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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 11 of 11. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Christ_empowered on August 21, 2013, at 9:52:06
I'm not anti-meds, btw. I just don't like the huge costs, the forced hospitalizations, the forced "treatment" (for poor and/or minority people, this often includes heavy, involuntary ECT), and the massive over-drugging.Listen, I take Abilify and a lil bit of neurontin when I need it. I do my own version of orthomolecular (I call this "orthomolecular deluxe"). I'm healthy, physically and mentally.
But my ex-shrinks--the ones who, when I was in my early 20s, violated HIPPAA left and right and laughed at me--are proof that psychiatry is just social control. My old records (pencil whipped anyway, I believe) have been altered. My diagnosis has been changed several times. My sexuality has been a huge issue. My IQ estimates are all over the map--95 to "high IQ," whatever that means.
One shrink, who treated me for 3 weeks at a private, inpatient facility, has pulled out the Freud. Narcissism (I was 20). Narcissistic wound. Collapse of ego functions leading to psychosis. Malignant narcissism.
I'm sick of it. I'm also sick of knowing that, if it wasn't for my comfortable, well-connected, white, professional parents, I'd be in a state mental hospital. Keep in mind, when I was 20, all they did was involuntary ECT (following a benzo OD, btw), Freudian BS, and Rx high dose antidepressants, which I then couldn't pay for because they wouldn't let me keep my parents' insurance (never mind that I had to withdraw from school ***because*** of the hospitalization).
They told my parents to cut me off. I lived nearby and my parents had to support me because I was a dull eyed, un-medicated vegetable. They made the laughing stock of my small, southern town.
Now, I've been healed. I know, you're like "healed? whaaa?" Just go with it. Suspend your disbelief. Its kinda like a novel.
I became a Christian because "somebody up there likes me," or so I keep hearing. Christians cared about me, Christians helped me...must be Jesus. Plus, the Bible makes too much sense.
My dull eyes are bright. My hair is thick and glossy. My skin is healthy and clear, I'm a little bit taller, my IQ estimates are higher, and...the old shrinks are still after me. Narcissist. Malignant narcissism. Healing from a narcissistic wound. Narcissistic wounds don't heal. Narcissistic rage.
Rage? Hell yeah! Look, psychiatrists destroy people. The meds they use aren't that great. Good thing is...anyone could prescribe them. Off the wall, batsh!t agitated? Well, hey...sero-geodo-zyprexa-risperd-abilify for your a$$, mkay?
Johnny can't read? OK, we could look at *real* issues--social class, education system, family issues, neurological issues, whatever--or we could pump Johnny full of Vyvan-Addera-Ritali-Straterra. Problem solved. "Treatment failure" is possible, of course. Keep those insurance dollars coming, mom and dad!
My issues were probably hormonal, neurological, and rooted in a crazy making life situation (thank you, RD Laing). Not just my family, either. Oh, but wait: you have schizo-narcissistic-bipolar disorder type 1, 2, and 3.5....clearly, you need to be shocked and drugged and labelled and your reputation (such as it is) must be destroyed. Its therapeutic, you know?
Right. I may be an extreme example of psychiatry's power to destroy (and also God's power to heal, albeit slowly), but I'm not the only one. They keep their victims in group homes, homeless shelters, mental hospitals, public housing, cemeteries.
My advice? Be careful with your meds. Go to a family doctor. Avoid psychiatrists, avoid hospitals, if you do recover...move! Once you've been pegged as a shrink's victim, they don't want you to have great hair, bright eyes, a supportive family, hope and a future; no, they want drugs and dull eyes and TD and medical bills and misery.
Please don't call me some anti-psychiatry wing nut or tell me that this is an isolated example. I tried to get away from the shrinks, I did. What happened? God healed me, and the "docs" came after me. They're trying to put me into what Szasz refers to (and rightfully so) as "psychiatric slavery." You will be dull eyed, compliant, and poor. You will do as we say and live your life (such as it is) on OUR terms. We own you, we know you, we know your life story. Give up your identity now.
Screw that. I already took these a$$holes to the medical board, now my parents hired a good attorney to get me out of their latest scheme. I answer to God and I follow the law. I'm not their drone anymore, you know?
Keep in mind, the next time you go to a psychiatrist, that the person writing your Rxs has victims. ECT victims, drug addicted victims, hospitalized and impoverished victims. Some of them--mostly male--have sexually exploited their patients. Many of them are racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and elitist. None of them have cured a single case of "mental illness."
Posted by Phillipa on August 21, 2013, at 10:04:49
In reply to screw the shrinks, posted by Christ_empowered on August 21, 2013, at 9:52:06
CE are you venting? I know all these things have happened to you. So are you living at home now? Phillipa
Posted by Christ_empowered on August 21, 2013, at 10:09:06
In reply to Re: screw the shrinks » Christ_empowered, posted by Phillipa on August 21, 2013, at 10:04:49
venting. yes. venting.
