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Sexual discrimination against "hysterical" female


Guest ponylover

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Guest ponylover

HI,

I am posting today because I am finding getting the therapy I need to be almost impossible. I am a 30 year old woman and have had ocd for many years since the birth of my 1st child when I was 18. It has ruined my 20's.

I was diagnosed with ocd when I was a teenager as I had horrible thoughts of hurting my son. Since then it has manifested itself in different ways.

At one time my ocd was so bad that i couldnt get out of bed for fear that if i stood up i would die and my partner had to stay off work to look after me.

Since this point every single time I go to the doctors anxiety is brought up. I had swine flu, the doctor said it was down to anxiety. I have a rash, its down to anxiety. I stopped going to the doctor for 2 years. ate really healtily and i found it really helped.

in 2009 I went back to the doctors because my ocd had returned I was sent to see a therapist that worked in my doctors surgery. He spent most of the session making a joke about his other patients ocd. This made me reluctant to even speak to him.

In 2011 My doctor sent me to see the therapist again because I had no friends and sucked on the reading the mind through the eyes test., he said it was low self esteem.

In 2012 I had to leave university because of my ocd, I had such a bad fear of failing that i wouldnt stop working, leave the house exept for lecturers. the mental health team at uni said they thought I needed exstensive cbt therapy. I was reffered again to see the therapists at my g.p surgery. They said i had 6-8 sessions and we could either concentrate on my ocd or the low self esteem. I thought it was better to like my slef and have ocd than to hate myslef and possibly have milder ocd. The fact I had to make this choice disgusts me.

In the end I would be kept waiting in the waiting room and only get 5 minutes of my appointment, and nothing happened in that time apart from the old questionairre.

I piped up and asked the therapist if I could see someone who could tackle the ocd. She said she didnt really know much about ocd? I thought why did the doctor even send me to see you.

My partners psychiatrist who came to our house helped me more. He told me the history of mental health and how women even to this day were treated like they were histerical and they had nothing wrong with them.

The worst thing is the more I try to get help the more hysterical i become. Im not happy with the treatment Ive recieved. I start uni in 4 months and am worried I wont be well enough.

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Guest legend

you could mention the nice guidelines , which clearly stipulate that you should be reffered to a cbt therapist

that will implement it correctly

You could also self refer via the IAPT , where they will offer cbt via that way

The be all and end all is that it appears your gp has failed you as has the "therapists"

legend

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In my experience GP,s and therapists alike are a bit of a lottery. I,ve encountered a good few and tbh I would say about only 1 in 4 are any good and understanding. Change GP,s until you find one that listens to you and doesn't,t just dismiss OCD. You have the right to be treated with respect and understanding, don,t settle for anything less.

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Guest Madison

Hi I'm Madi, I'm 14. I've been let down by the nhs as well. I started noticing I had ocd when I was 10, that time I was somewhere else and so I couldn't see a GP.

When I was nearly 12 years old I moved to southampton where my mum took me to the GP, the GP was very nice and referred me to see a therapist straight away.

However, I had to wait a long while and when I finally did get to see a therapist, it wasn't too helpful and I late found out he as a trainee therapist. Meanhile my ocd was getting worse. Then two years ago in february I moved to somewhere else and my GP referred me to camhs, and I had to wait ages and go through loads of assesments, in the end I FINALLY got some treatemnt, but it was general, and didnt have anything to do with ocd! After about 5 sessions of this the therapist suddenly told me my treatment had ended? So then my mum said that this was not right so we tried getting the right treatment. After a long while and after many many assesments, I finally got some proper treatment for ocd.

By this time my ocd had deteriorated massively, to the point where I was repeating loads and loads and had to ask reassurance loads. So I had some treatment, which was the right one. I had about 6 months of this, and I didn't see my ocd get a lot better, but you know at least it wasn't getting worse.

