[ SECRET POST #2567 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2567 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Tumblr and/or social justice in and of themselves aren't fandoms, unfortunately.

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 077 secrets from Secret Submission Post #367.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

More power to you.

[nyxelestia]

As much as I love the message that people shouldn't bottle things up and or try to be someone you're not, the reality is that sometimes that's the only way to cope with the curvelemons real life throws at you.

You're probably going to get a lot of crap from other people asking if you haven't tried other methods already (actually, looking at the thread, you already are), and unfortunately that is a problem you are going to have to face all your life - people who don't understand that sometimes certain mental health treatments are not available to someone, or that they just don't help the way you need them to. I wish you all the strength it managing to tune out those people and do what you need to in order to help yourself as much as you can.

Re: More power to you.

[nyxelestia]

And suggesting that the OP just missed something or just needs to try harder isn't patronizing? In this case, the alternative is that the OP merely holds back on their emotions, or at least their reactions to their emotions, whichever is your viewpoint (some people differentiate, some don't - case in point the "I'm always angry" Hulk-out scene from Avengers apparently confusing a lot of people).

What you said upthread about how much it bugs you when people fail once or twice and then give up trying to seek treatment without trying more? I understand that, and it bugs me, too. But at the same time, there are people who have tried everything available to them, everything that they can, and still nothing works, so the only answer ends up being to endure and ignore as best as you can until something that does work comes along. Maybe you don't mean it that way (in fact, I hope you don't mean it that way), but most of your comments have come off as patronizing and dismissive of the severity of the OP's problem. That's why I, and some of the other posters on this secret, have taken issue with your comments here.

Re: More power to you.

[(Anonymous)]

This. Thank you.

Re: More power to you.

[(Anonymous)]

you know, if more than one person is telling you that you are being dismissive maybe you should listen.

Re: More power to you.

[herongale]

Because medicine is not miracles and some problems, sorry, are simply not. Amenable. To. Treatment.

Giving unasked-for advice is always a kind of dicey proposition, since it's gonna seem meddlesome and annoying to a lot of people even when well-intended and stated in a friendly fashion. But persisting in giving advice and going with a tone that implies they are just not trying hard enough is presumptuous in the supreme. You are not their doctor. You do not know them personally. You don't have access to all the different things they have tried, and so to just assume AND TO CONTINUE ASSUMING that someone has given up without trying everything is just... wow, it's really offensive, you know?

Like, would you tell someone with recurrent stage IV cancer who has already done several courses of chemo and who wants to go on hospice now to just keep on trying? I doubt it. Sometimes mental health issues are the same way... a lot of people have problems that go beyond what current medical therapies can help, and you know what? That's okay. I mean, it's not really okay... it would be nice if medicine COULD treat everyone all the time for every problem... but more important than being optimistic is being realistic. If someone has truly tried everything they can, being told by yet another stranger on the internet to do REALLY REALLY OBVIOUS SHIT like take meds, lifestyle changes,therapy? You do know that most people know how to use Google, right?

I mean, I get where you are coming from. You just want to help, and that's laudable. And I also get the irritation that comes from knowing that some people give up without taking advantage of all the treatments available to them. But online, unless someone is your actual friend that you talk to on a regular basis, you just kind of have to take things on faith a little, and try to hold back on offering unasked-for advice, because it rarely will come off as anything BUT patronizing and rude.

And by "taking things on faith" I don't mean let yourself get scammmed... but if someone says they have tried everything, don't quiz them on various options in order to find out if "everything" really means everything. By all means, have your own private opinions on whether someone is doing enough, but seriously, even if they are not, what is it to you? Badgering someone about their mental health issues kind of reeks of concern trolling, and I've seen you around here enough that I don't think you mean to do that, but still.... that's why people are criticizing you. And asking for more explanations for WHY you seem dismissive just seems pretty disingenous.

Re: More power to you.

[(Anonymous)]

You're unmasked-for advice is not appreciated in this thread because no one is saying that medication never works. So you saying that it does is beating a dead horse. Get off your pedestal. Damn, if pharmaceuticals and therapy had the efficacy that you seem to think they have what a magical world we would be living in.

Re: More power to you.

[herongale]

It's not about my problems.

And I think it's admirable that you don't think there are any dead-end patients. I guess I don't think there are dead-end patients either, but… well, there's a difference between "not being a dead end" and "being fully functional and able to integrate seamlessly back into society." I guess my feeling is that even for people who are on treatment that actually works, depending on the problem, the treatment might only be enough to get them to be functional in the most essential of ways… that it might not make them "normal," at least how society would define it. Might not ever be enough for that.

