The Supercilious Psych!
When the flawed Mental Health Act framework invites the Psychiatrist to be an arrogant dick!
“He has no ideas - only a smile, a hairline, and a teleprompter. And yet he looks down on you as if you failed his civics test.” ~ Gore Vidal on Ronald Reagan.
Yet another meeting and yet another anxiety-inducing bout of dicking about rather than addressing the illegitimacy of the specious diagnosis, and the drugs that serve no useful purpose. I’ll save you the first forty-five minutes of tick-box dross and skip to the last ten minutes of meatier, consequential discourse. Just myself and Dr X, my Psychiatrist, this go-round, that is, no Nurse Y, my Community Nurse. Dr X mentioned that she might have a virus, though following my diplomatic evisceration when last we met, I can’t help but smirk and wonder if I’m the virus from which she is shielding herself!
Billy: You know, the idea that, basically, to mandate that a Service User takes drugs until they drop dead is baffling, frustrating, and incompetent.
Dr X: Mm-hmm.
Billy: Um, it’s you doing everything in your power to take the humanity out of, of, um, a person’s life experience. Like I concluded with the last time we met, um.
Dr X: Hmm.
Billy: With regards to Nurse Y’s claim that you guys respect me, you know, there can be no respect as long as it’s mandated that I have to be on the medication. There can be no respect on those terms. And it’s a case of, is that not untenable as a way of treating another human being?
Dr X: Is it not untenable? Um, where to start unpacking that? I mean, I guess, you know, if I were to say that statement, it would be it would start differently, wouldn’t it? It would and I think that’s where I’m saying, um, you know, we’re inevitably because I, I would say, um, you know, instead of mandating, forcing drugs on people till they drop dead, it’s I have a role that involves, um, you know, providing treatment, um, under the Mental Health Act, um, that ultimately I do believe is in your best interest. But, you know, and that starts on a different tack. Now, it, it is -,
He’s dishing up lessons in tepid technocratics, and it’s vomit-inducing! The politics of attempting to semantically weasel his way out of the undeniable truth; that is, what the fuck does he know about my best interests with his prophylactic patronisation?! Like I somehow need his gaping safety net of ineffectual drugs to ensure I remain a law-abiding citizen. This is his timid attempt at exhibiting “Jonny-Big-Bullocks” energy. Dr X is doing his supercilious level best to avoid a psychodrama with me. He just doesn’t want to get his hands dirty with the fact that I know best about my body and my needs. He might consider my assertions as untrustworthy, but that only speaks to his superciliousness when he says he is providing treatment that ultimately is in my best interest.
Billy: It does because -,
Dr X: It, it, it is an imposition, for sure.
Billy: Indeed.
Dr X: And that is where the Mental Health Act comes in, and particularly part three, isn’t it? And that is what you’ve been on. And one cannot say that it isn’t an imposition, um, because it clearly is. I have to make reports of and all those things, isn’t it? It, it is under that framework.
Endeavouring to fix the flawed Mental Health Act is clearly above his pay grade. The fact that I don’t need his drugs, and that they give me brain fog and lower my libido, does not excite him to want to fix the framework.
Billy: But it’s the dehumanising aspect of it.
Dr X: It is -,
Billy: It’s the stripping of a human being’s humanity. You know, the ability to be a human is to experience life and engage with life in terms which aren’t necessarily congruous with, with, um, the law, as it were.
Dr X: It, it is.
Billy: It’s a philosophical question.
Dr X: Well, in the sense that any, um, I mean, any, um, legal framework, the definition of dehumanising is preventing the individual from living precisely as they wanted to live. Then, if any legal framework has a dehumanising element to it, doesn’t it? I mean, I think, you know, I don’t think I’ve ever not acknowledged that, you know, there is that structure there, you know? And it, it is that which I see you fight against, if you see what I mean, which I can understand. And I’m not, you know I’m not, um you know, I, I’m not, um I’m not here to, to say, you know, you shouldn’t feel I don’t think you’re right in feeling the way you feel about it because I don’t I don’t think that, um, it can be because I, I you do not feel what ha what the legal framework imposes on you is, -,
Billy: That’s why I say the framework is flawed. That’s why I say you’re a fascist. You know, you’re, you’re, you’re -,
Dr X: Hmm.
Billy: Meting out, um, a draconian set of rules, essentially, and expecting that to fly as far as the realms of human experience are concerned.
Dr X: Hmm. I think that, that is, you know, I think working with a legal framework is difficult, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t see myself as a fascist, um.
Billy: Your behaviour would suggest otherwise.
