When treatment itself is the trigger?

[Sunset]

Is there anyone else here who has dealt with treatment itself being the trigger? Not triggers coming up in treatment, but the very act of treatment itself, even without trying to address anything, being triggering.

I dealt with abuse within the psychiatric system. To this day, dealing with any sort of mental health professional is a massive trigger. We don't have to do anything. I could walk into a psychiatrist's office, and all we do is re-issue the same meds I've been taking, and I'm still massively triggered. Same thing with therapy, we could spend the entire session talking about nothing but the weather and I'd still walking out crying and wanting to hurt myself.

I'm not doing well on my own, I know that. But it seems like I'm not able to get any benefit from therapy of any sort because it's such a massive trigger that I can't get anything out. I'm absolutely terrified that things will go badly again that I can't actually talk to a therapist and be honest with them because I'm afraid I'll be harassed and threatened for no reason again, and I don't feel like I have any protection against that. It doesn't help to say not all therapists are like that, because what matters to me is that I don't have anything I could do if one did end up like that. I'm afraid of being labelled suicidal again just because someone doesn't like that I try to make choices, or being called dangerous because I dress a little differently, or being ignored when I say the medications make me miserable.

I do want help, but (1) I want it in a way that doesn't make me feel like I'm vulnerable to someone else's biased judgement on what constitutes danger to self/others, and (2) I want it in a way that is willing to actually work with me and not just demand cooperation because there's a degree on the wall. And so far those two things seem to be impossible conditions.

 

[Lucycat]

I would suggest that you need to address why it is a trigger. Then process the memory associated with that 'why it is a' trigger then go back and look at the next thing in the line. Just because the psychiatric 'system' is a trigger does not mean you cannot get past that if you want to.

 

[ghotiff]

Might be a silly suggestion but maybe an alternative healer (eg sharman) could help you get over this hurdle to therapy.

As the medical profession does not believe in them they would have no power in the way that triggers you.

 

[LizC]

I reccomend a book called 'overcoming low self esteem' by melanie fennell. It allows you to do cognative therapy at home in your own time. It's very good. I had a similar problem and my psychologist suggested that having ptsd it might not be appropriate to force myself to talk about things to a stranger but to do it in my own time when i feel ready. I hope This helps .

 

[Sunset]

I would suggest that you need to address why it is a trigger. Then process the memory associated with that 'why it is a' trigger then go back and look at the next thing in the line. Just because the psychiatric 'system' is a trigger does not mean you cannot get past that if you want to.

That's sort of my issue. I know exactly why it's a trigger. But I don't know how to process it. I don't know how to get past...I'm being told all the time that the sort of things that happened to me aren't supposed to happen. And that I shouldn't worry because they aren't supposed to happen. But they did happen, and I didn't have any way to stop them from happening. And I can't come up with any way how I would stop them from happening if they were to happen again, and I am having trouble reconciling what I've been told about the safety and efficacy of the mental health system with what I've seen happen. Especially because when the problems did happen I was told the system was "for my own good" and that all my reports of problems were signs of more things wrong with me rather than that the doctor was a bully.

 

[BlueOrange]

I felt very unsafe in therapy, and had a lot of difficulty with it. Less so now that I have someone I trust and a lot more confidence.

I would suggest that if/when you see a therapist, you put "I don't feel safe in therapy" at the top of the agenda, and explicitly ask "How do I defend myself if [thing that you're afraid of] happens?"

With the guy that I trust, we spent about a year where a significant part of each session was spent discussing how therapy works, and what we would do to make sure that it had a positive impact. I found it extremely difficult to assert myself in that relationship, but very rewarding.

I remember being bullied by my anger management counsellor (there's an irony). At my lowest point, I was seeing three people in parallel, which helped me feel less exposed to the individuals in question. Especially useful because one of them was very toxic.

 

[Sunset]

I felt very unsafe in therapy, and had a lot of difficulty with it. Less so now that I have someone I trust and a lot more confidence.

I would suggest that if/when you see a therapist, you put "I don't feel safe in therapy" at the top of the agenda, and explicitly ask "How do I defend myself if [thing that you're afraid of] happens?"

With the guy that I trust, we spent about a year where a significant part of each session was spent discussing how therapy works, and what we would do to make sure that it had a positive impact. I found it extremely difficult to assert myself in that relationship, but very rewarding.

I guess I've found that "How do I defend myself?" is seen as more evidence that I'm in need of the very sort of intrusive care that I want to avoid. Because most people see that a mental health professional felt the need to interfere and threaten me with being locked up, and think that there must have been some reason that he needed to do that, and that my asking how to avoid it is further proof that I'm still in the situation where that sort of stuff is needed. So, like, asking "what specifically are your standards for being a danger to self, because I don't want to be in another situation where I'm labelled that for stupid reasons" is in itself evidence that you're suicidal, because someone who wasn't and hadn't been suicidal wouldn't need to worry about being labelled suicidal.

