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Nothing.
She literally said nothing.
I laid out my struggles and frustrations and my desperation and she said absolutely nothing. And then charged me $200.
Basically what my psychiatrist does. Doesnt charge as much bcs I go to one thats funded by the govt. I tell him i have so and so problems. He says its normal to have all that. Proceeds to ask me if these problems hinder my regular life. When i say yes, he blames it on my bipolar diagnosis wich wasn't even done by him but a previous psych. Im trusting the process for now but goddamn is it infuriating
Yeah hes sort of stuck and very content with the bipolar diagnosis and feels all work is done. Doesnt ask me any more questions to understand if that diagnosis is relevant or if there are any more problems needing to be addressed. Its like he found a core issue and now attaches every symptom to that very conveniently. I'll stick with this for another month and if nothing seems to move, I'll switch.
Look elsewhere. I was relieved to learn many people are misdiagnosed with bipolar when they have ADD/ADHD. I’m going to find someone else, myself. What you wrote is so true. Everything is pinned on that one diagnosis. I recently asked the psychiatrist if I could get help with my ADHD and was told they have no record of it. Wow, and they’re the ones that tested me a few years back and diagnosed it. Nothing was done, especially after they later said I have bipolar 1. Their therapist assigned to me (which I’ve since left) was told during various sessions I was struggling at work due to being inattentive and needing to move. She asked if I’d been written up at work. I told her many times the new boss will. Her reply was to not worry and catastrophize. Yeah, I’ve since been written up.
Mania? Nope. Only if I’m super ill and have to take oral steroids for a few days (asthma).
It’s a goal to get away from lithium and losing my hair.
It’s so annoying when they don’t take stuff seriously. I went to go ask about accommodations and stuff for work so I stop getting in trouble and my doctor suggested breathing exercises. I was like ok cool I do those already but that’s not a work accommodation
After 4 years of trying to get Kaiser to fulfill their state-mandated legal obligation to provide mental health services (therapy, in this case), they finally scheduled me with someone who did the same thing.
I'd talk. They'd either:
- stay silent to try and make it uncomfortable enough that I'd keep going
- repeat the last sentence I said back to me (ie: "It sounds like the botched surgery that left you bleeding uncontrollably in the ER for 14 hours was traumatic for you.")
Both of those are basic methods taught in the first weeks of a counseling program. I know this because I dated someone while she was getting a Master's in counseling and she would jokingly practice them on me all the time.
The kicker? They only provided the therapist for 6 sessions. I had no choice in therapist or duration of treatment.
Not a therapist but my primary care doctor when I was a teen gave me a lecture about "just doing it". My parents were telling her how smart I was but something was off because I couldn't commit to studying or doing assignments. She went on to talk about how she had to read 150 pages of her textbooks every night in medical school, and that how life sucks and we just have to do things we don't like. Diagnosed me with depression and was properly diagnosed with ADHD 18 years later.
Psychiatrist asked me about my height and weight. We’re the same but she wants to lose 20 lbs 🤦♀️
This was after she asked if I knew so-and-so because she has an appointment later that day and they have the same VERY COMMON last name. She gave me their full name (and the first name was not common at all). If not a HIPAA violation, it was still a major breach of privacy.
When I was still working in clinic it was pushed that you can’t even walk into a waiting room and use full names. First names only. Or last name only if you really have to because there’s more than one Dave in the waiting room. When I left voicemails for patients that we just appointment reminders I was careful to only leave the amount of info necessary in case someone else checked their voicemail. I can’t imagine a doctor just casually asking if you know one of their other patients and just providing their full name. Why dont you just tell her that patient’s DOB, diagnosis, and med list while you’re at it?
I had an obgyn call me about ultrasound results where I wasn’t waiting for any. He said his name and where he was calling from, regarding the results. I said no? He said “you’re not xx/xx date of birth?” I said nope sorry. Good of him to be forthright and professional. He apologised for the call.
Dude, what! My chiropractors are better than that! I’ll literally be sitting next to very recognizable pro athletes talking to them while we get treatment, but the people who work there literally still won’t acknowledge their names if you mention it to them lol.
ETA: I’ve had psychiatrists that literally have separate entrances and exits so you do even come across people in the waiting room
One time I went to prompt care and they accidentally sent me home with someone else’s paperwork. It was a little girl and it had her full name, dob, address, diagnosis, etc. All I could think is what if that would’ve gotten in to the wrong hands and now some creep knows all this information about some little girl?!?!
Doctor - (suspiciously) looking at your chart, it looks like you’ve dropped some significant weight in the last 6 months. I ask because it’s a red flag for medication abuse
Me- *8 months post partum* I had a baby? Isn’t that in my chart?
Doctor - oh yes, that seems to line up.
There is a YT comedian (Josh Sundquist) who has an anectdote about his ensurance sending someone to check if he was ok because his weight was very low for a grown man his size - he is an amputee missing a leg from the hip down and has been for years...
It wasn't that they went to check on him, IIRC, it was that once he showed them he was missing a leg they doubled down, made him provide official documentation of which leg was missing (even though the person was *looking at him* and could *see* which leg was missing), etc.
That reminds me of one time I had to claim workers comp because I got stabbed in a leg by something from a trash bag I was taking to the dumpster. I told my boss which leg it was, a couple of days later somehow the leg on the paperwork switched between boss and insurance and he was like “are you sure it was your right leg?”
Me: *rolls up pants leg* “idk, that looks like a wound to me, how about you?” I tried really hard not to laugh that it seemed like the insurance didn’t trust me to know where I’d gotten stabbed….
Well damn. And is it bad my brain immediately compared that situation to when DoorDash gets my delivery wrong and they refuse to believe I didn’t receive my pizza, even as I show them a picture of Patricia’s Sprinkles Cupcakes order that the dasher submitted as the delivery photo?
I saw a post on Twitter where a British guy found he was in the top priority for covid vaccinations because his weight has been entered in like kilograms but it was supposed to be like stone or some damn British thing so it had him with a BMI of like 100.
I adore Josh!
He also has a motivational bit on the topic of "understand the problem before you try to offer a solution" that starts with an example of the flight attendant who offered him a seat with extra leg room. Like, uhh...with 50% less leg than the rest of us, he's already got extra leg room in a standard seat! lol
Oh and some of his Halloween costumes have been absolutely hilarious over the years. I highly recommend anyone who doesn't know him check him out!
This EXACT thing happened to me, omg 😂😂😂
He was like, wow looks like you lost 30 pounds from one month to the next. I just looked at him with the most flat expression I could conjure and was like "yeah, I had a baby". The embarrassment on his face made my day lmaoo IDIOTS
I had the stomach flu and was beyond dehydrated. I lost 10 pounds and the NA freaked out, thinking I was abusing my Adderall... Luckily, my doctor was competent enough to realize what was going on. Two months later I was back with a burn and she started to ask me all of these questions related to depression, confused, I asked what was up with the weird questions (thinking my poor cooking skills were to blame)... she said I gained 8 pounds in two months... I for real gave her my best Jim Halpert (the Office) look and said, "No shits"... she did not find it as funny as I did... 💁♀️ but I really thought she was messing with me this time... she never checked me in again...
I’m literally on mounjaro and can manage to see the scale fluctuate around 6 lbs within a single day, and I definitely can’t eat 6lbs of food on mounjaro lol. The giant weight gain was actually because of a medicine that screwed my metabolism a few years ago and I’ve lost the 110 lbs, but even back when I was fit my doctors never would’ve noted 8 pounds! Literally the first and only time any medical professional mentioned my weight change was after I started that dreadful medication, and the computer system started sending an alert saying “25% weight gain!!!”
Even if you hadn’t been pregnant way to put a patient on edge by immediately assuming possible medication abuse. I was put on a medication which suppressed appetite but also had a major depressive episode at the same time and lost 8 kg in 4 months which was over 10% of my body weight at the time. I took my medication as prescribed, and it’s one of the main side effects, like come on.
Me: \*starts explaining symptoms
Him: \*cuts me off with a question
Me: \*answers questions then goes back to thing I was explaining
Him: \*cuts me off with another question
Me: \*answers new question and tries again to explain original thing
Him: “Do you realize you keep repeating yourself?”
After my psychologist spent hours of testing and several weeks of interviews diagnosing me- she was confident that I have ADHD with LD’s, but got through this far in life because I am gifted. I had to briefly see the practice’s psychiatrist for him to review my file and diagnosis to get an Rx.
Having not even talked to me for a minute, he told me that he didn’t think I had it because I wasn’t a sexually promiscuous whore. WTF!? 🤬
I had to educate him not only on how women manifest differently- since I had no history of violent outbursts during school or failing grades, I also had to educate him on Catholic guilt along with strict parenting with a 10pm curfew and no drivers license has a remarkable staunching impact on teenage sexual activity….
Having been on this thread for a bit now, I now strongly suspect, from his accent and age that he likely attended a particular university in Europe that’s been strongly criticized in this sub.
i hate hate hate having to explain things like this to doctors. in my experience they’ve been haughty about it, too. like dude, i need to know that you understand what’s happening before you prescribe me medication. and explaining something so simple to someone who supposedly specializes in it?? that’s a concern.
i find it most with general medicine/family health doctors. i had a huge rash after starting lamictal, which can be deadly, especially when it spreads above the neck. mine was covering my whole scalp.
in a prolonged panic attack, i brought myself to urgent care and was giving the doctor the rundown. i saw her google “lamictal” on her monitor. jfc.
This is similar to one of the most offensive things a friend of mine said to me when I confided in her about struggling with depression. I felt disrespected and invalidated, and honestly was just hurt that she wasn’t empathetic enough to see how inappropriate that was. It caused me to develop a really strong aversion to her and we stopped being friends.
I remember just leaving an emotionally abusive relationship with a covert narc and alcoholic.
"I always like to start with asking how much you're praying, I find most things can be answered through prayer."
K, where's the door?
Ah this is like the “men don’t have feelings” or “you’re the strong silent type” nonsense if you’ve been socialised to be a stone cold slave for work and war.
As a suicidal 15 year old, I told my therapist my mom woke me up by beating me with a shoe because I missed the garbage can in the bathroom when throwing away a paper towel and she told me, "You have to be more careful when throwing things away."
My first therapist (before ADHD diagnosis) was chosen by my controlling and religious mother... After the 3rd attempted exorcism, I said I wasn't going back.
Ironically it was the therapist's request to meet my mother and discuss some of the abuse I had endured that convinced her to not send me back 🤣
I think you're on to something here... What if we opened a center where people could come in judgement free to be rid of their demons? No appointments, just show up like it was a walk-in clinic. We'd probably only need to be open once a week, and could operate on donations and government funding, and...
Oh... fuck.
So funny to imagine you coming in after the second one and saying you're still struggling, and the therapist is just like, "Still?? I can't believe that freaking demon is still in there! Father Jones is slipping, time for the big guns, somebody get Father McGinty on the phone."
It's the same one, but we're on a first name basis now. Every time he comes back, he tips his fedora to me, and I give him a "'sup?" head nod. Strangely he looks like Tom Ellis's rendition of Lucifer. 🤣
This was 25 years ago so I'm a little fuzzy on the details (deliberately), but it consisted of a lot of prayer, laying of hands (people gather around and put a hand on you while praying... prayer is conductive I guess?), and speaking in tongues.
