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Worst advice – and from a therapist, no less.

Worst advice – and from a therapist, no less.2009-12-23T02:06:29+00:00

The Forums Forums Most X-treme! Most Hostile/Ignorant Thing I've Heard Worst advice – and from a therapist, no less.

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  • #91903

    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Post count: 14413

    Reading all these accounts, I am struck by the temporal range they cover — from presently on-going to 17 years ago. Undoubtedly, almost everyone in these forums has had similar experiences.

    Is anyone else as bewildered by this as I am? It isn’t as if ADHD was ‘discovered’ only a few months ago! Far from it : there exists a significant body of peer-reviewed research on this disorder. Yet, still, after all this time, little has changed. So many professionals seem determined to remain willfully ignorant re ADHD, & a few apparently prefer to actively work at undermining people rather than recognize that ADHD exists!

    I cannot understand the underlying motivation here. Any insights?

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    #91904

    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Post count: 14413

    i hate those words- just do it – but my personal nemisis came from my dad- couldve been better and everytime i hear this from an employer or anything along those lines it makes my blood boil. it is very difficult to believe in yourself when you live with negativity such as this. but the best part is proving them wrong

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    #91905

    dspicelady
    Member
    Post count: 71

    Worst I heard was from a psychiatrist at the ER. My 15 yr old daughter (at the time being assessed for possible bipolar, but definite adhd), was in a bad state. We were told if she was in crisis, take her to the ER. She felt she wanted to hurt herself. We went and everyone from the Triage Nurse to the ER doc to the Crisis Centre wanted to know what we thought they could do for her. Well THEY were the experts, right? They called in the psychiastrist and after she talked AT my daughter for 30 minutes, she called me in and said,”Well, like I told your daughter, life is stressful, gotta suck it up.” This is an actual quote!

    I couldn’t wait to get her the heck out of there. I stayed glued to her side for 48 hrs, until the crisis had past, and upped her meds. Waited until we could get in to see family dr.

    What kind of quack tells a 15 yr old suicidal kid who is asking for help, to “suck it up”?

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    #91906

    Cat Alberts
    Member
    Post count: 32

    “I don’t understand why you don’t just do it?” and looking at me expecting an answer. Psychiatrist after 2 years twice weekly talking about all the stuff that went wrong, family friends and university study, and how miserable and stressed out I felt. I, ofcourse, had come to him for an anwer for that. That was 10 years ago. This therapy left me more bewildered than before, because I never understood what we actually did there, and why everything I said was approached as if it was a lie, and he kept looking for negative emotions that had supposedly been the source of all these actions (being late, forgetting appointments, feeling left out, anger, sadness). I stayed way too long and it made me miserable.

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    #91907

    crazymedic
    Member
    Post count: 6

    I was seeing a counselor for depression (already knowing i had adhd but not seeing that it was the underlying cause) and after having a exceptionally bad couple weeks (in a job that is NOT for ADHD people) i vented that nothing was going right and i just wish something would go right for me.

    his response: “sounds like you have a maturity problem.”

    what a dick. I should have known he was gonna be trouble when he told me to go get books written by Dr. Phil…

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    #91908

    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Post count: 14413

    Wow! What a great thread. Thank you to all for taking the time to share. I went to a psych to see what choices I had for my ADHD and he started interviewing me at stage one, something I was not asking him to do. He asked the same old questions and I quickly got very upset but kept the emotions inside as best I could but my answers were ‘protective’ because I had no trust in this person. He would ask me a silly question and then continually interrupt (oh, two r’s ) while he wrote notes. I just wanted to get out of there. Finally he looked up and said; ‘You don’t have ADD you are just…’ and he began listing all the attributes :-) of ADD. Geez, Louise. I am a counsellor and work/mentor with youth who are copying with ADHD and/or other labels and each person, though having the same label and often the same stigma, has their own story to tell. I spent more than two years working with my family doctor putting a plan together. I looked at myself as a client so I could distance my self from my emotions and when we had a plan I started on Ritalin 20mg SR twice a day and numbers supplements and diet and approached my ‘new life’ in tiny steps. My life had been like a series of emotional ‘car wrecks’ and a major part of the plan, now that I was on meds, was to ‘learn to drive’ because I ‘could see’. I relearned by unlearning and then exploring what really works in life. I just turned 62 years old a few days ago and I can say that my last to years, from 60 on, have been great. All of my life has been a great journey but ‘now is wow’ and the stupid things that people say about ADHD or anything else usually slips off of me and falls tot he dust of indifference. The ignorant comments now are gifts to test my integrity and so they are gifts although I hope I do not receive too many at once. All the very best friends, jwl

