People keep saying this but I can't find any info on how it helps.
All the resources I find just reiterate to the reader to see this type of person because they can help.
Even the resources in the OP, NAMI, just reiterates "get help, get help, get help." Never once explaining what help is. I'm frustrated trying to get help when no one can tell me what it is.
He gave me an 800 number to call, it took a few days but I called and talked to them and they said to come in for an evaluation... That was almost four weeks ago. I don't know what this place is and I'm scared to go.
Lifetime of abuse and neglect. I also didn't think my comment read as angry, I thought the suicide at the high school reunion was a funny idea. It's dumb though because no one knew who I was then, they certainly won't know who I am now anyway, with or without a noose.
How do you start? What's the trick? I've never done this before.
This is why I want to know what I'm supposed to be doing but no one will tell me. When I try and figure things out myself, I always get it wrong. But when I ask questions, people treat me like an idiot. I can't win. I really wish I was dead. I just wish I wasn't so scared to go through with it.
I'm sorry if people haven't been clear before. I promise there was no intention on my part to obfuscate how getting help works, or make you feel stupid for not knowing what to do next.
I will try my best to explain, but keep in mind I am no expert, just a guy who's been through a ton of treatment. If anyone else is reading this, please chime in with anything I missed or messed up.
Essentially there are two major lines of treatment:
Psychological treatment as in therapy, usually done with a
therapist or
psychologist and less commonly with a
clinical social worker. There are a ton of new treatment tactics coming out all the time but most common is
talk therapy, where you meet with your therapist on a regular basis and talk about your feelings and the such. These talks can focus on your current symptoms and how to cope with them (such as in cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectic behavioral therapy) or your history, your life, and where your mental health struggles may have come from (such as in psychotherapy or psychoanalysis). In my experience most doctors are a mix of both rather than strictly in one camp or another; my favorite doctors mixed exploration of my anxieties, history, etc with discussions of how to deal with my feelings in the meantime.
Therapy can be received in either a group setting or individually, with group usually being CBT or DBT. Both are useful in different ways; individual appointments give you more personal attention but group settings give you exposure to others' thoughts and experiences. Generally if you make an appointment with a doctor the assumption is that it will be individual unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Psychiatric treatment is treatment with medication, administered by a
Psychiatrist. While General Practitioners and family doctors have the ability to write psychological prescriptions it is not their specialty and they do not necessarily have the skill set to know what is the best treatment for you. Just as you would see a specialist if you were having a hormone imbalance or liver trouble, it's best to see a specialist for mental health.
Usually with a psychiatrist you will see them enough times that they feel comfortable that they understand your situation and can give you something they believe will help. After that you may see them variably, maybe less often if the medicine is working well and you just need to check in or more often if things are getting shifted around.
Generally psychiatrists do
not offer talk therapy; however, there are some psychiatrists who also administer CBT or psychotherapy. There are advantages and disadvantages to having a combination therapist / psychiatrist: on the one hand it can be nice to have the person who knows you best through your therapy also be the one to make decisions about medicine, on the other hand sometimes psychiatrists and therapists are more effective if they stick to one specialty.
There are a million medications out there for a million and one types of people so I won't get into that in this post, but one thing to know is that due to our limited knowledge of the brain is, at this point, an educated guessing game. It's easy to get discouraged when a medicine doesn't work but perhaps you can take solace in knowing that with so many treatments out there (and some options beyond medication) there's bound to be something that works for you. It took me a while - I've been on over a dozen medications - but low and behold, I've found something that makes me want to live. I consider it an achievement.
So how do you figure out what you need? Well, that's the toughest part of mental health treatment and relies on experimentation and insurance. Everyone has their opinion. Often a GP or Family doctor is a good place to start in asking for a recommendation of who to seek treatment with but it sounds as though that didn't work out as planned for you. It's also worth checking who your insurance will cover and how much, as health insurance companies can sometimes be stingy with mental health coverage. They can be unexpectedly generous, too - like when I got a big bill wiped out for some reason - but it depends on a lot of factors.
Everyone has their own experience on what treatments worked best for them. For me, both medication and talk therapy have been indispensable. Medication alleviated my symptoms enough so that I could keep going to therapy, and in therapy I've learned a lot about how my mind works and why I hate myself so damn much.
It's tough to know where to start but I think the most important step is to start at all, to dip your toe in the water, get a taste of what treatments are available to you and begin to see that there are a lot of tools out there to help you if only you know where to look. Perhaps consider scheduling an appointment with a
therapist / psychologist to talk through your issues and see if they think you should go see a psychiatrist. Alternately, go see a
psychiatrist straight away if you'd rather get some medicine first to smooth things over while you seek a good therapist. Or, if you really don't know where to start and life is unbearable
find an inpatient treatment facility near you and check in. They will get you back on track and give you ideas for next steps in treatment (plus they're almost
always covered by insurance).
BONUS: Some larger metropolitan areas have outpatient mental health centers at local hospitals where you can schedule an appointment, they evaluate you and then they tell you where to start. It's not a reality where I live but I know of such centers in Boston, Denver, and NYC.
Notice I mentioned seeking a
good therapist. Good is relative. A really important part of seeking mental health treatment is that
you need to be your own advocate. You're not going to be compatible with every therapist or psychiatrist - so if they're not understanding you or not offering you anything helpful maybe you should move on. It's
VERY important to know, though, that
THERE ARE GREAT DOCTORS OUT THERE, and there's DEFINITELY quite a few who are great for you. You just have to find him / her / them. Often times people will go to one therapist, feel they don't understand, and then conclude that all therapists are bad. Take it from me, who wasted a couple of years bouncing around bad therapists and just lying to them:
THERE IS SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO CAN HELP YOU!
The same goes for inpatient mental health facilities. They're not all created equal and some are so overtaxed that they'll punt you out the door because they have to make space for the next fellow. If you look around, though, you can find impressions on the internet (and amongst local doctors) what the best programs in the region are. I did some research and made sure I ended up at decent-at-least mental health facilities when I went in and both times were tremendously helpful. They gave me a fresh perspective and a better idea of what direction to go with my treatment.
One last thing: it's important to have a willingness to take treatment seriously. You will have to open up about things you feel uncomfortable with. You will need to tell the truth. You will probably need to make some lifestyle changes (e.g. diet, exercise, meditation, etc.).
Whew! This post got pretty long. I hope I gave you a decent overview. I know I probably missed a lot so please respond to my post or send me a PM if you've got any questions. I hope others will tag on with anything else they've got to offer.
Edit: The dropbox was still open so I patched up the essay the best I could and resubmitted it. Now I should just get a late penalty instead of losing a huge chunk of the grade for omitting a section. Not a perfect solution, but it's about all I can do. Sorry to shit up the thread with trivial bullshit, I was just kind of panicking for a while there.
It's not trivial! They're your feelings. They're your reality. That's definitely not trivial.
I'm glad you were able to find a workable solution