You are the one who said there is "help for anyone and anything out there." You also are the one who made the broad claim that with proper help, all problems can just "go away." But if psychiatry is your profession, you should know that the goal isn't to make problems disappear, it's to allow people to live their lives as functionally as possible. Part of that should be supporting those who talk about their own coping strategies without getting all paternalistic and butting in with your more formal medical options. Online, the people you talk to are not your patients, and can never be unless you get them to disclose a lot more than would be healthy to share on a public forum for all to see. Don't just assume that people don't know what they are talking about, or have given up without trying a lot of options… anyone who is talking about coping strategies is already someone who is healthy enough not to have given up altogether, just by the very fact that they are doing things on their own which help ameliorate the problems they face.

My statement that some problems are not amenable to treatment doesn't come from a place of ignorance, or lack of experience of my own in trying to help those with severe psychiatric problems… I have seen firsthand the kind of problems that cause people to end up homeless and on drugs or alcohol. Someone who starts out illiterate and poor is maybe not going to come to the concept of treatment in their lives until it really is too late… people who have destroyed their livers with alcohol (maybe taken in part to drive away depression!) can't really get their livers back, and people who have gotten their skulls bashed in by thugs while living on the streets aren't going to recover the parts of their brains that were damaged. Untreated psychiatric problems can sometimes lead to specific kinds of dead ends, facilitating incurable physical problems that will only complicate and frustrate attempts to treat the underlying issues.

But taking a step back, even for people who are more fortunate in their lives and who are actively seeking treatment for their problems… it's hard to say that everyone will feel perfectly normal and undamaged, even if their treatments have been a rousing success.

Respecting people's lived experience is so important. Even healed cuts can leave scars. I think it is quite clear that psychiatric illness can leave scars too, even when it's been as healed by therapy as is possible. Someone who crawls out of anxiety to have it appropriately managed still might end up waking up to a world where they remain unemployed and friendless, and those are completely separate problems that psychiatry is simply not equipped to address, let alone cure. You can help people hang on and teach them tools to help restore themselves to society, but the problems themselves? You can't give people jobs. You can't force people to be their friends. Life still happens even for people who are mentally well, and life can bring terrible challenges and losses at times. This is what I mean about things not being fully amenable to treatment.

I'm sorry that this conversation has left you with a bad taste in your mouth. But I think the most healthy stance for medical professionals to take is one of optimistic realism, not one where you make promises you might not be able to deliver on. Even if you are fully confident that you can 100% fix the people who come to you for help, do you promise them that their problems will be cured if they just stick with you, or do you give them a more guarded but realistic forecast, predicting that ongoing treatment should help them to cope with their lives better, giving them better tools to enjoy their lives more? I suspect it's more the latter. In which case, shouldn't that be your stance online as well? Remember that the people who come to you in your clinic are coming to you, and if you similarly restrict yourself online to those who "come you you" by specifically asking for advice, you will probably get a much warmer and more grateful reception for the informed advice you are qualified to give.

Re: More power to you.

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps it's because you automatically assumed that OP or whomever wasn't already taking meds and therapy. I see where you're coming from though because a lot of people don't get the treatment they need when it comes to mental health for various reasons. But it is patronizing to assume that because they are suffering from these problems they aren't taking meds or whatever. Because seriously, it's not that simple.

Re: More power to you.

[nyxelestia]

Herongale and the anon explained a lot of it, so I'm not going to rehash their arguments. I would like to suggest, however, that if you do work in a psychiatric field, then while on one hand you do have invaluable insight that the rest of us laymen can't match, on the other hand your experience will also be heavily skewed in particular directions.

Again, I get where you're coming from. I believe that you genuinely just want to help, and are approaching this the same way you might approach an actual patient or close friends about this same issue in real life. As many others have pointed out, it's just a little sketchy in this context and with this persistence.

I'll also add that a lot of this is projected tones. Whether you mean it to or not, your comments have come off as passive-aggressive. I do not have a mental illness, but surrounded by people who do and often defending them, I've heard a lot of passive-aggressive concern trolling and insistence that they are just exaggerating their problems or simply haven't tried everything* because if they did, they wouldn't be mentally ill. This attitude is dismissive of the fact some people have severe problems that just don't respond to treatment, or compounded problems wherein treating one problem exaggerates another problem (an issue a close friend of mine faces - almost any medication she takes for her mental problems exacerbates issues with her physical health problems, and many treatments she takes for her physical problems create hormone imbalances that further screw up her mental problems).

* = that they can, which is another layer you should be aware of if you live in the U.S. as your profile says - sometimes even if someone hasn't tried "everything", they've tried everything they can afford, and even if there is some treatment out there that can help them, if it's not covered by their insurance then for many people it might as well not exist for all the help they can get from it. Now, we don't know where OP lives so for all we know they live in a country where it's a moot point, but your comments still tend to have an unintended but nasty sting to them when you post with an "are you sure you've tried everything?" attitude - maybe they know very well they haven't and it's because they can't afford some of the other treatment options.