During the six months there were many breaks, like holidays and stuff, so it wasn't exacly six whole weeks. Stuff happened at home which caused me anxietyand so of course this then made my ocd even worse. Then last november, camhs suddenly told me that I couldn't have any treatment any more because apparently my situation at home as bad, so there was no point. Basically saying i wasn't worth helping.

now my ocd has been so bad for months it sometimes stops me from eating, drinking, sleeping, everything really, even basic tass like brushing my teeth, putting on my school uniform, is very very ard, and i have to ask reassurance like loads of times before i can put my uiform on or something. anyway, my mum gets annoyed and sometimes wont give me reassurance, so im just there panicking already with loads of reassurance things I need to remember to ask reasurance, that at the time my mum would not anser so i have to remember to ask it. my anxiety is so high all the time and the stress has caused me to self harm, and have suicidal thoughts.

plus stuff at home alays change so that adds to my stress. once when my mum dropped another bombshell, this bombshell that was gonna make my ocd even more difficult, i just collapsed on the ground and screamed and felt i was going mad. i literally feel so so anxious all the time now and am seriously contemplating just ending everything. every day ive got a million things i need to remember to ask reassurance, and sometimes when i forget i get really....

I have tried going to my GP many times but they wont refer me. I've told social workers and everything. But I get no help. My mum has even tried going private, but they phoned up camhs and camhs told them to not let me have any ind of treatent.

I've even emailed ashley from this website, but she hasn't replied for wees now...

i have no where to turn to.

Sorry i know this is your thread and I'm being annoying but i hope now you can see that the chs has let down so many peopel, your not alone.

Edited by Madison
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Guest FlyingEagle

Personally i would complain to the PHSO or Care Quality Commission to see if they could look into your situation once you have exhausted the complaints procedure with the NHS body first. Good luck. x

Edited by FlyingEagle
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  • 5 months later...

Why is it that when a woman presents with symptoms of a genuine illness it is put down to hysteria or hypochondria!? I've had a very similar experience where my OCD became obsessed with illness at one point (I wasn't diagnosed at the time) and somewhere along the line some idiot decided to write 'facticious disorder' on my diagnosis list without checking with any other professionals! In case you don't know, this is the new name for Munchausens which is where you DELIBERATELY fake illness to get medical attention! Firstly, I am terrified of doctors, illness, hospital and germs and secondly whether my illnesses are real or not, I believe they are real, I am not putting them on. Now that it is on my record, it will never be removed and I often wonder if my treatment is being ignored as a result. I am absolutely terrified that this single mistake that has been permanently stuck on my record will one day cause doctors to not take me seriously when I am seriously ill. You often hear about women who find lumps who are turned away as it is 'probably nothing' then die of Cancer as they weren't diagnosed in time.

Anyway enough obsessing about that! I have four conditions which have been diagnosed several times by several different doctors including autism, ADHD, Tourettes and OCD. My most troubling of the four conditions is my OCD as the autism causes me frustration, ADHD makes me hyper and impulsive, Tourettes is just irritating as heck but the OCD is crippling. As you are probably aware, OCD comes under mental health, but autism etc. doesn't have a category. I do not have a learning disability so learning disabillity service refuse to take me on even though they say they understand autism better than mental health. I saw them once, and the doctor reccomended CBT to the mental health team. When we went to see the MH team they said 'CBT won't work on her (talking over my head to my Mum... *sigh*) because she is autistic'. They want LD team to take over, LD want MH in charge, so I am stuck in limbo! In the meantime my OCD is getting worse and I still haven't had any therapy. My Mum's argument is that they should try the CBT as even if it doesn't work because of my autism, at least we will know for certain! At the moment I have had nothing! It is so frustrating.

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Hi Lucy.Could you complain about the note on your file relating to "facticious disorder".Tell them it's not proved and ask to have it removed.It seems wrong that they can add a matter of opinion to our files

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi ponylover

Your post is made even worse when it is considered that people diagnosing anxiety did not put the link that that OCD is an anxiety disorder. I think it's appalling that there is such poor diagnosis and such slow referral to specialists.

To all of you trying to get help - there is help available - I know I was lucky with my GP - but you may have to push and push - not great when you're unwell.

At most doctors' practices (I think) there will be a GP with a special interest in mental health - it may be worth asking the receptionist or practice manager if you could see that person.

Take care

whitebeam

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