Doctors Overreacting

[lightning05]

Sorry if this is a little long. Today I was at therapy and since I have been struggling really badly she suggested I try and see a psychiatrist sooner than 9/12. I thought it was a good idea so she suggested that I call the doctor and see if they can make me an appointment to see a psychiatrist in their network sooner. She is going to call me tomorrow night to see how it goes so I felt some slight pressure to do it but I also thought it couldn't hurt. I told the receptionist that I was wondering about coming in to see if I could get an appointment for one of their psychiatrists (the ones that sometimes come in late or do extra shifts at urgent care) since my appointment was a month away and lately I have been very depressed with suicidal ideation but nothing urgent and I had no plan. I reiterated that I had no plan and that all I wanted to do was talk to someone about medicine and different options. She told me she wasn't sure about all of that after I tried to ask a couple of questions: was this person a mental health professional? Would I be able to follow up with them? She just said "I don't know honey I'm not the doctor I just make the appointments. Just come in tonight." Frustrated I said okay maybe I will come in and no formal appointment was made. We hung up.

3 hours later I come out of the shower and see 4 missed calls from the doctor and a voicemail. The voicemail said that they were concerned because I missed my appointment and due to "the nature of the issue" they were calling me multiple times. If I didn't respond within a half an hour they would call the police to come check on me and see if I'm okay. I called back and told them it was a misunderstanding and that I didn't want to see someone immediately and that I wanted long term care. I didn't have any thoughts or plans on hurting myself at all.

The police just came to my house and I had to assure them that I was okay. I was so fucking terrified that they were about to take me away to the hospital and psych ward. I'm shaking and crying because I'm so scared and embarrassed. This is why I don't like telling doctors what is going on unless they are psychiatrists. They freak out and are ready to take you away to a place where you would be even worse. I can't believe that that happened and I regret saying anything and calling the doctors. I understand why they have to go to these measures but I STRESSED IT WASN'T URGENT AND THAT I HAD NO PLANS TO HURT MYSELF. I had to explain everything to the cops. They understood but I still saw them looking at me trying to figure out if I was lying and going to do something as soon as they left. I'm terrified they're going to come back and if I don't answer that they'll barge in and drag me away.

I stressed today to my therapist how much I hated the psych ward and how it always makes me feel more depressed and suicidal. This is exactly the type of situation I want to fucking avoid because it never helps me!! This is definitely not helping any anxiety I've been feeling. I hope I can calm down enough to sleep. I know this is paranoid but I just feel like tomorrow there will be some calls and "check ups" on me. If I'm not home when they come will they freak out and search for me? I mean what the fuck? All I wanted was to talk about medicine.

 

[moxman]

Wow, seems like everyone was over-reacted big time.

I am sure you were scared and embarrassed and stressed out. With the cops showing up at your home.

I hate you went through this, it couldn't have been easy. I imagine it just made your anxiety worse, and probably another bad experience that you didn't need. We both know you have had way too many bad experiences for several lifetimes. I will be so happy for you when things turn around and start going your way.

I understand completely your feelings about being in the psych ward. My experience was that I was in a place full of really disturbed individuals and they did not have any classes or anything to offer me besides more meds. Yeah that is definitely a place I will never visit again, I don't care how bad I get. It's like you say the word suicidal and everyone just freaks the fuck out. Unfortunately the word suicidal is taboo in our culture. It's like let everyone panic and get all excited but never offer any real explanation of why you are feeling this way. Or address the underlying causes the stress, the trauma we have both endured. Not all problems can be solved by being on meds.

 

[lightning05]

Yes I think the issue was me dropping that "s" word. If you say you have some ideation they do freak out and take everything overboard. I should have just said I was depressed and anxious. They sent 2 cops to my house so I had 2 squad cars outside. Definitely makes the neighbors stare. Then having to answer all these questions and have them look at me all pitifully was so scary. I just kept thinking "they're going to ask me to come and if I say no they will force me".

I don't ever want to go back to another psych ward. They just try and dope you up and you wander around aimlessly and it feels like prison. They only let you outside to smoke a cigarette.

This overreaction and freak out is EXACTLY why I never ever want to call a doctor's office with these types of issues. They almost never help and embarass the shit out of you when they try to.

 

[chiaroscura]

Oh wow, the same exact thing happened to me. My lifetime partner was within days of dying, in a coma, and I said some joke to a nurse in the house that after he died, I wanted to follow him via suicide but I was just KIDDING, like trying to express a feeling using the flipping "s" word.

Well, Miss Nurse the Idiot, is obligated to make a ton of phone calls once I said the s word. Next thing I know, a police van is in my driveway (IT'S NIGHT), omg what the neighbors thought!!!!! And this woman comes in my house.. The gatekeeper of mental hospital.

Now it's almost midnight and I need SLEEP. I am the 7-year primary caregiver for a dying person, and I can't stay up this late. Ohhhhhhhh nooooooooooo. This woman had to INTERVIEW ME for like 2 hours, looking at me all squinty eyed to see if I might really do it. As if I would do that, after 7 years of caregiving and leave my poor love to die alone!

But I HAD to cooperate or the van would take me, probably to the psych place, which in our small town, is a filthy little few rooms in a social worker building.


