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6 COMMENTS
Thanks for sharing, Sunny, so true: “Not a lifetime of managing bipolar disorder; But managing the tension every time I choose to disagree with authority.”
As I looked through your comic book, I was listening to this, which does some what speak to your point (I know it’s long, but I think it’s worth a listen).
Only someone who has experienced this can understand the frustration, anger and dismay of having to deal with the unwarranted “labels” in one’s medical records that taint every visit to a medical provider no matter what the problem is. Once a label gets into digital medical records it’s there forever. It helps me to see you share your experience in comic form. Thank you.
DAMN!….over 30 years ago, one of my “prescribing psychiatrists” made a permanent note in my medical record, falsely claiming that I had made a “suicide attempt”. It was 100% LIES.
I didn’t even know about it for YEARS. And when I finally discovered the false note, it explained SOME of the bad behavior the system had inflicted on me, including bogus criminal charges….
When I was a weirdo goth social outcast 15 year old girl, I got caught at school for engaging in some ‘light’ cutting- tiny shallow marks up and down my arms and legs made with a safety pin.
I was hardly the only social outcast teen I knew who engaged in this activity for tortured weirdos.
But my mom dragged me to therapy and psychiatry. The psychiatrist proceeded to analyze my every mood change and put me on a ton of different meds for the rest of high school. At one point he proclaimed that I had ‘Bipolar 2 disorder’. Teenaged me actually liked this better than ‘major depressive disorder’ because at least it sounded more ‘real/serious’. I hadn’t yet realized how messed up it was that I was going to a psychiatrist at all, when I had plenty of classmates engaging in much worse behaviors, who weren’t dragged to psychiatry.
That stupid Bipolar 2 diagnosis though.
I moved around a lot so was starting medical care from scratch a few times, didn’t transfer any records etc. I made the mistake of continuing to list the Bipolar 2 diagnosis for a while though. I remember trying to explain to one baffled physician’s assistant that it was different than bipolar 1. He kept asking if I experienced mania and I was trying to explain ‘hypomania’ and he just had no idea what I was talking about.
The worst was when I made the mistake of listing it on an intake form for a new psychiatrist. I was literally 3 months pregnant with my daughter and worried about postpartum depression. I was also having intrusive thoughts of either or both of us dying during childbirth.
The intake form asked a bunch of questions about my mental health history. I made the mistake of listing both the bipolar 2 diagnosis, the cutting in high school, and the brief stint in anorexia also in high school.
The psychiatrist, this smug 40 year old guy with a chip on his shoulder, proceeded to spend 2 hours trying to very condescendingly tell me I actually have borderline personality disorder.
It was obvious he saw the descriptions on my intake form of the combination of self harm, anorexia, and bipolar 2 diagnosis FROM 20 YEARS AGO, and made the diagnosis before even meeting me. Like I walked in the room and sat down and he began grilling me, like it was an interrogation. At one point he literally handed me his pocket DSM turned to the page for borderline personality disorder as if it was this big reveal.
I was 35 at this point and had been married for 6 years. I told him in my early 20s I wondered if I had BPD but realized I don’t meet a lot of the core criteria. I said I don’t have a history of unstable relationships, although I do have short ones, or periods of social isolation. I told him I hadn’t been anorexic since I was 16. I said my last self harm attempt was 8 years ago, and described it as a ‘relapse’ when my husband and I started dating and had a fight.
I said if anything maybe avoidant personality disorder makes more sense. I don’t get into arguments with people, I just shut down, and if possible, completely escape – bail on a romantic relationship, or friendship, or quit a job- in the face of conflict. I said in my experience, people with a BPD diagnoses run straight into a conflict and start arguing or yelling, while I run in the other direction to hide.
He wasn’t even listening. Just said ‘well there’s lots of different ways to have it’.
It wasn’t even so much that he diagnosed me from a 3 page intake packet clearly while glancing at a section of symptoms from 20 years ago . It was that upon meeting me he didn’t even seem open to changing his mind or discussing it.
The two hour mark came and he realized he hadn’t even talked about my reasons for coming- the pregnancy and postpartum depression worries, and the intrusive thoughts.
Anyway I stopped seeing him pretty shortly after. He was annoyed that I didn’t want to take meds during pregnancy. That is the only function psychiatrists serve apparently- ‘gotcha’ BPD dignoses for young women with crappy experiences in adolescence and meds for pregnant women.
Bang on i am blacklisted by all GP practices in my county and several consultants in my local hospital – because i lodged a valid, serious complaint against a (former) GP and a psychiatrist who set me up for a “new” label (neither of them had seen me with any symptoms of this new label – not bpd, bydway) so i refused to accept this new label and stopped attending psychiatrists. I have severe PTSD (caused by psychiatrists) and flatly refuse to attend. Eventually they discharged me – it is NOT an easy route to walk – especially when other medical practitioners prefer to support their professional peers (psychiatrists) and use your refusal to comply with psychiatrists’ orders as an excuse for THEIR refusal to deal with your PHYSICAL health problems – some of which result from taking psych meds for too long (having been COERCED into doing so – by psychs who refused to acknowledge your allergic reactions to same meds.) All blissfully ignore ethical guidelines, international human rights charters (including the Nuremberg code) doctors are a law unto themselves. Despite the W.H.O.’s call for a complete rethink of mental healthcare, the best they can do seems to be -bring out a new DSM which attempts to copper-fasten the biological theory of mental illness – despite no proof whatsoever of that theory being based on anything other than psychiatrists need for self-preservation. Their whole career is based on fantasy – there is NO scientific proof for any of their labels. They have built their careers on deception, coercion and peer support. And never cured anybody of anything.