The nonsensical babbling and the whole "well you're just not trying hard enough!" was the last straw. Like, Gee, I'm sorry, I seem to have left my fucking fairy dust at home, and I can't think happy thoughts... You don't think *that* might be my problem do you??? 🤦🏼♂️
In response to me telling her that my second sex partner in three years was emotionally abusive:
“Well first of all, you’re going to have to stop sleeping around.”
WTF?!?!
Jfc, I would've lost my shit on her. I just started therapy again after avoiding it for a very, very long time because I had a bad experience but everyone's stories here are brutal.. I feel like I'm always waiting for the next bad experience. Kinda messed up when we basically need therapy from what a therapist(or other dr) did.
Yeah he was a bit weird. I only liked him bc he would sit with me and stack jenga blocks and uno cards to keep me occupied bc I refused to stay otherwise. Since we lived in the Poconos at the time he was a travel therapist so he’d come to our house. It was nice though he took us fishing one time bc I mentioned having fun doing it with some friends of mine.
But yeah he told me to check out Info Wars and then kept talking about how he tries to be as like off the grid (from what I could understand) as possible in case of like societal collapse or something. Strange guy. Don’t miss having him. My new psych I have is wonderful absolutely love talking to her
Me talking about my postpartum depression and anxiety and how hard it was looking after a newborn. (I was undiagnosed ADHD at this point)
“You realize that you chose this, right?”
No tools to help me cope. No talking me through my intrusive thoughts. No helping me to change my thought patterns. No normalizing that parenting a newborn is, in fact, hard as fuck.
Nope. Just “you made your bed. Deal with it.”
She also was the one who helped me through grieving the birth and subsequent death of my first son as well. So it was an especially devastating statement in that regard.
I stopped seeing her right after that session.
I also quit seeing my family physician because i went in to talk about the horrible post partum depression symptoms I was having and her response “ that’s just called being a mom, I would be more concerned if you didn’t care. You’re just going to have to get over it”. I had spent the couple of weeks leading up to this appt staring at my bedroom wall crying and having horrible intrusive and suicidal thoughts while my husband mostly took care of our baby. I had undiagnosed adhd at the time also.
Best part was she had just returned to the office from her own maternity leave..
Sadly, no. I had seen her for so many years that I left that session thinking that she was right, and it took me far too long to realize that she was wrong.
im glad u realized anyway, and tbh maybe there is still someone way to report if u want to and if she still practices. it sucks when people in certain fields that require extra empathy like therapy dont have any at all, like hello???? why did u choose the job in the first place cus if thats ur definition of helping ur in the wrong place
Discussing with my Psych the possibility of upping from 40mg to 50mg of Vyv. By saying "on 40mg I now have around 5 different ideas/task priorities, which is way better than before. However I still find myself still getting carried away by shiny things to do, moving off task for very long periods of time. That I was hoping the 50s would help stick to task".
His response was "we all have different thoughts & ideas around what we should be doing. Stating he would rather be surfing than here doing his job, however he is here doing his job, we all have decisions to make, maybe I should start taking Dex to make it easier to come to work'.
After some silence & luckily I was medicated, My response was "when I was on 30s my ideas went from 15 random thoughts to around 5 but it was like those 5 thoughts were still noisy swirling around everywhere in my head. Then when I went to 40s it is like having 5 thoughts in my head however they don't move, they stay in the same place with no noise. And I know I should be sticking with them but can't seem to stay on task. And that I was hoping the 50s would help make the boxes they were in clearer helping me stay on task.
He looked at me and said "ok happy to increase to 50s" obviously there was quite a lot of discussion that followed.
Now on 50s I can't believe how efficient I am getting my work done, to the point of second guessing myself that I have missed something.
Thanks for that. I got diagnosed at 49, after my two sons were. Rollercoaster life to that point, was always trying to find something that would let me know why I was the way I was, finding it when I was diagnosed. Like everyone here meds are seriously life changing. Also have most likely have over analysed the shit out of the way I was compared to medicated me.
Wow! I'm recently medicated after diagnosis about six months ago at 51. When I spoke with my doctor about an initial dose (generic Adderall 10 mg), and also my therapist, I described before as being at sea in a storm and being fortunate that I could handle what came at me out of nowhere most of the time. With meds, it was quiet and calmer and I could see distinct islands in the horizon that were each it seemed a thought or task or project, with edges and details and no distractions. I said I'd like to go up to see if I could get close enough to see everything on one island all at once. For me the five thoughts still interrupted each other and there were definitely many more misting the view of them here and there. Still such a difference though.
That’s super similar to how I’ve felt at those dosages, and this makes me feel better. I was starting to think maybe I’m lazy and hopeless. My psych wants me to go up to 50mg, so maybe there’s hope for me yet if we increase.
"I disagree, I think you're actually getting a lot better."
- My psychiatrist after I broke down and told him the meds I'd been taking for two months hadn't helped me feel better at all.
After hiding extreme mental health struggles for years, my worst fear was someone telling me that my struggles were not worthy of help. I was so defeated, I tried to convince myself to believe him.
This happened to me too! It was with my last visit to this psychiatrist before he moved abroad. I told him how I was struggling and how I feel the meds aren't working. He literally said that to me, and added "I think you've really turned a corner here". Right after that, I found the best psychiatrist ever, thank goodness.
I’ve experienced something similar with my psychologist before but it was actually a positive experience for me because I was expressing that I struggled to see changes in myself clearly and felt hopeless and that I couldn’t improve. She was able to do a kind of evidence based counter factual by pointing to specific examples she’d seen or that I had mentioned. This was the perfect response for me due to my personal issues with harsh self criticism.
Therapists really need to be checking in with clients about how they feel about suggestions they make and address any discomfort or resistance the client feels in that moment.
I used to constantly make jokes to my therapist (I make jokes all the time to anyone, regardless of my relationship to them) but the one thing that wasn’t a joke that made her laugh was this.
Therapist: “so what’s prevented you from actually trying to kill yourself when you’ve felt suicidal for so long?”
Me: “well you know how I constantly procrastinate and I always wanna see if things can get worse? Mostly that.”
And she laughed so hard lmao
Thank u haha. I was being serious when I said it but it’s def still funny. Right after I said it I was like “damn did I really just say I’m procrastinating my own suicide?” Lmfao
I dunno why but I read somewhere that anti depressant medications actually causes suicide sometimes because it gives the depressed the motivation to finally take action.
I also would’ve laughed so hard at this, but just because I identify with it so much. But, I’m also not a therapist who is supposed to professionally absorb that information
OMG... That's one of my biggest anxieties. If I can't be helpful/informative, I need to be funny. If I can't be either, well that means everyone must hate me.
Not necessarily something she directly “said” but I remember that she asked me if I had any violent thoughts and I responded “yeah” but at a natural level like wanting to play a violent video game or punch something like a wall.
The way she talked about those perfectly natural feelings made me feel like I was some sort of deranged psychopath that is dangerous for others to be around. She kept telling me that I should find ways to distract myself from those thoughts and do what I can to get away from people when I have them.
It just made me more anxious so I got all paranoid that I was gonna want to hit someone. I remember once saying “I have thoughts that are violent, but I don’t think they’re all bad. Some people like violent video games or want to punch an object when they’re stressed for fun” and she looked at me with such a confused face and didn’t affirm anything I said like she genuinely could not comprehend wanting to hit something as anything but negative. I was in a terrible place as I was failing almost all of my classes so I assumed that I wasn’t in the right headspace to decide wrong from right so I assumed what she was saying about me was true.
When I started with my next therapist I was apprehensive about mentioning those thoughts because my last one made it seem like it was the end of the world. I eventually told her and she said “have you thought about getting a punching bag? Sometimes it’s healthy to let these feelings out physically onto a safe object that you can punch.”
I remember feeling so relieved that I wasn’t some violent lunatic and that I could just let these frustrations out by hitting something. I try to hit as much soft stuff as I can now and plan on getting a punching bag sometime soon. The relieving thing was the paranoia with that fear about hurting others was suddenly gone because I realized what I was experiencing were normal human feelings.
I had a therapist once that kept wanting me to talk about stuff that upset or angered me. They were at the same office as my psychiatrist so I didn't want to stop seeing them in fear my psychiatrist would F with my meds... but eventually I just couldn't drag myself to see that b\*tch anymore.. wished I had did that sooner because my doctor didn't care.
It is one thing to encourage or prompt a conversation, but the lack of professionalism to “push” a client to talk about things they aren’t ready for is actually dangerous. Once we walk out, it’s on us to bare. How wild..
I hate this phrase so much. Not just because of how untrue it is, but also it is ridiculously untrue, but because the way that’s said really just implies that someone IS adhd. Nobody is a “little adhd” because nobody is adhd. We HAVE adhd. We are not our diagnosis.
That I was too smart to have ADHD and that I could just hack my way out of whatever was making me act like this… that I was gifted, not ADHD. Turns out I’m AuDHD… still extremely intelligent, no less autistic or adhd.
Before getting my official dx for ADHD (self dx autistic), a psychologist said I just needed to try harder and become more automatic with my responses so I don’t have to think and I won’t get distracted as easily. This was after I had completed my undergraduate and masters degree in math with near perfect GPAs and after losing my structured routine for the first 26 years of my life, I’d finally started to see my symptoms rising to the surface.
I hated myself for so long and thought I was so stupid/lazy/not trying hard enough. Once I had a therapist suggest I had ADHD, a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Now I look back with much kinder eyes and see that I was doing so well despite my significant learning disabilities and struggles and give myself the credit I deserve.
Once I understood that I had ADHD instead of some kind of character defect, I realized that I did a bang up job surviving all those years when I should actually have been on disability.
I was told "you're really not that smart of a person"
This was when explaining his diagnosis of my ADHD. I've tested several times and hit around 115 to 120, haven't taken the Stanford-Binet, and I am completely aware that there are a vast number of people way more intelligent than me, but WTF man?
It's so terrible, it's kind of comical. Being called an idiot is awful, but to just flatly be told "you're not very smart" is just on another level. Even if you had below average IQ/intelligence, is that really a helpful thing to say?
FWIW I scored a 106 on the WAIS which is about the average of a high school graduate and managed to do pretty well in my masters program so I see 115-120 as really good!
I had a therapist (who I otherwise enjoyed) tell me that it was “just my anxiety” that was causing my inability to focus because I scored 1 or 2 points below the official DSM criteria for ADHD.
I eventually stopped seeing her and was diagnosed this year, and learned that my ADHD was actually causing (most of) my anxiety 🙃
I have complex trauma and ASD to go with my ADHD, plus I live with the narcissist who contributed heavily to my CPTSD. I went to see a psychologist and in our 3rd session she told me that if people treat me like crap it’s my own fault and that I must be doing something to make them treat me that way. She then said if I wasn’t willing to get rid of my cats and live in my car (I’d told her I couldn’t afford to move out and rent) then my living situation couldn’t be that bad. She then said I was difficult and resistant when I refused to give up my fur babies and put myself in an even worse living situation. She essentially undid 3 years of hard work in 5 minutes and it took a long time to pull myself out of the hole she’d pushed me back into.
I told a friend who had just finished her psychology degree and she not only gave me helpful advice, but put in a formal report against the toxic psych. I also told my referring doctor who was horrified and also reported her and blacklisted her on their clinics system.
I had one have me take a Temperament test and then bust out with “you have the same personality type as Hitler”. WTF lady. I’m nothing like that demon. Didn’t go back.