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    #91909

    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Post count: 14413

    Sooo many quacks out there. Glad I’m not alone.

    My wife got a lot out of seeing a therapist (not add, but something else), so a year ago, she convinced me to try. Her therapist didn’t have evening hours, so I found someone else who did. I tried over a few sessions to explain how I was having difficulty with boundaries and following through with exercise and diet. My job was sending me overseas a lot, and i couldnt prioritize my health properly. His advice was, “wake up half an hour earlier.”

    I paid $175 for this? I called him on it: “you can’t be serious. That’s your advice?”. He told me to try it for a week, and I told him we were through.

    If not for the psyche eval for the gastric bypass, I still wouldn’t know about my ADHD.

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    #91910

    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Post count: 14413

    I took my son to our GP recently, just for a referral to a paediatrician so we could discuss medication for my son’s ADHD, which had already been diagnosed by a psychologist. I took the psychological assessment report with us for the GP to read, and told him why we were there. He then said, in front of my son, “I think you’ll find he’s just a normal teenage boy”. Grrr. My reply was very nearly “Well you don’t have to live with him!!” but I couldn’t say that with my son there, so I said that normal teenage boys don’t fail subjects they are good at and find easy, and left it at that. He will get the paediatrician’s report in the next week or so and that’ll give him food for thought. Needless to say, I will be looking for a more suitable GP. But the paediatrician was lovely and I was most impressed. He treated my son like a human being, and gave the psychologist’s report the recognition it deserved – after all, the psychologist spent two hours assessing my son, and another two hours discussing my son with my hubby and I, so she was certainly very thorough. My only complaint with her was that she believed that all could be solved with therapy and said he should do well without medication, and that he just needed “consequences” to help him learn. Ugh! Many doctors believe that medication is the answer to everything, and many psychologists believe that medication doesn’t solve anything and therapy is the way to go. I like to think a happy medium is the best.

    I have given up trying to discuss with anyone my belief that I also have ADHD. I just get “Oh, I do that too!” or “I am like that too!”. I really, really hate those sort of comments. So I am just going to quietly go to a psychiatrist and hope I don’t cop a dodgy one.

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    #91911

    Geoduck
    Member
    Post count: 303

    I have friends who do the “I do that too,” or “maybe that’s just your personality,” which both drive me nuts. UGH! Why is it so hard to believe that one could actually have a problem with the noggin?

    I had a dismissive doctor the first time I tried finding treatment. Unfortunately, it kept me from finding proper treatment for years. Good for you for being so tenacious and being your son’s advocate. At least he knows you are on his side. I hope he gets the help he needs and deserves.

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    #91912

    caper
    Member
    Post count: 179

    dspicelady: (if you still read the forums) My jaw dropped when I read that. Given the suicidal urges in your daughter, she might have BPD. Dialectic Behavior Therapy is quite successful in treating that type (suicidal cutter) of BPD.

    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stop-walking-eggshells/201106/the-great-divide-who-has-borderline-disorder-suicidal-cutters-per

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    #91913

    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Post count: 14413

    I’m glad this thread has kept alive for so long. This has got to be the number one complaint anyone with any neurological condition has.

