Why I Prefer to Manage my Mental Health without Medical Professionals
- Rosie
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Recently, I had a big and unruly struggle with my mental health problems. I was struggling and it was visible to a number of people close to me. A couple of people suggested, very gently, whether I might benefit from re-entering the world of doctors. By that they meant, regular GP appointments, medication, possibly community mental teams or referrals to psychiatry, that sort of thing. You'll probably know it all too well if you've been through anything like me.
My response was that I didn't want to go back into that all-too-familiar world. A world of being a patient: waiting room, 'I'll just put you on hold', pharmacy queue, side effects, tapering, questionnaires and other forms of gloom. I spent many years (too many years) in this world when I was younger. I now name the feeling as a disquieting powerlessness. A voicelessness. A world in which I felt I had to code switch my distress for it to be taken seriously.
I was too young to know what I now know. That there are other ways, different ways, to think about my huge emotions and their rhythms. There are other ways, generative ways, to conceive of myself in relation to others. I don't have to see myself as broken, messed up, disordered, a nightmare, a problem to be erased.
When I'm in the medical system, my interactions are squashed into five or ten minute appointments (post-covid this would be by phone and I think that makes it even harder). The framework being used to understand my distress is most likely to be solely the DSM with no added nuance. I may, even likely, be talking to someone who has had very little training on BPD as a diagnosis, especially what someone's lived experience of that diagnosis might feel like or how it feels to be electrocuted by your emotions.
Unless a medical professional has had high-quality training on BPD, and its emotional and sociological textures, they need to be highly empathetic effective listener to be able to take a cognitive leap of imagination and believe me when I reply honestly to their well-meaning question 'so tell me, what is making you feel so distressed?'.
Because numerous medical professionals wouldn't, and haven't, and don't, and can't, and don't want to believe me when I answer their questions. And this is one of the main reasons why I tend to avoid having to trust doctors and nurses with the deepest, darkest, rawest, most vulnerable and most human parts of me.
I remember, and will never not remember, being in a medical setting feeling very distressed and opening up, when asked, about the situation that had led me to be there. The staff couldn't believe that that was the 'reason' why I was there.
But of course the 'reason' why I was there was an incident that had resonated within me far deeper and far wider than they failed to see.
Someone, anyone, skilled in cognitive leaps of imagination would have seen this, would have taken the time to understand, would have reached out to me as a human being. Not treated me like a silly little girl with nothing to be upset about.
I can't remember who said this in a mental health context, but when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. And make of that what you will when all doctors have is medication. And none of this is to suggest that medication isn't helpful, or brilliant, or life savingly vital, for some people in some situations. Of course it is, and I'm glad we have it. It just isn't the right thing for me, as in the case of lots of people diagnosed with BPD and/or those who have struggles with emotional regulation, especially arising from relational contexts.
I'm not anti-doctor or even anti-psychiatry. Some of the people I love most are in the profession. I've also had some empathetic and warm interactions too, but these were sadly the exception rather than the rule.
I am simply expressing that there have been times in my life when I didn't get what I needed at all when in distress and interacting with the medical system. In fact, I believe I've suffered significant iatrogenic trauma from a system that was supposed to help—because of its failures to prioritise empathy.
In the same breath, I acknowledge that there are points in my life when I have benefited immensely from being in the medical system: for a start, it was my GP who referred me to a mental health team who assessed me and gave me Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (group therapy, 1 to 1 therapy and as much phone support as I needed).
Along with DBT, a postcode fluke, the most transformative facet of my ability to conceive of myself in news ways are the people I've met, talked with, got to know and who've got to know me.
I feel privileged to know others who have been in similar situations as me and have felt in similar ways to me. Over the years I've gained a sense of community and mutual emotionality with people who understand on a personal life. I've had the luxury of time to time to read widely and think deeply about my diagnosis— to think beyond and around its limitations.
I'm privileged with social and relational structures that support me and keep me able to move myself forwards. People who hold onto complexity and ambiguity; who meet me where I'm at in any given moment. People who challenge me with honesty and fresh ideas, but who do it gently enough for it to not break me completely. People who have nuance and suspend judgement for long enough to take a cognitive leap of imagination. My husband, my friends, my family, my community of readers and people with lived experience, the thinkers and writers whose work empowers me to dare to think differently.When I feel like I can't go on, I have a list in my phone notes of all the kind things my friends have said to me. It sounds trivial, but its an integral way of coping with emotional permanence issues.*
Whilst I use the word 'privileged', I also acknowledge to myself that I have, in some small ways, worked towards building these social and relational structures too. I try to put as much into others as I can. I might not always get it right, but I'm always willing to try. Because this world is a hard one to live in. Especially if you have a big, open, unfiltered heart.
This post set out to be a nice, tidy list type of post with clear reasons why I tend to avoid medical care for mental health. Instead, it turned into an unruly and emotional piece of writing and, you know what, I'm going to leave it as it is.
Maybe some of you reading will know exactly what I mean. And if you do, I'm here, you're not alone, and I'm holding onto hope for social and relational structures that will nurture us for who we are. If these could seep into the medical profession with more constancy and predictability, things would be very different.
-Rosie x
*Never underestimate the power of a kind, encouraging, validating word. I eat these for breakfast, lunch and whatever you call your evening meal where you're from. They keep me going more than you could know.