Mental Health Rant

I want to write about mental health, but now may not be the right time. After a seven-day stay in the hospital that most assuredly requires many angry letters to administrators of all sorts, I'm not feeling confident in the ability of this system to help me, though I may feel more confident in my own abilities. That tends to fluctuate, however. I hesitate to say more about this experience because I'm working on developing a letter that outlines how poor the state of UPMC's mental health care truly is, beginning with a scene I witnessed while waiting in the Emergency Department, in which a male doctor used admission as a threat--rather than a treatment option--for a female patient that did not want to submit to the strip search. (As soon as this doctor left, the patient cooperated completely.)

I will just say this. Treatment should not be a punishment. If you are using the treatment you provide in order to coerce someone into a certain behavior, what does that say about the treatment itself? Furthermore, using a patient's past history of mental health issues against them in order to justify an involuntary admission goes beyond just "unethical". Just because someone is angry and not cooperating with you does not mean that they are mentally unstable, and if you have not learned to adjust your approach to each patient, you should not be working in this field. Maybe I should have known even then. I have a number of other examples and thoughts, but I have a stressful few days ahead of me, and I may have to place these issues on the back burner until I can draft something more appropriate.

I think the most concerning aspect is that I consider myself to be relatively well equipped to handle my own issues (though this hasn't always been the case), but what happens to all those who are in need of intensive treatment and cannot advocate for themselves? My level of anger surrounding this issue has only increased over the past few years of receiving not just substandard but downright deplorable care. And being silent is no longer an option because, if this is what they call treatment, they should no longer be allowed to treat a single fucking patient. And I am going to make sure the right people know this, along with exactly what transpired over this last week.

My mind does keep turning over these thoughts, as the whole experience has been deeply unsettling, given that I'm not feeling much better than when I first arrived there. (To be clear, I'm not suicidal.) In some ways, I may feel worse. I'm trying to be more optimistic about the outpatient treatment, though that's proving difficult. I wish I could feel like I am not doing this all on my own. I wish I could work with someone who understands that not all aspects of DBT are helpful for someone like me--and that there's research to support that. IPSRT has been more helpful than anything, and I know this. My own research into helping myself has largely focused on that. I suppose it's not surprising that sticking to a set schedule and controlling your environment helps. I wanted to write something angry here about the conflicting diagnoses being tossed around by those working with me, if you want to call it that, and how the treatment can differ a great deal depending on which is accurate. But that should probably wait as well.

Aside from these negative experiences, it's difficult being back home--as it always tends to be--because I'm not sure what to do now or how to pick up where I left off. I'm supposed to have some kind of plan, but other than writing the answers they want to hear on a paper alone in my room, not much planning has taken place. That's the part that makes me feel defeated. How do I make sure this doesn't happen again? Gee, I'm so surprised that starting at a wall and coloring for 8 hours a day hasn't helped me figure this out.

But I have someone who is not only willing to support me in sticking to a routine, but who is actually willing to do IPSRT things with me. And that may be exactly what I need. The next few days will be rough, but I've decided to take the time for myself to ease back into the most difficult aspects of my life. I'm scared. I'm actually terrified of a lot of things, as most of you know. But this can't keep happening. I've been stuck in the same place for two years, for a variety of reasons, and I can't take it anymore. Something needs to change. And I need to be better about realizing when something isn't working.

Here's to trying again. And again.