Labeled and Bar Coded from birth?

Do you ever wonder about who creates the labels that we wear?
This is an excerpt from the website http://experimentalchimp.wordpress.com

I believe it illustrates sadly, but so graphically, the world in which people with what are sometimes minor mental health issues can be dragged down into the abyss and darkness of the 'snake pit'. Alternatively, and quite often, people with simple, but painful life issues at hand can be labeled by the system as dysfunctional and permanently incapacitated.

It's part of the human condition, in my opinion anyway, that once 'labeled' by an 'expert' in the field, people tend to take it on board and begin to 'live it'. After all, don't they know best? It's akin to 'pointing the bone'.

As humans, we have a malleable mind. We can be convinced, coerced and directed by what we view as educated opinion.

Here is the excerpt for you:

Psychiatrist’s verdict: Just **cked up.

February 13, 2007

I went to my appointment. I took along my notes (handwritten because I don’t have a working printer at present). It’s just a shame I didn’t actually get to take them out my pocket.

There was a medical student sitting in with us. He kept quiet most of the time but jumped into the discussion towards the end. He seemed a decent sort. The psychiatrist started out fairly brusquely. She’d seen the notes the locum psychiatrist had taken and didn’t like the look of them. So we went over my history again. She fired questions at me and I did my best to answer.

She got a bit friendlier after we started talking about my problems generally. She thinks the bipolar thing is a red herring. Apparently I’m not depressed enough. My symptom profile doesn’t match. So what’s wrong with me? Well, I have lots of problems and she thinks I’ll need long term therapy. What sparkly new drugs do I have to try? None at all. Because I didn’t tolerate the sertraline well, I’m obviously overly sensitive to antidepressants.

Reading between the lines, I think we have another vote for borderline personality disorder. And given how anxious she was to pass me on to a psychotherapist, I’m guessing it’s more of the old-style, let-me-wash-my-hands-of-you-now borderline diagnosis than the de-stigmatised diagnosis it’s become in this modern not-so-mental mental-health world.

She perked up a bit about the sleep issues. She agrees the sleep problems are severe and need to be sorted out. It was kind of interesting watching her change her opinion about this during our conversation. She started out saying she’d refer me to a colleague who specialises in sleep disorders (yay!) but this could take months (boo!). Then, after we’d talked a bit more, she told me, “It won’t take that long actually.” By the end of the consultation she was referring me urgently and if this was not possible, she’d ask her colleagues advice and treat me herself.

Oh, and I told her about the codeine usage. Her advice was “I can’t approve of it, but don’t get addicted to opiates, you have enough problems as it is.”

So here I am all unmedicated, came for drugs but only got self-hatred.

I’m not hugely pleased by this hands-off approach to my mood problems. Having a bad reaction to one SSRI doesn’t necessarily mean that I’d have a bad reaction to all of them. Nor does it mean that other types of antidepressant should be ruled out. It feels like what it is: The psychiatrist deciding there’s nothing that can be done for me, so why waste the time, money and effort.

To recap, It’s been two months since I went visibly insane. I have now seen: A triage nurse. An A+E doctor. A GP. Another GP. Two members of the Community Mental Health Team. My GP again. A locum psychiatrist. My GP for the third time. A consultant psychiatrist. And now I’m being referred to a sleep specialist and a psychotherapist. It’s not much fun being the parcel in the notorious passing party game. I wonder what they’ll find when the last layer of wrapping comes off.

Years of therapy coupled with specialist treatment for a sleep disorder that’s often only marginally manageable. This doesn’t sound like even a hint of a future in which I can have a decent life. Then again, it does sound very much like the future in which I try asking for medical help and kill myself when that fails.

You see, it’s always good to have a plan B.

Hmmm, touching is it not........ Dan