Why did my therapist berate me for wanting antidepressants?

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Aspie1
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25 Jun 2022, 8:02 am

When I was 11 thru 15, I was seeing a therapist. As you may have already heard/read, she was garbage. But one incident stuck out in my mind. Somewhere, somehow, I had heard about pills that can magically make your sadness go away. But not knowing the real term "antidepressants", I referred to them as "happiness pills".

Anyway, during one session, after a very grueling week, with me getting picked on at school, emotionally abused by parents, reprimanded by multiple teachers, and losing a special pen I really liked, I was at my wit's end and wanted a cure for misery. So, I asked my therapist to get me "happiness pills". I asked in good faith, not to score drugs.

She DID NOT like that. She jumped on me like a guard dog on a burglar. She spent the next 10 minutes berating me for wanting a quick fix, trying to use drugs instead of sharing my feelings (which was pointless to begin with, as she mocked me or didn't believe me every time), not being patient enough to wait until I feel better "in the long run" (her words, which were a dog whistle for "never"), and a plethora of other accusations; by the end, I stopped listening, and fantasized about throwing my chair at her head instead.

That's when I knew I had to find my own "happiness pills". So I did. I took up drinking my parents whiskey and boxed wine. And less frequently, huffing cleaning chemicals and modeling glue; the 1990's-era DARE campaigns actually taught me how! :!: These weren't perfect, but they were easily accessible and helped my mood a lot better than "sharing my feelings" did.

Today, I GET why she reacted the way she did. Pills cut into her revenue. If a patient takes an antidepressant for a few months and gets happier, it eliminates potential years of future patient visits. So money is the best explanation. But why else? She may have been a weird anti-medicine fanatic and/or simply enjoyed seeing me miserable, but those are the only other things I can think of.

I did eventually get "happiness pills" 24 years later: Effexor. It had me on cloud 9! Well, at least early on.



DanielW
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25 Jun 2022, 8:30 am

A lot of therapists are against anti-depressants for varied reasons. One might have been your age at the time, another might have been the increased risk of suicide when starting medication. It may have been your referring to them as" happiness pills". Its too difficult to guess.

I agree with you about Talk therapy. No amount of talking about feelings (especially with someone who berated me) has ever helped me. I don't know for certain, and I can't speak for anyone but myself but there are types of depression and mental illness that can't be talked away.

One thing I've found particularly un-helpful in therapy is not getting any helpful advice or useful, practical information. Most therapists are even hesitant about any kind of direct answers either and it can be maddening.

I've been through several therapists and several anti-depressants both have really only short-term solutions to a long-term problem.



Aspie1
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25 Jun 2022, 9:14 am

DanielW wrote:
A lot of therapists are against anti-depressants for varied reasons. One might have been your age at the time, another might have been the increased risk of suicide when starting medication. It may have been your referring to them as" happiness pills". Its too difficult to guess.
...
One thing I've found particularly un-helpful in therapy is not getting any helpful advice or useful, practical information. Most therapists are even hesitant about any kind of direct answers either and it can be maddening.

The "suicide" part is a moot point. I had some semblance of suicide plans since I was 8. By the time I ended up in that quack's office, I had methods so well-planned, I'd get banned if I mentioned them here. So the "increased" risk is irrelevant.

I found out the hard way much later that practical advice isn't the point of therapy. Therapy isn't meant to help you with problems. It isn't even meant to make you feel better in general. It's meant to help you feel better... about feeling miserable; that is, live with your misery, rather than find a way to make it stop. If you find this confusing, then therapy isn't for you. In fact, I learned more about teen life from the show "Clarissa Explains It All" (starring Melissa Joan Hart), than I learned from that therapist.

One thing I will never understand: Why does the human trash colloquially known as "therapists" angrily SHAME you for wanting antidepressants? Why can't they just be honest? Why can't they say: "I'm not licensed to prescribe them", or "I won't let you have them because [blah-blah-blah], go find someone else", or even "I enjoy your misery too much to let you have them"?



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25 Jun 2022, 3:50 pm

A lot of people (from all walks of life) see anti-depressants as a form of "cheating." It's a very Puritan-ish sort of view. You have the brain god gave you, so just accept it and suck it up and move on.

This is stupid, of course. Some people are born without legs, but we don't tell them it's cheating to want a wheelchair and to suck it up and walk on their stumps.

