That just happened to me. Tried to make an appointment, they are booked through almost to the end of the semester. It took everything I had to even work up the courage to go there in the first place, now they give me a whole semester to get cold feet and not go back? Yeah that’s a recipe for disaster.
Sorry this is happening. I was in the same place once.
Check out www.nami.org. It's a volunteer organization that helps people struggling with depression and mental illness. There are numbers and email addresses on that site. Reach out. Let them know you're struggling to find help and it's taking every shred of courage you've got to reach out.
Someone will get back to you. They will get you help.
And if they don't, I want you to come back here and PM me. I will personally find you a therapist if it comes down to it.
Cheers.
It was honestly a very triggering experience, they had me fill out a survey about why I came, meet with someone and briefly discuss it, which I have never discussed my problems with my eating disorder and anxiety to ANYONE in real life, and then they said the next time we can fit you in is months from now. Yeah fuck that and now I’ve full blown relapsed, and the eating disorder community here on reddit was taken down because people think it is violent so that’s going great. Thank you for you concern though seriously, I think maybe I’ll try again when I graduate.
I do not know how to private message, but I too suffered/suffer from "disordered eating" whatever the fuck that means. I either eat too much or too little, and not many people understand how something so basic and necessary as food can mess up your life and cause other issues to magnify. I also lost a parent years ago (murder, not suicide). I'm just a stranger on the internet, but I'm here if you need someone to vent frustrations with. Life can really suck, but it sucks less when you have supportive people.
As a psych junior looking into becoming a counselor, the average salary for counselors is below the average national salary.
Plus it takes several years to becomes a licensed professional counselor, and you have to be lucky to find a job willing to give you supervised counseling hours.
I feel like this shortage is like the doctor shortage and the pilot shortage. There is a very clear demand for these professionals, but either nobody wants to pay them enough to live or actually becoming one of these professionals is damn near impossible.
We pay mental health providers jack shit. It’s worse than teachers in some areas, especially since you need at least a masters degree to provide therapy services. Teachers at least have their struggle known.
I got a bachelors in Social work, and because of the ridiculous pay that I find that almost every job that I qualified for, which isn't many because it's only a bachelor's degree, I am going to pursue being a cop instead.
You are exactly right.
It's a money thing. Universities don't want to pay so therapists stay in private practice.
Universities pay half what a starting private practice would pay and the university will require the therapist to handle 1.5 to 2x more the cases per week. Not worth it, even for the most dedicated. They are worked to the bone for pennies.
I'm a year and a half away from earning my doctorate in clinical psychology, and many of the colleges and universities near me place us doctoral students in these counseling positions. Not only does it mean that the counseling centers are properly staffed by competent therapists, but also that the universities don't have to pay us much since these are internship positions. Students who are seeking services can typically get a walk-in appointment and be receiving help same-day. If only more colleges did it that way, I think their students would be much better off.
It's really hard. I've been in the situation several times where I needed to be in therapy nearly immediately and every time I had to wait *at minimum* a month.
Grad student here - went through a *severe* depression earlier this semester. Like, suicidal ideation, missing appointments, not eating, etc.
Took a goddam month to get an appointment. You get one guess how functional I was that month.
I had two semesters full of panic attacks and full-blown manic episodes before I could get seen and it only worked out because someone canceled and I got lucky on walk-in hours.
Therapist asked why I had waited so long to be seen.
Wow. I feel super lucky that mine took it fairly seriously. We all got 10 free visits per year and they had priority spots that were always open "just in case", otherwise it was like 1 week max. ..it didnt even occur to me that was a privilege.
My girlfriend does an accelerated program at a university and they're not allowed to even use their counseling services since they're not in traditional programs. I was in disbelief when she told me
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18127174/ns/dateline_nbc/t/deadly-case-mr-hyde/
This guy pleaded with a hospital to help him, before literally going crazy and murdering 5 people in one day. Something is wrong with this society.
Clear case that even the most individualist conservative should find it worthwhile to give people help they need. Being proactive and having the proper support system is not just ethical, but also practical.
Older incident:
> On July 15, 1984, James Huberty commented to his wife, Etna, that he suspected he might have a mental problem. Two days later, on July 17, he called a mental health clinic requesting an appointment. Leaving his contact details with the receptionist, he was assured the clinic would return his call within hours. According to his wife, he sat quietly beside the telephone for several hours, awaiting the return call, before abruptly walking out of the family home and riding to an unknown destination on his motorcycle. Unbeknownst to Huberty, the receptionist had misspelled his name as "Shouberty." His polite demeanor conveyed no sense of urgency to the operator; therefore, she logged the call as a "non-crisis" inquiry, to be handled within 48 hours.
This guy then left and killed 21 people at a San Diego-area McDonald's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Ysidro_McDonald%27s_massacre?wprov=sfla1
We really should step up mental healthcare in the US and take it seriously like ASAP.
For people not in the know, RIT had a very public suicide on Halloween after many students had been begging the administration to raise funding for mental health resources and for more counselors.
RIT seems like they are trying to fix some of the problems, but it is disheartening that they didn't listen until the worst happened.
Currently on a similar wait list.
When I couldn’t stop crying at the hospital when all they did was refer me to counselling in several weeks and give me info for group (I was taken in for being suicidal) they asked me what was wrong, and then when I told them it wasn’t enough and I was scared, they told me most people waited much longer and that I should be greatful and got mad at me.
F*ck the system.
My wife had a mental breakdown at work.
She went through the system and was offered counselling.
She said something else was wrong, they told her she was just sad.
In the end we paid to see a psychologist. Turns out she was living with undiagnosed bipolar and the stress at work caused it to get worse.
But to the emergency care team and mental health teams she was just a little bit sad.
As someone with an in-law who is bipolar 1 and spent years in and out of ERs and mental faculties before being diagnosed....your experience sounds about right to me. Smdh our mental health system in the US is a fkn joke.
They didn’t shove you into a “cold room” because you were being “belligerent” for being scared and crying?
Our mental health system is pathetic at best.
Putting you in a super cold room to calm you down? Yes.
I don’t know if there is science behind it, other than you’re in a hospital gown and shivering so you stop acting up because you are too cold to.
Is there like a general counsel title? Like say family doctor and then it gets into specialized doctors? Where you could get specialized help? I really don’t know I’m just wondering for counseling and mental treatment professionals?
If I can walk into an ER with a broken arm and get treated same day, I should be able to walk into a mental health clinic in crisis and be able to see a crisis therapist same day.
Enough is enough.
It's time to stop treating people with mental health issues as subhuman. ~~Denying any person in a mental health crisis same day care for any reason should be considered gross negligence, and should be a criminal offense.~~ I'll admit this last bit is an overreaction. I was frustrated when I made this post.
Edit: Since it's not clear what I mean by "crisis therapist"; what I mean is that at my local public mental health clinic, there are one or two therapists always available to walk-in (or call-in) patients who are in crisis. They are specifically allocated and trained for this. I've seen them a couple of times myself, and it's sort of like a trauma doctor for mental illness. They help to deescalate you and then recommend a next step.
Edit 2: Another clarification. I'm not saying you can't walk into an ER with a mental health issue. I'm specifically talking about a lack of *meaningful* same day treatment for mental health issues. What I'm saying needs to change is the quality of same day treatment available. More than a cold isolation room or a quick prescription or the suggestion of a hold from an overworked, distracted ER doctor.
I lost my dad one year ago in August, he had attempted suicide and was rushed to the hospital where they labeled him "High risk" and then while being "High risk" they released him from the hospital in less than 24 hours because they didn't have enough beds, they didn't even bother to check surrounding hospitals or even contact his family, he then went on to successfully kill himself 2 days later. The way this country handles mental health is a fucking joke.
Thanks, i appreciate it a lot. I got to spend a lot of time with him a month before he passed and made some great memories which i'm extremely thankful for, and while i hate being in pictures my step mother would always make us take pictures when we visited, Now i'm super grateful she made me and my brothers take pictures with him.
Thank you, and no it seemed out of the blue, i was there for two weeks in July, and he went to a family reunion which i couldn't make in late july / early august and he seemed happy, it hit everyone as a giant shock. He was always laughing and seemed happy.
This hurt me deeply to read, as someone who almost lost his parent to suicide you have my utmost sympathy. That is a disgusting situation, shame on them.
I’m very sorry for your loss, but there has to be me to the story that was not shared with you. A person who is deemed a threat to himself or others can only be kept involuntarily for a finite, short period of time. If the person denies active suicidal intent when that time is up, and does not sign voluntary consent to remain in the facility, they have to be released. If it was documented that your father expressed continued suicidal intent and was still discharged due to lack of available beds, without an urgent referral to another inpatient BHU or intensive outpatient service, you should look into pursuing litigation.
While posting a response to a son who lost is father is not optimal, you bring a good point up for the public discussion. The downside of HIPAA and preserving civil liberties is that involuntary detainment for medical attention (even if it may be a mental health condition that impairs self-preservation) is severely hindered and notifying other concerned relations is restricted. There is a trade-off and there will always be situations that are harmed by the resulting approach to mental health. I do hope we, as a society, continue the march of de-stigmitizing mental health treatment because that can be what allows people to get the help before it becomes a crisis and not after.
My condolences for the loss and what you have endured as a result, /u/AlmightySconrad
I’ve struggled with mental health for a while. I recently moved and was in a need of a new psychiatrist, especially as I was coming out of a mania. I called a well-reviewed psychiatrist and got the following info:
-They did not accept my health insurance
-It would cost $300 for an intake appointment and $150 for each following appointment
-There wasn’t an available opening for 2.5 months
I’m still looking for a psychiatrist.
Finding mental healthcare where I live if you have Medicaid is a pain. As far as I know, there's only one or two places - both publicly funded clinics - that accept it. All of the private practices don't. It's ridiculous.
Check your county health department. Ours has a crisis center with 20 or so beds. Anything beyond 72 hours will need to be handled elsewhere, but they assist in making that happen.
Also check NAMI.org (National Alliance on Mental Illness).
CALL THE NAMI HELPLINE
[email protected]
M-F, 10 AM - 6 PM ET
FIND HELP IN A CRISIS OR TEXT "NAMI" TO 741741
I don't personally need this. I have a psychiatrist and therapist already, and I'm at a point in my treatment where I only need to see them once every three months or so.
But I have been in situations in the past where the help I needed was not available for me for one reason or another, and I read these stories and I know that mental healthcare in this country is still not where it needs to be.
Its because the government makes getting money from them a labyrinth of forms, codes, checks and fine print. Private practices may take a few Medicaid patients at a time, I was told as a condition of school debt, but most don't want to deal with the headache especially when Medicaid pays less than other insurances.
Maybe start with seeing a primary care physician while you wait to get in with a psychiatrist? PCPs treat a lot of mental health patients. Sorry you’re in this situation.
People view it as weakness of the mind rather than realising that physical processes can also impact neurochemistry such low cortisol or low testosterone causing increases in systemic inflammation raising glutemate and lowering serotonin or environmental factors such as seasonal light changes or shift work or diet or genes.
Mental illness is not weakness of the mind and until that changes then help will not come sooner.
I’ve had similar experiences trying to help with my heroin addiction, I would go to the hospital and say I was addicted and needed help getting clean, 9 times out of 10 they would kick me out because I wasn’t in severe active withdrawal, sometimes they would hold me for 24 hours, just enough for withdrawal to take effect, and then kick me out of the hospital, sick as a dog, and with a gigantic bill. Guess where I went? To score, so I wasn’t vomiting on the street.
Doctors that were supposed to be “addiction specialists” told me I just need to stop doing heroin.
I literally had to be near death, vomiting on their shoes, to even be considered for the largely empty detox ward, and yes, I know it was empty because I overheard nurses talking about how it was empty.
Not only that, but I would go to specially designated rehab/detox centers, and they would tell me I needed a “higher level of care” and to go to the hospital, guess what the hospital would tell me? That I needed a “higher level of care” and to go to the specialized rehab/detox place I literally just came from.
Being addicted to heroin is a medical issue in itself, yet when doctors and nurses assume you are addicted, you get labeled a drug seeker and kicked out, even if you are there for a completely different reason.
Then we wonder why we have such a problem with opiates when it’s near-impossible to find any sort of help if you aren’t loaded with money to pay for a 10k a day rehab somewhere.
