I Know Therapists Aren't Omniscent, But... *possible Trigger*

[Kas_Can_Fly]

When I was 15 I was (mis-)diagnosed with Aspergers. I was initially referred to a counselling and psychiatric child specialists because my school attendance had gone from bad to worse. My mum (and school) requested the sessions but both her and by father attended them alongside myself. I dissociated though a lot of them, especially as my father would quite obviously (in retrospect) manipulate me, my mum and even the therapist. He lost his rag and got furious in one session because the therapist agreed with my Mum that I wasn't such a lost cause, so delusional and obviously crazy I needed a lot of medication and was otherwise beyond help. He was screaming and I ran out and waited by the car because I couldn't deal with it, they were in there for over 40 minutes after that. He didn't go back after that, but I did only once more and for the test.

The grounds that I was sent for a speech and awareness test were that they thought I had aspergers as:
*I was missing school
*I got no pleasure from friendships
*(except for a small few) I was terrified of not pleasing teachers
*I was emotionally numb
*I'd lost interest in all but a few escaping past-times
*I was depressed and constantly worried
*I was having nightmares
*I was having difficulty sleeping
*I would get angry/defensive for apparently no reason
They didn't know:
*I was having flashbacks and unwanted memories of some of the earliest abuse I suffered (before it got too bad, I didn't remember the rest until recently).

They knew had been extremely bullied at age 9 and at age 11, both ending with severe threat to my life. They saw my Dad's outrage when he lost control of the situation and they could see past him. They never asked to see me with only my mum or on my own.

During my speech and awareness test I was told I was really clever because I'd learned to understand things like sarcasm and idioms. I understood odd turns of phrase, colloquial sayings and tones of voice, in fact I often over reacted to angry and negative tones. I was repeatedly told this was because I was intelligent to have learned a way to get around them.

Quite honestly now I getting help with my problems, I'm surprised it wasn't noticed by either the specialists I saw or the school who requested in part I get seen. They also believed me when I came in with an enormous red mark on my face, but I didn't remember how I got it at the time and told them I didn't really know but I must have fallen down the stairs or something. I also avoided P.E because of bruises and when even when I wore my kit under my uniform so I never stripped off, my arms and legs still had bruises at the points of fingers.

I know I am partly to blame because I hid it all so well from my mum (abuse happened away from home), who honestly believed that I had inherited some of my fathers mental health issues (Manic Depression, OCD, GAD) or had my own, she even asked me if I was doing drugs (which infuriated me because I my abusers did, although I'm now aware I may have been drugged against my will, things are still patchy to say the least).

Am I wrong in being angry at them? I feel that they really made a massive mistake in overlooking my now officially diagnosed PTSD, is that unfair? I feel that it probably is but I can't help thinking that it probably isn't.

Sorry for rambling, I seem to be unable to keep it short!

AJ
xx

 

[WillyKat]

I do not think you are wrong to be angry. That's perfectly normal.

Teachers and school officials often think they can make diagnoses when they can't and shouldn't. Often, their main goal is to not have to deal with the student. That same bull happened to my son. Two teachers said they were "positive" he had ADHD because they had a lot of experience with it. We had him tested and he was not. We moved him to a different school, where he excelled. He's now in one of the best college physics programs in the US.

It's hard even for specialists and sometimes psychologists to know for sure. Every individual is very complex and sometimes more than one diagnoses fits the facts. It is very hard to get to know you the way you know you. Does that make sense?

Yes they probably did make mistakes. I hate to say it but that won't be the last time you experience it. Being a therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist is not easy. They can't just drop acid on us and see if it bubbles to confirm that we're calcite.

So now I'm rambling!

To sum up (and shut up) my advice is to acknowledge the fact that you are angry and its OK. But you need to acknowledge that specialists are human; and they usually try their hardest to help. Your real enemies are the abusers. They are the ones that make the job of a specialist so hard. I'd set a goal of letting anger toward the teachers and specialists go and save it for those that deserve the full measure of your wrath.

 

[Abstract]

I think you have every right to be angry. It is hard to see how they misdiagnosed. Sadly I think many times the signs are all there and yet it is not seen. Maybe sometimes because people don't expect it and other times it happens because something in them doesn't want to see it.