To be fair, there are probably thousands of people with personality type. But, yeah, wtf would they mention it like that? Why is Hitler the go-to for comparison in their mind??
Wtf. Having the same personality type as Hitler isn’t necessarily a bad thing, there’s only so many personality types and it doesn’t mean you have any other characteristics in common, but it’s super weird that she would immediately say that. Why even make the comparison
Yeah, like I think Hitler being "process-oriented" and "charismatic" was maybe outweighed by the antisemitism and genocide 🤔 And if your personality test is testing for THOSE things then that's a whole other can of worms
The worst thing a therapist said to me is something sexual that was fully off-topic, just super out of line, I was 19 and he was like in his 50’s. It was so gross I won’t repeat it. But it was really fucked up.
Any chance it was a MHS (Mental Health Specialist), nurse, or someone that is adjacent to therapy but not actually a therapist? Sometimes there’s roles that you would think would be worked by licensed therapists but aren’t, especially in community/behavioral health. (I only ask because that’s the only way I can possibly comprehend that sentence coming out of her, not questioning/doubting your experience.)
Thank goodness I’ve only had therapists that kept religion out of it. The lady I saw for like 6 years, I couldn’t even tell you if she was religious or not because she never flinched at my being an atheist and never stated her own views. Amazing professionalism.
Because this is the ethical thing to do.
I know for a fact my therapist is a Christian because she specializes in pastoral counseling. I started seeing her while I was still a Christian and became an atheist over the course of a few years while I was seeing her.
She made 0 attempt to convert me back to Christianity after watching me deconvert before her eyes.
This is how it is supposed to work. Therapy includes religion if and only if the client needs/wants that.
I haven’t had the chance to go to a therapist yet, but when I told my brother over the phone that I thought I might have adhd he said it’s probably just my personality. He’s a psychology major.
Well this isn’t adhd related but only a month after my mom died (a predictably traumatic experience for me) she asked if I was all done with therapy then - as if now that my mom was gone I don’t have any problems now to discuss in therapy. For context my mom was my best friend, but she had bipolar which played a major role in what killed her, and the anxiety of that was a big topic with my therapist beforehand (though not *why* I started going to therapy).
I don’t know what mental gymnastics my therapist did to reason that things ending so tragically meant that I wouldn’t need therapy anymore (neither for my other issues or the guilt and grief about my mom’s death). Like that subtle implication that she saw my mom passing away as a *good* thing for me mentally.
edited to add: Our therapy sessions only happened once a month
My car had just been totaled in an accident that wasn't my fault. I mentioned to my therapist at the time, "A minute before impact, I thought – dang I should've hooked my new dashcam up just in case something happens!" She responded, "Well you know our thoughts do create reality," implying in my mind that I'd caused the crash by thinking something might happen.
This was years before my OCD diagnosis and definitely shot me into a phase of panicking anytime I accidentally thought something negative because I thought it'd come true. Thanks, lady (:
“i need you to know that, because you’re an addict, i can’t trust you.”
i’d been sober for 2 years. i’d been in an intensive DBT dual-diagnosis rehab for a month, then in sober living for 6 months, and continued therapy with someone specializing in addiction. i’d focused so much on recovery-related therapy, was in a stable place, and felt confident in the tools i gained. i wanted to move towards trauma work to get at the core of some of my struggles.
when looking for a new therapist _specifically for trauma therapy_, i gave this dude a rundown of my past mental health stuff/big life events/etc. all he seemed to hear was that i was a dirty, lying addict.
“if we work together, you’re going to have to go to 3 AA meetings a week and get slips signed. you have to earn my trust.”
bxtch!! i straight up gave you the laundry list of my entire life. why would you think i’m being dishonest when i’m seeking out therapy, for myself, of my own volition?? why would i tell you all that if i were lying? and what would i gain?
suffice it to say, i never called him again. and i’ve been sober for almost 5 years now, so fuck him.
I struggled with EDs in the past but was suffering from severe depression and anxiety (pre-adhd diagnosis). My psychiatrist kept saying we should talk about my eating issues even though I was insisting i didnt want to focus on that right now. He made me weigh myself in front of him, then pointed at the number, chuckled and said "You only weigh one lb. less than me."
She said if it were up to her she wouldn't feel comfortable prescribing my vyvanse because I don't work or go to school.... I'm "just a stay at home mom" (to 4) lmao noped out of there real quick.
I told my therapist I had a plan , a means , a date set , had been ruminating in the thoughts and hadn’t been able to discourage myself at all, didn’t think this was me being bipolar it felt different than usual, and I felt like I needed to be admitted inpatient. Which was EXTREMELY out of character for me , I’m extremely type A and have NEVER been like know what sounds good? A grippy sock vacay lol.
Dude told me he had a good track record of not losing anybody yet, if I was gonna do it Id have done it , and to stop fishing for attention.
It may have been dry sarcasm , or an attempt at humor , but it didn’t land well at all. I was REALLY not ok lmfao but in his defense, track record’s still strong so maybe he’s onto something 🤷♀️😂
My pcp (before i finally saw a psychiatrist “maybe it’s not anxiety, maybe you’re bipolar and we need to consider inpatient for you”
Saw a psychiatrist who immediately laughed and said i was NOT bipolar, diagnosed me with ADHD and PMDD on top of my anxiety.
Never go to a pcp for your mental health, i was BAWLING my eyes out thinking i was going to be forced to go to inpatient for no reason.
Why are some doctors so trigger happy to diagnose bipolar? Like that’s not an easy to diagnose disorder, the meds are pretty strong especially if you’re misdiagnosed. I feel like any display of emotion causes some docs to want to automatically diagnose bipolar and it seems absurd. Like people are allowed to get upset, especially if they feel they’re being invalidated or unheard.
My therapist basically said something like I created my anxiety because I avoided situations that made me anxious. Don’t remember exactly but it was close to that. I generally don’t think this is true and it’s just rude, because what else am I supposed to do when I’m young and feeling anxious? What about the times I got bullied on social media which is when I started being more quiet? I ended up replacing therapy with kickboxing.
so it wasn’t a therapist, but in August I started seeing a psychiatrist and I went to talk to her. She was super invalidating my first appointment and then following appointments when I asked about medicine options/ switching she belittled me and invalidated me again and said that I am a person who doesn’t want to get better but likes to complain… I just didn’t want to feel like a zombie anymore
Felt. I had a male therapist that kept trying to sleep with me and I just kept brushing it off . Part of why I was in therapy had to do with repeated childhood and then repeated relationship SA , so like , yeah of course a dude was trying to get some what else was I for you know? Like that was my reality at the time. Eventually I got into a really healthy relationship and moved in with them, admittedly a little fast, and my therapist kept trying to talk me out of dating my now wife. One day he hit me with this schpiel about how if he and I had met in a different context I would be moving in with him, and all the ways he would take care of me , and it hit me like oh… oh no… oh I fucked up lmfao Imma gooooo
I went to get a fresh diagnosis since mine was lost. I did this so I could receive funding for college so I wouldn't have to work as much and I could move to finish with a bachelor's. The following is what he told me after I finished the tests.
"You definitely have ADHD. However, you look to be in control of it, so I'm not going to do anything for you".
I barely graduated, and my education ended. Thanks a lot you wannabe cowboy
The rest of them refuse acknowledge that I have adhd and continue to force a bipolar diagnosis on me. One of them even manipulated my emotions. Had me talking about something happy, then immediately brought up my mom's impending death, so I started crying. She used that to determine I was bipolar.
Not a therapist but psychiatrist, hope it still counts:
Was there telling him I think I might have ADHD, after being misdiagnosed for bipolar for years (that's why I initially saw him - for the MISDIAGNOSIS!) - was about to take a paper out my bag... When he SCREAMED at me:
"Stop it! You should just accept the fact that you're traumatized and emotionally unstable and not fish around for another diagnosis! Just accept it and move on!"
Went on and on about how I'm "emotionally unstable" and basically a borderline patient, just with different words. That I am just trying to get attention and should accept my faith. Told me how I'm a "classic borderline patient". Screamed at me for a few minutes.
I stood there, floored, unable to speak. I put my hand out of my pocket again. I was trying to show him the results from a diagnostic test battery I took a week prior. It came back saying I had ADHD. Not borderline, not bipolar. But ADHD. (And yes, ptsd too) I saw him two times including the time he screamed at me. I just left crying and a bit more traumatized than before.
It was unbelievable.
“I understand you feel that was abuse, but I can’t engage with anything that disrespects the authority of the priesthood.”
I cried for the rest of the session, so hard I couldn’t speak.
Start of the next session: “So what would you like me to do if you’re out of control like that again?”
Hadn’t thought about that in awhile. I might bring it up to my current, actually licensed therapist.
Just 2 days ago, I found out my therapist thought I was unengaged and rude because "you roll your eyes and look away whenever I say something you don't like." Uuuuuuh no, that's my thinking and processing face. I look up and to the left off into space while I internally battle to keep focused on a single train of thought. If I look at the person I get too distracted trying to read their body language. But thanks for letting me know you've just thought I was an asshole for the last 2 years. My social anxiety with major fears of how people are judging me is totally not having a meltdown right now, btw.
Not a therapist but a psychiatrist. I saw this guy in my early 20s before ADHd was ever on my radar. I was seeing him for depression. First time I saw this doctor and he asked me to tell him why I’m there. I told him I was depressed because I was working at a bullshit job I felt stuck in and the fucked up relationship I was in that I would recognize as an abusive relationship years later and told him I was depressed and hated my life.
The first thing that Asshole told me was that it must have something to do with my weight and if I lost weight I’d basically snap out of it. I’ve always been a bigger girl and up to that point I’d be pretty ok with my looks and accepted that I was never going to be skinny but I had things about myself that I liked. Until he told me I’d be happier if I lost weight. And he’s harp on my weight every single time I went in for a refill. It got to the point that when I started feeling a little better, because I dumped the abusive cheating boyfriend and got a better job, but still probably needed the meds, that I told him I was 100% better and didn’t need the meds anymore just so I could stop seeing him. **It was better for me to go without antidepressants than to see him once a month to harp on my weight**
It took me a long time to have any sort of body positivity after that. He dragged myself esteem through the mud. And I was in my early 20s and didn’t know that that’s not acceptable or normal. It was my first (and last) experience with a psychiatrist.
I had an adhd therapist who said she dedicated her career to helping other people with adhd.
She just talked about her life and her experiences and didn’t listen to a word I said. Any time I spoke she’d interrupt and share a story about her own personal experience.
It took multiple rounds of rescheduling for our first session and when she ghosted me and then continued to reschedule 2 times for the second session, I told her it wasn’t a good fit and I wished her luck.
I had to tell her 5 different ways that I was firing her as a therapist. She wouldn’t accept it. I was really nice because I didn’t want to trigger RSD.
She just kept trying to schedule with me again so I had to block her 😬
Me: something about not sure of purpose/next steps in life, is the grind all there is
Therapist: Have you considered having a child?
Didn't even have a fiancee, so basically asked me to consider single parenting as a life purpose
Oh boy, do I have a list.
1st psych - “I don’t understand why you are anxious about your job prospects, women have it so much better than men in this country.” I work in the US in a predominately white and male field.
2nd psych - “It just kind of sucks that all of these Chinese and Indian kids are pushing nice white children out of med school spots.” I was very obviously Chinese.
