Have you ever been lied to by a mental health professional?

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It's the Harris County Psychiatric Center. I'll post the good stuff that happened too, when I feel like it, lol.

Oh, yes, I forgot: the bill of rights or whatever it was said we had the right to unlimited phone calls but in reality they turned the phones off during group tgherapy and after 11 at night or something, and turned them on after breakfast and the group meeting. Also, a gangsta-type guy was wearing his pants saggy and a tech told him "We don't wear our pants like that on 2D" (our ward was 2D) and made him thread a towel through his belt loops like a belt to hopld up his pants. She said he was wearing his pants like they do in prison, but he was a prisoner now not being able to wear his pants the way he wanted.


Security-- well, in just about every place that has security, it's useless because someone with average intelligence and life experience could easily breach it and blow the place up. They gave us these really short toothbrushes, but then I saw one lady in the bathroom who had her own full-length toothbrush. Pens weren't allowed either. They gave us these little pencils to write with and there was a box of Crayolas on the unit. But the plastic fork and knife could do more damage than toothbrushes and some pens can. (We were allowed to take the plastic forks, knives and spoons into our rooms to finish food in there.) Jack sneaked a ballpoint pen in for me and some vitamins. Outside meds aren't allowed, but outside food is, so all a patient has to do if he wants to get high is ask their friends to bring in outside food laced with whatever.


Anyway, all security is pretty much useless unless they perform cavity searches on everyone going in. They gave us a visual search, we had to walk through a metal detector, that's all. They confiscated the steel bar I was wearing in my ear because I could use it as a weapon but the fork and knife they give us makes a way better weapon, and also I had this plastic bangle I was wearing that they didn't confiscate, that I could have broken in half and used as a weapon; it was hard and sharp.


Also, the showers were too cold; they didn't want us scalding ourselves but it could have been way warmer than they had the maximum temperature!

But you can expect professionalism...and a part of that is telling the truth, especially to their patients, who often trust in them and confide in them more than they would anyone else.

I've been lied to by several mental health professionals.
When I went on my FIRST EVER medication to do with mental health (age 14), the psych said that it was impossible for me to overdose on it. I think that was because I had made comments about death in the initial assessment. Anyway, about 2 months later I was depressed and took the pills, a whole packet of 30. Then I regretted it and wanted to live, but remembered that I supposedly couldn't overdose on them, so didn't tell anyone.
Need less to say, a few hours later I was in the hospital. I HATE the doctor for telling me that I couldn't overdose on them...what a stupid and irresponsible thing to do!

Although, I shouldn't have been stupid enough to believe that you couldn't overdose on anti-psychotics in the first place.

Yeah, I think it was called a diagnosis or Asperger's Syndrome.

Brittany, I don't think your doctor intended that you swallow 30 of those pills. Are you mad at him because you're not dead? Or do you subconciously blame him for your all your problems? Is it possible that you and the doctor just misunderstood each other regarding the pills? If you get your hands on stronger stuff, make sure you are using it correctly before crying foul.