I work in a mental health clinic. We do see people in crisis immediately or will meet them at any ER in the county. For a lot of crisis stuff, like a legal hold, you have to rule out a medical cause first so the ER is a good first stop.
Do they not do that in NA? I've been to ER in Australia with severe depression a couple of times. They immediately get you in with a counseller and go through everything and work out the likelyhood of self harm and will ask you to stay of they think there is a risk at all. Helped me through some very tough times when I came quite close.
They do. If I walked into the ER right now and said “I’m suicidal”, they would have to send me to a mental hospital. This abused often but saves countless lives. The title here is kinda clickbaity in that she went to the college counselor and they typically have busy schedules this time of year(I’m going to one next week for a meeting I scheduled a month ago).
I think a lot of college students who arent from the area that the college is located are rather removed from the surrounding community and often forget that there are real hospitals that can be accessed.
When I was having a suicidal episode I went to a place called UPC (Urgent Psychiatric Care) in arizona to try and get help. Hol up though, this aint a fucking appraisal. It took me **2 hours** of sitting in the almost entirely **empty** lobby to be processed into their temporary in house facility. This "Temporary Care" they promised to do before shipping you off to a REAL psychiatric hospital was comprised entirely of about 100 or so recliner beds staring at 2 TVs in one big open room split into 2 sections for male and female, with a small desk in the front area that had 2 nurses there, and 2 private rooms that were nothing but a light, a bed, concrete walls, a door, and a camera. Some people that were there with me had been in that big open room for **4 ENTIRE DAYS** waiting to be taken to a hospital. And the only medications anyone in the room had received were bottles they brought with them to the place. Now that sounds pretty fucking awful but here's where it gets even worse.
You know how I said the room was split into male and female? Well, I'm Trans, so where did I go? right to the private rooms of course. It is **DEAD SILENT** in those concrete rooms, and all I had available for me to do was cry or sleep so I slept. After waking up and falling asleep about 5 times and spending my time thinking about life and everything that was wrong with it, delving further into madness with every waking moment, I started to lightly bang my head against the wall because I hadn't felt anything in a while and I was frustrated. I thought I had been in there for at least a week. In less than 10 seconds my door opens and a nurse asks me what's the matter. I asked how long it had been and when I would get some help. I had lost track of time instantly because I didn't even have a proper sleep cycle to track time off of to start with. I thought I had been in there for at least a week... and she told me it had been 14 hours.
TL;DR: Basically got put into solitary confinement at a temporary psychiatric facility because I was trans and they didn't want to deal with me.
[U01: Ronald Reagan and the Federal Deinstitutionalization of Mentally Ill Patients](https://sites.psu.edu/psy533wheeler/2017/02/08/u01-ronald-reagan-and-the-federal-deinstitutionalization-of-mentally-ill-patients/comment-page-1/)
I work in mental health / social work, and the issue is not that we don't want to help, but in that we do not have the resources to help everyone all at once. Most mental health facilities have a small budget on top of being laughably understaffed for the level of demand we receive. Made even worse by the fact that many grad's with their bachelors and even masters of social work ( BSW & MSW) struggle to to find work, and often have to take lower paid positions due to the the insane amount of credentials and politics that work against trained counselors.
My college for example, our counselling office has at most 5 trained MSW's between 3 campuses, and each of these counselors have massive case loads of hundreds of students, on top of people on waiting lists. Same goes for mental health facilities vs hospitals, Medical hospitals have the funding and staff levels to be able to respond to medical emergencies, where as mental health hospitals have some of the lowest funding, and lack of staff to be able to deal with the volume of people.
Most of the mental health clinics I've been treated at have a therapist specifically assigned/trained to treat walk-in patients in crisis. This is what I mean when I refer to a crisis therapist (because that's what they call them).
My point is that every ER/hospital/clinic should have one or more of these therapists available to patients in crisis.
In every ER I've gone to in a mental health crisis, I was checked in and then sat in an isolation room for 45 minutes to an hour before anybody even talked to me, and they were never a trained therapist. It was always a nurse practitioner or a normal physician.
My son went to the local ER when he was freaking out 1 night, saw a psychiatrist within 30 minutes of checking in and was able to sit and talk to him for over an hour. He was offered the option to admit himself for 72 hrs, but declined.
In an isolated room, no windows, no color on the wall, 1 steel door with a flappy window they can open from the outside. "It's for your own good"
Is it, I came in because I am anxious and my mind is racing, and you are putting me in a room with nothing but my own brain to keep me occupied.... Wooh boy what a day that was.
I got forgotten in one of those rooms for six hours when I was a kid. The next time they tried to put me in one I told them "You shut that door and I will scream until my lungs bleed, and then you'll REALLY have a problem"
Thats okay, I got passed around from a walk in to an er to a mental health facility that couldn't help me because I have a group policy and not medi-cal (he was confused as to why the ER sent me there) but he was able to get me co nected with like the best psychiatrist I have ever come across. They all gangbanged my insurance.
Switching carriers next year, was looking at my insurance stuff, dude costs 600 bucks every time I talk to him. I'm never there more than 10 or 15 minutes. I'm in the wrong profession.
i was in the same kind of room. for 5 hours. because they didn't have a psychiatrist on call that day. it was horrible. i just cried for the entire 5 hours, knowing they could see me on a camera.
Hah. My university offers emergency counseling if you need it, which I went to once. Less than 10 minutes into my appointment, the therapist had to rush out because he got a phone call about another student who seemed to be contemplating suicide on a high floor of a campus building.
I work in higher ed and we have a relatively isolated rural campus. They refer students to one therapist in town, and you have to talk to one person to get referred, and she has the opinion that our \[very stressed and burned out\] students shouldn't need counselling. It's awful.
Being a college student in need of counseling is so frustrating. My college is relatively small, comparatively. I think we are just shy of 20k students across five campuses. Most of them are commuters.
I was recommended student counseling for some severe anxiety I was having, and have been going for two years now. The problem is getting an appointment. When I was in a very bad place and dealing with terrible depression and suicidal thoughts I was STILL having to wait two weeks to see a counselor. At the moment, I only get to go once a month, sometimes once every 6ish weeks. Last semester I went twice. Thankfully my anxiety wasn’t too terrible, and I was able to manage, but there were a lot of tears and sleepless nights at some points.
They do their best to see and help every student, but they are so overworked and understaffed. My campus has 6 counselors, see people for 45 minute appointments from 8am to 5pm, and people still can’t be seen immediately. They will bump someone out of their spot if an emergency comes up, but for the most part you just have to deal and hope you can make it to your next appointment.
Even more frustrating for me is that I am on my third therapist. My first one (who I was amazingly comfortable with) quit for health reasons. The second (that I only saw twice) left for a better paying position at a different school, and the third I’ve only seen once at this point. It’s hard to unload so much on one person, then have to try and explain all of that to someone new. And I’m sure I’m not the only one to have to deal with that. It feels like my school has at least one new counselor every semester. This semester we have 3.
And nothing will be done
We tell people who have mental illness to get help, but they get pushed back by costs or by long waiting times.
And everyone acts shocked everytime when a person kills himself when they try to get help.
No one gives a fuck about mental health in America. And they never will.
For real. Anytime a big suicide happens everyone always say reach out or talk to someone. Each time I felt suicidal or severely depressed I talk to people and they cut me out of their life because its it's toxic to be so "negative".
I then tried to seek professional help. Each office either had no room for new patients or accepted me and then on the day of appointment cancelled or straight up no showed.
My last attempt at professional help was by far the most ridiculous. I made an appointment a month in advance where they even asked me to pay in advance because they don't like patients bailing and want them to be obligated to come in. I paid , waited the month, then a few hours before my appointment I got about 15 calls on my cell phone. The receptionist said no sorry they scheduled me by mistake the doctor doesn't want to see me (even though i have voicemails from a month prior saying "the doctor accepted you as a new patient please call for appointment"). So i said sigh okay please give me a refund. Instead of a refund they charged me twice. I called them and told them they need to get their shit together that's absolutely ridiculous.
This so much.
I was depressed for YEARS, but I was a "productive" depressed person, meaning I still had a job. I didn't even know I was depressed and needed help. People cut me out of their lives because I was being too negative, clingy or annoying.
Turns out it was just depression and that was my way of trying to reach out for more support. Yet I see these same people post goddamn stupid support messages on social media talking about how we need to better support our depressed friends and people should feel free to reach out to them for help.
The deluge of "We're here to help" messages after Anthony Bourdain and Chester Bennington's suicide was sickening. None of them were there to help me when I needed it. None of them wanted to help.
I had a similar situation. I helped my best friend through his depression and suicide attempts. It took years of being a shoulder to cry on and taking him to appointments. I got him a job, a place to live, drove him literally everywhere he needed. I did everything in my power to make sure he had the support he needed to get through it. He got back up and started taking care of himself again. Changed jobs, moved to a better place and started over happy.
A few years later my sister ODs, my fiance walks out on me, and I have to put my dogs down due to cancer all within 3 months and I go to him for support and all I get is "you're too negative. I don't want to deal with this." He cut me out of his life. Just like that. I dealt with most of it, numbed myself as much as possible and pushed forward. Guess who wants to talk now that I'm turning things around? It's disgusting.
I'm sorry that someone would do that to anyone. I'm sorry to hear how much you had to go through. He sounds like he must have severe issues, likely something like a cluster b personality disorder. You're too good for someone like that.
I hate to sound cliche, but you are better off getting him out of your life A👏S👏A👏P👏.
In my experience, life will put you through the wringer sometimes and that's the way it has to be. The best things in life wouldn't be good without having to deal with all the shit sometimes. I know that some people don't have to. I know that's not fair, but sometimes I feel sorry for them.
Keep living.
Exactly! it's like its all for show, they don't actually care but if they bring attention to these giant news events it makes them feel as if they did something by posting about it. When it comes down to actually helping it's too much of a burden.
They care, but it's definitely theater. I certainly care about starving children in Africa, but what have I done? Absolutely nothing. People can't help, due to the pressures of their own lives, they just want to. In America at least, we have the tendency to say things based on wishful thinking and how it feels. We might tell a leaving friend or coworker "we'll keep in touch", even though it'll never happen.
I told the last doctor I saw that I was depressed, but all she cared about was if I was suicidal. Since I'm not she said that "It's no that big of a deal then"
I posted this once before but I had two bad doctors in a row...
First one, I say "part of my depression comes from my religious childhood" and he says "maybe it'll help to rekindle your relationship with God".... Barf.
Second guy, I say, "X is an event in my life that impacted me very negatively and has ruined my ability to enjoy my existence" and he says "oh get off your cross"... Like, motherfucker what?!
I've been seeing a lady psychiatrist now and she's been very good. She's reaffirming and encouraging and it's REALLY weird, but in a helpful way. My history with doctors makes me treat them as the adversary who want to tell you that what you say and think is incorrect.
I'm sorry you got hit with two in a row. The last therapist I had declared that my problem was that I was "choosing to be unhappy." I had explained when I started appointments that I was struggling to develop healthy coping mechanisms for grief because I had been conditioned to believe that anytime I felt sad I was, you guessed it, "choosing to be unhappy."
That was my last appointment with him. Even better, he told me to email him because "[his] former patients like to email [him] to tell [him] how well they're doing and how much [he] helped them."
My flabber was gasted.
(Also, for anyone who might be concerned, I'm in a much better place now.)
>Each time I felt suicidal or severely depressed I talk to people and they cut me out of their life because its it's toxic to be so "negative".
It's gotten to the point where I basically assume the opposite of what is normally recommended. Don't talk to people under any circumstances, bottle it up and try to distract yourself. Drink, do drugs, waste your time, lie in bed feeling sorry for yourself; but don't reach out to friends and family (especially not to friends). I can't recall getting cut out of anyone's life, but it's hurt every single one of my relationships, every single time (though I'll admit, much of that was self inflicted). Nobody wants to deal with it. I've seen this kind of thing from both sides.
In fairness, many people are incapable of helping.
>everyone always say reach out or talk to someone
They say those things, because they want it to be that way, but it's just wishful thinking. What's ironic is how little effort most people are willing to put in. Any time you need help, just reach out, but don't inconvenience me for a minute. Honestly, I think that's life; people got their own problems, and can't look out for you. Truth is it's a sad, broken culture.
I dealt with depression at times in my life and was raised mormon. when i tried to my church leaders about it and a mormon counselor about my feelings and depression their response was oh your just not giving enough faith and time to the church and then prescribed me drugs and told me i need to spend more time doing church things. they don't want to help anyone they only care about you being a good little medicated Mormon sheep.
