No, that’s not how it went down. I spent nearly the whole 72 hours in the medical ICU, and I do not recall speaking to anyone other than a nurse, orderly, medical doctor, or the guy/gal hired to watch my ass since I was “technically” 5150. (I even had a special wristband that said “Falling Star” – which meant I was prone to losing my balance. Which can only mean I was REALLY far gone, because that’s not like me at all!) Aside from the exit interview, I do not recall speaking with a mental health professional, ever. Plus, they never did get my “official” shrink on the phone – nor did I, last week when this “event” started to unravel.
What the hell, it’s a county hospital…you’re probably correct in saying I’m making a tempest out of a teapot.
County hospital, you say? Yeah, that probably explains a lot. I once volunteered at Stroger Hospital (formerly known as Cook County Hospital). Overworked, understaffed, and underfunded is probably more of a problem than incompetence. Or else those are the root causes leading to incompetence/ poor job performance.
KGS, you landed in the hospital after nearly killing yourself with a protracted manic episode. Despite your protests, you haven’t got any more idea whether or not you saw a psychiatrist in the hospital, than my mother knows whether or not those people she saw actually broke into her house. (They didn’t, as they didn’t exist.)
And, as mentioned, Asperger’s has fuck all to do with manic episodes, so stop trying to minimize what you have.
And if you don’t like what you’re given (after one pill that didn’t have any effect, positive or negative :rolleyes: ), go get a different pill from your normal psychiatrist, and if you think that they don’t think you need medication, you either need a different doctor or you’re imagining that they said that.
To sum up, shut the fuck up and take your medicine. It’s crap like this that gives the rest of us bipolar people a bad name.
Amen. Before my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s she had an extreme anxiety episode and went to the emergency room because she felt like she was dying. A social worker spoke with her and asked her if she wanted to kill herself and she may have agreed, so they put her on a hold. The psychiatrist that saw her decided she was psychotic and put her on anti-psychotics. He insisted that in no way could it be any form of senile dementia.
She went downhill fast on the anti-psychotics, I think they actually made her psychotic and delusional. This was a woman who was functioning on her own up to the day she had the episode. She had to go into a nursing home when she was released. We managed to get her a new doctor that took her off the anti-psychotics and she became more lucid but still she was never as lucid and functional as she was before she had the anxiety episode. Then we took her to a memory clinic and had testing and a PET scan which diagnosed Alzheimer’s.
Granted my experience is limited to one incident but I feel like the psychiatrists and social workers who get brought in on these hospital cases are probably too over-worked to really give that much time to each patient and throwing drugs at the problem probably works most of the time so that’s what they do.
It sounds like you were very sick and a severe danger to yourself. You also describe a text book case of bi-polar disorder, right down to the denial you have now. I wish you the very best.
Interesting how you label yourself as a “bipolar person” instead of, well, you know, a person. One would think, you should be “Risha” first and “bipolar” second, not the other way around. That’s the danger of psychiatry, my dear one…it enforces conformity and groupthink. I, myself, am always KGS first – “Asperger’s” is just a label, just like “Schizophrenic” used to be my label, and whatever newfangled illness they’ll come up with in 2015 will become my secondary label then. But I’m alwaysKGS first.
I do not doubt that you have faced serious challenges (and FWIW, bipolar disorder is one of the few mental ailments that medication can treat quite effectively, IMNSHO) and maybe you’ve chosen your Bipolar Identity as a way of working through your problems right now. That is YOUR path, however – don’t pretend that YOUR path is any better or worse than mine. Okay, honey?
I have manic events all the time, they normally play themselves out. (The depressive half is controlled by medical marijuana.) I think this particular Event was nearly Apocalyptic (seriously, I have no clue how much danger I was in, I’m still trying to find out) mainly because we are, well, kinda living in Apocalyptic Times right now. I do watch the news occasionally.
That’s kinda off-topic, though. By the way, I read the potential side effects of Risperdol and almost freaked – turns out this poison can cause a sharp rise in blood sugar, which can simulate or even TRIGGER diabetes. And they prescribed this shit to me (with the exact words, “Expect to take this for the rest of your life,” I’m not making that part up at all) right after a major CK event. Wow. Yeah, that’s county hospital for ya!
KGS have you ever before been diagnosed or treated for bipolar disorder? If you say you have manic events “all the time” maybe you’re a rapid cycling type. IANApsychiatrist or psychologist, but I know manic events like you are describing are not “normal” in the sense they indicate something is going on, disease or disorder or SOMETHING. I’ve been happy, I’ve been depressed, but I’ve never stayed awake feverishly writing for nine days and have people so worried about me in my life that they have committed me twice.
In all the clinical psychology courses I’ve taken and professionals I’ve talked to, when speaking about bipolar disorders, they say that often bipolar people don’t like to take their medicine because they LOVE their mania. Why wouldn’t you? You feel awesome, powerful, smart, etc. But the simple fact that your mania has on multiple occasions driven your family and friends to commit you means your untreated manic episodes are hurting them. So please be proactive in trying to figure out why you have these episodes so you can prevent them from happening and prevent your loved ones from having to worry about you, and prevent you from fucking up your body like you just did.
If the point of this thread is truly to illustrate why psychiatry is a scam, then you’re failing pretty badly. You’re coming off as a mentally unwell person who doesn’t want to face reality or accept responsibility. IMO the only reason people are not ripping you a new asshole in this thread is because they take pity on your already sick ass.
I hope I’m wrong and that you’re just venting, but please lay off blaming psychiatry, or at the very least give a better explanation as to why you hate it so.
It reminds me of that old saying. “There are few situations in life that can not be made worse by the arrival of a police car!”. Can’t remember who said it, though.
This. Because I had a total WTF moment when I read that, and if it’s remotely true, I have just understood my addiction-counselor coworker’s daily rant about the misuse of medical THC.
Is it even remotely possible for you to consider that you’re an Aspy and bipolar? Because nothing you list here symptomologically points to Asp., but it sure as hell points to manic depression.
Just an aside, as someone who used to evaluate people for involuntary holds, I can say that unless the process is radically different in CA, one, there’s no way that a social worker wrote your prescription, and two, you had to have been in damn poor shape to wind up on a psych and medical hold. Perhaps you’ll be better served getting the help you need rather than pointing fingers.
I want mine. 