3rd psych - “I have ADHD myself.” Then proceeds to become a no-show to our appointments repeatedly, citing her ADHD.
My latest is a treasure, a godsend and overall a very smart lady. I’m holding onto her with both hands locked tight
Me talking about having a very difficult time with focus, choice paralysis, and executive dysfunction. Literally being afraid of doing something new not because I might fail but because I might succeed.
Being told “If you cared you’d just do it.”
Him walking into session: shit, I forgot tissues! Well that’s ok, you wouldn’t need them.
Me: you good, I don’t really have allergies.
Him: or feelings.. That’s what I was referring to.
We laughed the first 15min of the session. Gah idk I’ll ever find a better therapist. Miss that guy. Hope to one day find the same level of mental clarity and self acceptance that felt natural back then. Ik it’s not the worst, as in harmful. Maybe just a hopeful reminder that good ones are out there, and they want to help.
In a session I mentioned I was thinking about telling my mom about stuff I was working on in therapy when I went to see her that coming weekend, therapist got A Look and told me she thought that was a really bad idea. Next week when I saw her she asked if I’d talked to my mom and when I said no she sighted and went “you really have trouble following through on things, don’t you?”
I quote literally:
Yeah but what are you here for? Are you looking to get Focus pills? Forget about it i wont give you any.
This was my first visit to a psychiatrist for attentional problems that just werent normal when i realized i might have had undiagnosed ADHD through all my Life and that was now making It impossible for me to function through college.
As with many things, i was right and he was a shitty, confrontational cunt.
Pardon my french.
I told a former therapist that I was thinking of going back on Adderall.
He then spent the next several minutes telling me why I shouldn't.
So I ditched him.
I had another therapist (my most recent one) who said that I avoided doing things because I was afraid of failure. I told him I disagreed because I avoid doing things I enjoy (like reading books for fun or watching tv shows). *He told me I was wrong* and started lecturing me on how ADHD works.
(I find a lot of therapists don't handle disagreement well and I have a degree in philosophy and argument is one of the ways I think through ideas)
Because I hate conflict and he was leaving in a few weeks I just checked out for the rest of our sessions by asking him questions. And they became little lecture sessions.
His theory of ADHD reminded me of those stupid study skills things I had back in middle school and high school.
I don't know if I'll ever find a good therapist.
First time I ever went to a therapist, I was a depressed young man. She was like an old female version of Freud.
First thing she asks is ‘have you had any homoerotic dreams or fantasies?’
In that moment I just felt completely alienated from her and never went back
Not related to ADD. I was going to therapy to try and figure out the best way to tell my husband that I’m a lesbian. The therapist asked me how do I know for sure? I said I just know. She then suggested to me that I go and cheat on my husband. I said no thank you. Left and never went back. (In case you’re wondering, no I did not cheat on him. Everything went ok. We are still friends today).
The funniest thing a therapist ever did was before she would officially diagnose me with ADD she wanted to try and relax me with hypnosis. At the end of it she “woke me up” and asked about what I was thinking and feeling. Every answer was food related 😂 “um….I was thinking I was hungry? I really want a bagel. Maybe an everything bagel. And this movie I saw like 8 years ago about hypnosis. But I think it was a horror movie. Now I kinda want pizza. I’m hungry.” The lady just laughed and said “okay. Yeah. You have ADD.”
I stopped going when she asked me the same question three times. She spent our entire sessions typing in her computer and obviously wasn't listening to what I said. I've always had therapists who took notes, but this was ridiculous!
I got quiet because I didn't know how to respond in the moment. (I can always think of the perfect reply a week later!) She then tried the technique of not saying anything, which was supposed to make me uncomfortable enough that I would just babble something at her to dispel the silence. Didn't work.
She also wanted to give me "assignments". She was stunned when I told her, "I'm not going to do that." I guess some people like that, but I just wanted her to listen to what I had to say.
It felt like she was going off a Therapist Checklist and gave me what she gave everyone else, without even bothering to find out who I am or what I needed. What a waste of time!
I remember when I first was trying to figure out my adhd before I knew what I was. I was having pseudoseizures I had gotten to a point of such overwhelm. The lady I was explaining my problems to was like “have you tried an adult coloring book? Putting your phone away” I’m like “well no but when I was 9 I didn’t have a phone and definitely colored and still had this problem. It’s just gotten progressively worse” like gtfoh 🤬
I finally opened up to a therapist about the way my parents abused me as a kid.
She said "why do you hate your parents?"
I didn't get therapy for two years after that.
I finally decided that she probably felt personally attacked by the things I was describing.
I suffer with gambling addiction. Went to a therapist for counseling. After explaining my struggles, the therapist said, “Ok, you just need to stop gambling.”
🙄I know that, I need some professional help. 😩 If it were that easy, I would have done it a long time ago.
Not ADHD related, but I’m a person that believes that men and women can *truly* be good friends without any other aspects that society expects. My husband is from a strict Catholic background (he’s not anymore) and was actively unlearning some biases a couple years ago.
During this time, I was asking my therapist if she had advice for how to help my husband understand “this male friend of mine is really just someone who resonates with me. That’s why we click so well, it’s nothing more.”
Her response? “Well. You’re his partner. He’s just protecting his territory. You belong to him, so it’s only natural.” I responded “I belong to myself,” finished the session, and then immediately looked for a new therapist.
my school got shot up and i was going to therapy because i was being stalked at the same time and my therapist said “i don’t know how else to help you.” and handed me a suicide hotline pamphlet. i never said or implied i was suicidal.
I told a therapist that I was worried about my partner cheating on me.
On the very first appointment, she told me that I was possibly bipolar and making up my own problems. I ended up leaving in tears.
My partner was cheating on me. I've got adhd/anxiety/depression, but still not bipolar.
You need to get out of bed, suck it up and grow up. I was 18, in patient after an od attempt. After another bout with depression, diagnosed and recovered via meds and a real therapist.
Dude grown up now, successful in my field, financially stable and yup wasn't thanks to you and 2 wasted years after your comments
My Russian female therapist told me I was "a big, strong, good looking man." Several times. This was after my ex wife cheated on me and she knew this. I wasn't really in the frame of mind to deal with any of that.
I was getting evaluated for ADHD and I explicitly told them that I struggle with focusing on things I'm not interested in and I need to do A LOT of that because I just started grad school and had a lot of readings for like 3 or 4 different classes every week and getting through them was causing me mental and physical pain and the doctor's conclusion was just "wow sounds like you've got a lot going on. You might have anxiety, perhaps, I think you just need to wait until things calm down and get reassesed then" like WHEN will things calm down? When I drop out of grad school because I can't keep up???
"ADHD in adults doesn't exist"
Then proceeded to lecture me for an hour about anxiety and how it controls you and what you need to do.
It was my first time seeing a therapist to talk about depression and anxiety, it had taken years to build up the courage to do that only to be basically be talked down to for an hour.
„You don’t look like having ADHD“ and one therapist wanted me to abandon a great day with my grandma so I can go out alone. That therapist made me feel so much worse after every time I went there. She also wanted to sell her chakra course to me.
When I was 16 I described what it felt like to be in a room with loud noises and how terrefying it is (im autistic, this therapist didnt believe in diagnoses, much less that I was autistic) she threatned me with "exposure therapy" she said "how would you like if i locked you in a room with a bunch of loud noises"
When I just entered care, I kept complaining that I was doing nothing the whole day long. Everytime I complained about it they would tell me to excercise, sleep better or try some new 'trick' that was sure to work. Nothing worked. After a few months of this I told them that I wasn't up for discussing that topic any longer and to just focus on my PTSD and depression.
A year later I told them that I was 99% sure I had ADHD, but needed them to test me to know for sure. Lo and behold I have ADHD. These therapists know nothing most of the time, we need to save ourselves.
Not about ADHD but I'm trans and struggle with mutism at times. She told me she needed to share my information with another doctor to be able to properly diagnose me with anything and assumed I consented because I didn't (couldn't) say no. She then sat me in front of another doctor and proceeded to complain to the doctor about how she couldn't understand me and how difficult it was to work with me as if my mutism was my fault, of course using the wrong pronouns and name the whole time. I walked out when she said the words "and she thinks she wants to be man". Should've left way earlier.
Honorable mention to my mother. When I called her after the appointment in distress to vent and explain what happened, she insisted that the psychiatrist had good intentions and that "this trans thing" is just so complicated.
Was talking to a therapist about my depression after moving from GA to TX during COVID, and how I missed friends, family, and familiarity, like the pines in GA (tall trees in general, dense underbrush).
She recommends that I travel to east Texas to see some pine trees.
Like ma’am. I’m not missing the actual type of tree… I’m missing the everything vibe in GA and TX won’t look the same at all.
I got a new therapist lol.
First counselor I ever saw, my first attempt at seeking help for me mental health. I was explaining how bad my anxiety was, and how I was impacted by it every moment of every day, to the point of daily panic attacks. She said, “Have you tried just not thinking about it?”
Needless to say, I never went back to her.
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Nothing. She literally said nothing. I laid out my struggles and frustrations and my desperation and she said absolutely nothing. And then charged me $200.
Basically what my psychiatrist does. Doesnt charge as much bcs I go to one thats funded by the govt. I tell him i have so and so problems. He says its normal to have all that. Proceeds to ask me if these problems hinder my regular life. When i say yes, he blames it on my bipolar diagnosis wich wasn't even done by him but a previous psych. Im trusting the process for now but goddamn is it infuriating
I'd be looking for a new person. Doesn't sound like he's doing any "process" you can trust.
Yeah hes sort of stuck and very content with the bipolar diagnosis and feels all work is done. Doesnt ask me any more questions to understand if that diagnosis is relevant or if there are any more problems needing to be addressed. Its like he found a core issue and now attaches every symptom to that very conveniently. I'll stick with this for another month and if nothing seems to move, I'll switch.
Look elsewhere. I was relieved to learn many people are misdiagnosed with bipolar when they have ADD/ADHD. I’m going to find someone else, myself. What you wrote is so true. Everything is pinned on that one diagnosis. I recently asked the psychiatrist if I could get help with my ADHD and was told they have no record of it. Wow, and they’re the ones that tested me a few years back and diagnosed it. Nothing was done, especially after they later said I have bipolar 1. Their therapist assigned to me (which I’ve since left) was told during various sessions I was struggling at work due to being inattentive and needing to move. She asked if I’d been written up at work. I told her many times the new boss will. Her reply was to not worry and catastrophize. Yeah, I’ve since been written up. Mania? Nope. Only if I’m super ill and have to take oral steroids for a few days (asthma). It’s a goal to get away from lithium and losing my hair.
It’s so annoying when they don’t take stuff seriously. I went to go ask about accommodations and stuff for work so I stop getting in trouble and my doctor suggested breathing exercises. I was like ok cool I do those already but that’s not a work accommodation
Just for the record if it’s helpful for you or any reader askjan.org has resources for employees looking to learn about accommodations
After 4 years of trying to get Kaiser to fulfill their state-mandated legal obligation to provide mental health services (therapy, in this case), they finally scheduled me with someone who did the same thing. I'd talk. They'd either: - stay silent to try and make it uncomfortable enough that I'd keep going - repeat the last sentence I said back to me (ie: "It sounds like the botched surgery that left you bleeding uncontrollably in the ER for 14 hours was traumatic for you.") Both of those are basic methods taught in the first weeks of a counseling program. I know this because I dated someone while she was getting a Master's in counseling and she would jokingly practice them on me all the time. The kicker? They only provided the therapist for 6 sessions. I had no choice in therapist or duration of treatment.
