"Bad mistakes made by some psychiatrists and registrars inthe NHS"

On more than one occasion, I have been unfortunate enough to go to a psychiatric hospital because of having to cope with too much stress. On more than one occasion, I was not listened to by the doctor, who unfortunately listened to my father who I hadn't seen for about 2 years previously and tried to keep away from him as much as possible. Unfortunately again the doctors didn't know that my father has been a violent and abusive alcoholic and rather than listen to me, they took the opinion of my father. I then received the wrong medical treatment, which was very painful for me. After getting a solicitor involved (luckily the hospital had an advocacy department) and after a lot of unnecessary trauma to myself, I finally got another doctor to listen to me, I was then, after about three weeks, put on the correct medicine.

This has happened before to me. The same thing happened about 10 years previously. Due to having a nervous breakdown, mainly because of having lived in fear for years with a violent and abusive alcoholic father, I ended up in a serious condition when I was thrown out of the home by the alcoholic father. I couldn't cope with the whole trauma of not having any money and being homeless, I eventually ended up in a psychiatric hospital - once again the alcoholic father was doing all the talking to the doctors there and I was not given the right treatment. The doctors never listened to me, and if only they had known what kind of man my father was, I don't believe I would have got such bad treatment. Unfortunately, once dosed up on the wrong type of medication, I could not communicate with any staff about what had happened to me. I was in a practically comatose state much of the time, and lost the ability to talk and think properly. This is did not help my health or mental health and has had detrimental effects on my life to this day.

Another time quite recently, I went to an out-patient meeting with my boyfriend, the consultant psychiatrist was not available so I had to see his house-officer. I must admit I was a bit depressed, but this has proved now to be an under-active thyroid problem which I didn't know at that time, but anyway this registrar would not listen to me and kept asking my boyfriend questions about me, which my boyfriend couldn't really answer. The registrar was asking him personal questions about me like 'does she do this or does she do that' as if I was invisible. The fact is, I had only known my boyfriend a few months and really he couldn't answer these questions. It was totally disgusting that I was being ignored by this doctor, as if I was invisible. What right had this doctor to ask someone else about me, when I was sitting right opposite him and could answer the questions myself?

I did complain to the consultant about this registrars manner, but it probably won't make any difference. In my experience, all doctors need to be trained in how to care for their patients properly and to listen to the patient with respect, and not listen to people in the family who have a personality problem themselves and are dysfunctional people anyway, that have brought about another relative to have a nervous breakdown because of their dysfunctional and aggressive behaviour. I tried to get an injunction against my father interfering in my life because of the way things always go wrong when he is around but I couldn't get one, and consequently doctors would rather listen to parents or anyone in the family that doesn't like another member of the family, than the patient themselves. Not all family's are o.k., a lot are dysfunctional, and probably most of the people that end up in a psychiatric hospital got there because something went wrong within their family. Then the worst thing happens, because other family members get it all wrong and the person that has had the breakdown doesn't get listened to. And once drugged up on the wrong drug (due to the wrong information being given to the doctors) the patient is unable to communicate with the staff to explain anything at all. I have written a book about the awful treatment I have had via the psychiatric services over the last two decades called 'To Hell and Back' published by Chipmunka Publishers, it is in paperback and an e-book on the World Wide Web, so that people everywhere can see how stupid certain doctors are and what a waste of time giving someone the wrong drug treatment is, by waste of time I mean a waste of many years of living the life someone was given, because doctors didn't give the proper treatment in the first place to the patient.

I hope you can read a copy of my book, this might help mental health services help individual like me to have a voice. Thanks.