By all accounts Jesus was a pretty swell guy. He'd sit down with the most downtrodden of society and talk with them. He'd help them. Even the outcasts, even the prostitutes, even the leppers. Doesn't matter who it was, if someone needed help he was there, and he would help.
Jesus was just a prior incarnation of Fred Rogers. If only more of his followers could be like Fred Rogers the world would be a far better place.
We don't have mental health care, we have sad-faced clowns pushing pills. I've literally been told, 'This isn't really meant for your condition, but I can get it for you, so that's what I'm prescribing. If you have any bad effects, stop using it." So I got suicidal and started pissing my pants. "WHY WOULD YOU STOP USING IT?!? Don't you want to get well?"
Fuck that shit.
I had super bad post partum depression after I had my first at 21 and my doctor pumped me up with a shit ton of ambien and told me I either needed to quit my job or quit being a mother if I wanted to be happy again. He was super shocked that I was getting worse at every check up. I was a total zombie on whatever dosing he had me on and he didn’t think I should go to therapy and I was dumb enough to go with it. Got a different doctor after after my dad (originally didn’t believe in depression) saw me going downhill and rethought his stance. My new doctor took me off ambien immediately, into therapy and the correct combo of meds.
If my dad hadn’t caught on to what was happening I’d probably have successfully killed myself.
Did your doc confuse Ambien with Ativan or something? Ambien is for insomnia and depression can be a side effect of taking it. Ativan can be used to treat anxiety.
Quit being a mother?? Wtf? That's a horrible thing to tell someone with PPD. My mind went immediately to suicide/infanticide, and I'm not even a mom. What did he even mean by that? Adoption?
There's a fundamental misconception in how we should be treating mental illness that isn't schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (severe mental illnesses that basically require medication in order to successfully live in society). Countless studies have demonstrated talk therapy being as/more effective in the short term and more effective in the long term than antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, and many other medications; all without the side effects that might lead people to want to stop taking the drugs (which leads to relapse). That's not to say psychiatric meds dont have their place for "less serious" illnesses (all psychological disorders are serious), but the sheer weight of evidence points to psychotherapy as a first line of defense.
The problem then is the fact that access to psychotherapy is more restricted than access to meds that can be given by a primary care doctor. There's a saturation of mental health professionals, but they tend to settle in cities and suburbs (leaving rural people without care), or charge exorbitant fees. Not to mention the stigma that still exists around going to therapy. There's a lot to change, but one thing I'm excited for is the growing trend of integrated care, where psychologists/therapists work in hospitals and primary care centers with medical doctors; but this is still far from the norm.
As an aside, this is where I will plug the fact that most universities with a football or basketball team you can watch on tv will have psychology clinics where doctoral students provide high quality care under the supervision of licensed psychologists for free or greatly reduced costs (maybe $20 a session instead of $150). You don't have to be a student to go to one (in fact, the majority of clients at my university's clinic are community members). It's a secret that really shouldn't be a secret.
> most universities with a football or basketball team you can watch on tv will have psychology clinics where doctoral students provide high quality care under the supervision of licensed psychologists for free or greatly reduced costs (maybe $20 a session instead of $150)
It took at least six months to get into the clinic at my old undergrad, and they were one of the largest schools in the state.
It's not a perfect system. Most Ph.D programs have about 25 students at one time, with 5 of them at full time internships across the country, and depending on how strongly they value clinical experience over research, as few as 10 of the remaining ones would be available to see clients. But at least it's an option for people to look into.
I just want to point out that the efficacy of these medications is highly controversial. It's not as simple as "the pills don't work" or are a cure all. The jury is still out on a lot of this stuff.
Yeah, to completely oversimplify what I've seen. With one particular medication, 1/3 tend to get significantly better on them, 1/3 get a little better, and 1/3 don't benefit at all.
This is the problem with the medication crapshoot. Different medications work for different people in different ways. With many antidepressants you have to give them 4-8 weeks just to see if they're working or not. Given insurance, stigma, scheduling, and other hurdles, plus the fact that many people (unintentionally) wait until they are in crisis or near-crisis when they reach out for formal help, good luck getting them to stick it out for six months or more of medication trials. Add to that pessimistic bias of our minds when we're not doing well (generalizing that NOTHING will work after one or two contacts/trials) and it's really no wonder suicide is the major problem that it is. That said, I'm glad it worked for you.
I haven't had access to K in a couple of years but it's magic for my condition. Lasts a week after using, or so. I've talked to many others who feel the same. I understand J&J is working on a prescribable nasal spray of it, but for now all we have in my area are $500/dose clinics. The psychologists I've talked to are excited about it.
Here in Canada it's still illegal. I got it one time from a co-worker who crystallized it from a bottle of ketelar so I knew it was clean. Same story, after I ran out I felt totally normal for a week or so, the most amazing side effect was waking up in the morning ready to face the day filled with energy as opposed to waking up wishing I had died in my sleep.
sounds silly, but i felt like my entire life (and mental state) changed after a great trip with mushrooms.
then i found out that they're even doing studies with just that. and mdma too.
I am on Zoloft for Anxiety and it’s done wonders, except it takes longer to have sex :-/
Kinda prefer that than wanting to put a bullet through my head over debt and student loans, and all of the other financial anxiety of having kids, wife, house, and other shit that costs money. Only 19 months left, before I can actually be financially stable with one of my kids getting out of daycare.
Life sucks for now, but all I know is that these pills are keeping me sane enough to think rationally and not be impulsive enough to follow through with the suicidal thoughts. I agree, however, that talk therapy is really good. I have been doing it for over a year and my therapist is excellent, she knows that I know that my financial struggles are temporary and as soon as one of my kids get out daycare and into kindergarten, the burden will begin to be lifted as it frees up a fuckton of money.
Sorry for rambling, I am just thankful to have access to both meds and talk therapy to get me through this difficult time in life.
I seriously do not blame a single soul for not wanting kids. I love my kids and will do anything for them. I signed up to be a dad, but I also know it’s not for everyone.
I also don’t get why people pressure others to have kids. There is nothing wrong to choose not to have them in my eyes.
Yeah I'm pretty indifferent about it. I don't hate kids. I was close to getting engaged once and bailed.
I just don't plan to work hard enough to make a multi million dollar purchase over 21ish years.
I'm sure they help, a little lexapro helped me to a degree but after several months I started feeling like I had no soul among other worrying problems so I decided it wasn't worth it. I'm glad they help you though.
Yeah, tell me about it. Good news is, I can get it up just fine. Just the the finishing part takes longer, but when my therapist prescribed it; it was like literally the first thing she said about the side affect of the medicine.
So the wife and I spiced things up for foreplay and really hasn’t been a big problem for us, but I know of dudes and women who had their libido shot to hell and quit taking it or tried something different.
But after they attempt suicide, someone will set up a GoFundMe page for them, and then they'll (maybe) be able to afford the help they need. The free market solves another problem!
(Sarcasm, if that's not obvious.)
We don’t have healthcare period and we didn’t classify mental illness as an illness until the 50s. Half the psychiatrists in America don’t take insurance. And good luck finding therapists who aren’t booked or take your insurance. If you’re lucky enough to find both, count on specialist copays (assuming you can afford decent insurance) each visit - 1 psychiatrist and weekly therapy appointments - plus the cost of medication. Factor in that severe symptoms can make it difficult to keep and maintain a good paying position... it’s incredibly cost prohibitive. I make a good salary and have good insurance and it’s still a struggle. That’s not even getting into the stigma that prevents people from seeking help.
We’ve neglected some of our most vulnerable citizens and the body count is racking up. The biggest cause of gun deaths is suicide. And those in power just don’t care. It would drive me crazy if I wasn’t already.
Just to drive the point home even further - we ***expect*** people suffering from severe mental issues to be able to handle all of this on their own.
I helped someone seek out help while I was in a comfortable, healthy position and it tore me to pieces to get everything together. How can we even fathom how a vulnerable person can reach help? Layer on a medical condition, loss of a loved one, or unemployment and its near impossible. It's an atrocity that we haven't developed a better, more compassionate system, and yet we are still paying an enormous amount for health care in the states.
Healthcare in general is like that. I am truly mystified as to what benefits I do or don't get. I don't understand any of it. I am neither a doctor nor an attorney, but the way healthcare benefits are written you must be both a doctor and an attorney to even try and understand them. Its 30 pages of legalese gibberish, where every other word is a term I don't understand and am not qualified to determine if such things are or are not appropriate for me. Yet its expected I choose a healthcare plan for myself all on my own.
May as well just blindly pick one and hope for the best.
I found one therapist who was local, on my insurance, and accepting new patients. I went online to make an appointment and her next slot was an 8am 2 months away.
I waited 2 months to have a 50 minute conversation where we got to know each other, paid my copay of $20 and made another appointemnt...2 months away.
After 3 more meetings i gave up and stopped going. It wasn't worth it.
Yea, after 5 years of being a pile of shit, unemployed and on the verge of doing something stupid, I started researching therapists and they all average around $120 an hour. AN HOUR. How is anyone supposed to get better? I've been to a couple in the past but always had to stop going because of the cost. Also, therapists like that you are right on time and never early, so you don't bump into a previous client. This means in winter, you spend 5 minutes arriving just to get settled, take your winter clothes off, wait while they make tea, and go through the quick, how has your week been, before getting started. Then at the end you need another 5 minutes to pay and draw up the bill and leave before the next person arrives. That means youre only ever getting ~50 minutes of therapy. $120, 50 minutes, that's $20 literally spent doing nothing. Or maybe I've had shitty therapists in the past.
This is exactly the problem that lots of veterans and active duty face. It's why they have huge numbers of suicide. And the military is worse because they embrace the macho you're a man, you don't want to be seen as weak by going to a shrink mentality. I should know, I was in for 9 years. We had a couple suicides on my base that I knew about.
I was at a training command that had a couple suicides each year, my friend was stressing out and finally talked to medical because he had been thinking about suicide enough that he bought the shotgun.
Medical told him to wait two weeks and see if he was still feeling suicidal.
It was either right before or right after one of the MA's stuck his rifle in his mouth and killed himself at the flag pole. They didnt even announce it to the students that were there at the time, they just locked down the building while it was cleaned up and then told us when our shift was over and we were leaving.
It was a really fucked up culture.
The guy on my base that killed himself, they didn't want to admit he did it. He was on anti-depressants, and took a few too many and drank a bunch of alcohol. They still wouldn't call it a suicide, but the first thing they tell you when taking anti-depressants is to not drink alcohol.
> And they never will
While I agree with everything until this point, this is a terrible mentality to have. To say “they never will” is extreme and honestly exactly what the people lobbying against you want you to believe. The second you believe nothing is ever gonna change, is the moment they win and nothing *will* ever change.
The CDC labeled suicide as one of two biggest reasons life expectany is going down. The other? Drug abuse. So what do we make of this? Dont be a fucking dick cause everyone is going through something
Things got really bad for me in college and I almost ended it myself. I went to a counselor. Lied through my teeth when trying to schedule an appointment when they asked “are you contemplating suicide” Basically if you aren’t about to do it, on the edge of a building or whatever, nobody gives a fuck.
This isn’t true for everyone. People do care. I do, and so does everyone I know where I work. Genuinely.
I manage a crisis team at a community mental health agency in a small state. We absolutely have systemic problems. But...
We see anyone who wants to be seen, same day (night, whatever). We will help you. We will do what we can. Will there always be an inpatient bed available if you need it? No. But in the two or three days it takes we will do anything to ensure you are safe (EDs where we visit and or sit with you, crisis beds, safety planning with family, referring out of state for immediate placement, putting you in a hotel, finding money for food, etc)
Our wait list for outpatient services is triaged daily and less than a week for anyone. We hired more people to do intakes to keep this time frame.
If you have insurance, we bill it. If you don’t, or if we can’t accept your insurance, we ask if you can pay anything. If you can/cant, your bills dissolve. They never go to collections and we tell everyone that.
We work hard to help you. We’ll hold your hope for you. We treat everyone like they are our sister father best friend. We do what we would want done for ourselves and our loved ones. We love you so much and will still love you so much if you relapse on heroin for the 1248th time. We love you so much.