Dr X: Yeah. Well, I think I think, again, that’s where we, we veer off into, into, you know, working with a legal framework that has a dehumanising element to it that, you know, one has to try and address as much as possible to, to then saying, you know, that your behaviour’s fascistic. I, I mean, I think that’s where we would find that -,
Billy: Well, you’re being a dictator. You’re, you’re dictating the terms on which I, I live my life.
Dr X: Hmm.
Billy: So that is a, a, a the definition of an authoritarian dictator, a fascist.
Dr X: Um, well, I think that I and I, I’d say that would be in all aspects of people’s lives, isn’t it? And then I think it’d be without a legal framework. I think that would be my definition of a dictator.
Billy: No, I’m inclined to disagree. But, you know, the reality is that we’re in a space where I am not being taken seriously, not being respected fundamentally as far as you’re concerned, as far as the system is concerned. And, um, that sees you, ultimately, dictating the nature of our relationship.
Dr X: Hmm. Hmm. I mean, I don’t again, I wouldn’t say that we’re not respecting you. But I think it, it feels to me that, that not agreeing with you is not respecting you.
His knee-jerk save-face reaction was designed to sidestep my criticism of his dictatorship. He wants to believe I have him by the balls, but the truth is, he has himself by the balls. He can’t profess to respect me if forcedrugging me denies me my autonomy.
Billy: That would be a, a reductive way of looking at our relationship.
Dr X: Hmm.
Billy: That would be an ignorant way of looking at the relationship.
Dr X: Hmm.
Billy: Because it belies the idea that I understand what respect is. You know, the fact of the matter is, is that I don’t expect you to agree with or believe everything that I say and do. That is the whole definition of being a human being, is that we can agree to disagree.
Dr X: Hmm.
Billy: That’s not what this is about.
Dr X: Well, we can agree to disagree, but it doesn’t change the situation that we’re in, as you say.
Billy: It doesn’t change the low bar under which you’re compelled to, um, impose, ul-ultimately. It’s draconian, what style of, of, of service that is on offer. It doesn’t inform or respect my humanity fundamentally.
Dr X: Hmm.
Billy: Because it’s saying that I cannot function without these drugs.
Dr X: Hmm.
Billy: And it’s like, “Eh? Wait, what?”
Dr X: But it’s, again, it’s not saying you can’t function without the drugs. I-it’s we’re talking about risk of relapse, not we’re not saying you’re non-functioning.
Billy: Semantics. It’s like.
Dr X: I don’t think it is. I don’t think it is.
Billy: I firmly believe it is. It’s like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Um, what it boils down to is I don’t need the drugs.
Dr X: Hmm.
Billy: And I’m telling you I don’t need the drugs, and yet you’re telling me that your experience leads you to believe that I do need the drugs. Which beggar’s belief.
Dr X: Yeah. And if we were talking psychiatrist, and, you know, whatever moniker you’d want to use, client, um, in an informal situation, that, that would be you know, it would be advice, wouldn’t it? But it’s not advice, um, with the legal framework, unfortunately.
Dr X: Or you can see it as advice, but, you know, um.
Billy: It’s a flawed system.
Dr X: It -.
Billy: It’s not in any way, shape, or form congruous with, um, how human beings live and function in the world.
Dr X: Okay. Okay. We’re gonna have to end it now.
Here, Dr X chooses to hide behind the legal framework rather than accept the fact that that framework is flawed and, frankly, untenable. He is afforded a responsibility to police the sanctity of my body on the basis that his scant superficial 50-minute monthly meetings entitle him to assume the mantle of custodian of said body. As if he knows best for my fiftysomething body. The inference being that this body I inhabit can no longer be trusted to conduct itself on law-biding terms on the basis of one regrettable infraction. Moreover, there is the additional inference that human beings are not allowed to make mistakes in life and learn from them. Furthermore, he can’t tell me forcedrugging is in my best interests then say he respects me! Does anybody else see how hair-pullingly ridiculous that sounds?!
He’s not speaking to me from a moral perspective, because there is a scarcity of morality in professing to speak on behalf of somebody you don’t know, nor care to know, from an atomised immersive perspective. He’s merely mounting a paltry superficial defence on behalf of my platform. He’s dancing for coins (or credibility) amongst those who read my blog. In order to be seen to be doing his job, even if the bare minimum, as regards his Professionalism is anorexic.
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Dr X uses the word relapse and that is his fear. But what is the evidence for the belief that without the drugs you would relapse. I guess he is generalising from the experience of other people who have your "illness". This is the problem with psychiatry - trying to treat "mental illnesses" as if they are like non "mental illnesses" with which you can generalise. Bodily illnesses have a lot in common but minds do not. Expressing trauma and distress is unique to each person - minds are also unique. The drugs do not respect your uniqueness. So what is the evidence that you would relapse without the drugs?