Private psychiatric assessment results in script for anti-psychotic medication.

[Boatsetsailrose]

The truth
I would suggest getting someone to be on your side and to advocate with you /for you. Here in the UK we have such charities that can support ...
Do u have access to this ?

[thetruth]

The truth
I would suggest getting someone to be on your side and to advocate with you /for you. Here in the UK we have such charities that can support ...
Do u have access to this ?

Hi Rose,

I am in the UK. I am trying to visualise how this would work. Might this involve another impartial person identifying the health care professional avoiding the issue and squandering the time talking about unrelated stuff? I think I this could be very useful.  Someone else listening to make it more difficult for them to shirk their responsibility and to deter them from overtly selecting what they focus on. Just what I need!

Next time I speak to a psychiatrist I will be less stressed, less exhausted and less easily manipulated.

[thetruth]

For what its worth I would be wary about trying to 'fight' with the NHS or psychiatrists.

Its unequal, we are vulnerable and they are not.

I see it as likely to turn out like my employment situation, an unequal struggle that caused trauma.

It might be better to keep trying different gps/psychs/whatever until you get a result like eyessoblue describes.

Most organisations and many alleged professionals are basically very poor, but there are good people around, if you can find them.

Hi Rainagain,

Thanks as ever for your considered, experienced insight. I dont really plan to fight with the psychiatrist. I still havent looked at his report which I recently got by email. I know it will be triggering and right now I am doing ok.

If it is as far removed from the actual truth of my situation as I remember it, as it was verbally summarised to me at the end of the assessment, I will be pointing out in direct terms, just how poorly the assessment was carried out and how pointless the conclusions are as a result.

What gives these people the right to frame events in the least inconvenient way to themselves? Their position does. Its not good enough.

As I said, Im doing ok and with Christmas around the corner, I dont want to rock the boat by reading his report right now.

[Boatsetsailrose]

Hi truth
I've decided  any assessments i go to ill try to arrange an advocate to go with me. Doing these things alone with a mental health disorder is no easy ground.

Here is a link
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/advocacy/finding-an-advocate/#.XBtcd5mnzN4

[thetruth]

Hi truth
I've decided  any assessments i go to ill try to arrange an advocate to go with me. Doing these things alone with a mental health disorder is no easy ground.

Here is a link
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/advocacy/finding-an-advocate/#.XBtcd5mnzN4

Hi Rose,

Thank you very much for this.

Dont you feel more that you are mentally injured rather than disordered? After having been exposed to so much new info. and terminology in recent years re trauma and Cptsd, I firmly believe there is quite a difference to be affirmed on this point. If you get a finger chopped off they dont say you have a hand disorder, its an injury. Know what I mean?  We have been injured. I think the language around these things is currently evolving to better reflect basic honesty.

Thank you and have a calm and pleasant day.

[Rainagain]

Wouldn't that be a digit deficiency?

Or partially dexterous maybe.

[Boatsetsailrose]

Hi truth
I  often use the term psychological injury or damage ...
When it comes to the mental health system i use disorder

[thetruth]

Wouldn't that be a digit deficiency?

Or partially dexterous maybe.

A manual malfunction perhaps? Digital deficiency is perfect though. Nice one!

[thetruth]

Hi truth
I  often use the term psychological injury or damage ...
When it comes to the mental health system i use disorder

Hi Rose,

I hear ya. Forgive me for educating you!

[thetruth]

Hi truth
I've decided  any assessments i go to ill try to arrange an advocate to go with me. Doing these things alone with a mental health disorder is no easy ground.

Here is a link
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/advocacy/finding-an-advocate/#.XBtcd5mnzN4

Hi Rose,

And thanks a lot for bringing the possibility of having an advocate accompany me to assessments.

I though that by paying for a private assessment, I could expect an impartial listening ear, someone who would be more sympathetic to the prolonged, unresolvable nature of what I was left to manage after being poorly treated.

Im afraid that was pure naivety on my part. The psychiatrist seeing me privately at my expense is also an NHS employee and he cannot separate his allegiances. He was not open to hearing how I had been failed by another NHS doctor, nor how that had contributed to my situation. So he had to do exactly what the original GP did. Avoid the truth and manipulate the history as required to avoid addressing the real cause and effect.

If I go through the assessment process again I will have an advocate. Thank you.

[thetruth]

Hi All,

I have finally read the 'Overall Impression' penned by a private psychiatrist following a private assessment which I had organised through my GP. The document is dated 7th July 18.

I received it a week ago but I didnt look at it for fear of being triggered.

This small collection of words simply does not remotely reflect the scale of what I went through and what I am still going through, every single moment.

What this small collection of words does reflect is the psychiatrists refusal to adequately explore the true and actual nature of what I am living with.

I would like to share the entire document here. It is nothing short of an insult and I had to pay £250 for this insulting 'service'.

Without saying too much more about it now, I hope looking at this doesnt trigger me because I am already struggling.

[sj]

hi thetruth

I'm so sorry to read what you've experienced - it sounds truly horrible and traumatic 

I've read the first few posts, and skimmed the rest, so I do want to prelude my response with a recognition that I may be repeating things coz I missed it in the quick read. Apologies if that's the case.

I've had experiences with psychologists and medical people over the years that have been truly horrid, and everything you've describes feels very viscerally familiar to me. There were two terms consistantly running through my head as I was reading your account, and they were 'Gaslighting' and 'Systemic Violence'. Then I saw the following comment from you, and that, to my mind, is the perfect description of what Gaslighting is...