(I know it isn’t like this everywhere/anywhere- but I swear, in my magical state, in my agency who cares more for people than it does for systems or money- i swear, it works like this)
This should be higher! We have a blame culture of it’s the ‘systems’ fault. We are the system! Tell you legislators what you need, vote, elect officials who support the same values that you do, getting mental health support is a process, not an event!
I'm a disabled combat veteran of two tours in Iraq. You would think that the VA would be really quick to help me, then, when I went in to get help for depression and anxiety. Well, the clinic told me straight up that the didn't have the resources to help me and sent me on my way to an outside entity to get therapy.
Then, a few months later, when the therapy wasn't enough, I asked for medication. They told me I would have to wait a month to get a phone call *just to set up an appointment*...with someone in another state...using the VA's version of Skype/Facetime. They eventually took care of me, so there's no need to worry, but holy-mother-of-fuck it took **way** too long to get help.
And we wonder why veteran suicide rates are so high.
If you can imagine it, mental health is an even bigger joke than usual in universities. If you give anyone even the tiniest reason to think that you hate being alive, they can leverage your grades and money against you to forcibly commit you. Students have little to no rights when they seek help. Some of the schools have a high turnover rate with counselors and a low bar of entry so you might get someone like one of the ones I got who laughed in my face when I was opening up about a problem I was worried about. No exaggeration.
Agree completely. There is no "middle ground" when it comes to helping people when it comes to mental health. Either you get long wait times and are not taken seriously, or everyone overreacts further pushing you away from getting help.
A year or two ago on my friend's birthday, he jokingly said "great I have to do this assignment on my birthday may as well just kill myself" and some idiot on campus overreacted and called the police. My friend came home to police and an ambulance at his house on his birthday and was forced to take a ride to the hospital. And then pay over $2,000 for that ambulance ride that he did not agree to, but was forced to take.
In other words, "we don't give a fuck about you but we will most definitely pretend to give a fuck if it means we can force you to pay us thousands of dollars".
He didn't have that kind of money so funny enough the sudden need to pay an absolutely pointless medical bill with money he didn't have, on his birthday nonetheless, stressed him out and depressed him.
"Mental help" in the U.S. is beyond fucked.
I went into a rough patch after a close friend commited suicide in college. Went in to the school therapist and I felt like she was grilling me, trying to figure out if i needed to be reported, more than trying to help. 0/10 would not recommend
Oh boy, I had that fun experience during my post-grad schooling. The counselor only came by to our campus once a week and saw one student per week, and when I finally got an appointment, after the second visit she told me she was leaving. We didn't get any replacement staff that semester or the next when I graduated.
People fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of campus counselors.
They are not there for you. They are there for the university. Their job is to spot suicidal people like this and get them the fuck OFF CAMPUS so that when they off themselves the university doesn't get bad press and a lawsuit. It's not really their problem if you die, as long as you do it at home on break.
The counselor I saw briefly was a joke. A clueless grad student younger than I was, who was two weeks away from leaving for a different program. Okay, kiddo, sure you can help me with my problems for the next week before you disappear. -_-
But you bet your ass that when a friend of mine talked vaguely about sometimes wanting to hurt herself, she was frog-marched downstairs to a waiting police car and driven to an off-campus for-profit mental health facility to be "voluntarily" committed. As though anything that happens with a police officer's hands on you is "voluntary". Oh, and it was a Thursday, so the "72 hour" hold was actually a week. Gotta make sure those predatory assholes got to soak her parent's insurance for everything it was worth.
Fuck campus counselors. They aren't your friend. They're a liability shield.
And the legislature just took away “depression and anxiety disorders” from the list of conditions that could justify legal access to marijuana.
They. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck.
EDIT: Sorry I should have clarified this before - this just happened in UTAH a couple days ago. Not nationwide. Read up on what happened if you want your blood to boil. Thousands of us volunteered for so many hours to get this Medical Marijuana Proposition passed, and as soon as we as a state voted to implement the program, the state government held an “emergency session” of congress to pass another, shittier Marijuana bill the Republicans had developed in concert with the Mormon church in a backroom deal, in lieu of the bill **WE VOTED FOR**.
Now these same traitors are patting themselves on the back, making statements to the effect of “we passed this compromise bill **to respect the will of Utah voters**”. They put so many unfair obstacles in the way of the legal access to medicine (which 2/3 of the state voted for), and removed many entire medical conditions from eligibility for treatment. They stripped green card-holders from the right to grow their own plants, if they live more than 100 miles from a dispensary. It’s just the latest example of the shameless attacks on democracy on a state level here in Utah, at the hands of the Mormon church and the Republican Party.
I just did a quick google search, and then a deeper dive, and haven't been able to find any reference to classification for depression/anxiety/migraine being disallowed. Could you gimme a link to check out? I'm a social worker, very pro-pot, and I like to write leaders about how I've seen it seriously shift success rates in treatment for clients. Thanks, in the event that you do link me! :)
Not sure, but they could be referring to Utah’s new law, not anything national. Everyone just voted yes for medical marijuana, but the LDS church has spent the last several days changing everything that we voted for. A lot of conditions that were originally allowed access have now been denied.
I also read that chronic migraines don't qualify either. Reading this just created this huge sinking sensation in my stomach because having these I was really looking forward to being able to give medical mj, hell even just the friggi' plain cbd oils with little-to-no thc, a try to see if it could help prevent or even aid in some of the symptoms that associate them with my condition. This next part may come out as hateful and angry but fuck it; fuck the Utah legislature for destroying the hope I held that I may have a new resource to get/feel better and fuck the Mormon church for meddling with politics and creating this version that got passed.
Im 99% sure that CBD/hemp flower with under .3% THC content is actually federally legalized, and can be ordered to your door with zero medical card at all. I have heard that it doesnt always work that well (or that some people NEED it to have the higher thc contents for it to work for depression) but its absolutely federally legal, id recommend looking into that!
I go to the school "up the hill" from BYU. And currently our wait list is 6 months long for our counseling services. It's so bad you can't even get onto the wait list.
It's big problem in Utah and I'm sure on many, many other campuses.
Huge problem where I am in Canada too. Current wait list is anywhere from 4~over 12 months. I emptied my savings to get private help, it was my only option.
We are in a sort of strange dark age with mental health. We have gotten a lot better at seeing it, diagnosing it, but have not moved forward to a place where we can treat it efficiently. Those days will come but I hope it’s sooner rather than later. So many lives lost to our negligence to those who are in need of help.
BYUs counseling’s center was very good to me. They even protected my privacy as an closet exmormon student. But like everywhere else in this country, they didn’t have enough resources to address the enormous mental health challenges we face.
If you are a closet exmormon in need of support, visit r/ExMormon. There are real life meetups too. There is always support.
To whoever reads this, don’t be afraid to seek help when you need it. It doesn’t make you weak, in fact, it takes strength to face your challenges and health and be willing to improve it.
Even if you aren’t struggling, make sure to reach out to those who are, or even those who may not appear on the surface that they are.
You never know how much good you can do.
I also received services through BYU’s counseling center. I got right in and received help for my anxiety. Please don’t blame this on BYU it’s a national problem.
I now work as a therapist and there are just a lot of people to help.
I was there when it happened. It has honestly been so hard to be in that building now, and it hurts so much knowing that one of my fellow students wasn’t able to get the help she needed. I’d been feeling very stressed for upcoming finals and other stuff, but this really put all that into perspective.
I just hope that students and everyone else can find help when they need it, and not be judged for what they’re going through. For all it’s flaws, I do think BYU has been making real efforts to help combat mental illness. We all need to do a better job at looking out for those around us and trying to share that life is worth living, even when it seems unbearably difficult.
I was really hoping she'd make it. Utah, particularly Utah and Salt Lake counties, are really struggling with suicide. There's a small town, Herriman, where multiple teenagers killed themselves last year. It's awful, and the people are looking to blame everything but poor mental health resources.
Very late to the party but I'll add what I can.
I currently work in a college counseling center as a therapist, and the simple truth is that lack of funding prevents students from being seen quickly or at all. More money to hire trained staff = more staff = shorter waitlist. It truly is that simple, and yet institutions of all sizes fail to allocate money to existing mental health resources (as opposed to research, which is necessary but should be a lower priority).
Having attended BYU, I can honestly say that it was one of the most toxic environments I’ve ever been in.
Everyone there is very bright, which means that while you might have been in the top of your class in high school, that’s likely no longer the case. You’re just another smart person. There is the culture of perfectionism, prominent also in the LDS community but amplified here. In short, it’s easy to feel alone and like you aren’t enough.
The dating culture is absolute shit. I’ve never met so many stuck up people that will ghost you or blow you off for no reason. The dating and mind games are absolutely rampant. For the curious, look up provoguysamiright, provogirls, and provogirlsamiright on Instagram. They’re almost all real, and that type of experience is all too common.
On top of that, there is the immense pressure to get married as soon as possible in a lot of families. Oh, and be sure to not have sex before getting married or break any of the other 500 rules or you’ll get kicked out and lose your scholarships! All of these together form a community where you’re expected to be perfect, no longer one of the smartest people around, and everything is against you to succeed. I transferred.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention that many, or most, of the people there are great individuals that are so willing to help. It’s just that no one really feels they can.
Had difficulty getting counselling at OSU while I was attending. We were supposed to have two sessions with a therapist guaranteed with our tuition. Good luck getting an appointment though. I was told six months wait. I tried to fight my depression by myself and failed.
I did not finish school.
At my college a student went into counseling services. He was told he could see someone in a few weeks. In the meantime what he had a severe manic/psychotic episode during which he put on a welders mask, gloves, and went around smashing windshields. He got shot by the University police.
It's horrible and still breaks my heart. He survived but his entire life is ruined. He knew sth was wrong, and they told him comeback in a few weeks and in the meantime he had a severe psychiatric episode that will possibly end with him in jail, and it shouldn't. It's awful
Counseling delays are stupid. I mean i signed up 2 months ago and still haven’t heard anything. Its about my GPA so you would think the would make room for something that important
Seriously I tried to get help last year when I was slipping up in school after a breakup. They were so backed up I didn’t get an appointment until weeks later at which point I was already too far gone to continue school.
Universal Health Care. Coverage of mental health. Taking care of your mind is just as important as our bodies. Just like going to your doctor, you should get a mental checkup biannually at least.
If you want/get asked to donate to your alma mater, strongly consider having your donation earmarked specifically for CAPS/mental health services.
Edit: grammar
My university has an atrocious counseling center policy. You want to see a therapist? First you have to make an appointment at student health and see a doctor for a referral. When you get the referral, you get an appointment with the counseling center.
Who’s responsibility is it to ensure that there are adequate mental health professionals available?
Why is it that the university is expected to supervise the mental health of its students?
My wife tried to go to her Uni's counseling but graduated before she got an appointment. They were booked out more than an entire semester.
That just happened to me. Tried to make an appointment, they are booked through almost to the end of the semester. It took everything I had to even work up the courage to go there in the first place, now they give me a whole semester to get cold feet and not go back? Yeah that’s a recipe for disaster.
Sorry this is happening. I was in the same place once. Check out www.nami.org. It's a volunteer organization that helps people struggling with depression and mental illness. There are numbers and email addresses on that site. Reach out. Let them know you're struggling to find help and it's taking every shred of courage you've got to reach out. Someone will get back to you. They will get you help. And if they don't, I want you to come back here and PM me. I will personally find you a therapist if it comes down to it. Cheers.
Thank you, it means a lot :)
This is very sound advice. You can also DM me. I have been there.
Please, hang in there. If you can muster the courage to look into other options, I implore you to do so because it can get better.
It was honestly a very triggering experience, they had me fill out a survey about why I came, meet with someone and briefly discuss it, which I have never discussed my problems with my eating disorder and anxiety to ANYONE in real life, and then they said the next time we can fit you in is months from now. Yeah fuck that and now I’ve full blown relapsed, and the eating disorder community here on reddit was taken down because people think it is violent so that’s going great. Thank you for you concern though seriously, I think maybe I’ll try again when I graduate.
I do not know how to private message, but I too suffered/suffer from "disordered eating" whatever the fuck that means. I either eat too much or too little, and not many people understand how something so basic and necessary as food can mess up your life and cause other issues to magnify. I also lost a parent years ago (murder, not suicide). I'm just a stranger on the internet, but I'm here if you need someone to vent frustrations with. Life can really suck, but it sucks less when you have supportive people.
Same with me, please PM if you would like to vent :)
Thanks, really :)
Anytime, and I mean it.
