@Former-Member I have been lucky or unlucky enough to see mental illness at close quarters, from a wide range of points of view, for a very long time.
I am so over it. My family were also just PEOPLE, some of those with mI were biological but some were related by marriage. I had so many years of incredible fear about going mad, went very mad for a while but also was brutally sane at the same time, still no meds or diagnosis. For good or for ill ... it was the way the doctors I knew from late 80s-2000 played it. When I tried to politely ask for clarification 10 years later from my main doctor for 8 years during the worst years of my life and a vulnerable stage for my children, I received a VERY PARANOID RESPONSE from him who became a teacher of psychiatry. He denied everything, saying under tax law he did not need to keep files more than 7 years. He did not need to tell me that as I had only stopped working for ATO a year before I saw him. If he had asked about my emplyment history he would have known.
He told me to forgive my family which totally indicated his lack of understanding. It was they who cut me off and neglected me and tried to syphon much of any success or energy I may have had. I have finally stopped wanting to reconnect after 20 years of trying, as it just further traumatises me. I also have a broader understanding of families in general, having worked closely with families as a private teacher. He accused me of seeking out too many advisors becasue I took my family to a State run Family therapy centre. I did it for love of them, as he was not really doing any therapy. I did not say or even think that at the time, I was just casting around for the best help for my kids. My ex did have a Supreme COurt case, but I certainly am not the type to do that, so in my eyes. My ole doc is the paranoid one now. The word "schizophrenia" can be very scary for everybody in and out of the industry, but it was they who labelled 3 family members that way, not me.
@Former-Member I doubt I am hiding behind MI. I have researched and normalised or understood my parents diagnosis from understanding the childhood traumas they were exposed to. The CATT team have been involved a lot in keeping me in the community so I have not been hospitalised.
I am just a person like most others. A GP who was semi-socially connected used my self diagnosis for a referral once .. Only thing specifically diagnosed with is MDD.
Sorry for the diversion @eudemonism @Vanessa5 but it also might be on the topic.
I had to come to terms with the limitations of the system and the bottom line of "reality" for a long time.
On one hand my parents were symptomatic, but it was not the whole of them.
I also was shocked that the docs of a General Hospital that is now closed, diddled a diagnosis so they could discharge my brother innappriately with disastrous result, so another hospital a psych one could have a closing down party. How do I know? i babysat one of the children of one of the nurses, he was excitedly telling me that he got the ward piano, one afternoon, thought I would be interested hhhhhmmm. The next week my brother was dead.
Not the nurse's fault or the child I babysat, but it opened my eyes to few different realities.
