Important development

Specialties Psychiatric

Published

Interested to see and hear of any comments about this...I believe there should be access to recordings about this....what are your views as nurses who see this?

http://new.livestream.com/accounts/3973214/events/2962936

APA Protest New York CITY May 4, 2014

This occurred today and there are many people who are against the uses of these pharmaceuticals and psychiatry....Why do you feel that what Psychiatry does benefits people? There are a growing number of psych survivors who feel differently...How do you respond to this movement?And there are now more people who know and understand these drugs harm those who take them and that the DSM is just a moneymaking venture for psychiatrists and that no one is ever Cured from these drugs yet are continually mismanaged by claims of severe mental illness...

And how do you respond to those who wish to discontinue taking these drugs....

And how do you respond to the facts that the "chemical imbalance" is a theory and not based on scientific fact or proven?

How do you respond to children like Rebecca Riley (age2) who have died as a result of taking risperadol unnecessarily and the new developments of the Justina Pelletier Case in Boston?

What are you doing as nurses to help protect people from the resulting factors that you know that come as a result of taking Psychoactives?

Are you informing them of the inherent risks of taking these drugs? Are you giving patients the opportunity to resolve their challenges without drugs?

Just curious...

To be educated is to consider both sides of the issues and to also realize that not everything you learned about Psych is necessarily the truth...

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Point taken. But even though we all learned psych in school, you and I also live it every day of our lives. Again, meds are not for everyone, but they definitely are for me. I'm just glad that patients have a choice. :yes:

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Specializes in Leadership, Psych, HomeCare, Amb. Care.
Is she better being numbed and unemotional and cognitively impaired with multiple induced unexplained side effect issues...

Wow, no bias there. :sarcastic:

What makes you think there is no middle ground between psychosis & being an empty shell of a human being.

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Personally, I don't know if I have a biochemical imbalance, and I don't really care. I only know that what I suffer with bipolar disorder isn't imaginary,

Isn"t "bipolar" based on the chemical imbalance theory Viva???

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Specializes in Mental Health.

No, bipolar is a concept to give a name to a set of symptoms. The underlying mechanism that causes the set of symptoms is a theory (chemical imbalance), but given that medications based on such theory have a positive effect, this makes the theory plausible. But this does not mean that theory has 100% veracity. Neuroscience is still in its infancy, but not doing anything because scientists don't have all the answers will only cause more harm than good.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Amen to mzaur's post above. Even as recently as fifty years ago, doctors didn't have a lot to offer mentally ill patients, which meant a lot of them wound up in deplorable conditions in state hospitals, drank themselves to death, or ate the business end of a pistol. And for the ones fortunate enough to get decent psychiatric care, the few medications available then had horrendous side effects that left them stuporous and unable to function.

No thanks, I'm happy to live in an era when there are better drugs with fewer side effects, and therapy that helps replace my old maladaptive thinking patterns with healthier ones. Again, I don't really know or care what made me bipolar, I just know that my life was in free-fall before I found my amazing psychiatrist, therapy, and the med "cocktail" that keeps me sane.

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With these stigmas lurking, how do we present to perspective employers s/p manic turmoil in a previous job?

I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to be considered for a second round of interviews for my dream job. I have been away from work for a year now. This offer is contingent on a reference check from my previous employer. Unfortunately, I was naive to my condition as it bubbled to the surface and completely exploded at my place of work. I was an irrational mess, and after a downspiral, and being escorted to HR, I disappeared in a manic rage for a month til I was committed.

Any suggestions on how to address this? Shall I try and "warn" the new perspective employer and level with them on this? Or hope it does not come up? I am not eligible for rehire at my last employer because I "never returned to work" (they put out a mental hygiene code out on me, for an eval..). Frazzled and confused...

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.
Point taken. But even though we all learned psych in school, you and I also live it every day of our lives. Again, meds are not for everyone, but they definitely are for me. I'm just glad that patients have a choice. :yes:

THIS.