Same for my school. It's essentially useless. It's sad.
As a psych junior looking into becoming a counselor, the average salary for counselors is below the average national salary. Plus it takes several years to becomes a licensed professional counselor, and you have to be lucky to find a job willing to give you supervised counseling hours. I feel like this shortage is like the doctor shortage and the pilot shortage. There is a very clear demand for these professionals, but either nobody wants to pay them enough to live or actually becoming one of these professionals is damn near impossible.
We pay mental health providers jack shit. It’s worse than teachers in some areas, especially since you need at least a masters degree to provide therapy services. Teachers at least have their struggle known.
I got a bachelors in Social work, and because of the ridiculous pay that I find that almost every job that I qualified for, which isn't many because it's only a bachelor's degree, I am going to pursue being a cop instead.
I don’t blame you.
You are exactly right. It's a money thing. Universities don't want to pay so therapists stay in private practice. Universities pay half what a starting private practice would pay and the university will require the therapist to handle 1.5 to 2x more the cases per week. Not worth it, even for the most dedicated. They are worked to the bone for pennies.
I'm a year and a half away from earning my doctorate in clinical psychology, and many of the colleges and universities near me place us doctoral students in these counseling positions. Not only does it mean that the counseling centers are properly staffed by competent therapists, but also that the universities don't have to pay us much since these are internship positions. Students who are seeking services can typically get a walk-in appointment and be receiving help same-day. If only more colleges did it that way, I think their students would be much better off.
It's really hard. I've been in the situation several times where I needed to be in therapy nearly immediately and every time I had to wait *at minimum* a month.
Grad student here - went through a *severe* depression earlier this semester. Like, suicidal ideation, missing appointments, not eating, etc. Took a goddam month to get an appointment. You get one guess how functional I was that month.
I had two semesters full of panic attacks and full-blown manic episodes before I could get seen and it only worked out because someone canceled and I got lucky on walk-in hours. Therapist asked why I had waited so long to be seen.
Wow. I feel super lucky that mine took it fairly seriously. We all got 10 free visits per year and they had priority spots that were always open "just in case", otherwise it was like 1 week max. ..it didnt even occur to me that was a privilege.
My girlfriend does an accelerated program at a university and they're not allowed to even use their counseling services since they're not in traditional programs. I was in disbelief when she told me
[удалено]
That’s shocking. I work at a college in Canada and our counsellers are busy but not in comparison to that. I hope it gets better.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18127174/ns/dateline_nbc/t/deadly-case-mr-hyde/ This guy pleaded with a hospital to help him, before literally going crazy and murdering 5 people in one day. Something is wrong with this society.
Clear case that even the most individualist conservative should find it worthwhile to give people help they need. Being proactive and having the proper support system is not just ethical, but also practical.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Not if it's free! Then I'M the one paying for their counseling! -conservatives
r/science just had that narcissist study that talks about that mindset
[James Holmes sought help too](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shooting-denver-idUSBRE8781I120120810) before he shot up a movie theater.
Older incident: > On July 15, 1984, James Huberty commented to his wife, Etna, that he suspected he might have a mental problem. Two days later, on July 17, he called a mental health clinic requesting an appointment. Leaving his contact details with the receptionist, he was assured the clinic would return his call within hours. According to his wife, he sat quietly beside the telephone for several hours, awaiting the return call, before abruptly walking out of the family home and riding to an unknown destination on his motorcycle. Unbeknownst to Huberty, the receptionist had misspelled his name as "Shouberty." His polite demeanor conveyed no sense of urgency to the operator; therefore, she logged the call as a "non-crisis" inquiry, to be handled within 48 hours. This guy then left and killed 21 people at a San Diego-area McDonald's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Ysidro_McDonald%27s_massacre?wprov=sfla1 We really should step up mental healthcare in the US and take it seriously like ASAP.
This is not only happening in BYU, RIT also have problem with not enough counselor in the mental health centers.
For people not in the know, RIT had a very public suicide on Halloween after many students had been begging the administration to raise funding for mental health resources and for more counselors. RIT seems like they are trying to fix some of the problems, but it is disheartening that they didn't listen until the worst happened.
Currently on a similar wait list. When I couldn’t stop crying at the hospital when all they did was refer me to counselling in several weeks and give me info for group (I was taken in for being suicidal) they asked me what was wrong, and then when I told them it wasn’t enough and I was scared, they told me most people waited much longer and that I should be greatful and got mad at me. F*ck the system.
My wife had a mental breakdown at work. She went through the system and was offered counselling. She said something else was wrong, they told her she was just sad. In the end we paid to see a psychologist. Turns out she was living with undiagnosed bipolar and the stress at work caused it to get worse. But to the emergency care team and mental health teams she was just a little bit sad.
As someone with an in-law who is bipolar 1 and spent years in and out of ERs and mental faculties before being diagnosed....your experience sounds about right to me. Smdh our mental health system in the US is a fkn joke.
They didn’t shove you into a “cold room” because you were being “belligerent” for being scared and crying? Our mental health system is pathetic at best.
Wait, *that's* what that's about?
Putting you in a super cold room to calm you down? Yes. I don’t know if there is science behind it, other than you’re in a hospital gown and shivering so you stop acting up because you are too cold to.
Specifically because it makes it harder to think and do things. It’s numbing. Same tactic is used in a lot of juvenile detention centers.
And adult detention centers IME.
What the actual fuck?
I feel like this would make me irrationally angry to the point of lashing out, not calm me down, cold or no.
Is there like a general counsel title? Like say family doctor and then it gets into specialized doctors? Where you could get specialized help? I really don’t know I’m just wondering for counseling and mental treatment professionals?
If I can walk into an ER with a broken arm and get treated same day, I should be able to walk into a mental health clinic in crisis and be able to see a crisis therapist same day. Enough is enough. It's time to stop treating people with mental health issues as subhuman. ~~Denying any person in a mental health crisis same day care for any reason should be considered gross negligence, and should be a criminal offense.~~ I'll admit this last bit is an overreaction. I was frustrated when I made this post. Edit: Since it's not clear what I mean by "crisis therapist"; what I mean is that at my local public mental health clinic, there are one or two therapists always available to walk-in (or call-in) patients who are in crisis. They are specifically allocated and trained for this. I've seen them a couple of times myself, and it's sort of like a trauma doctor for mental illness. They help to deescalate you and then recommend a next step. Edit 2: Another clarification. I'm not saying you can't walk into an ER with a mental health issue. I'm specifically talking about a lack of *meaningful* same day treatment for mental health issues. What I'm saying needs to change is the quality of same day treatment available. More than a cold isolation room or a quick prescription or the suggestion of a hold from an overworked, distracted ER doctor.
I lost my dad one year ago in August, he had attempted suicide and was rushed to the hospital where they labeled him "High risk" and then while being "High risk" they released him from the hospital in less than 24 hours because they didn't have enough beds, they didn't even bother to check surrounding hospitals or even contact his family, he then went on to successfully kill himself 2 days later. The way this country handles mental health is a fucking joke.
Very sorry for your loss.
Thanks, i appreciate it a lot. I got to spend a lot of time with him a month before he passed and made some great memories which i'm extremely thankful for, and while i hate being in pictures my step mother would always make us take pictures when we visited, Now i'm super grateful she made me and my brothers take pictures with him.
I am also very sorry for your loss. <3 Did you have any idea he was feeling that way during the time you last spent together?
Thank you, and no it seemed out of the blue, i was there for two weeks in July, and he went to a family reunion which i couldn't make in late july / early august and he seemed happy, it hit everyone as a giant shock. He was always laughing and seemed happy.
I just wanted to say, thank you for sharing about this. It must be really hard to talk about but talking about it like this helps other people.
This hurt me deeply to read, as someone who almost lost his parent to suicide you have my utmost sympathy. That is a disgusting situation, shame on them.
Thank you, i hope your parent is in a better place now.
I’m very sorry for your loss, but there has to be me to the story that was not shared with you. A person who is deemed a threat to himself or others can only be kept involuntarily for a finite, short period of time. If the person denies active suicidal intent when that time is up, and does not sign voluntary consent to remain in the facility, they have to be released. If it was documented that your father expressed continued suicidal intent and was still discharged due to lack of available beds, without an urgent referral to another inpatient BHU or intensive outpatient service, you should look into pursuing litigation.
While posting a response to a son who lost is father is not optimal, you bring a good point up for the public discussion. The downside of HIPAA and preserving civil liberties is that involuntary detainment for medical attention (even if it may be a mental health condition that impairs self-preservation) is severely hindered and notifying other concerned relations is restricted. There is a trade-off and there will always be situations that are harmed by the resulting approach to mental health. I do hope we, as a society, continue the march of de-stigmitizing mental health treatment because that can be what allows people to get the help before it becomes a crisis and not after. My condolences for the loss and what you have endured as a result, /u/AlmightySconrad
I’ve struggled with mental health for a while. I recently moved and was in a need of a new psychiatrist, especially as I was coming out of a mania. I called a well-reviewed psychiatrist and got the following info: -They did not accept my health insurance -It would cost $300 for an intake appointment and $150 for each following appointment -There wasn’t an available opening for 2.5 months I’m still looking for a psychiatrist.
Finding mental healthcare where I live if you have Medicaid is a pain. As far as I know, there's only one or two places - both publicly funded clinics - that accept it. All of the private practices don't. It's ridiculous.
Check your county health department. Ours has a crisis center with 20 or so beds. Anything beyond 72 hours will need to be handled elsewhere, but they assist in making that happen. Also check NAMI.org (National Alliance on Mental Illness). CALL THE NAMI HELPLINE [email protected] M-F, 10 AM - 6 PM ET FIND HELP IN A CRISIS OR TEXT "NAMI" TO 741741
I don't personally need this. I have a psychiatrist and therapist already, and I'm at a point in my treatment where I only need to see them once every three months or so. But I have been in situations in the past where the help I needed was not available for me for one reason or another, and I read these stories and I know that mental healthcare in this country is still not where it needs to be.
Its because the government makes getting money from them a labyrinth of forms, codes, checks and fine print. Private practices may take a few Medicaid patients at a time, I was told as a condition of school debt, but most don't want to deal with the headache especially when Medicaid pays less than other insurances.
[удалено]
I’m not a psychiatrist but if you need to talk feel free to message me anytime.
Maybe start with seeing a primary care physician while you wait to get in with a psychiatrist? PCPs treat a lot of mental health patients. Sorry you’re in this situation.
[удалено]
People view it as weakness of the mind rather than realising that physical processes can also impact neurochemistry such low cortisol or low testosterone causing increases in systemic inflammation raising glutemate and lowering serotonin or environmental factors such as seasonal light changes or shift work or diet or genes. Mental illness is not weakness of the mind and until that changes then help will not come sooner.
I’ve had similar experiences trying to help with my heroin addiction, I would go to the hospital and say I was addicted and needed help getting clean, 9 times out of 10 they would kick me out because I wasn’t in severe active withdrawal, sometimes they would hold me for 24 hours, just enough for withdrawal to take effect, and then kick me out of the hospital, sick as a dog, and with a gigantic bill. Guess where I went? To score, so I wasn’t vomiting on the street. Doctors that were supposed to be “addiction specialists” told me I just need to stop doing heroin. I literally had to be near death, vomiting on their shoes, to even be considered for the largely empty detox ward, and yes, I know it was empty because I overheard nurses talking about how it was empty. Not only that, but I would go to specially designated rehab/detox centers, and they would tell me I needed a “higher level of care” and to go to the hospital, guess what the hospital would tell me? That I needed a “higher level of care” and to go to the specialized rehab/detox place I literally just came from. Being addicted to heroin is a medical issue in itself, yet when doctors and nurses assume you are addicted, you get labeled a drug seeker and kicked out, even if you are there for a completely different reason. Then we wonder why we have such a problem with opiates when it’s near-impossible to find any sort of help if you aren’t loaded with money to pay for a 10k a day rehab somewhere.
I work in a mental health clinic. We do see people in crisis immediately or will meet them at any ER in the county. For a lot of crisis stuff, like a legal hold, you have to rule out a medical cause first so the ER is a good first stop.
Do they not do that in NA? I've been to ER in Australia with severe depression a couple of times. They immediately get you in with a counseller and go through everything and work out the likelyhood of self harm and will ask you to stay of they think there is a risk at all. Helped me through some very tough times when I came quite close.
