@PaulMinotMD Recently my younger relative asked why I'm not on the side of anti-psychiatry these days, why I switched when anti-psychs are the ones raising valid concerns. This was my response (plz bear w/🧵):

Psychiatry & all of its problems & all of its potential good is a tough topic to/ @PaulMinotMD encapsulate or even stay on one side about, negative or positive. I still criticize many aspects of it, like how I was poly drugged, that meds were stopped without taper, that psych units are generally boring, infantilizing, & mildly to very abusive, staffed with nurses & techs/

If anyone doesn't understand this post, I'll give you some context.
This 🧵is a list of jobs I had, ages 18 to 53. None paid enough for me to live independently. These low paying jobs are often filled w/bad mgmt practices. Stress/bipolar/coworker conflict usually ended them.
1/10

https://twitter.com/rwillowfish/status/1699951899804418250

1- health lab plating urine/throat/etc cultures & I left when forced to work Saturdays reading urinalysis microbes which required training I didn't have
2- door-to-door solicitation for a nonprofit citizens interests org & I left because cold calling on people freaked me out
2/10

If, when I criticize alternate DSM-diagnosing, trauma-focused programs like PTMF or VictimFocus, you feel the need to defend with "but it's great for some & why do you have to be divisive?" understand that I've been on all, or at least many sides, of treatment options, from/ psych patient having too many bad experiences to leaving psych care to being quite into very critical psych community to rejecting bipolar diagnosis to checking out what philosophical & newer psychiatrists are actually doing to respecting the seasoned clinicians with good ways/

I'm conflicted about the whole police vs social workers responding to mental health crisis issue and involuntary hospitalization both. And they are very connected as crisis response can indeed lead to legal detention in a facility.
I can only give my personal experiences view in/ pointing out negatives & positives. I've had police come many, many times, either because I'd self-harmed & called 911 or because a clinician had concerns & requested a check on the welfare.
*Also, need to note, I'm a white woman, in middle class neighborhood, affluent county./

The deal with ECT, for me, is not that it took away my memory forever, but that it was inappropriate and cost me in other ways.
I needed meds sorted. Was on too many. I needed just one psychiatrist or therapist to listen to how I got to this point, over 40 years, to this/ place of despair. Because nobody had given me a safe feeling to get it out. And so I was medicated with this, that, the other, and I became a frenzied ball of suffering. And there was no escape because all that was being done to me made me worse. I didn't know how to stop it/

Psychiatry will tell your parents you need treatment, meds for your struggles growing up. It lets parents somewhat off the hook for chaotic households, poor communication skills. It gives them a focus on your pathology, how meds are working, instead of on them.
1/10 You accept that you’re wrong in the head. It sets you apart from your peers. But you carry on, privately harboring fears & resentment. You age out of your parent’s health insurance coverage. No big deal. Now you have alcohol, drugs w/ a friend group that gets your craziness.
2/10

Here's a recounting of JUST ONE of my detentions on a psych unit.
First day, wake up at 11am to psychiatrist asking why I'm so sleepy. Too sleepy! What are you on, seroquel? Taking you off that.
Stumble to office, try to talk to him. Where am I? Oh this shithole again, with
1/13 shared rooms, big glassed-in nursing station with walking track circling it, rooms around perimeter, very cramped and tight.
Got this psych I don't know, usually have that guy who gave the DSM Spitzer psych yet another part of diagnosis for some disorder. Last time he said
2/13

If you can stick with this thread, here's the problem with mental health crisis calls:

You call 911/988 or wherever & person answering is all about if you're alone, if you're endangering someone or yourself, & you say you feel suicidal, which alarms them, you say, yeah but
1/16 And then the police are knocking. You have to let them in. They said you said you were suicidal, and you say, yeah but

But now you're in handcuffs in the back of a police car on the way to a mental health evaluation, officer saying it's to keep you safe & you say, yeah but
2/16

People talk about reforming, rebuilding, even tearing down current institutions and ways that mental health treatment is delivered often without realizing how complicated that process would be, how many cogs and gears are in that machine.
Just starting with the US,
1/9 first that means researching how healthcare is administered via insurance corps, influences from drug & other industries that benefit financially, and the incentives to those in control to change, coupled with an understanding of how all healthcare profs are limited,
2/9

I talk about how psych meds harmed me, but what about various talk therapy?