Yes, I have been lied to. It was a horrible experience. I went to the mental hospital on my birthday (birthdays always bring bad luck and today is my mom's birthday and I am feeling depressed but luckily not suicidal) and this jerk told me to my face that he thinks I am not faking my illness or just copying the symptoms that I read on the internet. Then I picked up the report from the hospital and guess what! He thinks I actually got crazy just by reading on the Internet! So, he lied to my face. That means he really thinks I am faking it. I am NOT a liar. I don't fake. That is wrong and people who deliberately do that goes you know where. This same jerk 2 years ago told me that I needed to be kicked out of the house in my condition (probably because all the way back then he didn't think it was real). I only make $600 a month and he was expecting me in my condition to live on that? How dumb is this guy? Let me shoot this dumb psychiatrist for a bit. I had autism when I was 1, how can I possibly know the symptoms when I was one? Then depression, anxiety and schizoaffective disorder. I actually started getting symptoms of those well before I started reading about it. If I knew what this jerk was thinking at the time, then I would have shot him down and I don't care about a liar's feelings. I would have been proud to shoot him down and maybe he could change his mind. Next time I see him (which will probably be October. That month sometimes brings bad luck because of my brother's birthday) I will tell him what I told you. He won't fool me again. After I do this I will demand a doctor that believes me. I know I don't fit neatly into a box with my symptoms but that does not automatically mean I am faking or just reading the symptoms on the Internet. According to this jerk's logic, then ALL psychology students will be walking DSM- IV's. That means psychiatrists and psychologists would be so sick that THEY would end up in the hospital! What does this jerk think? That my monitor when I am reading on the Internet will send off rays of some kind that changes my brain chemistry? Now that would be one bizarre delusion! But according to this idiot, that must be what he thinks.

This kind of sh*t-talking is pretty juvenile. Posters seem to pull insults and diatribe out their a$$es, whatever they can dredge up pertinent or not.

How about you be braver than you are by talking to the psychiatrist face-to-face about your grievances. Say them to their faces instead of behind their backs. This would require some actual strength of character. Sh*t-talking someone behind their back requires no strength of character at all. No courage, no integrity.

I've been shit-talked behind my back before too and I agree with you, Slowmutant. I told my psychiatrist about feeling humiliated about being committed and he just said that the main thing was that I was there now and that I needed to be there, which was true. Actually, first he asked me what happened and why I was involuntarily committed.

Ana54, what happened to you, sucks. If I ever get committed to a mental hospital such humiliation would take such a severe toll on my frail mental health they might as well just shoot me.

Wow. Condescension, disregard for normal human reactions when they're in a (current or former) psych patient, not taking someone's descriptions of their reasoning and feelings at face value, and attaching several dubious and condescending (and unfalsifiable, because "subconscious") motivations for said thing that they already explained and that was a normal human reaction (being upset about being misled by someone with power and authority)... I won't say these would make good traits in a mental health professional, but they're certanly pretty common traits. (Not because the people going into that profession are just like that, although certainly some are and gravitate there for that reason. But mostly it's because that's the way that system tends to mold people into thinking and reacting to patients within it.)

When I was having issues with anxiety and depression when I was in high school, one pyschologist in particular was one of the women who worked with me. It wasn't that she was outright lying, but she simply seemed superficially interested. She's always light this massive 7 wick lavender candle, play synthetic cheaply produced flute music, and talk to me as if I were a frightened animal in a cage. It was humiliating and completely unnecessary.

I had a counselor when I went to college who helped a lot though. She had fibromyalgia too, and talked honestly to me about it, like a real person. Not condescending at all.

As a healthcare worker, it kills me when we get a patient with psych history on the floor, and the nurses groan and make stupid stereotypical comments about the patients- especially if it's something they have a hard time managing. The only people at my work who know I have AS are my supervisors, and it would be difficult to imagine how differently my staff would treat me if they knew. Not all nurses are like that, though, we have some really compassionate ones on the floor which make it sooo worth working.

In my experience, the times psychologists treated me condescendingly were the times I did not present myself as well as I should have. Face it, psychologists are people, too; they are not enlightened sages. Yes, they will get upset if you disrespect them. But it's sort of stupid that a person with a mental illness be required to partially cure herself in order to be able to receive appropriate psychological attention.

being in mental sucks but atleast u didint got your self in group home etc

For once I agree with Slowmutant on most, if not all counts.

I was a voluntary patient in a psychiatric hospital in November and December 1972. I believe I wasn't lied to by the psychiatrists there. I would not have imagined that they would lie to me.

My ex-shrink once told me that I wanted to blend in with my peers. That was the biggest lie, that I've ever heard. She also told me that I was Mentally Challenged and that I shouldn't reach for the stars. That was another load of crap.