Lived Experience Forum

[Willy]

@Historylover 

I'm not doing too well myself at the moment. I went to the gym today and some guy who was much bigger and  younger than me started threatening and bullying me when I asked him to respect my desire for social distancing. When I was younger I would have stood up to him but I am way too old to do that anymore and seem to experience a lot of bullying and discrimination these days just as a result of being old. I complained to the (young) gym staff who were less than helpful. All this triggered a PE which I dread and my head is still swimming around in a haze of "stinking  thinking". Please excuse me if I say something stupid or irrelevant. 

I even ask myself if my ancestors did something wrong

That's one way some people look at it. I just think life is a game of cards and some of us  got dealt a bad hand. 

why I can't change it

Well you can but usually only a little at a time and not when your wacked out like you seem to be at the moment so I would suggest that you forget about that one for the time being. Put it in the back of your mind for a latter date when you have built up your resources and resilience a bit .

My new GP has me attending nearly every day. He doesn't bulk bill, doesn't prescribe generic medication

My view of doctors including psychiatrists and psychologists are that they are just like everybody else. You get some very good ones, some very bad ones and quite a few so so ones. Sounds like you might have a very bad one who apart from anything else is telling you a load of bullshit. Generic is fine. The pharmacist is right.

I just changed my GP a few weeks ago after he caused me no end of grief and my daughter and a friend literally ordered me to dump him. I can now see what an incompetent idiot he was but at the time I just kept making excuses for his incompetence. No idea why. Perhaps the idea of change was too unsettling.  My new doctor is a young female and seems to be much more switched on and attuned to my MH issues. It was a bit of a hassle finding a decent GP but worth the effort.   

My last GP told me to write to my estranged daughter and I got an IVO for my trouble

That's a really hard one. My 40 year old daughter and I went through a very bad patch a couple of years ago. I guess she was having a mid life crisis or something and started paying out something terrible on me. It ripped me to pieces. Things have somehow resolved themselves. I am not sure how.  

So what is the point of anything

I feel like that from time to time. I have decided that I have got through this much of my life (74 years) so I might as well see it out to the natural end if possible. There have been a lot of pretty rough patches and to be honest not all that many good ones but there have been some. My daughter is one of the good ones which is why it hurt so much when she turned on me. 

I had always tried to hide my MH issues from her and from nearly everyone else for that matter. It was probably one of the more stupid things I have tried to do in my life. Everyone sees that something is wrong so what is the point in trying to hide it. I think I have been hiding it mostly from myself as some sort of deluded way to try and keep going. There have been hundreds of PE's over the years. Some of them have escalated into pretty serious situations because the world at large often doesn't deal very well with madness. These days I probably manage things a bit better but it can still be pretty difficult at times. Like today. 

Regards

Willy 

[Historylover]

Hello @Willy. Sorry to hear that everything is not going so swimmingly for you at the moment either. As for asking anything of people, even ever so politely, such as keeping social distancing, I've learned that that seldom goes well. I don't bother. I find that people have a knee-jerk reaction to any form of correction, so I just leave them to it. Perhaps your experiences are usually different. I could say that, perhaps, it is the result of our long Covid restrictions that is bringing out the worst in people, or it may just be the worsening of an already bad social situation. 

I am feeling very low at the moment @Willy. I would like to say something uplifting for you but there is nothing uplifting in me. I send you my very best wishes and hope that today is better than your yesterdays.

[Willy]

Hi @Historylover 

I am doing a bit better then yesterday thank you.

You said -

As for asking anything of people, even ever so politely, such as keeping social distancing I've learned that that seldom goes well. I don't bother

I wasn't exactly trying to be polite to this guy at the gym yesterday. He annoyed me in the way he appeared to deliberately invade my space. There was a bit more to this issue than just social distancing. I decided to move away from him immediately as he was making me feel quite uncomfortable. In doing so I said to him as a rebuke,  "Have you ever heard about social distancing". I didn't expect him to be happy about this but this guy was a bully and much younger and bigger than me. He started to threaten me with physical violence. In my younger days, I would have stood toe to toe with him and 99% of the time I used to find that bullies would back down. If they didn't I could look after myself anyway but that was when I was much younger. I am now an "old guy" and increasingly find that some people take advantage of  my age and infirmity to try and manipulate, bully or otherwise force their agenda.  I find however that this applies to only a small minority of people. In my experience, most people are reasonable, decent and generally "do the right thing" at least to the limits of their capabilities.

