BackintheSaddle
Active Member
Hello All- I've been bothered by some posting over the weekend (and before) and wanted to be upfront about it because sometimes it makes me wonder if I'm in the right place...while I am so appreciative of the wisdom captured in the posts here and the experiences people share, I find that sometimes assumptions seem to be made about what someone needs to do in a given situation based on your own experiences that could be really different from theirs...the specific example is that someone posted over the weekend about a suicidal difficult child still in the hospital and what to do about getting her back into the psychiatric hospital after her attempt...some people responded from their own history of difficult children in their 30s and this person asking for help had a 20 yo daughter (a big difference in age and experience)...I found some of the responses to be ones that assumed that every difficult child is the same...as a trained psychologist, I know the importance of social histories and diagnoses...there actually is a need to start by separating out a difficult child who is abusing ETOH or drugs from one who is mentally ill (or both)...if they are 'only' mentally ill, I don't believe our responses should assume that they are all the same (though there are clearly patterns)-- same goes for difficult children who are only abusing, they are not all alike but certainly have common patterns of behavior...in this particular example, we knew nothing about this daughter's diagnosis, treatment history, or patterns of behavior and yet responses assumed that the way to go was to detach, not get involved in her treatment, not try and intervene...I would agree if we had information to indicate that this was one of many times in treatment and her leaving against medical advice, of her family trying to get her help and actually getting her admitted somewhere but unless I missed something, we knew nothing about her history (I reread the post and it's not there but maybe that member is better known to others than to me)...
I've had experience in different phosps and they are each quite different...in those that are publically funded, they do tend to mix patients up and are often understaffed for their patient load so yes, they likely didn't have someone who was able to take the time to get to know her in the 2 days she was there or was able to serve (or want to) as a mediator...however, most private hospitals (which in this post it was not specified) would have been engaged in her care substantially given that she was admitted as a suicidal risk...and if she'd ever been in private counseling, that therapist or psychiatrist could be the one who mediates...it's not as though every psychiatric hospital is the same so we can assume that her experience is the same as ones we've had...it's also not that each situation is the same...interventions do work and they can work with just one or two strategic letters read to a patient by and from someone who means something to them...and this particular person is in a crisis so she may be more apt to listen to what people are saying to her...
I am not trying to offend anyone just wanted to point out that sometimes it seems as though too many assumptions are possibly being made so that the advice handed to someone is more our own agenda of where we are in the process (or our memory of the agony we've lived through) rather than advice that speaks to where that person is in the process...do you see what I mean? Having a difficult child so close to being in treatment and then not working to support that person completely committing to it is exactly what we should be doing, in my humble opinion...that's not enabling, that's support and compassion...enabling would be allowing the difficult child to continue acting like she has and doing things for her (like let her come back home)...support is helping her get to a place where she can get the help she needs and holding a mirror up in hopes she'll see herself better...there actually is such a thing in mental illness as agnosia-- the inability to conceive that something is wrong with your way of thinking-- it's not denial...and it's common in many people with bipolar, schizophrenia, and other illnesses...so we shouldn't even assume that whoever we're trying to help can 'see' there's anything wrong...this is a link to the leading expert talking about it--
I truly am posting this to ask if sometimes we should consider where the person is at in their journey compared to ourselves before we respond...another post that bothered me was from a supposed difficult child who wrote that she was feeling suicidal...none of us knew if it was genuine or not but I believe if someone is saying that, they need to be taken seriously and we should assume they mean it (did she have a plan for how she'd do it?...was she able to get to someone so she wasn't alone right then?)...instead some of the responses really let her have it about her behavior and seemed to assume she was being manipulative...that might be true but we don't know that and since to my knowledge, we haven't heard from her again, how do we know she didn't hurt herself?
I know each and every reader of this has been through a lot of pain and suffering but while there are patterns in our experiences, I don't think we can assume that our journey is the same as others...we are all on similar yet separate journeys and our paths are likely quite different and though there are lessons to be taught from what is similar and how to recognize those patterns and take care of yourself through the pain of it all, I believe we should respect the differences in our circumstances and situations and our length of time on that journey before we respond to a cry for help...I just wanted to share this because it has been bothering me a lot and making me worry that we're not all keeping the receiver of our messages in mind when we post...
I've had experience in different phosps and they are each quite different...in those that are publically funded, they do tend to mix patients up and are often understaffed for their patient load so yes, they likely didn't have someone who was able to take the time to get to know her in the 2 days she was there or was able to serve (or want to) as a mediator...however, most private hospitals (which in this post it was not specified) would have been engaged in her care substantially given that she was admitted as a suicidal risk...and if she'd ever been in private counseling, that therapist or psychiatrist could be the one who mediates...it's not as though every psychiatric hospital is the same so we can assume that her experience is the same as ones we've had...it's also not that each situation is the same...interventions do work and they can work with just one or two strategic letters read to a patient by and from someone who means something to them...and this particular person is in a crisis so she may be more apt to listen to what people are saying to her...
I am not trying to offend anyone just wanted to point out that sometimes it seems as though too many assumptions are possibly being made so that the advice handed to someone is more our own agenda of where we are in the process (or our memory of the agony we've lived through) rather than advice that speaks to where that person is in the process...do you see what I mean? Having a difficult child so close to being in treatment and then not working to support that person completely committing to it is exactly what we should be doing, in my humble opinion...that's not enabling, that's support and compassion...enabling would be allowing the difficult child to continue acting like she has and doing things for her (like let her come back home)...support is helping her get to a place where she can get the help she needs and holding a mirror up in hopes she'll see herself better...there actually is such a thing in mental illness as agnosia-- the inability to conceive that something is wrong with your way of thinking-- it's not denial...and it's common in many people with bipolar, schizophrenia, and other illnesses...so we shouldn't even assume that whoever we're trying to help can 'see' there's anything wrong...this is a link to the leading expert talking about it--
I truly am posting this to ask if sometimes we should consider where the person is at in their journey compared to ourselves before we respond...another post that bothered me was from a supposed difficult child who wrote that she was feeling suicidal...none of us knew if it was genuine or not but I believe if someone is saying that, they need to be taken seriously and we should assume they mean it (did she have a plan for how she'd do it?...was she able to get to someone so she wasn't alone right then?)...instead some of the responses really let her have it about her behavior and seemed to assume she was being manipulative...that might be true but we don't know that and since to my knowledge, we haven't heard from her again, how do we know she didn't hurt herself?
I know each and every reader of this has been through a lot of pain and suffering but while there are patterns in our experiences, I don't think we can assume that our journey is the same as others...we are all on similar yet separate journeys and our paths are likely quite different and though there are lessons to be taught from what is similar and how to recognize those patterns and take care of yourself through the pain of it all, I believe we should respect the differences in our circumstances and situations and our length of time on that journey before we respond to a cry for help...I just wanted to share this because it has been bothering me a lot and making me worry that we're not all keeping the receiver of our messages in mind when we post...