A more reasonable concern is that people might use antidepressants when it would be better to change their life. If someone has an abusive spouse, for example, they need to leave and seek safety, not take pills in order to better tolerate the abuse.

But even those people might need antidepressants. The pills might help them find the strength to deal with problems that seemed insurmountable before, or just relieve some of their suffering.

A third, related concern is when a child is stuck in a miserable situation and the parent just wants to medicate them instead of dealing with the problem. For example, if a child is being bullied at school, then a parent's responsibility is to stop the bullies or pull their child out of school--protect their kid.

But obviously this was you asking, not your parents.

It sounds to me like your therapist thought that if you would just stop behaving like an autist and start behaving like a normie, all of your problems would go away and you'd be happy. She saw your request as an attempt at papering over/ignoring your "real problem." Of course, her solution to your "problem" is not biologically possible.



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25 Jun 2022, 5:26 pm

Aspie1 wrote:
Today, I GET why she reacted the way she did. Pills cut into her revenue. If a patient takes an antidepressant for a few months and gets happier, it eliminates potential years of future patient visits. So money is the best explanation. But why else? She may have been a weird anti-medicine fanatic and/or simply enjoyed seeing me miserable, but those are the only other things I can think of.




1)

You were a child.
People under 25 are at greater risk of manic / suicidal behaviour on SSRI.
Doctors are liable for everything they prescribe.


2)

Was she a psychiatrist?
I thought you mentioned before that she was a young student psychotherapist.
They aren't even accredited to prescribe psychiatric medication.



Aspie1
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25 Jun 2022, 10:36 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
1) You were a child.
People under 25 are at greater risk of manic / suicidal behaviour on SSRI.
Doctors are liable for everything they prescribe.
Well... hmph! I was already suicidal at that point, with plans and everything; at little more "risk" wouldn't have made a lick of difference. Also, is a little Effexor REALLY that much worse than the alcohol and the inhalants I was abusing? Ironically, swigging whiskey and huffing car paint helped me more than years of therapy. If toxic substances were that good, real antidepressants would be even better.

IsabellaLinton wrote:
2) Was she a psychiatrist?
I thought you mentioned before that she was a young student psychotherapist.
They aren't even accredited to prescribe psychiatric medication.
The young student you're thinking of was the one who administered psych tests on me; I saw her only twice. The woman this thread is about was your garden-variety family therapist, who I saw for years; she was in her 40's at the time. So given her job title, of course she wasn't authorized to prescribe pills---she just wasn't honest about it with me. I still don't understand why she couldn't refer me to a real doctor for an antidepressant prescription; was her income from my sessions THAT important?



Last edited by Aspie1 on 25 Jun 2022, 10:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

IsabellaLinton
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25 Jun 2022, 10:42 pm

Aspie1 wrote:
Well... hmph! I was already suicidal at that point, with plans and everything; at little more "risk" wouldn't have made a lick of difference. Also, is a little Effexor REALLY that much worse than the alcohol and the inhalants I was abusing? Ironically, swigging whiskey and huffing car paint helped me more than years of therapy. If toxic substances were that good, real antidepressants would be even better.


I'm just telling you the facts.
That's likely why you weren't given SSRI.

If you were deemed at risk of self-harm you would have been admitted to a paediatric inpatient hospital or mental health program.

I'm not saying that you didn't deserve help, and I'm sorry you had such a rough time, but it's very rare for children to be given psych. meds.

Doctors can lose their licence if the child commits homicide or suicide, or harms others.


Aspie1 wrote:
The young student you're thinking of is the one who administered psych tests on me; I saw her only twice. The woman this thread is about was your garden-variety family therapist, who I saw for years; she was in her 40's at the time. So given her job title, of course she wasn't authorized to prescribe pills---she just wasn't honest about it with me. I still don't understand why she couldn't refer me to a real doctor for an antidepressant prescription; was her income from my sessions THAT important?


Sorry for thinking she was the young student. I got that mixed up.

What was your therapist's job title, then?

Medicine can only be prescribed by psychiatrists: professionals who have attended medical school.

Psychologists and "therapists" can't prescribe medication.

I'm sorry she wasn't honest with you about it.