When I encounter people who do not do the right or expected thing, like yesterday, I run into problems. I often fail to navigate that space effectively. Yesterday I ran into a double whammy, first with this bully and then with the staff at the gym who were definitely out of order in the way they responded. I might add I have had quite a few problems with this council run gym which has excellent facilities and is affordable but attracts a few "macho weirdo" types both as customers and staff. I have sent a complaint to the manager about the staff yesterday and received an apology and an undertaking to investigate.  There are a few of us "oldies" who go to the gym. My agenda is to make the gym a place where people like myself who are elderly and/or have personality idiosyncrasies or similar as a result of mental illness or other disabilities etc can go and be  safe, respected and free from abuse. I must have lodged at least a dozen complaints over the years and overall I think I am winning. Unfortunately, due to my own MH problems, I often get knocked around quite a bit in the process.

I have experienced "voices" and "delusions" (audible and visual hallucinations) as far back as I can remember and still do to this day. Back when I was young and even nowadays when there is a lot more readily available knowledge about these sorts of issues, it is very easy to be diagnosed as having a serious mental illness rather than just being considered  a bit  strange or  weird. Once caught up in the mental health system, my experience is that it is far more damaging than the original problem. IMO you only need to spend a bit of time on this forum or read the recent Victorian Royal Commission report into mental health to see that. 

It is common knowledge that people with MH issues are subject to a lot of stigma and discrimination. In Victoria where I live this has resulted in a lot of institutionalised bullying. In my experience it has got worse, not better over the years and has reached epidemic proportions where many people with psychotic MH problems are being forcibly given high doses of dangerous antipsychotics. The medical profession lie through their back teeth with claims that this sort of "chemical incarceration"  is safe which it definitely is not. It also, more often than not, doesn't help in any way with the underlying problems. What it does do is result in premature death. I have had friends who have died quite young and  very suddenly from these causes. Of course these deaths are never reported as drug related. It is always heart failure or something similar. The idea of state administered or approved genocide of the mentally ill keeps coming to mind.

And everybody is standing around saying these things shouldn't or don't happen - but they are!    

@CrazyChick   said in another post a week or so ago 

Things that I learned [In a psych hospital] helped:

being compliant - even though I wanted to leave the hospital, I had to learn to stop asking or trying to leave & to do what they asked me to do. It seemed counter-intuitive that to leave the hospital the best thing I could do was to stop trying to leave the hospital.
Writing down my thoughts in a logical way. I wrote a long letter to the psychiatrist/s explaining what of their assessment I agreed with (leaving out the parts I didn't agree with - so it sounded like I was agreeing with them). I explained clearly why I didn't like a certain medication, and what unpleasant side-effects I was getting. I detailed which medications I was willing to have and other non-medication strategies I could use to manage my mental health issues. I presented my letter at one of the meetings with the psychiatrists and a plan was made to discharge me without a treatment order. I had to agree to some things, but didn't have to follow those things exactly.

These are pretty much my own experiences of the MH system's attempts to enforced learned helplessness and compliance. In order to get around it I quickly learned, like CrazyChick, that you have to kowtow to them. Anyone who tries to rail against this system is very likely to come unstuck and finish up making their situation worse. Punishment is definitely dolled out for complaining or objecting.

I recall reading somewhere in DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders version 5) that not cooperating with authority is a symptom of mental illness. Perhaps that is true.

