I wrote this to share with my psychiatrist, and I thought I’d share it with all of you, too. Thanks to Kat for the “dickless prick” phrasing.
I thought we had established my background, but it seems like we/you need a bit of a refresher, so here we go.
I used to be a pharmacist. Then I was a mental health nurse for 15 years. I have a Master of Psychiatric Nursing degree and regularly read psychiatric/psychological research papers to do knowledge translation on my blog for people who are actually taking these treatments. I’ve done a significant amount of continuing medical education, particularly with regards to treatment-resistant depression. A copy of Stahl’s Essential Psychopharmacology sits on my home bookshelf. I’ve written a book called Psych Meds Made Simple that’s in the top 10 in bestsellers in the medical psychopharmacology category on Amazon. It’s rated 4.6/5 with 786 ratings. It’s sold over 11,000 copies.
I’m unconvinced that you have the slightest clue how to approach treatment-resistant depression. Instead, you’re too bloody scared to just order Cytomel at the dose I took from 2012-2016 (that an endocrinologist was fine with back then), and furthermore, you’re too bloody scared to order a water-soluble B vitamin at a dose I’ve taken before that’s supported by the research literature. And you didn’t have the courtesy to tell me that you intended to waste my time with a dose that’s an order of magnitude smaller than what would actually be useful.
So if you feel the need to question me, then what you can do is kiss my ass and stay the fuck away from my care. We are done here. I’m not cooperating with anything further. We can continue to fight, but I don’t think that accomplishes anything for anyone. So please put an end to this nonsense and let me leave AMA.
A few additional points:
- That Marie Fennemore woman said she was certifying me because I was “dissociating.” She’s fucking loopier than I am.
- Day staff March 30 said that I “refused” ECT. As best I could tell, night staff were frightened of me, because they said sweet fuck all to me. I “refused” nothing, and they were documenting misleading information.
- There is a page printed off from my blog in my chart. I never gave permission for this or the name or URL of my site. It is really not appropriate for staff to have gone on a fishing expedition for this of their own accord.
- I didn’t sleep the last two nights, because I can’t sleep without meds. Last night, night staff was really mature and decided they wanted to have a fucking pissing contest with me. Dude turned off the lights in the dining room and said if I continued my “protest” they’d have to take steps to make me stay in my room. I told him he was pathetic and he said “not listening!” Nursing excellence right there.
The post Cell Phones on Psych Wards—Yea or Nay? is the hub for all psychiatric hospitalization-related content on Mental Health @ Home.
To print a page from your blog and then attach it to our file seems like an invasion of privacy.
I agree.
Jesus H Tapdancing Christ. Where do these people get their degrees? And the bedside manner is atrocious. I wish you luck, my friend. I’ll be thinking of you.
Thanks, sweet pea. I’m back home now, thank goodness. I’m going to have to borrow Jesus H Tapdancing Christ, because that’s all kinds of fun!
Mental health care is so scary! It seems like they are trying to make you into a person of their chosing so they can treat you how they want too. This sounds truly horrible and so violating.
There’s definitely a significant power imbalance that can be really destructive.
good for you for advocating for yourself! Not all psychiatrists are good. I would love to collaborate with you at my company PA Behavioral Health
You win Ashley, their behaviour and attitude is unbelievable! I hope this is read by as many of those kinds of practitioners as possible. You fought so hard…it’s very inspiring!
Thank you ❤️❤️❤️
What a fanfuckingtastic letter. Very eloquently written and fuelled by an appropriate amount of rage. “So if you feel the need to question me, then what you can do is kiss my ass and stay the fuck away from my care” – what a kicker!
As for shit being written in your notes, I’ve had that happen a number of times (and those are only the ones I’m aware of). It’s infuriating and then it becomes a case of you versus “the professionals”. Apparently they don’t like being called liars. I feel like a Jack Nicholson clip should go here – “You can’t handle the truth!!”
Ooh, yes, that’s perfect!
It’s funny, just yesterday I was going through my journal and reading the rough copy of that letter, and re-reading that particular line made me laught out loud. I may be crazy, but at least I’ve got balls!
Jesus! Some of these nurses, they are the ones who are crazy! I have some horror stories of my own re nurses in the psych ward!
It sucks that there are so many bad ones out there.