Tom S. in Tn.
Bronze Member
I must have been so elated seeing everyone's similarity to me while reading all the posts elsewhere, I must have overlooked this forum to make an introduction. Sorry, I will tell a little about me here, but please read my frustrations with the health care system in general, and the abuse I have endured from the mental health system in particular at the Chat forum.
I am a 52 y/o male and live in middle Tennessee. I was molested as a child and some of my first recollections are of what is described as sexual molestation by a female. I have never been able to function in public and experience anxiety frequently. I could not cope well in school and wanted to drop out of high school in 1973. I was sent to a county operated mental health center and was given to an ex-hippie social worker who used a text called 'The Joy Of Sex' and suggested I needed surrogacy to overcome fear around females after I refused all her advances. I was taken by my illegitimate father, who was also a social worker, and publicly raped by a prostitute at a downtown massage parlor at the age of 17. I attempted suicide.
I did receive my BS 10 years later in 1983 and obtained my license as a Registered Nurse in 1990, and practiced until I was hospitalized with lower spine problems in 1997 and again in 1998. (more than likely manifested through earlier trauma)
I was sent to see a social worker after being committed to the psychiatric ward during my second spine surgery, and I never gave any reference to past issues, and dealt strictly with whatever the issue of the present day happened to be. After a year of weekly counseling, she one day declared I was a victim of sexual molestation when I was young, and sent me to the rape crisis/sexual assault center serving our region.
I'll stop the story there, because my life has become a spiraling odyssey of approximately a dozen or more abusive mental health providers doing everything from jumping up mid session without provocation or warning, and begin shouting for me to leave, to another PhD have a female client actually roll a magazine and begin shouting in my ear. In the first case there could be no recourse because the facility was the publicly funded rape and sexual assault center and the individual counselor did not posses a license of any sort, but in the second, I had the privilege of lodging a complaint with the board of registry, even though her mentor sat on the disciplinary board and my complaint was never heard.
I have seen approximately 30 or more mental health providers through out the years since my first encounter, at all levels of training an expertise, from unlicensed burnt out hippies to psychiatric MD's. I have never been arrested or ever had problem with drugs or alcohol.
I made the decision to stay at home 11 years ago as a result of private and individual counseling. Society simply is not worth it.
After reading through similar overwhelming trials and tribulations elsewhere on the site, I have become overjoyed with relief by just knowing I am not the only person considered by the outside world as being terminal with PTSD.
I look forward so much for the opportunity to exchange more with each of you and would enjoy the chance to know everyone better. I wish desperately I could find a therapy group with you folks in it.
Thank you for being here; Tom S. in Tn.
I am a 52 y/o male and live in middle Tennessee. I was molested as a child and some of my first recollections are of what is described as sexual molestation by a female. I have never been able to function in public and experience anxiety frequently. I could not cope well in school and wanted to drop out of high school in 1973. I was sent to a county operated mental health center and was given to an ex-hippie social worker who used a text called 'The Joy Of Sex' and suggested I needed surrogacy to overcome fear around females after I refused all her advances. I was taken by my illegitimate father, who was also a social worker, and publicly raped by a prostitute at a downtown massage parlor at the age of 17. I attempted suicide.
I did receive my BS 10 years later in 1983 and obtained my license as a Registered Nurse in 1990, and practiced until I was hospitalized with lower spine problems in 1997 and again in 1998. (more than likely manifested through earlier trauma)
I was sent to see a social worker after being committed to the psychiatric ward during my second spine surgery, and I never gave any reference to past issues, and dealt strictly with whatever the issue of the present day happened to be. After a year of weekly counseling, she one day declared I was a victim of sexual molestation when I was young, and sent me to the rape crisis/sexual assault center serving our region.
I'll stop the story there, because my life has become a spiraling odyssey of approximately a dozen or more abusive mental health providers doing everything from jumping up mid session without provocation or warning, and begin shouting for me to leave, to another PhD have a female client actually roll a magazine and begin shouting in my ear. In the first case there could be no recourse because the facility was the publicly funded rape and sexual assault center and the individual counselor did not posses a license of any sort, but in the second, I had the privilege of lodging a complaint with the board of registry, even though her mentor sat on the disciplinary board and my complaint was never heard.
I have seen approximately 30 or more mental health providers through out the years since my first encounter, at all levels of training an expertise, from unlicensed burnt out hippies to psychiatric MD's. I have never been arrested or ever had problem with drugs or alcohol.
I made the decision to stay at home 11 years ago as a result of private and individual counseling. Society simply is not worth it.
After reading through similar overwhelming trials and tribulations elsewhere on the site, I have become overjoyed with relief by just knowing I am not the only person considered by the outside world as being terminal with PTSD.
I look forward so much for the opportunity to exchange more with each of you and would enjoy the chance to know everyone better. I wish desperately I could find a therapy group with you folks in it.
Thank you for being here; Tom S. in Tn.
