrible and awesome.
People will live experience pain and die, all of them. Some will do some wild chiz like murder others and get murdered, or sit around their whole lives and not do much of anything. None of these things are of any consequence to you unless you want them to be, and when you do you are folding their lives into your own and begin owning their consequences as your own.
Unfortunately living in the west we are programmed to act and think this way since birth and the media we are indoctrinated with dysregulates us so we are easier to control with medicine and ideas.
Its this easy, set yourself free. Stop caring about others and start caring for yourself, you are the only person you can truely help and when you do help yourself that has the possibility to inspire others, not the other way around. Take excellent care of your body, listen to it and eat well, rest when its time and be active when its time despite any pressure put on you by your job or anyone else. This will regulate your body and when your body is regulated your thoughts will regulate easier and you will gain perspectives you never knew you could possess and you will see and feel love for people who are complete blankity blanks, and you will know you have gained perspective, transformative perspective.
Only if you follow the honesty of your own thinking and understanding can this happen. Even my words have limited meaning for you, you have to give them your own meaning and understanding for them to come to life. But when it does you will find it transforms everyone you know and everything you see and feel around you.
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James, unfortunately the belief that people should “stop caring about others and start caring for themselves” can make people very callous and even cruel towards others. If a person refuses to think about how his/her actions affect others, this is not a good thing.
For almost 8 years I was helping in various ways a person who was very important to me. One day this man brutally “discarded” me (soon after meeting another woman) – he sent me a very hurtful email and stopped talking to me. He is probably convinced that he is “caring for himself”, but he has deeply hurt me.
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You have an excellent point Joanna,
I suppose I should have clarified that nothing of what I said has any value if a part of caring for yourself is not cultivating virtue. You also cannot do anything I mentioned above without pursuing virtue. They go hand in hand, but peoples perspectives will continue to be limited.
Take yours here, your perspective is that you lost something when they discarded you, I would argue that you did not lose anything at all and yet you were hurt. That hurt is very valuable and I would say it is guiding you to a deeper understanding and a far better place to exist, just like with the author here.
Lets give it some context. I spent at least 5 years in complete mental and physical agony from a TMS injury. I wanted to end my life every single day. I lost my ability to remember much of anything or care for myself in all but the most basic ways. I developed akathisia and would lay in bed in a pain that I did not know was possible to experience as a human. I would just lay there trying not to end my own life for hours and then days and months.
My perspective at the time was, Why me? and How could I possibly deserve this? These were important questions to ask and as I worked through them when I got a momentary break from the excruciating mental and physical pain. I realized that I had ended up in this place because I thought my life was supposed to be where I got a family and worked every day so they could flourish and I just worked harder and harder so they could have everything they needed. I sacrificed every last bit of who I was for them.
My mistake was that I did what I thought I was supposed to be doing and all the while I let every last part of myself, any character, freedom, or free thought rot away until nothing was left. Then when I had a “mental illness” I took drugs and did TMS.
My problem was not listening to my God given intuition and not doing what I thought was right every day. You see arguably doing what I think is right is a very selfish thing, maybe I should be doing what everyone else thinks is right? Right? No, thats a trap, each person can only understand things with thier own mind and the moment they do something because someone else tells them without thier own understanding they give up thier autonomy and thier freedom which leads to death, suffering and agony. If theres one basic thing we are here to do its learn and make decisions for ourselves.
Back to the horror that was my injury – I spent years in agony far worse than i could ever dream of and what did it get me? Perspective and understanding that could not be attained otherwise. The impossible suffering I went through birthed a wisdom and freedom I could not have otherwise gained in any other way. My horror was the best gift I could ever ask for.
The person who discarded you, from my perspective, gave you a great gift.
Are you still under the impression the way you cared for this person was a good thing? Did you ever question why you were doing it? Or question anything else about it?
I think your taking the comment I said out of context but also not considering its meaning. I mean all you can ever really do is care for yourself anyways. Even if you think you are caring for someone else selflessly you are only doing that to make sure you are doing what you think you should be doing which is self serving. This is a trap of the western mindset, that if you dont care for others you cant be a good person or that everything will go to hell. Or that you can ever understand what it is to care for someone else or understand fully what they want.
I have seen a persons love destroy a relationship and I have seen a persons abuse birth selfless love. We think we know what is what but this is arrogance -typically.