The unfortunate thing is that certain symptoms can be put down to many different causes and if the professionals cant get information directly from the client then it can skew things. As a frightened and dissociated child with an aggressive father present that was near impossible for you. You are certainly not to be blame in any way.

It is a sad story and I imagine added greatly to your distress. I am glad you at least have a clear path now.

 

[maddog]

Agree with what the others have said, particularly as it concerns how sorry I am that you were forced to endure such invalidating, rejecting and ultimately damaging behaviour from those who should have helped, who should have known better.

Yes, there are numerous reasons why so many children fall through the cracks. Some are about lack of awareness, some about lack of responsibility and action, some about manipulation and skilled coverups by those who abuse us.

I struggle with this too, sometimes almost unbearably. I frequently attended school with unexplained injuries and missed school at other times for the same reasons. I was socially withdrawn, almost anorexic before I was 10, a prolific self harmer and an obsessive over achiever. I had nightmares when I did sleep, which was rarely, and was terrified of anyone coming near me at night. And I went to boarding school, so these things were even more obvious to the school staff than they would ordinarily be.

And yet... their only response was to suspend me at age 12 for self harming, and to continually call my parents to deal with my "misbehaviour". My father gave large amounts of money to the school, afterall...

I tell you that merely to say... I understand, and I'm so so sorry.

We deserved better.

Maddog

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

Thank you all, I don't blame them it's just I think it was probably incredibly obvious and I wanted to ask someone else, I am a little angry but mostly with myself for not telling my mum/them, though I had blocked a lot of it at that stage. I had stopped going to my father's by that stage and never saw him unsupervised, something everyone put down to a) a row we had that caused me to completely break at the time (I was unable to speak or make any noise for over a week and cried profusely the whole time) and b) I was getting older and more independent and had more work from school. I know I can't change it and am not worried about trying to.

A book I was told to read by the first people I applied for counselling from said that I should acknowledge everyone who I felt had let me down who ever they might be to get past things, and when this came up I was quite frankly surprised. But I'm not sure I got from that what the book wanted and am now just waiting for my therapy to be seen by someone who can see me for what I am and reduce the likelihood of misinformation harmful or otherwise.

Thanks for all your help.

AJ
xx

 

[anni]

Yes to all of that, plus please do fight that impulse to apologise for a long post. :) A lot of us do that. In you case, well, it's YOUR thread, hee, you kind of invented it to tell your own story. I think so many of us are so, so, so used to being invalidated across the board that even in asking others to listen to something horrendous, in the correct format, we go ahead and apologise. I mean, who would want to listen to us, anyway?

I realize it's way too easy to be tough on other people in these instances. But. Where children are concerned the buck always, always stops somewhere and I'm sorry, it never arrives with even a nickle at the feet of the child who was abused. Just no. There's a child in my son's school who I know for a fact, as in truly, IS being both abused and neglected, too frightened to tell his story. I'm a BIG tattle-tale, I've only just been made aware of the poor child while you just know there are folks who encounter im daily. Long story short, found a family member who has waded into the fray, he'll be out of there if he's not already. It's a little hard to imagine adults were not aware, that's all. Anyway, truly think it's much, much better for your healing to at least put the responsibility at the correct doorstep, avoiding your own, too. Gosh, it's asking an awful lot of yourself to have first suffered so horribly and then have it been somehow your fault? If someone said that to you, about their situation of childhood abuse, I'll bet you'd be the first to disabuse them of the idea that this dreck is ever the fault of the victim.

In answer to your initial post, gosh, NO you're not wrong to be angry with them. Go easy on yourself. :) Also, there's a thread around here on awful therapists which surfaces once in awhile. I forget what it's called 'Therapists I could do without' or something. Some of us have gone through gee, 3 or 4 or 5, just using basic instincts that these people were unhelpful or just plain wrong or even wrecking further havoc. Scary. Some of the thread is of course pretty funny, worth the read all the way around. I think the common theme, when you're looking around for a T, is watching to see if they have an agenda of some kind and you get to be the guinea pig. I had one who didn't even bother with a psychologically based agenda. He kept bugging me to MOVE, move, move, 30 miles away ( I did not ) then a month later tried to sell me a house. It transpired he'd just gotten his real estate lisense. Made me want to go get my funeral director's lisence.