Luckily my best friend was there, corroborating all this for me. They checked my arms for cutting. Nothing. But two oven burns, one from cooking at Thanksgiving and one from cooking at Christmas they looked at a long time. I said, how could that be cutting? Can't you see it's an over burn.

But you can't talk smart to these people. They LOVE their power.

So she makes up this rule that i have to call her at 7 am to tell her I am still alive--as if THAT does anything except upset me more when I was already half insane that my beloved partner was in a coma near death in our house!

So with 5 hours sleep I call her at 7 and she is all cheerful. I was so mad. But couldn't show it, of course.

THEN she tells me that at 9:30 that morning (with 5 hours of sleep) I have to drive to another town and be assessed. I was in a total panic. "Are you even considering putting me in a mental institution?" She says, well, if you use that s word, a whole cascade of things have to happen.

WHAT! SOMEONE IS DYING AND I AM HIS ONLY FAMILY!

So she makes me LEAVE HIS SIDE and go to this stupid place with high school diploma social workers, and talk for an hour and pay them, and then tear home, hoping I didn't miss the death. My stress level was out of control. I was sweating bullets!

I made it home in time, and the death was the next morning. So as if I wasn't stressed out of my mind (I got amnesia for 14 days of memories from all this, and not one person to help ME, just one friend, not a close friend. NO FAMILY SHOWED UP. And they do this to me and I'm already all alone in a state of hell, waiting for his death as he is gasping for air. OMG!!)

It is really beyond BELIEF what they do!!! You can tell I'm still furious about it, but what they did made it MORE likely I would hurt myself, not LESS likely. Sleep deprivation, terror, police destroying my reputation in my neighborhood, and making me leave the side of my dying husband, terrified I would miss his end!!!! OMG. So yeah, lightning05. I HEAR YA!

 

[lightning05]

I'm sorry for that chiaroscura. It's true, it does make you want to hurt yourself more and the fact that they forced you to call them and go somewhere else in the morning is nuts. I was actually really scared that today they would check on me but luckily they've left me alone. I will never say the "S" word to anyone who isn't a mental health professional anymore! There is a different between thoughts and having plans and acting on it. Besides, if I was really going to do it or planning to I wouldn't call a doctor's office seeking long term care!!! The whole incident made me furious and just like what happened to you I barely slept last night because of it. It has actually made me more anxious. And my damn therapist didn't even call like she said she would!!! GRRRR.

 

[chiaroscura]

Lightning05, every word you wrote was exactly what I was saying, too. I even laughed out loud on your behalf at the stupidity of them going insane like ants in a kicked ant-hill, thinking that you didn't want to go on with your life, when your entire point was LONG TERM CARE? hOW STOOOOPID can some of these people be? Imagine if, in the middle of that Tsunami of Wrongness by them, ONE person had REALLY listened, trusted and believed you (how much more evidence would they need than that you wanted LONG TERM CARE) and had talking lovingly and compassionately to you, and stepped between you and all the deranged ants, and had said, STOP, to them.

Well, neither one of us got that break.

And then your therapist didn't even call? I am so furious about that..

I know that you will eventually feel calm, and so will I, but it makes me wish I had gone into that field of psych, just so that I could be the one who would really listen with my whole heart and all my empathy, and BELIEVE people like us and while we might not fix the whole world, we could fix at least SOME of it. WHERE are those people?

Frankly, I think they're in places like this forum. EVERY PERSON HERE would have believed you.

But what does University do to everyone else's heads while they're getting their little PhDs in Psych and MDs in Psychiatry--what happens to turn them into those ants where one honest expression of a feeling, one we do not intend to act on at all, makes them into psycho alien ants from hell.

I think I know what it is.

Lawsuits.

They are terrified that if we say the s word in ANY context, and they don't put us through a wood shredding machine, then if we do something to ourselves, THEY will get sued. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh nice world we live in. That almighty dollar still holds more power than love.

Well, between people like us it doesnt. And on this forum it doesnt. I like to think about how LUCKY I am that I stumbled on this place. This forum is a place of rest and love in a world of greed and fake concern. End of my rant.

 

[Cytrix]

I've been in this situation once. Except someone called a suicide hotline one me and was claiming I was taking too many pills. When, actuality, I was doing just fine. It's just someone was being an asshat because they were friends with my then-girlfriend that they didn't approve of seeing me with. Next thing I know, I am getting call after call by some guy who was checking up on me and asking a hundred questions and saying things to make sure I wasn't doing my fake-suicide. It took me two hours but he managed to be finally convinced that I was fine, you know, after practically balling because it was a pain to convince them earlier that I was fine and they wouldn't accept any simple answer.

Do they honestly think these kind of practices would make anyone feel better? I'd be hard-pressed to agree. I did tell the guy though "thanks for caring", because I know he's just doing his job. But for gods sakes, they should have a step in the methods of contacting a troubled individual. If THEY'RE the ones making you cry, feeling anxiety and stressed - hang the fuck up after giving a comforting message that you'll leave them alone. Chances are likely, that's what someone would want - is to be left alone and recuperate.

 

[chiaroscura]

High five to THAT, Cytrix!