Have you ever had a psychiatrist/ever used a mental health service? What service did you use? How good/bad was/is it?

13 comments

1. Useless. Tried 5 different ones, they appear to have thought much less about all the issues of life I had.

2. I was in therapy for about three years and also had a prescribing physician for my ADHD meds. The meds worked okay, but I decided on balance that I prefer not to use them. My experience in therapy, however, was transformative. I have to give some of the credit for the positive trajectory my life is on to the work I did in therapy.

3. I’ve been to several, and apparently I’ve had bad luck at all of the. The first one just started lobbing pills at me. Depression? Fuck the cause, here’s some pills. The second did the same. The third seemed interested in helping, but after a few honest answers she said, and I quote, “Maybe you should find a therapist who isn’t afraid of you.” That hurt. So I went years without any sort of help. In 2013, I was on the verge of a mental breakdown and I went to the college help center (I work at a college). I was in tears, obviously in distress, and the person who worked there said “I’m sorry, this service isn’t for you. Here’s a pamphlet.” Talk about feeling completely destroyed. I actually almost committed suicide, and, if not for my brother, I’d be dead now. Most recently, I tried again. This particular shrink told me that my problem was that I see my asshole co worker as a father figure, and I never went back.

   Here’s the thing, though. My experiences, though uniformly garbage, are not typical. Most people I know who have gone to see a therapist have gotten help. Just not me for some reason.

4. So I have had therapy in 3 different stages. First when I was a kid because I said I saw ghosts and I was afraid of everything. I still don’t know why I said that. But I didn’t care for it.

   Later I was 19 or 20 and tried to hang myself And I spent a few days in a hospital. That was fine. I didn’t really get the help I needed. And I was kind of just saying what I thought they wanted to hear so I could go home.

   And now I have a therapist who is awesome. And I go to groups and “classes” once a week. And I’m putting in alot more so I’m getting more out.

   The shitty part about therapy is they can’t fix you. You have to fix you. They give you the tools and knowledge but you have to. If you don’t try your gonna get anything from it.

5. I had a friend refer me to a student psychiatry program where you help interns who are getting their masters. The upside was it was free. I didn’t think I needed it because I felt “fine” but I thought I’d give it a shot.

   It honestly was one of the best decisions I made for myself. I had two that were extremely compassionate and helped navigate through a lot of grief and rejection issues I had internalized. They helped me make peace with the person I am today and not some future me that I think will be perfect.

   Therapists only help you discover the weak spots that we can’t see. They help us understand the why that makes us do things but they can’t fix us. I had to do the work. You can hire the world’s best personal trainer but if you just eat donuts on the couch all day, you won’t get into shape. Therapy is like that. I had to change how I talked to myself and had to be okay with who I was on my bad days. It gets pretty rough, talking about things I don’t like talking about and bringing up a bunch of emotions but I am convinced that we are wired in a such a way that some problems we can’t fix by ourselves.

   10/10 would do again.

6. i have seen a few different therapists over the years. it was okay… i wouldn’t say iot was life changing, but it did help to have someone independent to talk to when i was struggling and didn’t trust myself and my own decisions.

7. yes, been in and out of therapy for years as i have ptsd, generalised anxiety disorder and suffer on and off with depression. mental health services where i lived (first Canada, then the UK) have been almost non existent if you don’t have the money to go private. here in the UK you wait 6 months to get in with free healthcare and then you only get 6-8 sessions. how is one supposed to solve *years* of sexual abuse with that?

   two years ago i had my last severe mental health breakdown and tried to end my life 7 times over a year. one time paramedics forced me to go to the hospital and i was sent home a few hours later with some phone numbers. brilliant.

8. I believe everyone should have a primary mental health care provider the way the have a primary doctor for their physical health. Don’t wait until you have a problem you can’t handle to start caring about your emotional and mental wellbeing.

9. In the past year ive tried 3. BetterHelp (online), Cerebral (online), and an in-person avenue referred to buy my PCP. I dunno what it was, but it felt like something happened in my brain sometime in July and I haven’t been the same since.

   With BetterHelp and Cerebral, I was prescribed 2 different antidepressants VERY easily. I answered a brief questionnaire, and talked to an RN for 5 minutes. It was shocking how easy I got them, and they both ended up fucking me up more than how I was feeling Baseline.