I KNOW I need my medication; no amount of exercising, yoga, and mediation and even therapy alone was helping me function, the effects were temporary, and not lasting; my depression and anxiety related to my PTSD is not going to go away magically.

I know my atypical antipsychotic has side effects, however, constant monitoring is required, my medication and therapy has helped me (finally) sustain a job and function enough to be considered for a leadership position, think on my feet, and get me , IMHO and through my own self assessment, back to functioning as the nurse I was prior to my trauma; last year I ended up not surviving at a job; this year I have two in good standing; the difference is the medication AND therapy; I can not have one with out the other; I've tried, and it wasn't doing ME any good; since I take care of ME, I will continue to advocate for a holistic therapy for myself-which include meds. :yes:

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With these stigmas lurking, how do we present to perspective employers s/p manic turmoil in a previous job?

I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to be considered for a second round of interviews for my dream job. I have been away from work for a year now. This offer is contingent on a reference check from my previous employer. Unfortunately, I was naive to my condition as it bubbled to the surface and completely exploded at my place of work. I was an irrational mess, and after a downspiral, and being escorted to HR, I disappeared in a manic rage for a month til I was committed.

Any suggestions on how to address this? Shall I try and "warn" the new perspective employer and level with them on this? Or hope it does not come up? I am not eligible for rehire at my last employer because I "never returned to work" (they put out a mental hygiene code out on me, for an eval..). Frazzled and confused...

Just curious...did they report you to the BON? and what were the results? and what is mental hygiene code?

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No reporting. I was in a non-direct care admin role. Mental hygiene code is for a CPEP evaluation which I somehow managed to talk myself out of.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
With these stigmas lurking, how do we present to perspective employers s/p manic turmoil in a previous job?

I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to be considered for a second round of interviews for my dream job. I have been away from work for a year now. This offer is contingent on a reference check from my previous employer. Unfortunately, I was naive to my condition as it bubbled to the surface and completely exploded at my place of work. I was an irrational mess, and after a downspiral, and being escorted to HR, I disappeared in a manic rage for a month til I was committed.

Any suggestions on how to address this? Shall I try and "warn" the new perspective employer and level with them on this? Or hope it does not come up? I am not eligible for rehire at my last employer because I "never returned to work" (they put out a mental hygiene code out on me, for an eval..). Frazzled and confused...

Pretty much the same thing happened to me a year ago, although I wasn't hospitalized. Massive meltdown at work, had to go out on medical leave for several weeks at a critical time (we were expecting the State to come in any day), lost my job. I'd had to disclose to my employer that I was bipolar because I'd suffered a serious manic episode the summer before that and I couldn't hide it, so when I had my breakdown they somehow they figured out a way around the ADA and let me go.

After that, I took a part-time position at a former place of employment where they knew me and my "nonconformity" well. However, when I became ill last fall, it didn't stop them from drastically reducing my hours to a point where I couldn't survive on my wages.

What I learned from these experiences was NEVER to disclose my illness to an employer, potential or otherwise, and to adhere strictly to my medication and sleep regimen. To do otherwise is just too risky. My rule of thumb is, if I need accommodations to do the job, it's not the job for me.

Your former employer is not permitted to say anything about your mental state at the time you were let go. That's confidential information. You may have to explain why you are on the do-not-rehire list, but you can always say something like there was a medical emergency in your family and you left without notifying your employer. You can then tell the interviewer that you've learned how to handle things better and would never do that again.

In the meantime, practice self-care every day. Take your medications if you're on them, get up and go to bed at the same times every day, exercise, eat right, and give yourself some "me" time on a regular basis. This prevents burnout, which will trigger your illness again if it's allowed to happen. Best of luck to you.

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I am very thankful for these types of medicines. I'd tried everything. You think of it, I've probably tried it. From attempting to "not feed the bad wolves," to counseling for 2 years straight. Some of those methods did work but not as well as I needed them to. Finally, I got fed up that nothing was working and went to get some help. Thank goodness I did. Now I'm a happy, happy person!

:cheeky:

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