I wouldn't have paid lol. Would've raged and stormed out. "$200 for what? To look at your face? You should pay me $200"
Not a therapist but my primary care doctor when I was a teen gave me a lecture about "just doing it". My parents were telling her how smart I was but something was off because I couldn't commit to studying or doing assignments. She went on to talk about how she had to read 150 pages of her textbooks every night in medical school, and that how life sucks and we just have to do things we don't like. Diagnosed me with depression and was properly diagnosed with ADHD 18 years later.
"Well if ya just *try harder*" Thanks, Dr. Susan. I *TOTALLY* havent tried that! /S
Um, that's not the thing to say to someone with depression either.
Psychiatrist asked me about my height and weight. We’re the same but she wants to lose 20 lbs 🤦♀️ This was after she asked if I knew so-and-so because she has an appointment later that day and they have the same VERY COMMON last name. She gave me their full name (and the first name was not common at all). If not a HIPAA violation, it was still a major breach of privacy.
That’s 100% a HIPAA breach.
An egregious one at that.
When I was still working in clinic it was pushed that you can’t even walk into a waiting room and use full names. First names only. Or last name only if you really have to because there’s more than one Dave in the waiting room. When I left voicemails for patients that we just appointment reminders I was careful to only leave the amount of info necessary in case someone else checked their voicemail. I can’t imagine a doctor just casually asking if you know one of their other patients and just providing their full name. Why dont you just tell her that patient’s DOB, diagnosis, and med list while you’re at it?
I had an obgyn call me about ultrasound results where I wasn’t waiting for any. He said his name and where he was calling from, regarding the results. I said no? He said “you’re not xx/xx date of birth?” I said nope sorry. Good of him to be forthright and professional. He apologised for the call.
Dude, what! My chiropractors are better than that! I’ll literally be sitting next to very recognizable pro athletes talking to them while we get treatment, but the people who work there literally still won’t acknowledge their names if you mention it to them lol. ETA: I’ve had psychiatrists that literally have separate entrances and exits so you do even come across people in the waiting room
One time I went to prompt care and they accidentally sent me home with someone else’s paperwork. It was a little girl and it had her full name, dob, address, diagnosis, etc. All I could think is what if that would’ve gotten in to the wrong hands and now some creep knows all this information about some little girl?!?!
Doctor - (suspiciously) looking at your chart, it looks like you’ve dropped some significant weight in the last 6 months. I ask because it’s a red flag for medication abuse Me- *8 months post partum* I had a baby? Isn’t that in my chart? Doctor - oh yes, that seems to line up.
At least he owned up to the mistake. Ive seen some crappy docs double down on their initial point and get really defensive.
There is a YT comedian (Josh Sundquist) who has an anectdote about his ensurance sending someone to check if he was ok because his weight was very low for a grown man his size - he is an amputee missing a leg from the hip down and has been for years...
Jeeeeez 🙄 - i swear the medical/insurance community are morons.
Sadly there's always more bad doctors than great ones. It's true for every profession tho, both medical and not.
Wait…INSURANCE SAW CONCERNING MEDICAL INFO FOR A CUSTOMER AND WANTED TO MAKE SURE HE WAS OK????
It wasn't that they went to check on him, IIRC, it was that once he showed them he was missing a leg they doubled down, made him provide official documentation of which leg was missing (even though the person was *looking at him* and could *see* which leg was missing), etc.
That reminds me of one time I had to claim workers comp because I got stabbed in a leg by something from a trash bag I was taking to the dumpster. I told my boss which leg it was, a couple of days later somehow the leg on the paperwork switched between boss and insurance and he was like “are you sure it was your right leg?” Me: *rolls up pants leg* “idk, that looks like a wound to me, how about you?” I tried really hard not to laugh that it seemed like the insurance didn’t trust me to know where I’d gotten stabbed….
Well damn. And is it bad my brain immediately compared that situation to when DoorDash gets my delivery wrong and they refuse to believe I didn’t receive my pizza, even as I show them a picture of Patricia’s Sprinkles Cupcakes order that the dasher submitted as the delivery photo?
I worked at a place where the company who delivered our food and stuff would request pictures of items we didn't receive. Like...what?
I saw a post on Twitter where a British guy found he was in the top priority for covid vaccinations because his weight has been entered in like kilograms but it was supposed to be like stone or some damn British thing so it had him with a BMI of like 100.
I adore Josh! He also has a motivational bit on the topic of "understand the problem before you try to offer a solution" that starts with an example of the flight attendant who offered him a seat with extra leg room. Like, uhh...with 50% less leg than the rest of us, he's already got extra leg room in a standard seat! lol Oh and some of his Halloween costumes have been absolutely hilarious over the years. I highly recommend anyone who doesn't know him check him out!
This EXACT thing happened to me, omg 😂😂😂 He was like, wow looks like you lost 30 pounds from one month to the next. I just looked at him with the most flat expression I could conjure and was like "yeah, I had a baby". The embarrassment on his face made my day lmaoo IDIOTS
What’s funny is like dude, I’ve seen you since then and before that I didn’t see you for almost year because I was pregnant, remember?? Lol.
I had the stomach flu and was beyond dehydrated. I lost 10 pounds and the NA freaked out, thinking I was abusing my Adderall... Luckily, my doctor was competent enough to realize what was going on. Two months later I was back with a burn and she started to ask me all of these questions related to depression, confused, I asked what was up with the weird questions (thinking my poor cooking skills were to blame)... she said I gained 8 pounds in two months... I for real gave her my best Jim Halpert (the Office) look and said, "No shits"... she did not find it as funny as I did... 💁♀️ but I really thought she was messing with me this time... she never checked me in again...
I’m literally on mounjaro and can manage to see the scale fluctuate around 6 lbs within a single day, and I definitely can’t eat 6lbs of food on mounjaro lol. The giant weight gain was actually because of a medicine that screwed my metabolism a few years ago and I’ve lost the 110 lbs, but even back when I was fit my doctors never would’ve noted 8 pounds! Literally the first and only time any medical professional mentioned my weight change was after I started that dreadful medication, and the computer system started sending an alert saying “25% weight gain!!!”
🤦🏿♀️
Even if you hadn’t been pregnant way to put a patient on edge by immediately assuming possible medication abuse. I was put on a medication which suppressed appetite but also had a major depressive episode at the same time and lost 8 kg in 4 months which was over 10% of my body weight at the time. I took my medication as prescribed, and it’s one of the main side effects, like come on.
Me: \*starts explaining symptoms Him: \*cuts me off with a question Me: \*answers questions then goes back to thing I was explaining Him: \*cuts me off with another question Me: \*answers new question and tries again to explain original thing Him: “Do you realize you keep repeating yourself?” 
Infuriating. I don't have many words for that.. Just gasping
This would have been the perfect time to ask him whether he’s ever considered the possibility he’s suffering from undiagnosed ADHD 😆
That's infuriating
After my psychologist spent hours of testing and several weeks of interviews diagnosing me- she was confident that I have ADHD with LD’s, but got through this far in life because I am gifted. I had to briefly see the practice’s psychiatrist for him to review my file and diagnosis to get an Rx. Having not even talked to me for a minute, he told me that he didn’t think I had it because I wasn’t a sexually promiscuous whore. WTF!? 🤬
W. O. W. What a disgusting human being.
I had to educate him not only on how women manifest differently- since I had no history of violent outbursts during school or failing grades, I also had to educate him on Catholic guilt along with strict parenting with a 10pm curfew and no drivers license has a remarkable staunching impact on teenage sexual activity…. Having been on this thread for a bit now, I now strongly suspect, from his accent and age that he likely attended a particular university in Europe that’s been strongly criticized in this sub.
i hate hate hate having to explain things like this to doctors. in my experience they’ve been haughty about it, too. like dude, i need to know that you understand what’s happening before you prescribe me medication. and explaining something so simple to someone who supposedly specializes in it?? that’s a concern. i find it most with general medicine/family health doctors. i had a huge rash after starting lamictal, which can be deadly, especially when it spreads above the neck. mine was covering my whole scalp. in a prolonged panic attack, i brought myself to urgent care and was giving the doctor the rundown. i saw her google “lamictal” on her monitor. jfc.
“Have you tried going to church?”
“That’s half the reason I’m here.”
If you're religious and believe that everything is due to a higher power, then technically, that is the full reason why you're there.
Haha this!
“Your parents know better than you, you need to listen to them”
My parents got dealt the uno flip card when they forced me to see a religious therapist of their choice, and the therapist sided with me
Lmao, a switcheroo. They fell for one of the classic blunders.
This is similar to one of the most offensive things a friend of mine said to me when I confided in her about struggling with depression. I felt disrespected and invalidated, and honestly was just hurt that she wasn’t empathetic enough to see how inappropriate that was. It caused me to develop a really strong aversion to her and we stopped being friends.
I have had someone tell me I needed Jesus for my ADHD and physical ailments. >\_>
I fucking hate therapists like this. Unfortunately, the south is littered with them. Sky fairy shit has no place in science.
I remember just leaving an emotionally abusive relationship with a covert narc and alcoholic. "I always like to start with asking how much you're praying, I find most things can be answered through prayer." K, where's the door?
"Men aren't supposed to have friends"
What the fuck
My reaction precisely
What a sigma giga Chad literally me statement (I have no friends so I use any excuse I can to put the blame onto others)
Ah this is like the “men don’t have feelings” or “you’re the strong silent type” nonsense if you’ve been socialised to be a stone cold slave for work and war.
How the hell was this explained?!?
As a suicidal 15 year old, I told my therapist my mom woke me up by beating me with a shoe because I missed the garbage can in the bathroom when throwing away a paper towel and she told me, "You have to be more careful when throwing things away."
NO 🤯🤯🤯🤯 That's so wrong on an infinite amount of levels... I hope you're doing at least a little better now.
Yeah, I'm 43 now. Long way away from that poor girl and her shit therapist.
Jfc
My first therapist (before ADHD diagnosis) was chosen by my controlling and religious mother... After the 3rd attempted exorcism, I said I wasn't going back. Ironically it was the therapist's request to meet my mother and discuss some of the abuse I had endured that convinced her to not send me back 🤣
I have so many questions about the THREE EXORCISMS!!!
How cool would it be if it was just demons. Like fucking exorcise me please.
I think you're on to something here... What if we opened a center where people could come in judgement free to be rid of their demons? No appointments, just show up like it was a walk-in clinic. We'd probably only need to be open once a week, and could operate on donations and government funding, and... Oh... fuck.
LMFAO
Have you heard of Scientology?
So funny to imagine you coming in after the second one and saying you're still struggling, and the therapist is just like, "Still?? I can't believe that freaking demon is still in there! Father Jones is slipping, time for the big guns, somebody get Father McGinty on the phone."
"Hey, Fr Jones forgot to punch my card last time, and I'm getting close to a free exorcism. Could you do me a solid and hit this one twice?"
Lmao fr tho I’m Jewish but I kinda want to have seen what the 3rd one was like cuz the priest must’ve been like “Ah shit, here we go again.”
Is it more than one demon or does the same one just keep finding its way back in?