Posted by Partlycloudy on August 21, 2013, at 11:43:48
In reply to Re: screw the shrinks, posted by Christ_empowered on August 21, 2013, at 10:09:06
Jeez. Some treatment at the hands of professionals. I dread having to change psychiatrists. Had a snafu with my current one (I showed up for an appointment and the door was locked, no doctor there.) I hate changing doctors so much that I'm willing to go see her again.
But your story just blows me away. These people have licenses.
Posted by Christ_empowered on August 21, 2013, at 13:46:24
In reply to Re: screw the shrinks » Christ_empowered, posted by Partlycloudy on August 21, 2013, at 11:43:48
I think the deal is...I used to be prematurely aged and homely and they also thought no one cared about me. The treatment I received is probably more along the lines of what low income and/or minority people with severe problems get, as opposed to what middle, upper-middle, and upper class white people get (especially men).So, what makes my story atypical is that I come from a family that's financially comfortable, well-connected, I'm white, I'm male, and...oh yeah...I've been healed by "somebody up there."
If you look at the stats, you see that minorities are often given "schizophrenia" diagnoses more often and also given higher doses of antipsychotics (this despite the fact that many minorities don't metabolize neuroleptics as quickly as white people).
Drugs can help. My Abilify+neurontin, PRN, anti-hospitalization combo, plus the Orthomolecular, keeps me out of harm's way. That's about as much as can be expected. My problem is with **psychiatry** as a form of social control. Also, they medicalize everyday life, which means we're encouraged to turn control of our life over to "experts" who apparently know how to live our lives better than we do. Thanks, psychiatry.
Posted by bleauberry on August 21, 2013, at 16:54:10
In reply to screw the shrinks, posted by Christ_empowered on August 21, 2013, at 9:52:06
Well, maybe some might view this post as negative or harsh or untrue, but actually it looks pretty accurate I think.
I don't think there is any conspiracy or anything. It's just that mankind tries to do the best they can with what they know, and that's what pdocs do. The problem is more widespread, I think, in that the medical community as a whole sort of blocks out anything that does not fit their mold at the time, and their ability to be creative and experimental has been diminished by politics such as obamacare and other things too.
It is of my belief that if all pdocs were well versed on lyme and lyme-like issues as well as the llmds, then the pdocs would be able to effectively issue other drugs to patients that actually get them better. I mean, just because someone has a mood issue doesn't automatically or necessarily make it a neurotransmitter issue.
The greatest healing I have experienced from chronic long term major depression has come from non-psychiatric approaches. If the primary suspects of disease can be resisted or suppressed, which really isn't hard with a few well chosen supplements, symptoms of just about any disease will stand a better chance of improving, and often that includes common stuff like depression, panic attacks, and anxiety. Since the herbs are so wide spectrum in multiple mechanisms, a wide variety of diseases and symptoms are improved, sometimes dramatically, at least as dramatically as antidepressant responses, but probably more.
I think pdocs might be good for acute emergency cases. But for medium to long term patients, I think they accidentally do more harm to the patient than good, simply by screening off from their own world anything that doesn't fit the mold. As in my case, pdocs not knowing a darn thing about how lyme disease causes the depression, or even how to recognize a potential infection.
sigh
Posted by Phil on August 21, 2013, at 19:04:47
In reply to screw the shrinks, posted by Christ_empowered on August 21, 2013, at 9:52:06
Babble works. I came here depressed and after reading that I may go jog.
Maybe life will cut you a break. Anything is possible.
Posted by baseball55 on August 21, 2013, at 20:19:17
In reply to Re: screw the shrinks » Christ_empowered, posted by Phil on August 21, 2013, at 19:04:47
I have had nothing but a great experience with p-docs -- my own and those I've seen while hospitalized My p-doc, who was also my therapist for a number of years, never pushed drugs on me, took my complaints about side effects very seriously, did his own billing to protect confidentiality and urged strongly to do DBT therapy and a DBT group, which helped more than the meds. Many p-docs are caring and thoughtful and kind.
Posted by HomelyCygnet on August 24, 2013, at 11:18:26
In reply to screw the shrinks, posted by Christ_empowered on August 21, 2013, at 9:52:06
Psychiatry made a bargain with the Devil when they went along with Big Pharma and the insurance companies to medicalize human suffering and dysfunction. They destroyed the best their own profession had to offer in the name of maximizing income. I don't know many happy psychiatrists.(But the only ones I know are old. The old humanities majors who went to med school in the sixties and seventies.) Who would want to spend the day in 15 minute med checks with people they barely even know who are suffering and they have so little to offer. And the scariest ones are the young who entered the profession after this happened to it and they knew what they were getting into. Psychiatric residencies are the bottom of the barrel for people who can't get into anything else for the most part.
Posted by Christ_empowered on August 24, 2013, at 12:35:45
In reply to And the toyotas they drove in on!, posted by HomelyCygnet on August 24, 2013, at 11:18:26
yeah...younger shrinks (particularly male ones) are the worst. The ones I've encountered are decidedly anti-intellectual, unimaginative, refuse to use the "bio-psycho-social" model, and lack any real understanding of how to skillfully use meds to help people out. I guess they rely on Medscape and hot drug reps. I dunno.