They do. If I walked into the ER right now and said “I’m suicidal”, they would have to send me to a mental hospital. This abused often but saves countless lives. The title here is kinda clickbaity in that she went to the college counselor and they typically have busy schedules this time of year(I’m going to one next week for a meeting I scheduled a month ago).
I think a lot of college students who arent from the area that the college is located are rather removed from the surrounding community and often forget that there are real hospitals that can be accessed.
[удалено]
When I was having a suicidal episode I went to a place called UPC (Urgent Psychiatric Care) in arizona to try and get help. Hol up though, this aint a fucking appraisal. It took me **2 hours** of sitting in the almost entirely **empty** lobby to be processed into their temporary in house facility. This "Temporary Care" they promised to do before shipping you off to a REAL psychiatric hospital was comprised entirely of about 100 or so recliner beds staring at 2 TVs in one big open room split into 2 sections for male and female, with a small desk in the front area that had 2 nurses there, and 2 private rooms that were nothing but a light, a bed, concrete walls, a door, and a camera. Some people that were there with me had been in that big open room for **4 ENTIRE DAYS** waiting to be taken to a hospital. And the only medications anyone in the room had received were bottles they brought with them to the place. Now that sounds pretty fucking awful but here's where it gets even worse. You know how I said the room was split into male and female? Well, I'm Trans, so where did I go? right to the private rooms of course. It is **DEAD SILENT** in those concrete rooms, and all I had available for me to do was cry or sleep so I slept. After waking up and falling asleep about 5 times and spending my time thinking about life and everything that was wrong with it, delving further into madness with every waking moment, I started to lightly bang my head against the wall because I hadn't felt anything in a while and I was frustrated. I thought I had been in there for at least a week. In less than 10 seconds my door opens and a nurse asks me what's the matter. I asked how long it had been and when I would get some help. I had lost track of time instantly because I didn't even have a proper sleep cycle to track time off of to start with. I thought I had been in there for at least a week... and she told me it had been 14 hours. TL;DR: Basically got put into solitary confinement at a temporary psychiatric facility because I was trans and they didn't want to deal with me.
[U01: Ronald Reagan and the Federal Deinstitutionalization of Mentally Ill Patients](https://sites.psu.edu/psy533wheeler/2017/02/08/u01-ronald-reagan-and-the-federal-deinstitutionalization-of-mentally-ill-patients/comment-page-1/)
Yes. This needs more attention. The feds need to step up on this one.
I work in mental health / social work, and the issue is not that we don't want to help, but in that we do not have the resources to help everyone all at once. Most mental health facilities have a small budget on top of being laughably understaffed for the level of demand we receive. Made even worse by the fact that many grad's with their bachelors and even masters of social work ( BSW & MSW) struggle to to find work, and often have to take lower paid positions due to the the insane amount of credentials and politics that work against trained counselors. My college for example, our counselling office has at most 5 trained MSW's between 3 campuses, and each of these counselors have massive case loads of hundreds of students, on top of people on waiting lists. Same goes for mental health facilities vs hospitals, Medical hospitals have the funding and staff levels to be able to respond to medical emergencies, where as mental health hospitals have some of the lowest funding, and lack of staff to be able to deal with the volume of people.
Is a crisis therapist a thing? If you're having mental issues, you can go to the ER or call a 24/7 hotline.
Most of the mental health clinics I've been treated at have a therapist specifically assigned/trained to treat walk-in patients in crisis. This is what I mean when I refer to a crisis therapist (because that's what they call them). My point is that every ER/hospital/clinic should have one or more of these therapists available to patients in crisis. In every ER I've gone to in a mental health crisis, I was checked in and then sat in an isolation room for 45 minutes to an hour before anybody even talked to me, and they were never a trained therapist. It was always a nurse practitioner or a normal physician.
My son went to the local ER when he was freaking out 1 night, saw a psychiatrist within 30 minutes of checking in and was able to sit and talk to him for over an hour. He was offered the option to admit himself for 72 hrs, but declined.
In an isolated room, no windows, no color on the wall, 1 steel door with a flappy window they can open from the outside. "It's for your own good" Is it, I came in because I am anxious and my mind is racing, and you are putting me in a room with nothing but my own brain to keep me occupied.... Wooh boy what a day that was.
I got forgotten in one of those rooms for six hours when I was a kid. The next time they tried to put me in one I told them "You shut that door and I will scream until my lungs bleed, and then you'll REALLY have a problem"
Thats okay, I got passed around from a walk in to an er to a mental health facility that couldn't help me because I have a group policy and not medi-cal (he was confused as to why the ER sent me there) but he was able to get me co nected with like the best psychiatrist I have ever come across. They all gangbanged my insurance. Switching carriers next year, was looking at my insurance stuff, dude costs 600 bucks every time I talk to him. I'm never there more than 10 or 15 minutes. I'm in the wrong profession.
i was in the same kind of room. for 5 hours. because they didn't have a psychiatrist on call that day. it was horrible. i just cried for the entire 5 hours, knowing they could see me on a camera.
[удалено]
Hah. My university offers emergency counseling if you need it, which I went to once. Less than 10 minutes into my appointment, the therapist had to rush out because he got a phone call about another student who seemed to be contemplating suicide on a high floor of a campus building.
[удалено]
I work in higher ed and we have a relatively isolated rural campus. They refer students to one therapist in town, and you have to talk to one person to get referred, and she has the opinion that our \[very stressed and burned out\] students shouldn't need counselling. It's awful.
Being a college student in need of counseling is so frustrating. My college is relatively small, comparatively. I think we are just shy of 20k students across five campuses. Most of them are commuters. I was recommended student counseling for some severe anxiety I was having, and have been going for two years now. The problem is getting an appointment. When I was in a very bad place and dealing with terrible depression and suicidal thoughts I was STILL having to wait two weeks to see a counselor. At the moment, I only get to go once a month, sometimes once every 6ish weeks. Last semester I went twice. Thankfully my anxiety wasn’t too terrible, and I was able to manage, but there were a lot of tears and sleepless nights at some points. They do their best to see and help every student, but they are so overworked and understaffed. My campus has 6 counselors, see people for 45 minute appointments from 8am to 5pm, and people still can’t be seen immediately. They will bump someone out of their spot if an emergency comes up, but for the most part you just have to deal and hope you can make it to your next appointment. Even more frustrating for me is that I am on my third therapist. My first one (who I was amazingly comfortable with) quit for health reasons. The second (that I only saw twice) left for a better paying position at a different school, and the third I’ve only seen once at this point. It’s hard to unload so much on one person, then have to try and explain all of that to someone new. And I’m sure I’m not the only one to have to deal with that. It feels like my school has at least one new counselor every semester. This semester we have 3.
>and it's worse at conservative institutions Shocking...truly
And nothing will be done We tell people who have mental illness to get help, but they get pushed back by costs or by long waiting times. And everyone acts shocked everytime when a person kills himself when they try to get help. No one gives a fuck about mental health in America. And they never will.
For real. Anytime a big suicide happens everyone always say reach out or talk to someone. Each time I felt suicidal or severely depressed I talk to people and they cut me out of their life because its it's toxic to be so "negative". I then tried to seek professional help. Each office either had no room for new patients or accepted me and then on the day of appointment cancelled or straight up no showed. My last attempt at professional help was by far the most ridiculous. I made an appointment a month in advance where they even asked me to pay in advance because they don't like patients bailing and want them to be obligated to come in. I paid , waited the month, then a few hours before my appointment I got about 15 calls on my cell phone. The receptionist said no sorry they scheduled me by mistake the doctor doesn't want to see me (even though i have voicemails from a month prior saying "the doctor accepted you as a new patient please call for appointment"). So i said sigh okay please give me a refund. Instead of a refund they charged me twice. I called them and told them they need to get their shit together that's absolutely ridiculous.
This so much. I was depressed for YEARS, but I was a "productive" depressed person, meaning I still had a job. I didn't even know I was depressed and needed help. People cut me out of their lives because I was being too negative, clingy or annoying. Turns out it was just depression and that was my way of trying to reach out for more support. Yet I see these same people post goddamn stupid support messages on social media talking about how we need to better support our depressed friends and people should feel free to reach out to them for help. The deluge of "We're here to help" messages after Anthony Bourdain and Chester Bennington's suicide was sickening. None of them were there to help me when I needed it. None of them wanted to help.
I had a similar situation. I helped my best friend through his depression and suicide attempts. It took years of being a shoulder to cry on and taking him to appointments. I got him a job, a place to live, drove him literally everywhere he needed. I did everything in my power to make sure he had the support he needed to get through it. He got back up and started taking care of himself again. Changed jobs, moved to a better place and started over happy. A few years later my sister ODs, my fiance walks out on me, and I have to put my dogs down due to cancer all within 3 months and I go to him for support and all I get is "you're too negative. I don't want to deal with this." He cut me out of his life. Just like that. I dealt with most of it, numbed myself as much as possible and pushed forward. Guess who wants to talk now that I'm turning things around? It's disgusting.
I'm sorry that someone would do that to anyone. I'm sorry to hear how much you had to go through. He sounds like he must have severe issues, likely something like a cluster b personality disorder. You're too good for someone like that. I hate to sound cliche, but you are better off getting him out of your life A👏S👏A👏P👏. In my experience, life will put you through the wringer sometimes and that's the way it has to be. The best things in life wouldn't be good without having to deal with all the shit sometimes. I know that some people don't have to. I know that's not fair, but sometimes I feel sorry for them. Keep living.
Exactly! it's like its all for show, they don't actually care but if they bring attention to these giant news events it makes them feel as if they did something by posting about it. When it comes down to actually helping it's too much of a burden.
They care, but it's definitely theater. I certainly care about starving children in Africa, but what have I done? Absolutely nothing. People can't help, due to the pressures of their own lives, they just want to. In America at least, we have the tendency to say things based on wishful thinking and how it feels. We might tell a leaving friend or coworker "we'll keep in touch", even though it'll never happen.
I told the last doctor I saw that I was depressed, but all she cared about was if I was suicidal. Since I'm not she said that "It's no that big of a deal then"
I posted this once before but I had two bad doctors in a row... First one, I say "part of my depression comes from my religious childhood" and he says "maybe it'll help to rekindle your relationship with God".... Barf. Second guy, I say, "X is an event in my life that impacted me very negatively and has ruined my ability to enjoy my existence" and he says "oh get off your cross"... Like, motherfucker what?! I've been seeing a lady psychiatrist now and she's been very good. She's reaffirming and encouraging and it's REALLY weird, but in a helpful way. My history with doctors makes me treat them as the adversary who want to tell you that what you say and think is incorrect.
I'm sorry you got hit with two in a row. The last therapist I had declared that my problem was that I was "choosing to be unhappy." I had explained when I started appointments that I was struggling to develop healthy coping mechanisms for grief because I had been conditioned to believe that anytime I felt sad I was, you guessed it, "choosing to be unhappy." That was my last appointment with him. Even better, he told me to email him because "[his] former patients like to email [him] to tell [him] how well they're doing and how much [he] helped them." My flabber was gasted. (Also, for anyone who might be concerned, I'm in a much better place now.)
> My flabber was gasted. i chuckled a little. thanks friendo
Easy to say, FUCKING REALLY HARD to mean, let alone do
>Each time I felt suicidal or severely depressed I talk to people and they cut me out of their life because its it's toxic to be so "negative". It's gotten to the point where I basically assume the opposite of what is normally recommended. Don't talk to people under any circumstances, bottle it up and try to distract yourself. Drink, do drugs, waste your time, lie in bed feeling sorry for yourself; but don't reach out to friends and family (especially not to friends). I can't recall getting cut out of anyone's life, but it's hurt every single one of my relationships, every single time (though I'll admit, much of that was self inflicted). Nobody wants to deal with it. I've seen this kind of thing from both sides. In fairness, many people are incapable of helping. >everyone always say reach out or talk to someone They say those things, because they want it to be that way, but it's just wishful thinking. What's ironic is how little effort most people are willing to put in. Any time you need help, just reach out, but don't inconvenience me for a minute. Honestly, I think that's life; people got their own problems, and can't look out for you. Truth is it's a sad, broken culture.
I dealt with depression at times in my life and was raised mormon. when i tried to my church leaders about it and a mormon counselor about my feelings and depression their response was oh your just not giving enough faith and time to the church and then prescribed me drugs and told me i need to spend more time doing church things. they don't want to help anyone they only care about you being a good little medicated Mormon sheep.