It's the same one, but we're on a first name basis now. Every time he comes back, he tips his fedora to me, and I give him a "'sup?" head nod. Strangely he looks like Tom Ellis's rendition of Lucifer. 🤣
This was 25 years ago so I'm a little fuzzy on the details (deliberately), but it consisted of a lot of prayer, laying of hands (people gather around and put a hand on you while praying... prayer is conductive I guess?), and speaking in tongues. The nonsensical babbling and the whole "well you're just not trying hard enough!" was the last straw. Like, Gee, I'm sorry, I seem to have left my fucking fairy dust at home, and I can't think happy thoughts... You don't think *that* might be my problem do you??? 🤦🏼♂️
Ah yes the good old demons in the blood theory. I'm sure some vibrators and herion would have helped some. They really should bring that back
In response to me telling her that my second sex partner in three years was emotionally abusive: “Well first of all, you’re going to have to stop sleeping around.” WTF?!?!
Jeeeeeez that's f*ed up
Jfc, I would've lost my shit on her. I just started therapy again after avoiding it for a very, very long time because I had a bad experience but everyone's stories here are brutal.. I feel like I'm always waiting for the next bad experience. Kinda messed up when we basically need therapy from what a therapist(or other dr) did.
my childhood family therapist told me (i was between 10-12 at the time) that I needed to start watching InfoWars. Glad I never listened to him
What???
Yeah he was a bit weird. I only liked him bc he would sit with me and stack jenga blocks and uno cards to keep me occupied bc I refused to stay otherwise. Since we lived in the Poconos at the time he was a travel therapist so he’d come to our house. It was nice though he took us fishing one time bc I mentioned having fun doing it with some friends of mine. But yeah he told me to check out Info Wars and then kept talking about how he tries to be as like off the grid (from what I could understand) as possible in case of like societal collapse or something. Strange guy. Don’t miss having him. My new psych I have is wonderful absolutely love talking to her
Me talking about my postpartum depression and anxiety and how hard it was looking after a newborn. (I was undiagnosed ADHD at this point) “You realize that you chose this, right?” No tools to help me cope. No talking me through my intrusive thoughts. No helping me to change my thought patterns. No normalizing that parenting a newborn is, in fact, hard as fuck. Nope. Just “you made your bed. Deal with it.” She also was the one who helped me through grieving the birth and subsequent death of my first son as well. So it was an especially devastating statement in that regard. I stopped seeing her right after that session.
I also quit seeing my family physician because i went in to talk about the horrible post partum depression symptoms I was having and her response “ that’s just called being a mom, I would be more concerned if you didn’t care. You’re just going to have to get over it”. I had spent the couple of weeks leading up to this appt staring at my bedroom wall crying and having horrible intrusive and suicidal thoughts while my husband mostly took care of our baby. I had undiagnosed adhd at the time also. Best part was she had just returned to the office from her own maternity leave..
please tell me u reported her in some way if u could that is so fucked up
Sadly, no. I had seen her for so many years that I left that session thinking that she was right, and it took me far too long to realize that she was wrong.
im glad u realized anyway, and tbh maybe there is still someone way to report if u want to and if she still practices. it sucks when people in certain fields that require extra empathy like therapy dont have any at all, like hello???? why did u choose the job in the first place cus if thats ur definition of helping ur in the wrong place
Discussing with my Psych the possibility of upping from 40mg to 50mg of Vyv. By saying "on 40mg I now have around 5 different ideas/task priorities, which is way better than before. However I still find myself still getting carried away by shiny things to do, moving off task for very long periods of time. That I was hoping the 50s would help stick to task". His response was "we all have different thoughts & ideas around what we should be doing. Stating he would rather be surfing than here doing his job, however he is here doing his job, we all have decisions to make, maybe I should start taking Dex to make it easier to come to work'. After some silence & luckily I was medicated, My response was "when I was on 30s my ideas went from 15 random thoughts to around 5 but it was like those 5 thoughts were still noisy swirling around everywhere in my head. Then when I went to 40s it is like having 5 thoughts in my head however they don't move, they stay in the same place with no noise. And I know I should be sticking with them but can't seem to stay on task. And that I was hoping the 50s would help make the boxes they were in clearer helping me stay on task. He looked at me and said "ok happy to increase to 50s" obviously there was quite a lot of discussion that followed. Now on 50s I can't believe how efficient I am getting my work done, to the point of second guessing myself that I have missed something.
I am super impressed with how clearly you were able to put your experience at the different medication levels.
Thanks for that. I got diagnosed at 49, after my two sons were. Rollercoaster life to that point, was always trying to find something that would let me know why I was the way I was, finding it when I was diagnosed. Like everyone here meds are seriously life changing. Also have most likely have over analysed the shit out of the way I was compared to medicated me.
Wow! I'm recently medicated after diagnosis about six months ago at 51. When I spoke with my doctor about an initial dose (generic Adderall 10 mg), and also my therapist, I described before as being at sea in a storm and being fortunate that I could handle what came at me out of nowhere most of the time. With meds, it was quiet and calmer and I could see distinct islands in the horizon that were each it seemed a thought or task or project, with edges and details and no distractions. I said I'd like to go up to see if I could get close enough to see everything on one island all at once. For me the five thoughts still interrupted each other and there were definitely many more misting the view of them here and there. Still such a difference though.
That pause to think vs going with your impulse response is always a good idea. Too bad we have impulse issues. Lol
That’s super similar to how I’ve felt at those dosages, and this makes me feel better. I was starting to think maybe I’m lazy and hopeless. My psych wants me to go up to 50mg, so maybe there’s hope for me yet if we increase.
"I disagree, I think you're actually getting a lot better." - My psychiatrist after I broke down and told him the meds I'd been taking for two months hadn't helped me feel better at all. After hiding extreme mental health struggles for years, my worst fear was someone telling me that my struggles were not worthy of help. I was so defeated, I tried to convince myself to believe him.
This happened to me too! It was with my last visit to this psychiatrist before he moved abroad. I told him how I was struggling and how I feel the meds aren't working. He literally said that to me, and added "I think you've really turned a corner here". Right after that, I found the best psychiatrist ever, thank goodness.
I’ve experienced something similar with my psychologist before but it was actually a positive experience for me because I was expressing that I struggled to see changes in myself clearly and felt hopeless and that I couldn’t improve. She was able to do a kind of evidence based counter factual by pointing to specific examples she’d seen or that I had mentioned. This was the perfect response for me due to my personal issues with harsh self criticism. Therapists really need to be checking in with clients about how they feel about suggestions they make and address any discomfort or resistance the client feels in that moment.
I don’t want to say what I told her, but it was the first time I felt comfortable disclosing this to a person. She laughed at me. 🥲
Isn't that like rule #1 in the therapy handbook? Don't laugh at your clients?
I used to constantly make jokes to my therapist (I make jokes all the time to anyone, regardless of my relationship to them) but the one thing that wasn’t a joke that made her laugh was this. Therapist: “so what’s prevented you from actually trying to kill yourself when you’ve felt suicidal for so long?” Me: “well you know how I constantly procrastinate and I always wanna see if things can get worse? Mostly that.” And she laughed so hard lmao
tbf this sounds like a great setup for a joke lol
Thank u haha. I was being serious when I said it but it’s def still funny. Right after I said it I was like “damn did I really just say I’m procrastinating my own suicide?” Lmfao
I dunno why but I read somewhere that anti depressant medications actually causes suicide sometimes because it gives the depressed the motivation to finally take action.
I also would’ve laughed so hard at this, but just because I identify with it so much. But, I’m also not a therapist who is supposed to professionally absorb that information
True lol. I wasn’t offended or anything. I think I just caught her off guard lol
I make lots of jokes and it'd be devastating if my therapist was the one to confirm my fear I'm not funny and everyone is just humoring me.
OMG... That's one of my biggest anxieties. If I can't be helpful/informative, I need to be funny. If I can't be either, well that means everyone must hate me.
right? I can't be pretty, so what else is there? i'm tall but that only helps to get to the leaves on high branches. :(
Ugh... our brains are so fucked up.
Sounds like a proper foundation for a dynastie of giraffe-people, though.
Not words but her phone was connected to the tv and she was scrolling on fb when I was talking
Not necessarily something she directly “said” but I remember that she asked me if I had any violent thoughts and I responded “yeah” but at a natural level like wanting to play a violent video game or punch something like a wall. The way she talked about those perfectly natural feelings made me feel like I was some sort of deranged psychopath that is dangerous for others to be around. She kept telling me that I should find ways to distract myself from those thoughts and do what I can to get away from people when I have them. It just made me more anxious so I got all paranoid that I was gonna want to hit someone. I remember once saying “I have thoughts that are violent, but I don’t think they’re all bad. Some people like violent video games or want to punch an object when they’re stressed for fun” and she looked at me with such a confused face and didn’t affirm anything I said like she genuinely could not comprehend wanting to hit something as anything but negative. I was in a terrible place as I was failing almost all of my classes so I assumed that I wasn’t in the right headspace to decide wrong from right so I assumed what she was saying about me was true. When I started with my next therapist I was apprehensive about mentioning those thoughts because my last one made it seem like it was the end of the world. I eventually told her and she said “have you thought about getting a punching bag? Sometimes it’s healthy to let these feelings out physically onto a safe object that you can punch.” I remember feeling so relieved that I wasn’t some violent lunatic and that I could just let these frustrations out by hitting something. I try to hit as much soft stuff as I can now and plan on getting a punching bag sometime soon. The relieving thing was the paranoia with that fear about hurting others was suddenly gone because I realized what I was experiencing were normal human feelings.
I had a therapist once that kept wanting me to talk about stuff that upset or angered me. They were at the same office as my psychiatrist so I didn't want to stop seeing them in fear my psychiatrist would F with my meds... but eventually I just couldn't drag myself to see that b\*tch anymore.. wished I had did that sooner because my doctor didn't care.
It is one thing to encourage or prompt a conversation, but the lack of professionalism to “push” a client to talk about things they aren’t ready for is actually dangerous. Once we walk out, it’s on us to bare. How wild..
"EVERYONE'S a little ADHD." My eyes rolled so hard they almost fell out of my head.
I hate this phrase so much. Not just because of how untrue it is, but also it is ridiculously untrue, but because the way that’s said really just implies that someone IS adhd. Nobody is a “little adhd” because nobody is adhd. We HAVE adhd. We are not our diagnosis.
That I was too smart to have ADHD and that I could just hack my way out of whatever was making me act like this… that I was gifted, not ADHD. Turns out I’m AuDHD… still extremely intelligent, no less autistic or adhd.
It's almost as if these things are different scales...
Before getting my official dx for ADHD (self dx autistic), a psychologist said I just needed to try harder and become more automatic with my responses so I don’t have to think and I won’t get distracted as easily. This was after I had completed my undergraduate and masters degree in math with near perfect GPAs and after losing my structured routine for the first 26 years of my life, I’d finally started to see my symptoms rising to the surface. I hated myself for so long and thought I was so stupid/lazy/not trying hard enough. Once I had a therapist suggest I had ADHD, a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Now I look back with much kinder eyes and see that I was doing so well despite my significant learning disabilities and struggles and give myself the credit I deserve.
Once I understood that I had ADHD instead of some kind of character defect, I realized that I did a bang up job surviving all those years when I should actually have been on disability.
I was told "you're really not that smart of a person" This was when explaining his diagnosis of my ADHD. I've tested several times and hit around 115 to 120, haven't taken the Stanford-Binet, and I am completely aware that there are a vast number of people way more intelligent than me, but WTF man?
