Worst advice – and from a therapist, no less.

[Anonymous]

I fired my Therapist after I realized she not only didn’t KNOW what the heck was wrong with me, but would tell me to do the very things I told her that didn’t work for me.

“Write the tasks I’m avoiding down on paper and break them down into their smallest steps!?! I don’t WANT to do THAT! NOW WHAT!?!

“Uh….duuuuuuh…”

Great. Thanks for nothing.

Thank god I found out that I had ADHD from a doctor. That saved me, really. I thought there was something dreadfully wrong with me. Of course, back then there wasn’t much to do but hit the pill bottle, but I found some old writings on developing mental concentration and started training with that. It was strange, and painful at first, because I was REALLY bad off, but I overcame the discomfort and now things are changed.

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[BuxomDiva]

I love this thread! When I took my son to a doctor at Sick Kids many years ago, the shrink he saw there informed me that there was nothing wrong with Brendan that wouldn’t be fixed if I were a better parent and gave him more structure. Really helpful eh?

@JayBird – I like your mom!

When I took part in an afternoon of recovery stories a few years ago, I said that the usual reaction from people when I tell them I have ADD is to suggest that there’s nothing really wrong with me and I should just try harder. I actually started working on a book called “But I am trying harder!”. It only took me about two years to finish the first page, then lost it to a computer crash. ~sigh~

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[Anonymous]

@Buxom. You make me laugh. The book’s a good idea. We could use something out there less clinical and more real life.

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[chacubee]

My boss tells me that ALL THE TIME!!! Whenever I have a problem finding strategies or making a game plan or whatever it is, he often tells me to JUST DO IT! DRIVES ME NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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[Patte Rosebank]

Your boss would feel pretty stupid telling Stephen Hawking to “JUST STAND UP AND TALK!”, but he thinks he’s the smart one, telling you to “JUST DO IT!”. When he does that again, try some of the ideas in this: http://totallyadd.com/what-to-say-when-someone-dismisses-your-adhd/

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[Anonymous]

Hello. I’m a new member and am looking for suggestions on how to educate teachers about ADHD. My son, who has ADHD, has lost recess several times as a punishment for not obeying school rules. I’ve explained to his teacher that he needs physical activity, and taking it away actually tends to aggravate the undesired behaviour, not lessen it. Any suggestions? Thanks!

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[Patte Rosebank]

You must advocate for your son, and that will require working together with the teacher and the principal, and maybe the school board too. Since you’ve had no luck with just talking to the teacher, you must involve the principal too. ADHD is so widespread now that your son is definitely not the first or the only child there who has it. Therefore, the school should have supports and programs in place to help kids with ADHD.

Referring the teacher and principal to this website, or having the “ADD and Loving It” DVD to show them should also help. They’re the most up-to-date sources of information on ADHD, and they’ve won awards for it.

The teacher may be resistant because he/she is too overworked to give any kid special treatment. Or maybe he/she believes all the lies about it not being a real disorder. In that case, refer to this Blog posting for your answers: http://totallyadd.com/what-to-say-when-someone-dismisses-your-adhd/ .

Is your son getting any sort of medication or other treatment? If so, get his specialist or doctor to write a letter to the school, explaining the ADHD and what sort of adjustments are required to help your son function at his best.

Good luck!

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[Anonymous]

One of the things which would make it difficult for the teacher is the fact that children have this annoying sense of justice, and if you make exceptions for one child you will have mutiny on your hands. Others will want to know why X didn’t have to stay in at recess, when Y did and they were both doing it!

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[Anonymous]

i had a therapist tell me once that if i really wanted to do things, i would. that really, it was all my attitude.

had another one tell me i just neede to learn to tune out the distractions. his boss told me i just needed to get a planner and fill it in. and then wanted to know why i was angry – almost told him that he didn’t need those hearing aids, he just needed to listen harder….

had another one infuriate me – i told her that i needed a keeper and she said “oooh, like a husband?” and grinned at me. i got really mad and said “NO! LIKE A ZOO KEEPER!”

i don’t know why these people say they can help you when they don’t even have the faintest idea what is going on in your head. *sigh*

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[Anonymous]

I actually had a therapist tell me to give up my dreams of getting out of my rut and stay on disability for the rest of my life. I wanted to split her skull. I just walked out and sent her a nasty email.