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James, thank you for your reply and for sharing some of your experiences.
First of all, I would like to emphasize that I have had many difficult experiences. I know that one’s way of thinking is very important. And I totally agree with you that people should listen to their intuition.
To return to the person who discarded me, I have to disagree with your opinion that I was only doing something I thought I should be doing. I was not being selfish. I was actually doing what this man expected and wanted from me.I always respected his wishes and his freedom.
Being hurt by another person is never a good thing. I think that you forget that people can hurt people who have not done them anything wrong. Yes, people can hurt others. People can be ungrateful. People can be cruel. And it’s not true that we are all the same and only thinking about ourselves.
If someone hurt me, I should not try to convince myself that he actually did something good. Blaming oneself for others’ cruel behaviour (“I must have somehow deserved it) is a very dangerous way of thinking. This man really did something cruel. He would not have done it if he had more empathy for others.
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I have to agree with you mostly, but I do see a grey area.
How much of the unpleasantness you experienced, that he inflicted on you do you think was based on your own ideas you constructed about the relationship? Conversely, do you think its possible you could have ever been in a place where it did not both you?
Honest question as well, I often try and sort this out for myself. I think if i don’t have any expectation of others I will not get hurt, but your right some people just hurt others.
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Agree 100%.
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James, being brutally discarded always hurts, especially if the person also writes very hurtful things and nothing kind. This man unfortunately did not care about the impact his decision and his words were going to have on me.
For 2 months he has not even once contacted me, not even to ask if I am OK… I did not expect him to behave in this way.
I feel that you are still implying that perhaps I feel hurt largely or partially because of my way of thinking. Let me point out that I did not have any preconceived ideas about the relationship. I did not expect him to put me on a pedestal or to propose to me, but simply to treat me decently – with at least a little empathy – and to appreciate the things I had done for him (at his request).
Yes, my only expectation was to be treated decently. In fact, I guess that he saw me as “weak” partially because I must have seemed very humble to him compared to other women he knows…
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You said , “This man unfortunately did not care about the impact his decision and his words were going to have on me.”
So the core of my assertion on the importance of perspective can be seen here. How is it even possible for you to know if he cared or not? Was he even capable of caring? Even in the best situation I would propose that we cannot even understand it as well as we think. There are people who will say one thing and you can clearly see they intend another, they may say they are capable of caring when in fact there is no evidence they do, or the other way around.
I think this is important because you are the only one who truly has power over yourself. You can give that power away as much as you want, and it appears it escaped us in development and it takes a lot of effort to get it back to a larger extent.
I am absolutely saying that your hurt has to do with your thinking, that’s in escapable. That fact doesn’t make anything right or wrong, it just is. There are plenty of people more or less sensitive to this kind of hurt that would not be hurt at all or more hurt than you, I am sure. Its quite possible I would be more hurt than you in the same situation.
You then said, “my only expectation was to be treated decently” but you also said, ” I did not have any preconceived ideas about the relationship”
I think in the west we are predominantly raised to believe certain things around being entitled to a certain kind of treatment in almost every situation. If we are in a relationship we think people will retain a certain level of respect. If we are at work we expect our bosses will feel guilty if they work us to a real physical death, but these things are the product of arrogant thinking.
As a result of my injury an life experiences, I have seen over and over again that life is wild and unhinged even in the most “civilized” arenas, life was made to be this way so that not even man could contain it. In fact many of us like to think humans do have some sort of control over life, and that is a complete fiction.
To me it seems you are imprisoned by this person. I am offering you the keys to the cell, nothing more.
Maybe because I have been in that spot enough times of my own. I spent a lot of time wishing people did not have to be in that spot. Then one day I realized that if the spot did not exist people could never learn the incredible and wild ability to overcome it. This is such a spectacular thing, it is worth all the suffering in the world.
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CLARIFICATION:
I agree 100% with Joanna Badura—and ONLY with Joanna Badura.
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Birdsong, thank you very much for your replies to my comments! And let me add that I always enjoy reading your comments.
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James, you are asking: “How is it even possible for you to know if he cared or not? Was he even capable of caring?”
He knows how important he was in my life. He has never tried to contact me after discarding me. He has blocked me on his social media (not because of my behaviour). He knows that I live alone and that I don’t have any friends where I live.