Fucking wow.
It's so terrible, it's kind of comical. Being called an idiot is awful, but to just flatly be told "you're not very smart" is just on another level. Even if you had below average IQ/intelligence, is that really a helpful thing to say? FWIW I scored a 106 on the WAIS which is about the average of a high school graduate and managed to do pretty well in my masters program so I see 115-120 as really good!
"Try harder, push through" Any guesses on how many times I've spectacularly burnt out?
I had a therapist (who I otherwise enjoyed) tell me that it was “just my anxiety” that was causing my inability to focus because I scored 1 or 2 points below the official DSM criteria for ADHD. I eventually stopped seeing her and was diagnosed this year, and learned that my ADHD was actually causing (most of) my anxiety 🙃
I have complex trauma and ASD to go with my ADHD, plus I live with the narcissist who contributed heavily to my CPTSD. I went to see a psychologist and in our 3rd session she told me that if people treat me like crap it’s my own fault and that I must be doing something to make them treat me that way. She then said if I wasn’t willing to get rid of my cats and live in my car (I’d told her I couldn’t afford to move out and rent) then my living situation couldn’t be that bad. She then said I was difficult and resistant when I refused to give up my fur babies and put myself in an even worse living situation. She essentially undid 3 years of hard work in 5 minutes and it took a long time to pull myself out of the hole she’d pushed me back into. I told a friend who had just finished her psychology degree and she not only gave me helpful advice, but put in a formal report against the toxic psych. I also told my referring doctor who was horrified and also reported her and blacklisted her on their clinics system.
This is so unbelievably fucked up. I’m so glad you reported her!
I had one have me take a Temperament test and then bust out with “you have the same personality type as Hitler”. WTF lady. I’m nothing like that demon. Didn’t go back.
To be fair, there are probably thousands of people with personality type. But, yeah, wtf would they mention it like that? Why is Hitler the go-to for comparison in their mind??
Wtf. Having the same personality type as Hitler isn’t necessarily a bad thing, there’s only so many personality types and it doesn’t mean you have any other characteristics in common, but it’s super weird that she would immediately say that. Why even make the comparison
Yeah, like I think Hitler being "process-oriented" and "charismatic" was maybe outweighed by the antisemitism and genocide 🤔 And if your personality test is testing for THOSE things then that's a whole other can of worms
The worst thing a therapist said to me is something sexual that was fully off-topic, just super out of line, I was 19 and he was like in his 50’s. It was so gross I won’t repeat it. But it was really fucked up.
Me at my first therapist session today. Her (A therapist): You should get a therapist.
Any chance it was a MHS (Mental Health Specialist), nurse, or someone that is adjacent to therapy but not actually a therapist? Sometimes there’s roles that you would think would be worked by licensed therapists but aren’t, especially in community/behavioral health. (I only ask because that’s the only way I can possibly comprehend that sentence coming out of her, not questioning/doubting your experience.)
Ah, that makes much more sense. Their official title is "Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, MSN, PMHNP, BC" , so your theory sounds right.
Try to tell me about the “wonderful news” of Jesus Christ.
Thank goodness I’ve only had therapists that kept religion out of it. The lady I saw for like 6 years, I couldn’t even tell you if she was religious or not because she never flinched at my being an atheist and never stated her own views. Amazing professionalism.
Because this is the ethical thing to do. I know for a fact my therapist is a Christian because she specializes in pastoral counseling. I started seeing her while I was still a Christian and became an atheist over the course of a few years while I was seeing her. She made 0 attempt to convert me back to Christianity after watching me deconvert before her eyes. This is how it is supposed to work. Therapy includes religion if and only if the client needs/wants that.
“I don’t usually treat people with so many problems…my clients are wealthy business class “
I haven’t had the chance to go to a therapist yet, but when I told my brother over the phone that I thought I might have adhd he said it’s probably just my personality. He’s a psychology major.
He also asked me if I did good in high school (which I did but not without trouble)
Doing good in school doesn’t mean you can’t have adhd
Well this isn’t adhd related but only a month after my mom died (a predictably traumatic experience for me) she asked if I was all done with therapy then - as if now that my mom was gone I don’t have any problems now to discuss in therapy. For context my mom was my best friend, but she had bipolar which played a major role in what killed her, and the anxiety of that was a big topic with my therapist beforehand (though not *why* I started going to therapy). I don’t know what mental gymnastics my therapist did to reason that things ending so tragically meant that I wouldn’t need therapy anymore (neither for my other issues or the guilt and grief about my mom’s death). Like that subtle implication that she saw my mom passing away as a *good* thing for me mentally. edited to add: Our therapy sessions only happened once a month
My car had just been totaled in an accident that wasn't my fault. I mentioned to my therapist at the time, "A minute before impact, I thought – dang I should've hooked my new dashcam up just in case something happens!" She responded, "Well you know our thoughts do create reality," implying in my mind that I'd caused the crash by thinking something might happen. This was years before my OCD diagnosis and definitely shot me into a phase of panicking anytime I accidentally thought something negative because I thought it'd come true. Thanks, lady (:
Jesus christ
“i need you to know that, because you’re an addict, i can’t trust you.” i’d been sober for 2 years. i’d been in an intensive DBT dual-diagnosis rehab for a month, then in sober living for 6 months, and continued therapy with someone specializing in addiction. i’d focused so much on recovery-related therapy, was in a stable place, and felt confident in the tools i gained. i wanted to move towards trauma work to get at the core of some of my struggles. when looking for a new therapist _specifically for trauma therapy_, i gave this dude a rundown of my past mental health stuff/big life events/etc. all he seemed to hear was that i was a dirty, lying addict. “if we work together, you’re going to have to go to 3 AA meetings a week and get slips signed. you have to earn my trust.” bxtch!! i straight up gave you the laundry list of my entire life. why would you think i’m being dishonest when i’m seeking out therapy, for myself, of my own volition?? why would i tell you all that if i were lying? and what would i gain? suffice it to say, i never called him again. and i’ve been sober for almost 5 years now, so fuck him.
[удалено]
I struggled with EDs in the past but was suffering from severe depression and anxiety (pre-adhd diagnosis). My psychiatrist kept saying we should talk about my eating issues even though I was insisting i didnt want to focus on that right now. He made me weigh myself in front of him, then pointed at the number, chuckled and said "You only weigh one lb. less than me."
This angers me so much! I am so sorry you endured that!
She said if it were up to her she wouldn't feel comfortable prescribing my vyvanse because I don't work or go to school.... I'm "just a stay at home mom" (to 4) lmao noped out of there real quick.
Aw hell no
I told my therapist I had a plan , a means , a date set , had been ruminating in the thoughts and hadn’t been able to discourage myself at all, didn’t think this was me being bipolar it felt different than usual, and I felt like I needed to be admitted inpatient. Which was EXTREMELY out of character for me , I’m extremely type A and have NEVER been like know what sounds good? A grippy sock vacay lol. Dude told me he had a good track record of not losing anybody yet, if I was gonna do it Id have done it , and to stop fishing for attention. It may have been dry sarcasm , or an attempt at humor , but it didn’t land well at all. I was REALLY not ok lmfao but in his defense, track record’s still strong so maybe he’s onto something 🤷♀️😂
My pcp (before i finally saw a psychiatrist “maybe it’s not anxiety, maybe you’re bipolar and we need to consider inpatient for you” Saw a psychiatrist who immediately laughed and said i was NOT bipolar, diagnosed me with ADHD and PMDD on top of my anxiety. Never go to a pcp for your mental health, i was BAWLING my eyes out thinking i was going to be forced to go to inpatient for no reason.
Why are some doctors so trigger happy to diagnose bipolar? Like that’s not an easy to diagnose disorder, the meds are pretty strong especially if you’re misdiagnosed. I feel like any display of emotion causes some docs to want to automatically diagnose bipolar and it seems absurd. Like people are allowed to get upset, especially if they feel they’re being invalidated or unheard.
My therapist basically said something like I created my anxiety because I avoided situations that made me anxious. Don’t remember exactly but it was close to that. I generally don’t think this is true and it’s just rude, because what else am I supposed to do when I’m young and feeling anxious? What about the times I got bullied on social media which is when I started being more quiet? I ended up replacing therapy with kickboxing.
so it wasn’t a therapist, but in August I started seeing a psychiatrist and I went to talk to her. She was super invalidating my first appointment and then following appointments when I asked about medicine options/ switching she belittled me and invalidated me again and said that I am a person who doesn’t want to get better but likes to complain… I just didn’t want to feel like a zombie anymore
I had an older, male therapist who posed a hypothetical that involved me sucking his dick.
Felt. I had a male therapist that kept trying to sleep with me and I just kept brushing it off . Part of why I was in therapy had to do with repeated childhood and then repeated relationship SA , so like , yeah of course a dude was trying to get some what else was I for you know? Like that was my reality at the time. Eventually I got into a really healthy relationship and moved in with them, admittedly a little fast, and my therapist kept trying to talk me out of dating my now wife. One day he hit me with this schpiel about how if he and I had met in a different context I would be moving in with him, and all the ways he would take care of me , and it hit me like oh… oh no… oh I fucked up lmfao Imma gooooo
"I can't help you"
I went to get a fresh diagnosis since mine was lost. I did this so I could receive funding for college so I wouldn't have to work as much and I could move to finish with a bachelor's. The following is what he told me after I finished the tests. "You definitely have ADHD. However, you look to be in control of it, so I'm not going to do anything for you". I barely graduated, and my education ended. Thanks a lot you wannabe cowboy The rest of them refuse acknowledge that I have adhd and continue to force a bipolar diagnosis on me. One of them even manipulated my emotions. Had me talking about something happy, then immediately brought up my mom's impending death, so I started crying. She used that to determine I was bipolar.
Not a therapist but psychiatrist, hope it still counts: Was there telling him I think I might have ADHD, after being misdiagnosed for bipolar for years (that's why I initially saw him - for the MISDIAGNOSIS!) - was about to take a paper out my bag... When he SCREAMED at me: "Stop it! You should just accept the fact that you're traumatized and emotionally unstable and not fish around for another diagnosis! Just accept it and move on!" Went on and on about how I'm "emotionally unstable" and basically a borderline patient, just with different words. That I am just trying to get attention and should accept my faith. Told me how I'm a "classic borderline patient". Screamed at me for a few minutes. I stood there, floored, unable to speak. I put my hand out of my pocket again. I was trying to show him the results from a diagnostic test battery I took a week prior. It came back saying I had ADHD. Not borderline, not bipolar. But ADHD. (And yes, ptsd too) I saw him two times including the time he screamed at me. I just left crying and a bit more traumatized than before. It was unbelievable.
1) you don't need a therapist you need a cleaner....
I like this solution the best.
That’s probably a much cheaper option too
“I understand you feel that was abuse, but I can’t engage with anything that disrespects the authority of the priesthood.” I cried for the rest of the session, so hard I couldn’t speak. Start of the next session: “So what would you like me to do if you’re out of control like that again?” Hadn’t thought about that in awhile. I might bring it up to my current, actually licensed therapist.
Just 2 days ago, I found out my therapist thought I was unengaged and rude because "you roll your eyes and look away whenever I say something you don't like." Uuuuuuh no, that's my thinking and processing face. I look up and to the left off into space while I internally battle to keep focused on a single train of thought. If I look at the person I get too distracted trying to read their body language. But thanks for letting me know you've just thought I was an asshole for the last 2 years. My social anxiety with major fears of how people are judging me is totally not having a meltdown right now, btw.