So perhaps it is a safer, easier and more rational to just step aside and let the bullies and other toxic people trample all over you. This seems to be what the majority of people with MH issues do which is why we collectively have little or no voice with which to speak out against injustices.   A passive response obviously has its consequences but so does speaking out.

Regards

Willy

[Historylover]

Well @Willy, I don't know what to say to that. In fact, I don't know what to say to anything anymore. I am so sick and tired of fighting this war and getting absolutely nowhere. I see faults galore in the system, the whole medical system in fact, but those in a position to fix it are blinkered and just looking after themselves. I am so very sick of seeing good people suffering. If there are good doctors, I've never found one and I've looked far and wide in three states. They all have each other's back. We are all so vulnerable, naive and trusting that they have our best interest at heart. They can tell patients anything and we believe them because most of us don't come armed with medical knowledge. Unfortunately we need them. Good luck with your new one, but don't be surprised if she turns out to be the same as the last. 

I cancelled my double GP appointment for tomorrow (double, at his suggestion – he doesn't bulk bill, prescribes branded medication at 4 times the price of generic and advises me to book a double appointment) and I felt better immediately. I only chose him because I thought he looked nice and didn't have a lot of patients, so I thought I'd help him. I'm so very angry at what is going on. All I can say is look after yourself and your physical and psychological health. 

Sorry you're having such a hard time at your gym. Looks like you're already 'looking after your physical and psychological health'. I only walk, and am nursing an injured knee at the moment. People often remark about my fitness so I guess not having a car is good for our health, but how I'd love one. I'm fighting ageism these days too. My last GP practice doctors were all young and 'knew everything', and ailments and afflictions all came down to 'age' as far as they were concerned. It's really annoying but I have to admit, I used to think those older than me were 'ancient' when I was young too. Perhaps it's payback. But our generation wasn't rude, as a general rule. Guess we all need to steel ourselves against it. But that's until we converse and they often realize that they still have a lot to learn.

I don't know what the answer to this mess is. I can't find where I fit in it all. I'm not rude to others and do not discriminate, and would just like to be treated with the same respect I show others. Every so often I hate people and it's easy to understand how people become reclusive, become, as they call it 'mentally ill', and others turn to crime. So many of us just can't get a break while others sail through. I understand the system but I haven't been able to beat it.  

I don't know what else to say at the moment, @Willy. Just trying to keep my head above water. I hope you're still doing alright.

Sending best wishes to a fellow Victorian.

[tyme]

Hi @Willy ,

Thanks for your post. You have certainly raised some important points there.

Without meaning to laugh, I sort of chuckled reading your account of your gym experience. Not that it is funny of course - but you reminded me of me! I feel like a grumpy bum telling people off, but seriously, you're right! Why should I be intimidated by people who are doing the wrong thing, just because:

1) I am smaller, shorter, older

2) I have a mental health condition

3) I speak up for myself

4) I try to do the right thing

However @Willy , I'm glad you pointed out that "this applies to only a small minority of people. In [your] experience, most people are reasonable, decent and generally "do the right thing" at least to the limits of their capabilities." - It's a great point I should keep in mind more often so that I don't blow my fuse as often!

I'm sorry to hear, though, that you 'run into problems' when you encounter such people. I had a solution to that in the past - I stopped mingling with people. Sounds better, but in the long run, I became so lonely and isolated. So today, I'm sort of like "meh? pick your battles".

@Willy , I sure you'll be able to find a safe place to be able to exercise without feeling intimidated or bullied by others.

As for workplaces... In the past, I took time off (a few weeks) for my MH. When I returned, I was called into the boss' office and told that 'people need to get on with the work'. In other words, don't share your issues with others... it was a terrible workplace. Hence today, people are leaving in the multitudes. Such a big organisation and can't keep staff - why? because it's deemed toxic. So yes, @Willy , I absolutely resonate with what you are saying.

I take my hat off to those who have a heart for advocacy. Being a voice for the voiceless. Ready to make a stand. The concerns you have raised are so valid. With everyone's voice, there must be change. When? I cannot answer.

Thank you @Willy ,

tyme