    If it were really as simple as simply applying mind over matter and positive thinking, then what the hell is the entire Psychological field of doctors for? If it were that simple, of what use are any of them? Don’t these fools ever ask themselves such obvious questions when they get into their field? Or are these people getting into it with some ulterior motive. What? Do they think they’re going to prove it’s all just a big farce?

    I’ve got two words for doctors that say stupid things like that to me.

    “You’re fired!”

    They’re the type that get the WRONG message from this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0lr63y4Mw

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    #91914

    Lucky77
    Member
    Post count: 39

    So interesting that my family Dr (or my Former family Dr.) fits into this. After seeing him for years and going through the same cycle – underperforming at work, get depressed, increase anxiety, take anti depressants, get a new job, feel good, start underperforming and so on and so on…

    Do you know what he started to say to me when I would go in to see him after the 3rd cycle? Along the lines of, “You can’t keep doing this. You have to GET OVER IT!” So, since then I avoided going to him at all costs, feeling like a catastrophic loser for not being able to “get over it”. My low self esteem plunged lower and I resigned to just slogging through life in my nonsensical cycle, building anxiety regarding work along the way.

    Then I discovered that I have many symptoms of this thing called ADHD. What?!?! I’m not just a complete impulsive lazy screw up? There may be a reason for all this? And a way to treat it? Wow, I tell you that realization made everything so much more clear!

    So, I am currently being monitored by a walk in physician (that I had seen on and off for the past 8 years or so) who listened to me describe what was wrong and that I suspected ADHD. I also added what my family dr’s approach was. I am also being assessed/diagnosed by a psychologist at a learning centre (this is cost $$, but fortunately I have insurance coverage).

    If it weren’t for the walk in dr and the psych and their understanding, compassion and care, I would still be slogging through thinking “get over it” is the best strategy to deal with life.

    Lesson I learned: if a health professional says something that doesn’t seem right, or if you feel what they are saying to you is direspectful, and off side, go elsewhere! Search for answers! Don’t just accept it so easily.

    Whew. Well that was bottled up for quite some time! Feel so much better!!!

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    #91915

    Curlymoe115
    Member
    Post count: 206

    Unfortunately there are more uninformed doctors then there are informed ones. A lot of Dr’s still see this as a kids disorder that you grow out of, the rest of us just suffer from depression or are simply unmotivated.

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    #91916

    dspicelady
    Member
    Post count: 71

    @caper- ya, I’m still here “lurking”. Thanks for the link. I checked it out. Scary stuff! My daughter was a burner, but that day she felt something bigger. This was just before her consultation with a prominent mental health hospital. The diagnosis was confirmed as ADHD (her self esteem was really low, she felt so much emotional pain, she needed to counter it with physical pain). We got her off all the crap drugs(which I personally believe contributed to the suicidal feelings) and onto Concerta. She recently switched to Strattera and it’s working beautifully. We’ve found the most amazing therapist who helps her with the self esteem issues, and she’s doing really well. She comes home from school happy. She’s socializing, working, and getting great grades. She told me recently that she has actually had moments that have been just….calm. She says she didn’t ever know what that felt like before, and that it’s kinda cool.

    So thanks again for the info. I love following your links. They always teach me something.

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    #91917

    Tiddler
    Member
    Post count: 802

    Thanks for posting all these everyone. Although I’m angered to see so many people having the same crap thrown at them as I have, it does help to know I’m not alone.

    Just try harder, get it done, just do it, make your mind up to just get on with it, stop being lazy, you’re not trying, could do better if she wanted to, and one levelled at me from an old boss – ‘You’re as much use as a pot plant. You might as well just stand in the corner.’ (This while another senior member of staff was making me do all her work then taking the credit for it.)

    The other worst ones were ‘try using a diary’, just look at your calendar every day (how do I remember to do this?) and ‘what you need is a good kick up the arse’.

    No wonder so many people with ADHD have depression and anxiety issues.

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Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 62 total)