I have just discovered a true description of what happened to me. In a nutshell, it was 'ME V lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies'

I realise you may already be familiar with those terms, but I didn't notice them in any posts, so I thought I would mention them just in case. I found them useful in terms of having words and concepts for naming toxic behaviours and cultures, as well as giving me something to further research and find helpful, relevant info.

It seems the UK has a very limiting system re: GPs. Is it correct that you cannot choose who you see? (unless you move location?). I was on a health related forum about a decade ago and I have vague recollections of the UK members having significant struggles with this when their GPs were dismissive of their illness. As an Australian, I was aghast that some of my fellow forum members seemed unable to choose to see another GP. Maybe I have the wrong end of the stick on that one, tho.

Recently I was alerted to something called the Power Threat Meaning Framework, which I think has been developed by the British Psychological Society. I'll add the following links in case they are something you would like to look into (tho heads-up - they are a bit of a dry read/ listen)
https://www.bps.org.uk/news-and-policy/introducing-power-threat-meaning-framework
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrAT7AZqsTU&t=0s&list=LLk7nu_itVEquCtqN1N-H-Rw&index=57

The premise they are working from is echoed in something Bluesailrose said, and the tagline on ... hmmm, sorry forgotten their name, but another members nic, relating to the matter that with CPTSD what we are living with is injury, not illness. What they say in the PTM Framework commentary is something like, the important thing for clinicians, care providers, (anyone) to ask is not- 'What is wrong with you?', but 'What has happened to you?'. This is not simply trauma informed, but a client-centred therapeutic approach which completely validates the lived experience of people as they express and describe it.

Anyway, I couldn't help but wonder if you could call the BPS to see if they can recommend therapists who are aligned with this way of thinking? Here we have something called The Blue Knot Foundation (which is where I found out about the framework). They run survivor workshops and training for allied health/ therapists, and can provide lists of therapists who have done their training (though that is not the same as an endorsement, so I still would engage with care and caution). But, again, I can't help wondering if BPS offer anything similar, or may at least be able to start pointing you in some more safe and helpful directions...??

All that said, I also agree with what Blusailrose said about securing an advocate to accompany you on any further such appointments, if that's something you can access. I haven't done that yet, tho I am slowly learning how to better navigate the system (I think  ), and a lot of it is by a combination of being more informed and feeling when I come away from an interaction feeling supported and good, compared to when I come away feeling off-kilter, confused, misrepresented, etc. I think I'm slowly developing a better radar for those people who hold to similar values of genuine care, respect and empowerment. Sadly, one cannot assume all of those in the 'health care' professions are aligned to the same ground-up (rather than top-down) values, but at least experiencing the bad helps give us an insight into what we don't need, if that makes sense (which reminds me of the snake-bite comment).

warm wishes and take care 

[Boatsetsailrose]

Sj you make some very significant points and providing links .. There is some info and frameworks from the blue knot foundation on this forum under resources ...
That is so good to remember
'What happened to you rather than 'what's wrong with you ...
And i really like what pete walker says about the whole dsm could be shrunk down significantly re cptsd being a diagnosis

[thetruth]

Sj you make some very significant points and providing links .. There is some info and frameworks from the blue knot foundation on this forum under resources ...
That is so good to remember
'What happened to you rather than 'what's wrong with you ...
And i really like what pete walker says about the whole dsm could be shrunk down significantly re cptsd being a diagnosis

Hi Rose,

I really like that. What happened to you as opposed to What's wrong with you.

You see it's that simple.  It's very, very simple.

Yet I cannot get health care professionals to operate on this level of honesty. The stress and trauma that I suffered due to complex long term harassment at work was reframed by my GP as just more of the same depression that I had had before that job. This meant he didn't have to say my stress was caused illegally at work.  His refusal to protect me from wrongful selection for redundancy compounded the injury and caused massive trauma.

Now it is too inconvenient for a psychiatrist to say my GP caused me harm, when my GP avoided the inconvenience of saying my stress was caused at work by saying my stress was personal instability.

My abusive employer initiated the lie that my stress was personal psychological instability. The GP went along with it for expediency and now the psychiatrist is doing the same thing by saying my injury is more a product of my psychological imperfections than a product of abuse.

Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies. No one can broach the truth because crimes of injustice were committed.

When I attempt to describe the cause and effect of my injury I am asked if I an going to move on, as if I haven't tried that.

[thetruth]

Hi SJ,

What a fantastic post. Thank you for all of that. I'm too low on energy to respond at length right now.

I have a psychiatrists report here which is dreadfully inadequate and it involves misrepresentation, not to mention the remarkable new development of discovering that I am bipolar , if you don't mind!!!

I am not bipolar, but this guy thinks using  such tactics to misrepresent my injury as a named psychological condition, is preferable to acknowledging the validity of crimes carried out against me, crimes which he clearly did not want to discuss.

The things that were done to me are not even hard to describe . I can explain them to anyone. The only impediment to understanding the crimes that were carried out against me, is the disinclination to hear my words. I am finding this very common. Many strategies have been used by my employer, my GP and now by this psychiatrist, to deny the truth that I endured. With each refusal to hear and deal with the truth, the injury is compounded.

I will post the report now and in it you will see that this psychiatrist has reduced 4.5 years of psychological abuse at work, the refusal of my GP to say my stress was caused at work and the wrongful selection for redundancy that was made possible by that betrayal as "Perceived injustice . "

2 words. That in itself is criminal. As I've already said, what his report shows more than anything, is the psychiatrists avoidance of the truth that I tried to bring him. This too, is unjust.

I'm running out of steam. I'm exhausted a lot of the time. My mind will not leave this issue alone. I think I have said all I needed to.

Thank you.