I now give up

I lived in a developing country for three years. Hospital beds were shared 2 people to a bed. No sheets, pillows or mattresses were use. IV bottles and needles were used over and over again on different patients with no sterilization. There are no doctors except in the large capital city and province cities. The only Dr.s up country are missionaries. If you need heart surgery and you don't live in a city, you will die. There are NO PSYCHIATRISTS and therapists are very few, cash only, and in cities. The mentally ill are hidden away by families and badly mistreated. I mean food, water, access to bathroom facilities is often withheld. There is no mental health hospital to be treated at.

I could go on. The US IS NOT "the worst country in the world for health care". The system needs tweaking but if you need heart surgery you'll have the best surgeons. If you need a therapist there are thousands to pick from. If you need a drug, it's available and if you can't afford it pharmaceutical companies have patient assistant programs. If you need a psychiatrist, thank your lucky stars you still get to pick. Most countries either have few to none or they are rationed. You have so much more control over your healthcare than any country on earth. No one is going to pull care from you in the US because you are too sick and too expensive. The UK won't treat you and the Netherlands just kills you.

Are there areas for improvement, of course. There needs to be affordable insurance for people who don't get it from their employer, can't afford a private plan, or don't qualify for medicare or Medicaid. That's estimated at 20 million people in a country of 320 million. People around the world COME HERE for their care. Why do you suppose that is? Because US medicine performs miracles everyday. That doesn't happen in countries where care is rationed...and most western countries ration. That's why the world comes here.

I am a survivor of breast cancer as well as someone with a very complicated mental illness. I'd be left for dead in most countries. I am profoundly grateful I was born in the US and not the Netherlands.

On the bright side, perhaps you have avoided becoming a long-term dependent of the mental health system. Some people wind up like inmates, chained to the system for life, suffering various degradations and subtle abuses.

For me, repeated therapy failures and the decision to stop motivated me to take full responsibility for my health and cut the umbilical cord to therapists, doctors, and other practitioners as much as possible..

. . .

I had high hopes for therapy for many years, tried many different therapists, paid out of pocket the last time -- still didn't work.

It just doesn't for some folks -- they don't have what we need. I try to explain -- they don't understand, or don't offer it, or the kind of help I felt I needed doesn't exist and there is no one to try to do something new.

Those are the facts as I have come to understand them, after more than 55 years in therapy, on and off.

So -- what do I do then? I keep on existing, until I don't anymore, at some point. Maybe some purpose will appear or become evident, I don't know. I've certainly tried different goals, and trying different work situations -- and those didn't work out either.

The last therapist, about 10 years ago, did diagnose me with a personality disorder, PDNOS (Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) and I do think having something like that does help explain why I had a lot of difficulties in life and a lot of things I thought SHOULD work out, didn't. But that doesn't help much, either, because there isn't any reliably effective therapy for personality disorders. There just isn't. And the profession doesn't talk about that part. And so -- I am just stuck, like someone with an untreatable disease. But a disease which also apparently makes me difficult for other people to get along with, just as I find them difficult to get along with, too, sometimes.

Don't know if it helps much to hear about my long, ultimately disappointing experience, too. I think somehow we may have to find a way to help ourselves, and/or help each other, but I don't know what that way is.

Thanks, I appreciate you engaging in my story. I´m sorry you´ve struggled for so long and still don´t feel you have been helped in a proper way. I think it´s like "one in a million" chance to find a proper T, even if some people find one on the first or third try.


With years of medical records and meeting with doctors and therapists and still no or little process, I now speak in general terms, there must be a significant flaw within the health system.


The diagnoses themselves don´t help much, it seems they don´t help the proffessionals much either. In my case they have speculated back and forth and even if they have done several assessments, they don´t find a proper treatment. But in Sweden, that´s much due to the health system itself as a lot of people share stories about leaving psychiatric care after several years as they just got worse. They leave by their own will as they see the care itself is too harmful.

Thank you all for opening up my eyes. I have a little to offer. I live in the US and have had care in two states. It's been 16-17 years of seeking treatment. About a year ago I started graduate school to begin a Mental Health Counseling degree. In September, I was given the assignment to better myself, for future clients and myself. I started talking to a professor about my difficulties then had to be hospitalized. I took the term off to deal with my own mental health. I have depression, anxiety and an addiction to Pornography. I just started the assignments and found many answers about myself. I also found areas to set goals in. I have to take action.