When I was 13, bound up in fears about how to become an adult, become myself comfortably, first I was run thru hours of psychological testing, sheets of questions designed to see if the same question asked a different way still had you give the same answer, & ink blots (yes), etc, which made me so scared of what I might be, what I was facing.

And then I saw a psychologist, bohemian office, tapioca personality though, handling me like delicate glass with a lit fuse, leading

Instead of criminalizing or denigrating patients who repeatedly appear to 'drain' mental health services while not showing improvement, how about looking at why services aren't helping?

I know of ways I could've been better assisted in mh treatment, & here's a thread:

1/6 -Make sure first that the patient has a safe home with funds for food & hygiene.
-Be very sparing with medication.
-Now you need to listen. Much stabilization can happen if you let a person pour out everything bothering them. Don't comment, just show that you're listening.

2/6

You may think, if police take you away on psych detention order, why not call a lawyer, or get help from an advocate during the medical processing part at the ER?

Because you're not allowed that opportunity, especially when you're by yourself.

On one psych detention, alone at the ER, I had a guard on me, right there. My phone was in my backpack, out of my reach. I wasn't permitted off the bed. I asked for my phone, but the guard said no, that I no longer had any rights. I tried to get off the bed, to get the phone, so she grabbed me and then

When I was in the hospital due to kidney stones, my pain was managed, but not in any cooperative way with me.
I was injected with morphine, oxycodone, vicodin, & others without any discussion about my 17 years in recovery from drug use or any acknowledgment that I was still in withdrawal from 7 psych drugs being cold stopped. Instead of counseling me through the weirdness of the way painkillers affected me, not to mention the invasive & painful kidney stone removal & stent I now had shoved up me, I endured psych evaluation to determine potential of

People have asked "Can't doctors help with your psych drug withdrawal issues?"
Not really because most choose not to recognize the syndromes.
Beyond that, if I see my GP, he may run general tests, but will want psychiatrist to oversee psych drug part, and then the psychiatrist will insist I get back on meds, & if I explain why I won't, including phys reactions, like kidney stones & vasculitis, it's recorded as self-reporting conditions. The psychiatrist doesn't follow up with calls to the urologist or dermatologist to strategize,

When you interview for jobs they leave lots out of what's expected from you in the end.
For instance, as a barista I was told I'd serve coffee, pastry to customers & clean up. No mention of the 200+ ppl to move thru in the AM & the sell, sell in slower times (be a coffee expert!) when I was a framer at a crafts outlet, they said I'd help ppl choose mats & frames, then put together final pieces as components arrived, but they didn't say I'd need to upsell, upsell & that at xmas they offered deep discounts & we'd move promised completes in short time, or

2020, a helluva year for everyone & I had my share of it. Beyond the pandemic, justice & rights movements, US presidential election, west coast on fire while gulf coast hurricane-pelted, mixed with randomness like murder hornets,

(thread 1/9) I was left to recover myself from psychiatrist stopping 5 meds, no taper, then covering up her actions. Jan-March I largely spent nursing myself through withdrawal illness, reaching out on twitter for help & finding the right community,

(2/9)

So people say, if you just complied with & worked with your psychiatrists, why would you have problems? And if you did, just file a complaint or even take them to court maybe?

Here's why that doesn't work. (a thread)

https://twitter.com/lisa63artist/status/1333935275974799361

Suppose I just want note that I was noncompliant with medications removed from that hospital record. Well, that will be challenged by the ruling of human rights dept at mh ctr, which favored the psychiatrist's denial that she cold stopped meds.

That's only part of the fight.

Thread about what happens in #psychdrug #withdrawal.

I know, thread sure goes on a long time....but so does the withdrawal.

Background: Psychiatrist cold stopped several medications, at once, no taper in my case.

1/15 At first, I didn't know what was happening. I was very sick, throwing up, diarrhea, mental confusion.

I was never told about withdrawal syndromes from stopping psych meds.

Psychiatrist who stopped the meds said I probably had the flu.

Ended up in ICU for 2 days.

2/15