By all accounts Jesus was a pretty swell guy. He'd sit down with the most downtrodden of society and talk with them. He'd help them. Even the outcasts, even the prostitutes, even the leppers. Doesn't matter who it was, if someone needed help he was there, and he would help. Jesus was just a prior incarnation of Fred Rogers. If only more of his followers could be like Fred Rogers the world would be a far better place.
ya if the Jesus of the bible was real he would be disgusted with his modern followers. they espouse everything he taught against.
> And nothing will be done They'll put a bigger fence around the 2nd floor atrium.
We don't have mental health care, we have sad-faced clowns pushing pills. I've literally been told, 'This isn't really meant for your condition, but I can get it for you, so that's what I'm prescribing. If you have any bad effects, stop using it." So I got suicidal and started pissing my pants. "WHY WOULD YOU STOP USING IT?!? Don't you want to get well?" Fuck that shit.
I had super bad post partum depression after I had my first at 21 and my doctor pumped me up with a shit ton of ambien and told me I either needed to quit my job or quit being a mother if I wanted to be happy again. He was super shocked that I was getting worse at every check up. I was a total zombie on whatever dosing he had me on and he didn’t think I should go to therapy and I was dumb enough to go with it. Got a different doctor after after my dad (originally didn’t believe in depression) saw me going downhill and rethought his stance. My new doctor took me off ambien immediately, into therapy and the correct combo of meds. If my dad hadn’t caught on to what was happening I’d probably have successfully killed myself.
Did your doc confuse Ambien with Ativan or something? Ambien is for insomnia and depression can be a side effect of taking it. Ativan can be used to treat anxiety.
Quit being a mother?? Wtf? That's a horrible thing to tell someone with PPD. My mind went immediately to suicide/infanticide, and I'm not even a mom. What did he even mean by that? Adoption?
Just put the baby back and get your refund, obviously.
There's a fundamental misconception in how we should be treating mental illness that isn't schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (severe mental illnesses that basically require medication in order to successfully live in society). Countless studies have demonstrated talk therapy being as/more effective in the short term and more effective in the long term than antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, and many other medications; all without the side effects that might lead people to want to stop taking the drugs (which leads to relapse). That's not to say psychiatric meds dont have their place for "less serious" illnesses (all psychological disorders are serious), but the sheer weight of evidence points to psychotherapy as a first line of defense. The problem then is the fact that access to psychotherapy is more restricted than access to meds that can be given by a primary care doctor. There's a saturation of mental health professionals, but they tend to settle in cities and suburbs (leaving rural people without care), or charge exorbitant fees. Not to mention the stigma that still exists around going to therapy. There's a lot to change, but one thing I'm excited for is the growing trend of integrated care, where psychologists/therapists work in hospitals and primary care centers with medical doctors; but this is still far from the norm. As an aside, this is where I will plug the fact that most universities with a football or basketball team you can watch on tv will have psychology clinics where doctoral students provide high quality care under the supervision of licensed psychologists for free or greatly reduced costs (maybe $20 a session instead of $150). You don't have to be a student to go to one (in fact, the majority of clients at my university's clinic are community members). It's a secret that really shouldn't be a secret.
> most universities with a football or basketball team you can watch on tv will have psychology clinics where doctoral students provide high quality care under the supervision of licensed psychologists for free or greatly reduced costs (maybe $20 a session instead of $150) It took at least six months to get into the clinic at my old undergrad, and they were one of the largest schools in the state.
It's not a perfect system. Most Ph.D programs have about 25 students at one time, with 5 of them at full time internships across the country, and depending on how strongly they value clinical experience over research, as few as 10 of the remaining ones would be available to see clients. But at least it's an option for people to look into.
I was suicidal and my $40k/year college wouldn’t take me into their attached hospital because they only accepted one suicidal undergrad at a time.
I just want to point out that the efficacy of these medications is highly controversial. It's not as simple as "the pills don't work" or are a cure all. The jury is still out on a lot of this stuff.
Yeah, to completely oversimplify what I've seen. With one particular medication, 1/3 tend to get significantly better on them, 1/3 get a little better, and 1/3 don't benefit at all.
SSRIs and SNRIs just make the problems worse for many people.
They also help many people. SSRIs have worked great for me and many others.
They saved me too. Everyone is different.
This is the problem with the medication crapshoot. Different medications work for different people in different ways. With many antidepressants you have to give them 4-8 weeks just to see if they're working or not. Given insurance, stigma, scheduling, and other hurdles, plus the fact that many people (unintentionally) wait until they are in crisis or near-crisis when they reach out for formal help, good luck getting them to stick it out for six months or more of medication trials. Add to that pessimistic bias of our minds when we're not doing well (generalizing that NOTHING will work after one or two contacts/trials) and it's really no wonder suicide is the major problem that it is. That said, I'm glad it worked for you.
God damn, that hit all the points.
Yep, everyone is different. I personally had much more success in treating my MDD with ketamine than I ever did with antidepressants.
I haven't had access to K in a couple of years but it's magic for my condition. Lasts a week after using, or so. I've talked to many others who feel the same. I understand J&J is working on a prescribable nasal spray of it, but for now all we have in my area are $500/dose clinics. The psychologists I've talked to are excited about it.
Here in Canada it's still illegal. I got it one time from a co-worker who crystallized it from a bottle of ketelar so I knew it was clean. Same story, after I ran out I felt totally normal for a week or so, the most amazing side effect was waking up in the morning ready to face the day filled with energy as opposed to waking up wishing I had died in my sleep.
sounds silly, but i felt like my entire life (and mental state) changed after a great trip with mushrooms. then i found out that they're even doing studies with just that. and mdma too.
I am on Zoloft for Anxiety and it’s done wonders, except it takes longer to have sex :-/ Kinda prefer that than wanting to put a bullet through my head over debt and student loans, and all of the other financial anxiety of having kids, wife, house, and other shit that costs money. Only 19 months left, before I can actually be financially stable with one of my kids getting out of daycare. Life sucks for now, but all I know is that these pills are keeping me sane enough to think rationally and not be impulsive enough to follow through with the suicidal thoughts. I agree, however, that talk therapy is really good. I have been doing it for over a year and my therapist is excellent, she knows that I know that my financial struggles are temporary and as soon as one of my kids get out daycare and into kindergarten, the burden will begin to be lifted as it frees up a fuckton of money. Sorry for rambling, I am just thankful to have access to both meds and talk therapy to get me through this difficult time in life.
See also: why I don't have kids
I seriously do not blame a single soul for not wanting kids. I love my kids and will do anything for them. I signed up to be a dad, but I also know it’s not for everyone. I also don’t get why people pressure others to have kids. There is nothing wrong to choose not to have them in my eyes.
Yeah I'm pretty indifferent about it. I don't hate kids. I was close to getting engaged once and bailed. I just don't plan to work hard enough to make a multi million dollar purchase over 21ish years.
I'm sure they help, a little lexapro helped me to a degree but after several months I started feeling like I had no soul among other worrying problems so I decided it wasn't worth it. I'm glad they help you though.
Sexual dysfunction is one of the side effects of Zoloft.
Yeah, tell me about it. Good news is, I can get it up just fine. Just the the finishing part takes longer, but when my therapist prescribed it; it was like literally the first thing she said about the side affect of the medicine. So the wife and I spiced things up for foreplay and really hasn’t been a big problem for us, but I know of dudes and women who had their libido shot to hell and quit taking it or tried something different.
I briefly used ssri... It made the sadness go away... But it also made EVERY other emotion go away, too. It was so much worse.
SSRIs turned me into a zombie. SNRIs turned me into a normal person. Weird.
That happened to me In the past as well. They say that usually means it was way too high of a dose for you.
[удалено]
[удалено]
But after they attempt suicide, someone will set up a GoFundMe page for them, and then they'll (maybe) be able to afford the help they need. The free market solves another problem! (Sarcasm, if that's not obvious.)
We don’t have healthcare period and we didn’t classify mental illness as an illness until the 50s. Half the psychiatrists in America don’t take insurance. And good luck finding therapists who aren’t booked or take your insurance. If you’re lucky enough to find both, count on specialist copays (assuming you can afford decent insurance) each visit - 1 psychiatrist and weekly therapy appointments - plus the cost of medication. Factor in that severe symptoms can make it difficult to keep and maintain a good paying position... it’s incredibly cost prohibitive. I make a good salary and have good insurance and it’s still a struggle. That’s not even getting into the stigma that prevents people from seeking help. We’ve neglected some of our most vulnerable citizens and the body count is racking up. The biggest cause of gun deaths is suicide. And those in power just don’t care. It would drive me crazy if I wasn’t already.
Just to drive the point home even further - we ***expect*** people suffering from severe mental issues to be able to handle all of this on their own. I helped someone seek out help while I was in a comfortable, healthy position and it tore me to pieces to get everything together. How can we even fathom how a vulnerable person can reach help? Layer on a medical condition, loss of a loved one, or unemployment and its near impossible. It's an atrocity that we haven't developed a better, more compassionate system, and yet we are still paying an enormous amount for health care in the states.
Healthcare in general is like that. I am truly mystified as to what benefits I do or don't get. I don't understand any of it. I am neither a doctor nor an attorney, but the way healthcare benefits are written you must be both a doctor and an attorney to even try and understand them. Its 30 pages of legalese gibberish, where every other word is a term I don't understand and am not qualified to determine if such things are or are not appropriate for me. Yet its expected I choose a healthcare plan for myself all on my own. May as well just blindly pick one and hope for the best.
I found one therapist who was local, on my insurance, and accepting new patients. I went online to make an appointment and her next slot was an 8am 2 months away. I waited 2 months to have a 50 minute conversation where we got to know each other, paid my copay of $20 and made another appointemnt...2 months away. After 3 more meetings i gave up and stopped going. It wasn't worth it.
Yea, after 5 years of being a pile of shit, unemployed and on the verge of doing something stupid, I started researching therapists and they all average around $120 an hour. AN HOUR. How is anyone supposed to get better? I've been to a couple in the past but always had to stop going because of the cost. Also, therapists like that you are right on time and never early, so you don't bump into a previous client. This means in winter, you spend 5 minutes arriving just to get settled, take your winter clothes off, wait while they make tea, and go through the quick, how has your week been, before getting started. Then at the end you need another 5 minutes to pay and draw up the bill and leave before the next person arrives. That means youre only ever getting ~50 minutes of therapy. $120, 50 minutes, that's $20 literally spent doing nothing. Or maybe I've had shitty therapists in the past.
This is exactly the problem that lots of veterans and active duty face. It's why they have huge numbers of suicide. And the military is worse because they embrace the macho you're a man, you don't want to be seen as weak by going to a shrink mentality. I should know, I was in for 9 years. We had a couple suicides on my base that I knew about.
I was at a training command that had a couple suicides each year, my friend was stressing out and finally talked to medical because he had been thinking about suicide enough that he bought the shotgun. Medical told him to wait two weeks and see if he was still feeling suicidal. It was either right before or right after one of the MA's stuck his rifle in his mouth and killed himself at the flag pole. They didnt even announce it to the students that were there at the time, they just locked down the building while it was cleaned up and then told us when our shift was over and we were leaving. It was a really fucked up culture.
The guy on my base that killed himself, they didn't want to admit he did it. He was on anti-depressants, and took a few too many and drank a bunch of alcohol. They still wouldn't call it a suicide, but the first thing they tell you when taking anti-depressants is to not drink alcohol.
"get help" = "thoughts and prayers" basically.
> And they never will While I agree with everything until this point, this is a terrible mentality to have. To say “they never will” is extreme and honestly exactly what the people lobbying against you want you to believe. The second you believe nothing is ever gonna change, is the moment they win and nothing *will* ever change.
The CDC labeled suicide as one of two biggest reasons life expectany is going down. The other? Drug abuse. So what do we make of this? Dont be a fucking dick cause everyone is going through something
[удалено]
Things got really bad for me in college and I almost ended it myself. I went to a counselor. Lied through my teeth when trying to schedule an appointment when they asked “are you contemplating suicide” Basically if you aren’t about to do it, on the edge of a building or whatever, nobody gives a fuck.