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

I think so many of us are so, so, so used to being invalidated across the board that even in asking others to listen to something horrendous, in the correct format, we go ahead and apologise. I mean, who would want to listen to us, anyway?

I'm very used to that, I still feel that way now about a lot and then if I do talk I feel guilty now. It's why I want a therapist, I'm not put off by my previous experiences I just think that they made a mistake by overlooking. Especially as in many situations not only do I feel guilty but that I would not be believed (not anymore) like in this situation I'm sitting in a room with 2 T's, my mum and an incredibly manipulative, screaming man saying how crazy I was and how obvious it was that no one would ever believe a thing I said because I was so obviously f****d up and the therapists nodding along obliviously would I have ever divulged what I already believed no one would believe - that he had sexually abused me.

Made me want to go get my funeral director's lisence.

This made me laugh :) (but :O outrageous!)

Thanks
AJ
xx

 

[WillyKat]

I've spent a lot of time being angry with people. I can tell you that it's a wonderful feeling (the few I have) to let it all go.

About 12 years ago, I was very hurt by someone that I was close to. I just could not get over the anger for the better part of 10 years. Every single day I would obsess about it, feel hurt, and feel anger. There were times during the 10 years when the anger would decrease and I would feel sympathy for her. She has some serious issues and has been in therapy herself. But the anger would always come and go.

Finally about two years ago I sent her an email. I apologized for my part in it (which I perceived as a big misunderstanding), but I also said I felt that she owed me an apology. I gave her a few reasons why but left it up to her whether and when. I also praised her for the wonderful friendship we had and how much healing I had while we were friends.

There's a line in Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" about a retired cop that was put in a wheelchair by a badass criminal. He was asked what he would do if the criminal was ever released from prison. His reply was 'probably nothing'. Why? His reply was that he was crippled for life but planning revenge was 'just more going out the door.'

It's draining on your soul and taxing to your physical and mental health to keep the anger alive. All that said, you can't rush getting over it. It happens when it happens. I'm not over the anger I have toward my abuser, and I never expect to be.

 

[71nothing]

Am I wrong in being angry at them? I feel that they really made a massive mistake in overlooking my now officially diagnosed PTSD, is that unfair? I feel that it probably is but I can't help thinking that it probably isn't.

My PTSD was overlooked as well when I was younger. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia and they wondered why I was so "treatment resistant." I wasn't treatment resistant, I just didn't need the antipsychotics I was being prescribed and needed a different type of treatment.

I too have moments of frustration with that entire time period in my life. About 5 years of my life were wasted on treatments that were never going to be effective. I find myself wondering where I would be now if only I had been properly diagnosed and treated back then. Now, twenty years later, I finally have an answer that makes sense and a treatment that seems to be working.

I put the blame on myself for not sharing my traumatic past with the professionals at the time but in reality I didn't view the trauma as a trauma at that point in my life. Instead the few details I remembered of those years I dismissed as being my fault. There was a part of me that thought "Oh! So I'm schizophrenic. No wonder I let those things happen to me." Professionals involved looked at my family history, saw an aunt with schizophrenia and what appeared to be a picture perfect immediate family and that was the diagnosis I was given.

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

There was a part of me that thought "Oh! So I'm schizophrenic. No wonder I let those things happen to me."

I believed my diagnosis for years, that I would never be normal or like other people, that's how I felt and still feel. I wasn't even like other people with Aspergers. Obviously the only reason I was abused was because of that. When I read about PTSD the first time it was because I realised that all the things I'd been through were trauma (took me nearly 10 years to work that one out) and that all my problems really stemmed from that and well Post, Trauma, Stress, Disorder all were words that made sense. But I kept thinking that was for soldiers. I refused to allow myself to believe it until one time, I was still convinced what I'd been through though traumatic wasn't, because it was my trauma and somehow that didn't count (I still can't work that out). When I accepted, everything slowly started falling into place and I sought a professional opinion to clarify it, I was diagnosed with PTSD last Monday, the psychiatrist even said that it was an quite an oversight (though I have believed this for some time before) I was misdiagnosed, though without the knowledge of the flashbacks not entirely surprising.

I think the biggest thing that makes people think I still have Aspergers is I'm scared of eyes. Maybe I should make that into a new topic though!

Thanks again
AJ
xx