Aspie1
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25 Jun 2022, 10:56 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
I'm just telling you the facts.
That's likely why you weren't given SSRI.
...
I'm not saying that you didn't deserve help, and I'm sorry you had such a rough time, but it's very rare for children to be given psych. meds.
Again, hmph! This makes me glad I'm an adult, and I can get anything and everything I want, including opioids if I play my cards right. I wonder how she'd have reacted if she knew about the "happiness pills" I used, the whiskey and the car paint, in lieu of the real ones. As for SSRI's, Prozac is allowed for kids 8 and older.

IsabellaLinton wrote:
Sorry for thinking she was the young student. I got that mixed up.

What was your therapist's job title, then?
"Family therapist" was the job title she presented herself as, since she specialized in helping families (read: parents). But her degree was LCSW (licensed clinical social worker). Funny how social workers are supposed to stop the emotional abuse in families, while she was enabling it in mine.



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26 Jun 2022, 1:57 am

When was all this happening? It sounds like late 80's early 90's? The SSRI happy pills were still actually quite new at that point and there was a fair bit of resistance against them. I think even in the psychiatric profession. There were several big news stories of mother's killing themselves and their kids which got a lot of attention.

When I was prescribed Prozac early on, someone leaked my information (either from docs office or the pharmacy) to some activist group. I started receiving anti-prozac leaflets in the mail! Felt like a major invasion of privacy.


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26 Jun 2022, 4:00 am

I would think she did not want you to become dependent on them. The way she went about was bad. She just should have nicely said she did not want you to become dependent on them instead of berating you.


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26 Jun 2022, 8:19 am

He or she wants you to be not dependent on anyone.



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26 Jun 2022, 8:32 am

The ultimate goal of therapists, psychologists or whatever is making good money. Their patients' well-being is only important in a way that it will be their credit and enhance their career. Not the patients' well-being per se. So, I don't trust them. What the OP describes about therapists is exactly how I feel about them.



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26 Jun 2022, 8:58 am

ASPartOfMe wrote:
I would think she did not want you to become dependent on them. The way she went about was bad. She just should have nicely said she did not want you to become dependent on them instead of berating you.
Well, so what! I'm dependent on Effexor today. That, and alcohol to a certain extent. And if she had said this, I'd have seen through the "concerned" façade, and known she just enjoyed seeing me miserable, like my parents did.

Then again, maybe my parents told her behind my back that I was a "whiner", so she wouldn't take my complaints about being miserable seriously. ("Whining" was a thought-terminating cliché they used to shut me up, like when I was thirsty or otherwise uncomfortable.) So when I asked for "happiness pills", she "knew" it was me "whining", and berated me, so I wouldn't "whine" to her again. After all, her loyalty was to my parents, not to me, even though I was the one coming to her office. It's ironic that I took up much worse substances than the "happiness pills" I wanted, and she was none the wiser.



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26 Jun 2022, 10:46 am

Some medical practitioners and pharmacists have expressed their concerns over “drug shoppers” -- people who go from doctor to doctor in hope of obtaining multiple prescriptions for the same drugs, the excess of which they will sell at a profit on the black market.

Perhaps the OP’s psychiatrist perceives his request as a form of “drug shopping”.



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26 Jun 2022, 11:11 am

Fnord wrote:
Perhaps the OP’s psychiatrist perceives his request as a form of “drug shopping”.
How could I be drug shopping? I was 12 or 13. At that age, it's usually gangsters who drug shop, while I was a pathetic weakling, which my therapist already knew by then. Which explains why she berated me: no one respects a preteen who gets emotionally abused by his own family and can't get good grades 100% of the time.

I'm sure it was different in the mid 1990's. But today, most patients' data in the US is kept in the nationwide Epic database. If you saw one doctor and got a prescription, other doctors will know the minute they look you up.

So, your argument is sound, but doesn't apply to me at all. She wasn't a psychiatrist; she was a family therapist with no authority to prescribe. Thanks god I already knew alcohol and inhalants could function as ad-hoc antidepressants. The DARE campaign meant to prevent substance abuse got me started on it instead, as it taught me which substances counted as drugs.



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26 Jun 2022, 3:42 pm

When I worked as a volunteer for a crisis center, hardly a day would go by that someone did not come in looking for free drugs -- they usually asked for weed or methadone. Some of them were pre-teens. It happens.

It does not surprise me that many people seek relief from reality through drugs and alcohol.

It only makes me sad.