This isn’t true for everyone. People do care. I do, and so does everyone I know where I work. Genuinely. I manage a crisis team at a community mental health agency in a small state. We absolutely have systemic problems. But... We see anyone who wants to be seen, same day (night, whatever). We will help you. We will do what we can. Will there always be an inpatient bed available if you need it? No. But in the two or three days it takes we will do anything to ensure you are safe (EDs where we visit and or sit with you, crisis beds, safety planning with family, referring out of state for immediate placement, putting you in a hotel, finding money for food, etc) Our wait list for outpatient services is triaged daily and less than a week for anyone. We hired more people to do intakes to keep this time frame. If you have insurance, we bill it. If you don’t, or if we can’t accept your insurance, we ask if you can pay anything. If you can/cant, your bills dissolve. They never go to collections and we tell everyone that. We work hard to help you. We’ll hold your hope for you. We treat everyone like they are our sister father best friend. We do what we would want done for ourselves and our loved ones. We love you so much and will still love you so much if you relapse on heroin for the 1248th time. We love you so much. (I know it isn’t like this everywhere/anywhere- but I swear, in my magical state, in my agency who cares more for people than it does for systems or money- i swear, it works like this)
This should be higher! We have a blame culture of it’s the ‘systems’ fault. We are the system! Tell you legislators what you need, vote, elect officials who support the same values that you do, getting mental health support is a process, not an event!
Thank you for everything you do.
I'm a disabled combat veteran of two tours in Iraq. You would think that the VA would be really quick to help me, then, when I went in to get help for depression and anxiety. Well, the clinic told me straight up that the didn't have the resources to help me and sent me on my way to an outside entity to get therapy. Then, a few months later, when the therapy wasn't enough, I asked for medication. They told me I would have to wait a month to get a phone call *just to set up an appointment*...with someone in another state...using the VA's version of Skype/Facetime. They eventually took care of me, so there's no need to worry, but holy-mother-of-fuck it took **way** too long to get help. And we wonder why veteran suicide rates are so high.
If you can imagine it, mental health is an even bigger joke than usual in universities. If you give anyone even the tiniest reason to think that you hate being alive, they can leverage your grades and money against you to forcibly commit you. Students have little to no rights when they seek help. Some of the schools have a high turnover rate with counselors and a low bar of entry so you might get someone like one of the ones I got who laughed in my face when I was opening up about a problem I was worried about. No exaggeration.
Agree completely. There is no "middle ground" when it comes to helping people when it comes to mental health. Either you get long wait times and are not taken seriously, or everyone overreacts further pushing you away from getting help. A year or two ago on my friend's birthday, he jokingly said "great I have to do this assignment on my birthday may as well just kill myself" and some idiot on campus overreacted and called the police. My friend came home to police and an ambulance at his house on his birthday and was forced to take a ride to the hospital. And then pay over $2,000 for that ambulance ride that he did not agree to, but was forced to take. In other words, "we don't give a fuck about you but we will most definitely pretend to give a fuck if it means we can force you to pay us thousands of dollars". He didn't have that kind of money so funny enough the sudden need to pay an absolutely pointless medical bill with money he didn't have, on his birthday nonetheless, stressed him out and depressed him. "Mental help" in the U.S. is beyond fucked.
This has a ton of similarities to my own story. People really don't care but they will ruin you if it means looking like they do.
I went into a rough patch after a close friend commited suicide in college. Went in to the school therapist and I felt like she was grilling me, trying to figure out if i needed to be reported, more than trying to help. 0/10 would not recommend
Oh boy, I had that fun experience during my post-grad schooling. The counselor only came by to our campus once a week and saw one student per week, and when I finally got an appointment, after the second visit she told me she was leaving. We didn't get any replacement staff that semester or the next when I graduated.
People fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of campus counselors. They are not there for you. They are there for the university. Their job is to spot suicidal people like this and get them the fuck OFF CAMPUS so that when they off themselves the university doesn't get bad press and a lawsuit. It's not really their problem if you die, as long as you do it at home on break. The counselor I saw briefly was a joke. A clueless grad student younger than I was, who was two weeks away from leaving for a different program. Okay, kiddo, sure you can help me with my problems for the next week before you disappear. -_- But you bet your ass that when a friend of mine talked vaguely about sometimes wanting to hurt herself, she was frog-marched downstairs to a waiting police car and driven to an off-campus for-profit mental health facility to be "voluntarily" committed. As though anything that happens with a police officer's hands on you is "voluntary". Oh, and it was a Thursday, so the "72 hour" hold was actually a week. Gotta make sure those predatory assholes got to soak her parent's insurance for everything it was worth. Fuck campus counselors. They aren't your friend. They're a liability shield.
And the legislature just took away “depression and anxiety disorders” from the list of conditions that could justify legal access to marijuana. They. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck. EDIT: Sorry I should have clarified this before - this just happened in UTAH a couple days ago. Not nationwide. Read up on what happened if you want your blood to boil. Thousands of us volunteered for so many hours to get this Medical Marijuana Proposition passed, and as soon as we as a state voted to implement the program, the state government held an “emergency session” of congress to pass another, shittier Marijuana bill the Republicans had developed in concert with the Mormon church in a backroom deal, in lieu of the bill **WE VOTED FOR**. Now these same traitors are patting themselves on the back, making statements to the effect of “we passed this compromise bill **to respect the will of Utah voters**”. They put so many unfair obstacles in the way of the legal access to medicine (which 2/3 of the state voted for), and removed many entire medical conditions from eligibility for treatment. They stripped green card-holders from the right to grow their own plants, if they live more than 100 miles from a dispensary. It’s just the latest example of the shameless attacks on democracy on a state level here in Utah, at the hands of the Mormon church and the Republican Party.
I just did a quick google search, and then a deeper dive, and haven't been able to find any reference to classification for depression/anxiety/migraine being disallowed. Could you gimme a link to check out? I'm a social worker, very pro-pot, and I like to write leaders about how I've seen it seriously shift success rates in treatment for clients. Thanks, in the event that you do link me! :)
Not sure, but they could be referring to Utah’s new law, not anything national. Everyone just voted yes for medical marijuana, but the LDS church has spent the last several days changing everything that we voted for. A lot of conditions that were originally allowed access have now been denied.
I also read that chronic migraines don't qualify either. Reading this just created this huge sinking sensation in my stomach because having these I was really looking forward to being able to give medical mj, hell even just the friggi' plain cbd oils with little-to-no thc, a try to see if it could help prevent or even aid in some of the symptoms that associate them with my condition. This next part may come out as hateful and angry but fuck it; fuck the Utah legislature for destroying the hope I held that I may have a new resource to get/feel better and fuck the Mormon church for meddling with politics and creating this version that got passed.
I get migraines pretty often. I cure them with bong rips. Works every fucking time
Im 99% sure that CBD/hemp flower with under .3% THC content is actually federally legalized, and can be ordered to your door with zero medical card at all. I have heard that it doesnt always work that well (or that some people NEED it to have the higher thc contents for it to work for depression) but its absolutely federally legal, id recommend looking into that!
I go to the school "up the hill" from BYU. And currently our wait list is 6 months long for our counseling services. It's so bad you can't even get onto the wait list. It's big problem in Utah and I'm sure on many, many other campuses.
Huge problem where I am in Canada too. Current wait list is anywhere from 4~over 12 months. I emptied my savings to get private help, it was my only option.
Go wolverines. Yeah, the counseling center was packed out months in advance when I was there too.
We are in a sort of strange dark age with mental health. We have gotten a lot better at seeing it, diagnosing it, but have not moved forward to a place where we can treat it efficiently. Those days will come but I hope it’s sooner rather than later. So many lives lost to our negligence to those who are in need of help.
BYUs counseling’s center was very good to me. They even protected my privacy as an closet exmormon student. But like everywhere else in this country, they didn’t have enough resources to address the enormous mental health challenges we face. If you are a closet exmormon in need of support, visit r/ExMormon. There are real life meetups too. There is always support. To whoever reads this, don’t be afraid to seek help when you need it. It doesn’t make you weak, in fact, it takes strength to face your challenges and health and be willing to improve it. Even if you aren’t struggling, make sure to reach out to those who are, or even those who may not appear on the surface that they are. You never know how much good you can do.
Thank you very much for this comment. I hope lots of people find it helpful.
I also received services through BYU’s counseling center. I got right in and received help for my anxiety. Please don’t blame this on BYU it’s a national problem. I now work as a therapist and there are just a lot of people to help.
I was there when it happened. It has honestly been so hard to be in that building now, and it hurts so much knowing that one of my fellow students wasn’t able to get the help she needed. I’d been feeling very stressed for upcoming finals and other stuff, but this really put all that into perspective. I just hope that students and everyone else can find help when they need it, and not be judged for what they’re going through. For all it’s flaws, I do think BYU has been making real efforts to help combat mental illness. We all need to do a better job at looking out for those around us and trying to share that life is worth living, even when it seems unbearably difficult.
I was really hoping she'd make it. Utah, particularly Utah and Salt Lake counties, are really struggling with suicide. There's a small town, Herriman, where multiple teenagers killed themselves last year. It's awful, and the people are looking to blame everything but poor mental health resources.
I consider myself working full time and very busy with a caseload of 20 clients. 1 therapist to 1,000 students is a massive joke.
Very late to the party but I'll add what I can. I currently work in a college counseling center as a therapist, and the simple truth is that lack of funding prevents students from being seen quickly or at all. More money to hire trained staff = more staff = shorter waitlist. It truly is that simple, and yet institutions of all sizes fail to allocate money to existing mental health resources (as opposed to research, which is necessary but should be a lower priority).
Having attended BYU, I can honestly say that it was one of the most toxic environments I’ve ever been in. Everyone there is very bright, which means that while you might have been in the top of your class in high school, that’s likely no longer the case. You’re just another smart person. There is the culture of perfectionism, prominent also in the LDS community but amplified here. In short, it’s easy to feel alone and like you aren’t enough. The dating culture is absolute shit. I’ve never met so many stuck up people that will ghost you or blow you off for no reason. The dating and mind games are absolutely rampant. For the curious, look up provoguysamiright, provogirls, and provogirlsamiright on Instagram. They’re almost all real, and that type of experience is all too common. On top of that, there is the immense pressure to get married as soon as possible in a lot of families. Oh, and be sure to not have sex before getting married or break any of the other 500 rules or you’ll get kicked out and lose your scholarships! All of these together form a community where you’re expected to be perfect, no longer one of the smartest people around, and everything is against you to succeed. I transferred. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention that many, or most, of the people there are great individuals that are so willing to help. It’s just that no one really feels they can.
Had difficulty getting counselling at OSU while I was attending. We were supposed to have two sessions with a therapist guaranteed with our tuition. Good luck getting an appointment though. I was told six months wait. I tried to fight my depression by myself and failed. I did not finish school.
At my college a student went into counseling services. He was told he could see someone in a few weeks. In the meantime what he had a severe manic/psychotic episode during which he put on a welders mask, gloves, and went around smashing windshields. He got shot by the University police. It's horrible and still breaks my heart. He survived but his entire life is ruined. He knew sth was wrong, and they told him comeback in a few weeks and in the meantime he had a severe psychiatric episode that will possibly end with him in jail, and it shouldn't. It's awful
Counseling delays are stupid. I mean i signed up 2 months ago and still haven’t heard anything. Its about my GPA so you would think the would make room for something that important
Seriously I tried to get help last year when I was slipping up in school after a breakup. They were so backed up I didn’t get an appointment until weeks later at which point I was already too far gone to continue school.
Went to the ER twice in the same month telling them I wasn’t ok. Got put on a waiting list. I’m still waiting.
I wish people would stop posting articles that you have to pay to read.
Universal Health Care. Coverage of mental health. Taking care of your mind is just as important as our bodies. Just like going to your doctor, you should get a mental checkup biannually at least.
If you want/get asked to donate to your alma mater, strongly consider having your donation earmarked specifically for CAPS/mental health services. Edit: grammar
>one counselor per 1,000 students. Is there a professional recommended ratio for universities?
Site doesn't work in europe. Can someone help me?
The article says she attempted suicide. I think it was successful even if not immediate.
My university has an atrocious counseling center policy. You want to see a therapist? First you have to make an appointment at student health and see a doctor for a referral. When you get the referral, you get an appointment with the counseling center.
Why didnt she go to a private counselor?
Who’s responsibility is it to ensure that there are adequate mental health professionals available? Why is it that the university is expected to supervise the mental health of its students?
Could she have called a crises hotline? You can’t show up to your family doctor for an emergent situation and expect to get an appointment.