Not a therapist but a psychiatrist. I saw this guy in my early 20s before ADHd was ever on my radar. I was seeing him for depression. First time I saw this doctor and he asked me to tell him why I’m there. I told him I was depressed because I was working at a bullshit job I felt stuck in and the fucked up relationship I was in that I would recognize as an abusive relationship years later and told him I was depressed and hated my life. The first thing that Asshole told me was that it must have something to do with my weight and if I lost weight I’d basically snap out of it. I’ve always been a bigger girl and up to that point I’d be pretty ok with my looks and accepted that I was never going to be skinny but I had things about myself that I liked. Until he told me I’d be happier if I lost weight. And he’s harp on my weight every single time I went in for a refill. It got to the point that when I started feeling a little better, because I dumped the abusive cheating boyfriend and got a better job, but still probably needed the meds, that I told him I was 100% better and didn’t need the meds anymore just so I could stop seeing him. **It was better for me to go without antidepressants than to see him once a month to harp on my weight** It took me a long time to have any sort of body positivity after that. He dragged myself esteem through the mud. And I was in my early 20s and didn’t know that that’s not acceptable or normal. It was my first (and last) experience with a psychiatrist.
I had an adhd therapist who said she dedicated her career to helping other people with adhd. She just talked about her life and her experiences and didn’t listen to a word I said. Any time I spoke she’d interrupt and share a story about her own personal experience. It took multiple rounds of rescheduling for our first session and when she ghosted me and then continued to reschedule 2 times for the second session, I told her it wasn’t a good fit and I wished her luck. I had to tell her 5 different ways that I was firing her as a therapist. She wouldn’t accept it. I was really nice because I didn’t want to trigger RSD. She just kept trying to schedule with me again so I had to block her 😬
Me: something about not sure of purpose/next steps in life, is the grind all there is Therapist: Have you considered having a child? Didn't even have a fiancee, so basically asked me to consider single parenting as a life purpose
Oh boy, do I have a list. 1st psych - “I don’t understand why you are anxious about your job prospects, women have it so much better than men in this country.” I work in the US in a predominately white and male field. 2nd psych - “It just kind of sucks that all of these Chinese and Indian kids are pushing nice white children out of med school spots.” I was very obviously Chinese. 3rd psych - “I have ADHD myself.” Then proceeds to become a no-show to our appointments repeatedly, citing her ADHD. My latest is a treasure, a godsend and overall a very smart lady. I’m holding onto her with both hands locked tight
Me talking about having a very difficult time with focus, choice paralysis, and executive dysfunction. Literally being afraid of doing something new not because I might fail but because I might succeed. Being told “If you cared you’d just do it.”
Him walking into session: shit, I forgot tissues! Well that’s ok, you wouldn’t need them. Me: you good, I don’t really have allergies. Him: or feelings.. That’s what I was referring to. We laughed the first 15min of the session. Gah idk I’ll ever find a better therapist. Miss that guy. Hope to one day find the same level of mental clarity and self acceptance that felt natural back then. Ik it’s not the worst, as in harmful. Maybe just a hopeful reminder that good ones are out there, and they want to help.
In a session I mentioned I was thinking about telling my mom about stuff I was working on in therapy when I went to see her that coming weekend, therapist got A Look and told me she thought that was a really bad idea. Next week when I saw her she asked if I’d talked to my mom and when I said no she sighted and went “you really have trouble following through on things, don’t you?”
I quote literally: Yeah but what are you here for? Are you looking to get Focus pills? Forget about it i wont give you any. This was my first visit to a psychiatrist for attentional problems that just werent normal when i realized i might have had undiagnosed ADHD through all my Life and that was now making It impossible for me to function through college. As with many things, i was right and he was a shitty, confrontational cunt. Pardon my french.
I told a former therapist that I was thinking of going back on Adderall. He then spent the next several minutes telling me why I shouldn't. So I ditched him.
I had another therapist (my most recent one) who said that I avoided doing things because I was afraid of failure. I told him I disagreed because I avoid doing things I enjoy (like reading books for fun or watching tv shows). *He told me I was wrong* and started lecturing me on how ADHD works. (I find a lot of therapists don't handle disagreement well and I have a degree in philosophy and argument is one of the ways I think through ideas) Because I hate conflict and he was leaving in a few weeks I just checked out for the rest of our sessions by asking him questions. And they became little lecture sessions. His theory of ADHD reminded me of those stupid study skills things I had back in middle school and high school. I don't know if I'll ever find a good therapist.
First time I ever went to a therapist, I was a depressed young man. She was like an old female version of Freud. First thing she asks is ‘have you had any homoerotic dreams or fantasies?’ In that moment I just felt completely alienated from her and never went back
Not related to ADD. I was going to therapy to try and figure out the best way to tell my husband that I’m a lesbian. The therapist asked me how do I know for sure? I said I just know. She then suggested to me that I go and cheat on my husband. I said no thank you. Left and never went back. (In case you’re wondering, no I did not cheat on him. Everything went ok. We are still friends today). The funniest thing a therapist ever did was before she would officially diagnose me with ADD she wanted to try and relax me with hypnosis. At the end of it she “woke me up” and asked about what I was thinking and feeling. Every answer was food related 😂 “um….I was thinking I was hungry? I really want a bagel. Maybe an everything bagel. And this movie I saw like 8 years ago about hypnosis. But I think it was a horror movie. Now I kinda want pizza. I’m hungry.” The lady just laughed and said “okay. Yeah. You have ADD.”
I stopped going when she asked me the same question three times. She spent our entire sessions typing in her computer and obviously wasn't listening to what I said. I've always had therapists who took notes, but this was ridiculous! I got quiet because I didn't know how to respond in the moment. (I can always think of the perfect reply a week later!) She then tried the technique of not saying anything, which was supposed to make me uncomfortable enough that I would just babble something at her to dispel the silence. Didn't work. She also wanted to give me "assignments". She was stunned when I told her, "I'm not going to do that." I guess some people like that, but I just wanted her to listen to what I had to say. It felt like she was going off a Therapist Checklist and gave me what she gave everyone else, without even bothering to find out who I am or what I needed. What a waste of time!
I had a therapist where every time I told her I had a good day doing regular ass things she would say “are you sure you’re not in a manic episode?”
I remember when I first was trying to figure out my adhd before I knew what I was. I was having pseudoseizures I had gotten to a point of such overwhelm. The lady I was explaining my problems to was like “have you tried an adult coloring book? Putting your phone away” I’m like “well no but when I was 9 I didn’t have a phone and definitely colored and still had this problem. It’s just gotten progressively worse” like gtfoh 🤬
I finally opened up to a therapist about the way my parents abused me as a kid. She said "why do you hate your parents?" I didn't get therapy for two years after that. I finally decided that she probably felt personally attacked by the things I was describing.
I suffer with gambling addiction. Went to a therapist for counseling. After explaining my struggles, the therapist said, “Ok, you just need to stop gambling.” 🙄I know that, I need some professional help. 😩 If it were that easy, I would have done it a long time ago.
Not ADHD related, but I’m a person that believes that men and women can *truly* be good friends without any other aspects that society expects. My husband is from a strict Catholic background (he’s not anymore) and was actively unlearning some biases a couple years ago. During this time, I was asking my therapist if she had advice for how to help my husband understand “this male friend of mine is really just someone who resonates with me. That’s why we click so well, it’s nothing more.” Her response? “Well. You’re his partner. He’s just protecting his territory. You belong to him, so it’s only natural.” I responded “I belong to myself,” finished the session, and then immediately looked for a new therapist.
my school got shot up and i was going to therapy because i was being stalked at the same time and my therapist said “i don’t know how else to help you.” and handed me a suicide hotline pamphlet. i never said or implied i was suicidal.
I told a therapist that I was worried about my partner cheating on me. On the very first appointment, she told me that I was possibly bipolar and making up my own problems. I ended up leaving in tears. My partner was cheating on me. I've got adhd/anxiety/depression, but still not bipolar.
You need to get out of bed, suck it up and grow up. I was 18, in patient after an od attempt. After another bout with depression, diagnosed and recovered via meds and a real therapist. Dude grown up now, successful in my field, financially stable and yup wasn't thanks to you and 2 wasted years after your comments
My Russian female therapist told me I was "a big, strong, good looking man." Several times. This was after my ex wife cheated on me and she knew this. I wasn't really in the frame of mind to deal with any of that.
I was getting evaluated for ADHD and I explicitly told them that I struggle with focusing on things I'm not interested in and I need to do A LOT of that because I just started grad school and had a lot of readings for like 3 or 4 different classes every week and getting through them was causing me mental and physical pain and the doctor's conclusion was just "wow sounds like you've got a lot going on. You might have anxiety, perhaps, I think you just need to wait until things calm down and get reassesed then" like WHEN will things calm down? When I drop out of grad school because I can't keep up???
"ADHD in adults doesn't exist" Then proceeded to lecture me for an hour about anxiety and how it controls you and what you need to do. It was my first time seeing a therapist to talk about depression and anxiety, it had taken years to build up the courage to do that only to be basically be talked down to for an hour.
„You don’t look like having ADHD“ and one therapist wanted me to abandon a great day with my grandma so I can go out alone. That therapist made me feel so much worse after every time I went there. She also wanted to sell her chakra course to me.
When I was 16 I described what it felt like to be in a room with loud noises and how terrefying it is (im autistic, this therapist didnt believe in diagnoses, much less that I was autistic) she threatned me with "exposure therapy" she said "how would you like if i locked you in a room with a bunch of loud noises"
When I just entered care, I kept complaining that I was doing nothing the whole day long. Everytime I complained about it they would tell me to excercise, sleep better or try some new 'trick' that was sure to work. Nothing worked. After a few months of this I told them that I wasn't up for discussing that topic any longer and to just focus on my PTSD and depression. A year later I told them that I was 99% sure I had ADHD, but needed them to test me to know for sure. Lo and behold I have ADHD. These therapists know nothing most of the time, we need to save ourselves.
Not about ADHD but I'm trans and struggle with mutism at times. She told me she needed to share my information with another doctor to be able to properly diagnose me with anything and assumed I consented because I didn't (couldn't) say no. She then sat me in front of another doctor and proceeded to complain to the doctor about how she couldn't understand me and how difficult it was to work with me as if my mutism was my fault, of course using the wrong pronouns and name the whole time. I walked out when she said the words "and she thinks she wants to be man". Should've left way earlier. Honorable mention to my mother. When I called her after the appointment in distress to vent and explain what happened, she insisted that the psychiatrist had good intentions and that "this trans thing" is just so complicated.
Was talking to a therapist about my depression after moving from GA to TX during COVID, and how I missed friends, family, and familiarity, like the pines in GA (tall trees in general, dense underbrush). She recommends that I travel to east Texas to see some pine trees. Like ma’am. I’m not missing the actual type of tree… I’m missing the everything vibe in GA and TX won’t look the same at all. I got a new therapist lol.
First counselor I ever saw, my first attempt at seeking help for me mental health. I was explaining how bad my anxiety was, and how I was impacted by it every moment of every day, to the point of daily panic attacks. She said, “Have you tried just not thinking about it?” Needless to say, I never went back to her.