Was he capable of caring? Well, he has been very nice and even enthusiastic towards the “new” woman on her social media. If he is capable of acting in this way towards her, he is also perfectly capable of writing “How are you?” to me.
I disagree with your belief that I should not feel hurt, that I feel hurt only because of my way of thinking. I have the right to feel the emotions I feel. As I said, people can hurt other people.
My expectation to be treated decently is definitely not a preconceived idea about a relationship. After all, people generally expect their friends to treat them decently.
James, I am sure that you mean well, but it seems that in your opinion I should convince myself that I should not feel hurt and that I was expecting too much from this man. But I did not expect too much from him and there is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling hurt when someone – especially someone important to us – hurts us.
Emotional pain is a perfectly justified feeling, not something we should suppress. We should not suppress our own emotions and pretend that everything is fine when someone has deeply hurt us. This is certainly not healthy.
I am not like a prisoner – I am actually coping quite well with this situation. I mentioned my experience simply because I disagreed with something you said earlier – that people should care only about themselves.
You often criticize the Western way of thinking, but other cultures (e.g. African cultures) actually assume that it is not good to be selfish and that people should treat others with respect and kindness.
On a final note, I am very surprised that you say that the idea that bosses should feel guilty for working people to death is “arrogant”. So you don’t criticize such bosses, but you criticize people who think that they should feel guilty? Don’t you see that in this way you are implying that evil is perfectly normal and that being angry or sad about evil is “arrogant”?
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Thank you so much, Joanna! ☺️
I always enjoy reading your comments as well.
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Its interesting you keep thinking, I am telling you to do something. I am not telling you to feel any certain way, I just offered a way to feel differently if you don’t want to feel that way. I mean I have spoken to far more people that I can remember who are in excruciating pain and choose the pain every day and cant stand to not have it around.
I am not sure why its so frightening to think differently or consider another perspective. I used to have this fear that if i changed the way I think too much I would end up crazy or suffering some consequence that I could not see. In my experience nothing could be further from the truth but I cant speak for everyone.
Virtue and moral imperative are critical for every person, but not the judgement of others. Judging others is arrogant because we assume we know what is just or we can administer such a judgement with our own intelligence and wisdom, but that is virtually impossible for a wise person. Only through thinking and acting right can we spread such ideas and behavior, the moment we cross over and hold others accountable we fail in some way. Many people who are judged in such a way turn away from their own virtue just to spite the virtue of others.
Because we do not judge others also does not mean evil does not exist, and if we do judge the evil of others it certainly does not make it any less prevalent. Most of us think that judging others is important because we are indoctrinated to think so since before we can remember. It really has no value at all. There are all sorts of things we can de besides judge the level of evil or wrong in others, all of which I would argue lead to better outcomes in relationships.
Just the idea that you insist on basing your feelings on the judgement other others could be enough to really hurt someone else or give them justification for doing something you might perceive as evil or wrong.
And I think its laughable to think, that I should think that a boss should feel bad for working someone to death. Does that really impact things? Do scummy bosses really change their ways because they feel guilty for ruining someone’s life? My experience is that it doesnt change anything. I called the clinic that severely disabled me and let them know what they did several times, and they are still wacking away at peoples brains and ruining fresh suckers lives every day. My old boss knew he ruined my life and sent me out of work on medical leave and he just turned around and did it to others I know. He also has a disabled son at home and needed his medical benefits probably. He had his own justification for doing what he did and if bodies piled up in the meantime, well the guilt he may or may not have felt did not appear to change anything.
Err go the problem, we have no idea how they think and our wish to make them feel a certain way is selfish and arrogant which does not impact them in a way that reinforces Good.
If I am implying that evil is perfectly normal and being sad or angry about it arrogant, then I have done exactly what I intend.
It doesn’t change that processing those things and feelings doesn’t get you past them, in fact it does so even faster because you aren’t wasting time and energy programing, the evil, hate and arrogance into your memory and mind. No matter where it resides, it is where it is. If you project the anger or evil onto another in your memory, it still resides within you and gets to keep a home there.
When I look around me I do not see any free people and this is precisely why. Its possible that they are too entitled to their judgement of others to ever be free of their compulsion to do so or anything else for that matter.