   BetterHelp also gave me a therapist, which was not effective at all. Felt like I was talking to an AI that said things I already knew, and most replies were “yup”, “it makes sense you’d feel that way”, and “you’ll get through this”.

   Both of those services were extremely unresponsive when I expressed concerns on how the meds were making me feel. I got rid of both of them and didn’t continue the medication.

   My current stint, a therapist through my PCP, isn’t so great either. I answer questions, they toss estimated diagnoses at me (the most current one is I have some kind of brain injury, I’m VERY hesitant to try this medicine they tossed my way just as easily as the previous 2 companies did). Really feels like I’m paying a lot of money to have someone else pull a diagnosis out of a hat and says “see you next week”

   Dunno if I’m going about this all wrong…but it feels like I’m 0-3 in my attempts in seeking mental health help thus far. I feel like there is a gap somewhere not being addressed. My PCP only recently did bloodwork which suggests nothing out of the ordinary, but these mental health professionals aren’t utilizing any of that data. There’s an overlap missing, or something.

   Meanwhile, I am finding that exercising more and not drinking is helping vastly more than any other methods I’ve tried yet.

10. Had a therapist for a bit, got free sessions since I’m poor AF. All it really was, was me complaining unfiltered while she sometimes said stuff. It helps as much as complaining out loud to someone would, which was a lot for me since I don’t have anybody I’m comfortable doing that with.

11. Most types (CBT) did not work for me, but my brain is very resistant to placebo, spin, and advertising.EMDR and polyvagal theory based stuff were the only things that made a noticeable difference. I wanted to try Hypnosis but no longer have access to an experienced source. Finding someone who knows what they’re doing is really difficult

    I want to try SSP for (a very unique type of) ADHD

12. In my experience with psychiatrists they are mostly really bad, for those that it has worked for them, good for you (psychiatrists are not the same as therapists btw).

    Psychiatrists tend to solve everything with pills and decide everything on a book that is agreed on some consortium, which is why they shoved pills at me, like me when all I had was hypothyroidism.

    Had an aunt with schizophrenia and they used electroshock theraphy on her, so effective /s, the experience in the psych ward was so shit, we dealt with aunt at home and my grandma was sent into a religious delusion after psychiatrist failed her and scammed by these religious scammers, so my aunt was dealing with full blown psychosis for years on a row, I would spend days locked with my mother in fear of her, but we couldn’t take her to the ward, they treated her like absolute human garbage, people died in there.

    After years we found some young guy fresh blood, who just was like fuck the book, here what we do, he was an emotionless motherfucker, maybe a psycho himself, but he was, effective; and to this day, his choice of drugs works, and I regard him as the only good psychiatrist I ever met in my life because he truly didn’t care other than the results of his work, he did not involve morality, legal, nor the dreaded book.

    Meanwhile whatever I got wasn’t good, they couldn’t agree what was it, each one made their own bullshit; and gave me drugs so strong no 13 year old child should take. Anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, paranoia, always a different shit, always different drugs, they don’t follow a method, just all is made up; I couldn’t even agree; until by random chance I get a real doctor, and a few blood tests later the real cause was found, some thyroid dysfunction.

    I’ve seen a lot of these beyond just me and my aunt, from the ones that did conversion theraphy and gave a lot of drugs to children and saw many upset mothers.

    One day I was in Helsinki and I was around a refugee camp, and I found psychiatrists prescribing drugs to treat stress and whatnot; but the drugs were out there, the place was calm, calmer than you’d expect; they just used this small army of mental health specialists to keep people calm so that they didn’t do anything and were at the mercy of the authorities.

    Treat them with care, because they want to keep you medicated and dependent, they have a business to run; that’s why they are some of the most fearful people of drugs like THC, but theirs are fine, which you can only get through them. You may need the drugs, some people need them, so when and if you need the drugs, you want an emotionless motherfucker that specializes in drugs and know his drugs and doesn’t get concerned with anything else, that’s the best psychiatrist.

13. Went to a therapist because I have outburst of rage. Nothing change. I can control it a lot better now but yeah, I was weird