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[Anonymous]

The worst advice a therapist ever gave me? Essentially, every piece of advice I ever received from a [non-psychiatrist] therapist falls into the category of terrible advice.

So, instead, here are some of the worst things a therapist ever said to me :

Background : I saw a psychologist for two years (“Dr. X”). Every few weeks he came up with a new diagnosis, yet never bothered to send me for a formal assessment nor take a complete history. [e.g., suspecting Asperger’s (my elementary & junior high school counsellors both postulated that I had AS, & I later learned that I do have NVLD), Dr X sent me off to find the names of specialists with experience assessing/diagnosing autism-spectrum disorders in adults. I hunted down some names, and brought them to Dr X. He claimed that he sent off referrals to the specialists in question. For months, I enquired as to whether any he had received a response; he always replied “not yet”. Ultimately, he confessed (in an email roughly 8 months later), that he’d “never actually sent” any referral.]

Generally, he seemed to be at quite a loss as to how to assist me. Let us leave it at that.

Finally, my GP began to suspect ADHD & she did refer me to a specialist. Ostensibly, Dr. X supported this decision; he also sent his own referral to the specialist, & successfully advocated to move me up the waiting list.

Once I was formally diagnosed, I immediately commenced medication (I was part-way through the fall semester at university, & time was of the essence), and coaching with this specialist. During these first few months, I saw less & less of Dr. X, but still had regular email contact with him.

I fared better than I ever had in my life. It was as if everything finally came together.

At first, Dr. X encouraged me … until I decided not to see him any longer. I was preparing to move away for grad school the next year, and felt I wanted to complete a semester “on my own” before relocating 1/3rd of the way across the country.

Dr. X rejected this, & insisted I continue to see him. My “mood”, he argued, was “still more variable than [he] would like” (which demonstrated the sizeable lacunae in his knowledge because emotional disregulation is a core feature of ADHD). I disagreed, but simply told him that the specialist and I would deal with that.

He then strove to convince me that the diagnosis of ADHD was unsound, by claiming that it wasn’t a valid diagnosis in adults.

I countered by asserting that if he cared to “pull the DSM-IV off [his] shelf and look it up, [he] would see that the criteria for ADHD read, in part :

A) 1) a) Often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, WORK, or other activities […]

A) 1) d) Often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the WORKPLACE (not due to oppositional behavior or failure to understand instructions […]

C) Some impairment from the symptoms is present in 2 or more settings (eg, at school [or WORK] or at home), and

D) There must be clear evidence of clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or OCCUPATIONAL functioning (emphasis mine).

The last time I checked”, I concluded “child labour remained illegal in North America”.

This precipitated a change in tactics. According to Dr X, “no one else [would] help” me; I was “obsessed with” him, and my “life would fall to pieces without” him.

In response, I described how well I had fared during the past several months, & listed all my accomplishments.

He sneered, “that’s not you, that’s just the meds”.

When I challenged the latter assertion, he yelled that I was “SICK, SICK AND PATHOLOGICAL!!” and threatened me with institutionalization.

Relating my experiences with him & his colleagues is quite distressing, so I shall stop here and only add : as I discussed my experiences with others, it grew increasingly apparent that I was neither the first nor the last to receive such treatment from this particular clinic. Unfortunately, subsequent encounters with psychologists/’therapists’/’counsellors’ failed to restore my faith in non-psychiatric mental health professionals. Now I avoid them, and I advise everyone else to do likewise.

In my opinion, one of the *best* things you can do for yourself as an adult with ADHD is to find a knowledgeable psychiatrist — or one who is open-minded & willing to learn — & stick with them.

