Thread by @orbyn

Hey, here’s a question:

How do you select, direct and evaluate therapy?
• Psychiatry? Psychology? Psychotherapy? Counselling? “Other”? How to choose/differentiate?
• What if you have multiple diagnoses and/or issues?
• And what if your only “therapy goal” is “to feel better”?

I ask this after 20 years of therapy (various; extortionate) that managed to entirely miss my SEVERE LIFELONG ADHD, but ALSO ascribed (what I now know as) my ADHD behaviour symptoms, including confusion/forgetfulness, to “a lack of engagement”, which was relatively harmful.

I’d like to add that I’m still searching for reliable, effective therapy— and I still don’t know what that looks like, for me, even though I’ve gained a lot of insight since my ADHD diagnosis. The main problem I’ve found is that many of the therapists I’ve talked to haven’t been

Able to cope with complex situations. One coach told me I was “impossible” for having ADHD AND mental illness AND small children AND a job AND other issues. I was instructed to “streamline” my life, as though I any of those factors were optional.

Inasmuch as we all did, I spent 2020 in a serious mental health crisis. It was brewing before COVID hit, so by the time my mother died and I got a chronic illness diagnosis, I was pretty desperate for help.

But I was turned down for grief counselling because they weren’t ADHD-trained. At one point, for the same issue, one therapist recommended I seek urgent inpatient treatment, and another sent me healthy eating leaflets.

Now I’m cobbling together my own therapy programme. One therapist, one counsellor, a shitload of psychology workbooks.

But I’m still frustrated by the vagueness of therapy, and whether my inability to penetrate it is a valid, or just a “me” thing. I suspect a lot of people do.

Also, if you’ve wondered why you haven’t seen any of my work lately, this is why. Hopefully that’ll change soon.

Finally, because I think we’ve all had a bit of this going on, and because I think it shouldn’t be this hard to admit what mental health crises can really be about: ... I’m a lot better now, but over the last year it has been hard to stay alive.

And make no mistake, I was “reaching out” like a motherfucker. But someone has to REACH BACK. So anyway please check up on your mentally ill friends, but also check on their progress. And if they need it and you can, be part of it. Ok end of thread.

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