Fighting Stigma - Among Professionals

Hospital. Lock Down. Acute Care Facility. Psychiatrist. Social Worker. DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy). CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). Counselor. Peer Support. Groups. WRAP. Community Support. Family Physician. Medications. Mood Stabilizers. Anti-Depressants. Anti-Psychotics. Mental Health. Stigma.

It’s difficult to describe how much time someone with a Mental Health condition spends in a constant battle, trying to remain stable while at the same time navigating the system and the medical community. For me, once I entered the system I found myself exhausted and confused simply from the terminology, the options for treatment and the cold and detached way that the health professionals treated me. I didn’t always understand what they were talking about and why they wouldn’t speak directly to me, at times not even informing me that they had diagnosed me with something new.

Every step of my journey has been filled with online searches, books and personal conversation with others who have experienced the mental health world and I have overcome many anxieties to become a strong self-advocate. But it isn’t always enough.

Recently I’ve been struggling. For once it isn’t with my moods, or either of my diagnoses and life has slowly become somewhat level for the time being. It isn’t perfect, and it still takes effort to keep it this way, to stay floating somewhere between happy and sad, manic and depressed. It takes conscious decisions and daily reminders that feelings are simply feelings and I can let them pass without becoming clingy or rage-consumed. But I am doing it. With support, and love and daily tracking, and effort and a plan in place with my doctor, I am remaining on track.

Perhaps this is the problem though. I’m on track and I am clear and functional and determined. And as I said, recently I’ve been struggling because of this. Because our health care system isn’t designed to really help those who struggle with mental health. Because the social workers and psychiatrists put such a huge focus onto medication and getting patients in and out of the acute care hospitals as quickly as possible. Because to get support you have to fight for it. Because the six to eight sessions they provide you with a therapist isn’t going to get deep and address the issues or the trauma that have contributed to your illness. Because being happy automatically tells the group leaders that you are manic and being sad because of life circumstances automatically means you are depressed and unstable. Because diet and exercise are not put into perspective, are not treated as things that can legitimately affect/worsen/improve an underlying condition. Because they don’t see you. They see a disease. An illness. An incurable mess whose only hope is pills and therapy to cope.

I’ve hesitated in writing about this.

Recently I was removed from a group that was being run by our hospital, a therapy group designed for those with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), but also useful for Bipolar Disorder. When I questioned not why I was removed from the group but how it was done, I was met with a series of answers that only further confused me. At first I was told I was doing well in the group but it wasn’t the right group for me, and then the leaders who refused to intervene stated that my moods were unstable and my medication journey was not being properly addressed. To say I was shocked and confused is an understatement. But I did not react – using skills learned in this and other groups, I took what they told me and thought it over, discussed it with my husband. When I was confident that this was not right, I took it back to the social worker who initially informed me of the decision as well as the Team Lead. Because I’ve never challenged the system before, I brought a support person with me to meet with them. It didn’t go well. I was fine. I was confident and determined and focused. I had legitimate concerns that I wanted addressed and I was the ideal self-advocate, asking questions and trying to see from their perspective.

What I received as a result was disappointing at best. I left the office at the hospital feeling not only invalidated but completely doubting of myself. During the meeting I experienced a social worker who outright lied to cover her own behind and both of the professionals present put everything back to me – first they accused me of being manic, and then depressed, and then simply unstable. When I asked for an example they used only my history (before serious treatment began) and were unable to focus on anything but my medications. For just a few minutes I almost began to agree. I was unstable. I needed them to make me stable. I couldn’t possibly know my own body or my own moods or illnesses – my journals, my witnesses, my months of stability and examples of change – none of it mattered.

Honestly, I understand their point of view. I understand that there are patients (I have been one) who cannot tell what level really feels like, who will lie to convince medical professionals – or themselves – that they are okay. It happens. But there are many paths to recovery. Mental Health for me has been about more trial and error than exact science. Different combinations of pills and therapies, group supports and personal counselors, self-discovery and a change in lifestyle have all contributed to getting me to the place I am now. There will be many more things that I will try and some of those things will help me, while others will have no effect or may even hinder me.

In my situation the medical professionals who were supposed to be working with me were in the wrong. In the place where I had fought to receive treatment, waited on lists to get in, signed a contract for a full year of treatment and then put every effort into my recovery; I was invalidated and made to feel small, like a crazy person without a cause. And this is why I’m writing about it here. Because I may have struggles that are very real, and I might have two incredibly hard diagnosis’ to live with and gain control over, but I am still a human. I deserved to be treated like a person and not a disorder and I will fight to make that happen, because while I am in a place where I can finally self-advocate, there are so many more people who can’t. People who are in a deep, possibly dark place with reliance on the system to treat them individually. People who are surrounded by judgement and terrified of the very real stigma that still exists surrounding mental health. People who simply can’t yet.

I can keep talking. I can keep fighting and I will not let my diagnosis define me – to family, friends or professionals.