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[Curlymoe115]

I saw a psychiatrist for about a year. He knew that I had ADHD as a child yet instead of connecting A to B he threw in about 20 other disorders I fitted as well. In his office the files were piled on the floor in huge stacks, there was general clutter everywhere and he always had to be reminded who I was before we would begin the session. Then he spend a few minutes finding my file. He prescribed 30 different medications and combinations to the point where I was just about comatose with the combinations. I wasn’t functioning I was existing. When I would inquire about any other form of therapy (he had mentioned some things to help me get past the anxieties and compulsions) he would always put this off until after I was stabilized on medication. This was a teaching professor at a Canadian teaching University.

But you will be happy to know that I could probably get a life long pension from my myriad of disorders and get paid to stay home for the rest of my life. I still live in my hoarders dream house, still have a problem with large crowds of people (too many conversations, can’t hear any one person), still am compulsed to do things in certain ways, over and over again, still get really angry if I am hyperfocused and am interrupted, and on and on. So I am a bi-polar (I get excited and often run off without a plan with the utter conviction that this will succeed without any thought of consequence, and I have had some depressed episodes), I am obsessive compulsive, I have social anxieties, I suffer from many other disabilities that can all really be traced back to my ADHD yet in all of these diagnosis he never mentioned adult ADHD. He suggested that I go out into crowded shopping and social situations so that I could adjust to them. When I reported back that I just feel overwhelmed he would suggest that I just keep trying.

Of course I stopped all the medications and while I still suffer from my condition (but nothing improved with the meds just felt like my head was a balloon and it was floating disconnected from everything), I am at least happier. When my oldest daughter was diagnosed with ADHD we were not surprised. She also suffers from a variety of other mental illnesses that multiply the symptoms of her ADHD. She was put onto Dexedrine when she was in day care. She was taking a very high dosage for her condition. She was extremely disruptive in the regular classroom and in grade 1 was moved to a special behaviour based classroom. There were 6 kids in a class with 2 behavioural aids. The person who ran this program was a Psychiatric Nurse who would say he could tell what type of day our daughter would have by what she looked like when she got to school. He insisted on having a bottle of her prescription and would give her pills if he thought she had missed them. Then he started reporting that she was often in “sillyland” for the rest of the day, and instead of focusing she would be disassociated for the day and had to be placed in time out. Turns out that what she was was high. This 50 lb child was getting twice the spansule of Dexedrine (4 instead of 2) and was therefore stoned. When, in consultation with her pediatrician, we weaned her off the medication they actually reported us to social services and took us to court to try to force us to put her back on the medication. After we were finally vindicated for taking her off the medication they tried to black ball our daughter from ever being mainstreamed even though her behaviour had stabilized. We literally moved our family across the country to get her into a mainstream program. The consequences of the medication are still being felt. She now uses drugs and alcohol to try and replicate the feelings of silly land.

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[billd]

wow – so there’s a reason I hate crowded shopping malls and grocery stores and zip in and out as fast as possible to get the heck outta there?

Sometimes I think (imagine, guess, whatever) that a “bad doctor” can cause more harm than the original ailment.

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[Anonymous]

Oh I think I can say with some certainty that a bad doc can do more harm than any illness.

During a period when I had to change doctors (mine had retired) I was referred to one lady doctor.

First she pretty bluntly accused me of drug seeking behavior. Then she asked me whether I had ever considered spending time in an inpatient facility! Everything I said to her she parroted back at me with some blinding insight into what it was that I had really meant. Before I left I was terrified that she was going to have me locked up. I was babbling and crying and I still can’t believe she let me walk out of there like that.

Bad doctors do bad medicine.

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[Anonymous]

E-Ticket, what you describe is appalling!

Nonetheless, I believe I can understand much of how you felt, & I concur : negligent, ignorant, &/or outright abusive professionals frequently render ‘the cure worse than the disease’.

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[Author]

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