My current shrink was trained in Europe. She's old school, public health, "we focus on severe mental illness." She takes time to talk to me, though, and I find her intriguing. Meds--yes, but...there's more...
...plus, she doesn't play the "biochemical imbalance" game with me. She's pretty straight forward. You need...tranquilizer, cuz you get agitated, anticonvulsant....cuz that tranquilizer just ain't enough....and a low-dose, PRN sedative...to stay calm.
Still, I'd like to stop going. Putting people into bio-psycho-social perspective can help the person/patient, but...at the end of the day...psychiatry screws people. Always has. Undoubtedly, there have been better shrinks and better times in which to be both a shrink and a patient. Unfortunately for me, 21st American psychiatry pretty much has a "take your pills and shut the hell up" approach to mental health that I can't tolerate. Maybe its better this way, you know? Better to see what psychiatry really is, at its core--control, fear, force, coercion-- and get the hell out as soon as I am able than to keep being a patient because I keep having good experiences. Or not...
...anyway, I like your post. Thanks.
Posted by alexandra_k on August 24, 2013, at 20:17:03
In reply to Re: And the toyotas they drove in on!, posted by Christ_empowered on August 24, 2013, at 12:35:45
I was reading something just the other day lamenting how American (DSM and pharmacology based) psychiatry is taking over the world. Training p-docs in Europe used to have to read the great (phenomenology) European theorists. But they don't, now.
Part of the problem is that there is a concern to ground psychiatry in the medical / biological sciences and the way to do that is to focus on the neurobiological / pharmaceutical aspects. Because the distinctive feature of psychiatry (as a specialist field of medicine) is the prescription of psychiatric medications.
Psychologists / counselors have talk therapy too, you see. Social workers / education concern themselves with environment.
Why (government, health insurer) pay a psychiatrist (2x as much? more?) to give talk therapy (where there is limited evidence of efficacy - not least because it is impossible to run randomized double blind control trials on this form of treatment which makes it such that it will *always* seem scientifically inferior to medication)?
I have been watching some stuff on surgery and I got the impression that they were presenting it as something of 'the glory days are over'. Now... Mostly... Partly because of litigation... And precedent too, of course... I got the impression that things are fairly ritualized. Routine. Mundane. Minimization of error.
The 'real stuff' goes on in developing nations. War zones etc. Where you have to think on your feet a bit more. Improvise. Where you do the best you can under high pressure conditions... Perhaps where things move too quickly for you to have to write a book of paperwork on every operation you perform. Less accountability. I expect that is it. You can take a risk and if you fail it won't be broadcast all over the place till some committee says you aren't allowed to try that again because it is too risky. Probably not ground breaking insofar as you are reinventing the wheel with cheaper inferior components... But a personal journey of improvement in skill to be sure... And I guess you see a lot of stuff that you wouldn't get to see in more developed nations.
Psychiatry... To practice the way you *want* to practice... Well... You have to make a living / sell your services, I suppose. So there is certainly a bit of that... You would need to step outside the system in some way to be less accountable to it... But then there is a fine line between having a license to practice or... Needing to set up shop someplace different like Australia hahaha. I don't know.
I used to think psychoanalysis was the way, really. Well... For people like me (whatever that means). And that it was an art more than a science (and psychoanalysis did not do itself any favors in appealing to cognitive psychology to validate the unconscious etc). Some interesting things are happening with developmental neuro-biology and aspects of psychoanalysis, however. Schore and others... I think the science does (should) constrain the art, but there is an art to the narration / phenomenology to be sure. And that this is an important part of it. And... Perhaps... That less stupid people are better at assisting with this... And that psychiatrists tend to be less stupid (as a group on average) than the other 'allied health' fields. Not least because the former is more competitive (and thus the curriculum can move at a faster pace and the examinations can be more demanding than) alternatives. Perhaps. That medical doctors have a solid foundation in the physical sciences. Which teaches a way of thinking.
It is a bit of a shame that the current psychiatry curriculum isn't intentionally trying to attract the more literary types. It would be an interesting way to market it as appealing to a different niche of clinician and might perhaps alter its image from something along the lines of 'second rate neurology'. There is an interesting double aspect to psychiatry (there always has been). The complexity should be a feature. Not a farce.
Used to have to train as a psychiatrist before you got to train as an analyst. Not so anymore. They opened their doors. The broader they open them the more dumbasses they attract... Though, I suppose, it tends to be more literary people attracted to that kind of thing, anyway. But then the concern is that they literally have dual masks - the psychoanalytic involving the suspension of critical thinking that is usually a feature of science. Or at least the medical doctors among them get to have dual masks. Since the education and social work and (mostly but not always) psychology curriculum don't often succeed in teaching the critical way of thinking that is a feature of science.
- philosophy of science and the limits of science (the sorts of questions, explanations) anyone???? the meeting of fact and value?
This is the end of the thread.
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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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