I was blessed to find a therapist that actually can help, but it took 16 years or so. Sometimes we are not ready to change, sometimes we need to find the right fit, and sometimes we need to trust. I have a long way to go to become a counselor and to recover from all of my difficulties.


What I found is I can't just let things be, I have to act. Action makes the change.


Hope this helps. I just hope I can create change in the mental healthcare system in my state, and then hopefully other areas of the world will hear.


I'm sorry everyone has had such a hard time finding help. I wish you all the best and hope that we as a world find a solution to our healthcare.

Thank you all for opening up my eyes. I have a little to offer. I live in the US and have had care in two states. It's been 16-17 years of seeking treatment. About a year ago I started graduate school to begin a Mental Health Counseling degree. In September, I was given the assignment to better myself, for future clients and myself. I started talking to a professor about my difficulties then had to be hospitalized. I took the term off to deal with my own mental health. I have depression, anxiety and an addiction to Pornography. I just started the assignments and found many answers about myself. I also found areas to set goals in. I have to take action.

I was blessed to find a therapist that actually can help, but it took 16 years or so. Sometimes we are not ready to change, sometimes we need to find the right fit, and sometimes we need to trust. I have a long way to go to become a counselor and to recover from all of my difficulties.

What I found is I can't just let things be, I have to act. Action makes the change.

Hope this helps. I just hope I can create change in the mental healthcare system in my state, and then hopefully other areas of the world will hear.

I'm sorry everyone has had such a hard time finding help. I wish you all the best and hope that we as a world find a solution to our healthcare.

Nobody makes it in the mental health field without long hours in both studies and on the couch ,my entire family and friends are all therapists ,psychologist or psychiatrist not one escaped school without dealing with there own demons , many didn't think they had any until they got into therapy ,"sometimes the best therapists were the worst patients" , is a very true statement , the ones that have been "naked,exposed & vulnerable" ( not physically, emotionally) are the ones that can truly talk people off the edge because they have been there with there own therapy .i also know tons of degreed people who took semesters off to take care of themselves ,so dont fear it ,embrace it as all part of the plan,nobody told you about .

Sarah, I can relate to some extent. I was under psychiatric services for 8 years, made no progress, if anything got worse. Saw so many therapist I lost count. Not one helped me even slightly. I thought the problem was me. Luckily, sought out a therapist privately and they were less conventional, more patient, let me barely saw a word for a year without getting frustrated and essentially, didn’t give up, more importantly, trusted and believed in me. We’re making progress now. But, under my old treatment, I was considered chronically unwell, a hopeless case, when people saw me all they saw first was notes full of terminated therapies, numerous hospitalizations, treatment suspended due to risk etc. For me, like you said, it took a long time to find that one person willing to help and to an extend, let myself be helped. That was hard after so much disappointment and what I saw as previous failure. I hope you’re able to find something that will help - try charities, talk frankly with your psychiatrist, explain how hopeless it feels. Listen to yourself - really try to figure out what you want. It may well not be therapy, but an alternative support. Before I found a therapist, I had a support worker who helped me a lot but then funding changed and I had to stop seeing her. But that was useful too. Just to help me function and vent and work on practical ways to improve my life.

Sarah, I'm curious. Did anyone ever give you an actual diagnosis? (After you answer this question, I have another question.)

Kram,
Cool

Sarah, I don't live in Sweden but I'm moving to Norway and I believe you about the system. I want to really validate your feelings about all this.

A Norwegian trauma therapist who is a follower of my blog talked with me about the poor public mental healthcare services, and my own research with others (immigrant or native) backs her words and yours up about Norway and Sweden.

My country is frequently lauded as one of the best healthcare systems in the world, much like how the Nordic countries are praised, but we don't get GOOD mental healthcare unless we pay privately and private psych care is extremely expensive. 1 therapy session is over 10% of my paycheck (could be much higher!), and I'm on the low end of cost for trauma therapy.

I can't even GET insurance to cover me for a bunch of PHYSICAL health stuff because of my mental illnesses.

I trust the LIVED EXPERIENCE of Sarah in her own country.

Also I know universal healthcare is great, but I also know what it's like to be treated the bare minimum just to make you functioning enough to work, seeing people go from meh therapist to meh therapist where they just want to make you functioning enough to work even though you're suffering. I've been high functioning, my country doesn't have unemployment benefits etc and high functioning people are told they aren't struggling enough, while people with multiple failed therapies are written off as hopeless yeah.

I don't know what can help, really. You can be grateful to have what you do (eg unemployment benefits) and also frustrated about not being able to access the care which may help (a good therapist who understands you, that you can afford).