 

[BlueOrange]

That does sound difficult to deal with. Perhaps telling a reasonably complete story about the previous event might help, with the right therapist. I agree that asking "Where do you draw the line?" Isn't going to help.

Perhaps something along the lines of "I feel frightened that therapists (including you) will take away my power to make decisions about myself. There was a therapist in my past that decided I was at risk of harming myself, but I disagreed then, and I disagree now. It seemed to me that I was being bullied, not protected."

If you keep the conversation focussed on the past and on your worry about mistreatment, then even if they agree with the previous therapist, all they can say is that you were a risk in the past.

It's not foolproof, but I reckon it would help.

 

[Lucycat]

@Sunset. I am reading from you ( forgive mr if I am getting this wrong) that the mental health system is fixed and rigid and that caused your problem.

How about asking, rather than what if X happens what should I do? Turning it around and asking 'what can I do to avoid Y from happening?

If you can think about any changes that are within your control, however tiny, it puts you back in the driving seat. I do not know, and do not need to know the details of the problem, but it strikes me as one suitable for a one-off EMDR session to process it and then move forwards with the rest of your therapy. If you can look at this problem from all sides with an empathetic and understanding therapist it will help. You need to be able to get there without blame being directed at anybody, either the system or yourself, but more along the lines of what everybody has to do to stay within the given boundaries.

 

[Sunset]

@Sunset. I am reading from you ( forgive mr if I am getting this wrong) that the mental health system is fixed and rigid and that caused your problem.

How about asking, rather than what if X happens what should I do? Turning it around and asking 'what can I do to avoid Y from happening?.

I don't know. I mean, if X happens, I won't really have any option on the table that I would find acceptable. I don't find going along with treatment that I don't think is needed to be an ok option, no matter what. But the situation I'm afraid of is being forced into exactly that. What I experienced was go along, or you'll be forced to go along. That's, in my mind, about as damaging as "have sex with me or I'll rape you." But of course the psych system can say it's for my own good, so I guess that makes violations ok, right?

And honestly, I'm tired of this whole "no blame" thing. There was an individual who committed abuses. There was a system that gave him the power to do that. There was that same system that generally acted to protect him rather than believe me. That's worth blaming, that the system basically allowed and excused one individual's sick power trips because he could write a bunch of symptoms on a chart, twist facts around until they supported it, and then use that to say he was acting in someone else's best interest. And by and large I haven't found a single professional who's willing to accept that at face value rather than pulling out victim-blaming "are you sure" crap that would be recognized as totally unacceptable in any situation except a mental health professional.

 

[Sunset]

I've just been through so much...I'm at the point where I'm feeling like for all intents and purposes emotional abuse is totally ok when a mental health professional does it. Because that's essentially what happened, but there's almost nowhere I can talk about it safely without being bombarded with "but he was just trying to help" and "are you sure you didn't do something to make him think you needed that" and whatnot. Because the threat of being locked up when you don't need it doesn't get less hurtful and damaging because it's in a place that's supposed to help you, but I feel like people don't see that. When you're just a girl who's trying to be on her own for the first time in her life, and that's somehow threatening and bad because suddenly you don't look and act like good little girls look, because you put on fishnets and skulls instead of jeans and roses, because you finally took steps to avoid people who were toxic, because you spoke up and said things are wrong instead of keeping your head down and taking the blame.

And I don't feel like, for everyone I've seen, that's ever been properly acknowledged, or even that the real possibility of it happening - of power being abused to silence dissent rather than to treat - is acknowledged.

 

[digger]

Presumably, there was something before this that meant you were seeking treatment in the first place. But this seems to have become the issue that you need to deal with, the thing you are now wanting help for? The need for acknowledgement of this sounds like it's taking precedence over the need to get help.

What did you think of @ghotiff 's suggestion of seeing someone outside of the system, even if only as a starting point for learning to trust that there are people who can and want to help you?

I don't know how the system works where you are. I'm in the UK and felt pretty badly let down and damaged by the National Health Service (what I would deem to be the system here), and I understand how difficult that makes it to trust. I would still be extremely hesitant of it now, even though I know a lot of other people who have positive and helpful experiences of it. I chose to go outside the system though instead, because my need for help was stronger than my fear of trying to get it by that point. I have a really good private therapist as a result, although I realise that is not an affordable option for everyone.

Can you identify exactly what it is you need from the system at the moment and what you need from therapy? Can you prioritise those needs?