Thanks for sharing, Sunny, so true: “Not a lifetime of managing bipolar disorder; But managing the tension every time I choose to disagree with authority.”
As I looked through your comic book, I was listening to this, which does some what speak to your point (I know it’s long, but I think it’s worth a listen).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuFn_hn08Gc
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Only someone who has experienced this can understand the frustration, anger and dismay of having to deal with the unwarranted “labels” in one’s medical records that taint every visit to a medical provider no matter what the problem is. Once a label gets into digital medical records it’s there forever. It helps me to see you share your experience in comic form. Thank you.
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Absolutely brilliant, I laughed my socks off with the earache and the whizz…
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DAMN!….over 30 years ago, one of my “prescribing psychiatrists” made a permanent note in my medical record, falsely claiming that I had made a “suicide attempt”. It was 100% LIES.
I didn’t even know about it for YEARS. And when I finally discovered the false note, it explained SOME of the bad behavior the system had inflicted on me, including bogus criminal charges….
Report comment
When I was a weirdo goth social outcast 15 year old girl, I got caught at school for engaging in some ‘light’ cutting- tiny shallow marks up and down my arms and legs made with a safety pin.
I was hardly the only social outcast teen I knew who engaged in this activity for tortured weirdos.
But my mom dragged me to therapy and psychiatry. The psychiatrist proceeded to analyze my every mood change and put me on a ton of different meds for the rest of high school. At one point he proclaimed that I had ‘Bipolar 2 disorder’. Teenaged me actually liked this better than ‘major depressive disorder’ because at least it sounded more ‘real/serious’. I hadn’t yet realized how messed up it was that I was going to a psychiatrist at all, when I had plenty of classmates engaging in much worse behaviors, who weren’t dragged to psychiatry.
That stupid Bipolar 2 diagnosis though.
I moved around a lot so was starting medical care from scratch a few times, didn’t transfer any records etc. I made the mistake of continuing to list the Bipolar 2 diagnosis for a while though. I remember trying to explain to one baffled physician’s assistant that it was different than bipolar 1. He kept asking if I experienced mania and I was trying to explain ‘hypomania’ and he just had no idea what I was talking about.
The worst was when I made the mistake of listing it on an intake form for a new psychiatrist. I was literally 3 months pregnant with my daughter and worried about postpartum depression. I was also having intrusive thoughts of either or both of us dying during childbirth.
The intake form asked a bunch of questions about my mental health history. I made the mistake of listing both the bipolar 2 diagnosis, the cutting in high school, and the brief stint in anorexia also in high school.
The psychiatrist, this smug 40 year old guy with a chip on his shoulder, proceeded to spend 2 hours trying to very condescendingly tell me I actually have borderline personality disorder.
It was obvious he saw the descriptions on my intake form of the combination of self harm, anorexia, and bipolar 2 diagnosis FROM 20 YEARS AGO, and made the diagnosis before even meeting me. Like I walked in the room and sat down and he began grilling me, like it was an interrogation. At one point he literally handed me his pocket DSM turned to the page for borderline personality disorder as if it was this big reveal.
I was 35 at this point and had been married for 6 years. I told him in my early 20s I wondered if I had BPD but realized I don’t meet a lot of the core criteria. I said I don’t have a history of unstable relationships, although I do have short ones, or periods of social isolation. I told him I hadn’t been anorexic since I was 16. I said my last self harm attempt was 8 years ago, and described it as a ‘relapse’ when my husband and I started dating and had a fight.
I said if anything maybe avoidant personality disorder makes more sense. I don’t get into arguments with people, I just shut down, and if possible, completely escape – bail on a romantic relationship, or friendship, or quit a job- in the face of conflict. I said in my experience, people with a BPD diagnoses run straight into a conflict and start arguing or yelling, while I run in the other direction to hide.
He wasn’t even listening. Just said ‘well there’s lots of different ways to have it’.
It wasn’t even so much that he diagnosed me from a 3 page intake packet clearly while glancing at a section of symptoms from 20 years ago . It was that upon meeting me he didn’t even seem open to changing his mind or discussing it.
The two hour mark came and he realized he hadn’t even talked about my reasons for coming- the pregnancy and postpartum depression worries, and the intrusive thoughts.
Anyway I stopped seeing him pretty shortly after. He was annoyed that I didn’t want to take meds during pregnancy. That is the only function psychiatrists serve apparently- ‘gotcha’ BPD dignoses for young women with crappy experiences in adolescence and meds for pregnant women.
Report comment
Bang on i am blacklisted by all GP practices in my county and several consultants in my local hospital – because i lodged a valid, serious complaint against a (former) GP and a psychiatrist who set me up for a “new” label (neither of them had seen me with any symptoms of this new label – not bpd, bydway) so i refused to accept this new label and stopped attending psychiatrists. I have severe PTSD (caused by psychiatrists) and flatly refuse to attend. Eventually they discharged me – it is NOT an easy route to walk – especially when other medical practitioners prefer to support their professional peers (psychiatrists) and use your refusal to comply with psychiatrists’ orders as an excuse for THEIR refusal to deal with your PHYSICAL health problems – some of which result from taking psych meds for too long (having been COERCED into doing so – by psychs who refused to acknowledge your allergic reactions to same meds.) All blissfully ignore ethical guidelines, international human rights charters (including the Nuremberg code) doctors are a law unto themselves. Despite the W.H.O.’s call for a complete rethink of mental healthcare, the best they can do seems to be -bring out a new DSM which attempts to copper-fasten the biological theory of mental illness – despite no proof whatsoever of that theory being based on anything other than psychiatrists need for self-preservation. Their whole career is based on fantasy – there is NO scientific proof for any of their labels. They have built their careers on deception, coercion and peer support. And never cured anybody of anything.
Report comment