When you get angry, you do what angry people do and you act exactly how everyone expects you to act, that’s not freedom.
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” . . .make no mistake the problem represented here is rooted in the same way as almost every other problem in western culture.”
I agree with some of your takeaways, James, particularly this one. But not all of your other conclusions.
Over the course of a lifetime, my perspectives have expanded and paradoxically grown smaller with each disillusionment. I’m still emptying out all of the wrong ideas and attachments I’ve accumulated. Most especially, my attachment to words. But here I am again, disappointing myself instead of remaining small and silent.
The hardest work of all is to see and know ourselves; next hardest is to see others and ALL of our worldly systems clearly. Once we open those doors, we can’t unsee or help but recognize the ways in which the systems we’ve been taught to rely on create inequalities based on abuses of power, consensus reality and agreement . . . and a false sense of self.
Where you and I seem to differ, is that it’s difficult and sometimes even impossible for someone to take care of themselves if they’re living on the street or in a park, or in a rat-infested building without heat or clean water, or in a jail, or some other institution or any other place, with jailers or caregivers who deny them basic human dignities and freedoms, or when living amidst extreme forms of violence and oppression and without a means to meet their basic needs for food, water, shelter or a way to protect themselves from both psychic and mortal harm.
Western culture’s corrupting influences and reach aren’t limited to those of us who live in the collective ‘West’. It’s a sobering thought, once we realize how connected we all are to every other soul and creature through life itself.
Our empathy and compassion ought to be real and universal, but in practice rarely if ever are. There’s a freedom in seeing, but truth always comes at a price.
If a person or creature in genuine need is placed in my path and I’m able to help without causing some unintended harm or harming another, I will and have. I’ve experienced so many amazing synchronicities during my life, having found myself drawn to the perfect place at the perfect time. Sometimes it’s meant having to live with the fact that I did all I could, knowing it wasn’t nearly enough.
“What happens to another, be it bad or good, pain or joy, ought to be as if it happened to you.” ~ Meister Eckhart
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What exactly do you mean by this notion of “severe mental illness,” Anonymous? This question lies at the heart of the matter. There are individuals who assert their expertise within a framework that lacks empirical grounding, subsequently perpetuating nonsensical psychiatric narratives for financial gain.
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“My coworker found him annoying because he kept asking her for things, like to use the phone. She wished that he had died “so he wasn’t here bothering us.””
I see this mentality frequently throughout healthcare. These types of people make for terrible caregivers and it would be better for all for them to find another career because they are doing tremendous harm to the patients and their families. On medscape, I saw nurses commenting that they thought entitled behavior was patients asking for water or asking for food. The also said they would rather not be a nurse but when asked if they would try a different career they answered no. The entitled ones are the nurses that think someone asking for their basic needs to be met is a sense of entitlement. It is the job of the nurse to help ameliorate the suffering of their patients. They seem to have forgotten that. They seem to have forgotten that without patients they don’t have a job. Patients being treated at medical centers is what pays their salary. They forget where their money comes from and if they continue and the patients decide to stop seeking help, it will have consequences for both parties. Florence Nightingale would be rolling in her grave is she saw the average nurse today. She would probably rebuke them.
I for one am tired of being mistreated and am no longer seeking help for my medical conditions and I have some that may well be life threatening. I told one doctor last year that I would far rather die on my own terms than to die on their terms. I have had my very life sustaining treatment threatened that if I ever hurt their feelings they would deny me care. I informed them that was a death threat. My TPN (Parenteral nutrition) was regularly used against me as a means of trying to control my behavior. It was used so frequently used against me that I started resenting them and my bag of IV nutrients. That bag soon represented their abuse.
I am still caregiver today but not for a living, but the person I model after in medicine, I watched her get her arms completely scratched up by her patient and at no point did she take it out on the patient or the next patient. She treated all with kindness. That is the behavior we need to remember when caregiving. You must love those that you are caregiving for otherwise you are likely to do harm.
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Your story really resonated with me, and is similar to how I experience mental health care. As someone who has had serious mental health problems (but has less severe symptoms now), it is sometimes shocking to see how patients are treated.
It felt so bizarre to me, and a picture came to my mind: the this is fine meme, but the dog is replaced with a psychiatrist. It is so cool to see that someone else actually made this picture. I wish we could get in touch
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