Let it all hang out! Tell your most useless psychiatrist advice!

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
OK...I think my BEST one is in the other thread {You know, the whole "Do you promise not to lie anymore? Great!"

But I think here's a good runner-up:

therapist: So I see in the file that she was doing great in our behavioral management program.

Me: Yes.

therapist: Well, you say you want help for her--so I don't understand why she is no longer participating in the program that seemed to be helping...?

Me: Because you cancelled it.

therapist: Oh.


Thanks, doctor--that was great. Very helpful, indeed.

--DaisyF

PS--Great thread, by the way! Seems like a nominee for the archives...
 

SRL

Active Member
Never even met Cory, just talked to me. Said that I must have been sexually abused in the past because Cory was reaching into the dishwasher, grabbing the forks and knives and trying to hit me with them. .

LOL, Janet. I wonder what he would have said about one of my kids who used to dip a toothbrush or pacifier into the toilet and then pop it into the mouth before we got a lock for the bathroom door.
 
W

Wonderful Family

Guest
Your son is manipulating you; you just have to make him do it (age 2.5) - therapist.

Children at this age don't know what they are doing; they can't possibly be so angry they would try to hurt somebody, you don't really understand what he was doing (age 3 - trying to choke me when he couldn't get something he wanted - psychiatrist)

pediatrician appointment for strep; doctor telling me difficult child can't possibly be sick; he's just a brat (age 4 - I was called the next day with script and apology); found new pediatrician

ADHD medications can make people more nervous; let's prescribe an anti-depressant and just keeping changing the dose to manage the side effects (age 5)

difficult child just has to learn to manage his emotions like everyone else; these kinds of things are always a parenting issue in my experience. (Age 6) psychiatrist

One last one; your son is not normal (therapist - age 12).

Dare we go on . . .
 

WSM

New Member
We always get, "You need to give him more positive reinforcement." and "He needs more positive time alone with his father."

Um...they spend ALL DAY SUNDAY TOGETHER working on house projects. Twelve hours at least. He gets more time than any of the other 4 kids PUT TOGETHER. Usually difficult child is surly, passive aggressive and slow to his assigned chores. If it goes well and they seem to have a nice time together, difficult child will then turn around and do something to sabotage his dad.

difficult child has ATTACHMENT DISORDER. Friendliness and bonding seem threatening to him. What a good idea to give him more of it. (And let's just ignore all the reports of revenge that occur afterwards). Spending time with dad to difficult child actually means dad takes him shopping and buys him what he wants, dad takes him to restaurants, dad plays video games with him even if that morning he snuck dad's lap top in the pool.

And as for the positive reinforcement? difficult child wants rewards for breathing. "I didn't throw my shoes away today, I should get a treat." Nobody else gets rewarded for not throwing away his or her shoes. Ummm...no, you aren't going to get a reward for not stealing today, not breaking other people's property, not lying, not hitting your sister, etc... You will get recognition for doing your homework, for washing the dishes well, for being dressing properly/using proper hygiene, etc...

But that requires effort and change on difficult child's part and he won't do it.

I hate to say it, but difficult child has very little positive behavior. He's on a quest to be celebrate no matter how he behaves, he deeply resents that ANY consequences good or bad is linked to his behavior. difficult child will tell you straight out that he should have 'unconditional love' (I swear he's been in too much therapy) no matter how he behaves. difficult child says (to us) we can prove that we love him only by rewarding him for behaving badly. difficult child has a thinking disorder and really believes this, but difficult child says to the professionals, with his wounded puppy expression, "I just want my dad to spend more time with me (aahhh poor little thing). I just was positive reinforcement." He won't admit to them the things he says to us. He's learned to play us off against the professionals.

When we describe his behavior to the professionals, they just look at us like we are crazy. It 'can't be' the way we report it, there must be something we are doing wrong (or as one psychiatrist said, why do you want your son to be sick?).

Then they start listening to the history and it's so overwhelming they always say:

"All right, let's JUST START OVER. From this point on all privileges are restored, all family systems to protect ourselves (such as alarms on doors and windows and cameras) are abolished."

difficult child LOVES this!!!!!!! It gives him free reign to wreak sneaky, hostile, passive aggressive havoc for several weeks (stealing and destroying our stuff, throwing away things, etc...), until one by one the therapist takes away the video games, the tv, reinstalls the alarms, sees the value of the camera, etc... And within 3 months things are exactly the way they were before (except the rest of the family is angry, tramatized and difficult child has cost us a lot of money).

And then the therapist either says, "We can't help you, good luck." or "There's something wrong with you as parents that you are inspiring this in him."

Some even say, "You aren't doing enough to make him feel loved. The whole family (including the other kids) should drop everything and dedicate themselves to difficult child's emotional health." There have been those who thought we should quit jobs, and those who think that are days should center around making difficult child feel loved.

The profession is filled with codependents.

Oddly enough the ones who understand our situation the most are the police, the probation officers, and very strangely enough CPS investigators (except for one nightmare one). The last CPS investigator gave difficult child a very hard time and told us how to protect ourselves from him. I guess she was secretly from the Parent Protection Services, LOL.

I would love to hear about a professional who actually fixed the problem. All they have is 'start over', 'making charts with gold stars', schemes with tickets that can be taken away and redeemed, 'positive reinforcement', 'list your goals and break down the steps to fulfill them', and 'spend more time alone with dad'. When that all fails, it's "What's wrong with you parents that you are scapegoating this kid?"

Except for cases when medication works, are there even ANY success stories with psychiatrists?
 

WSM

New Member
I got so many of these.

Our difficult child will throw away his shoes. Even if we have him check them in and out with us like library books each morning and afternoon, he's ever alert for the possibility of stealing them and 'disappearing' them.

We constantly get the advice: "Fine, just let him do without shoes then."

Umm....okay. Well, he can't go to school without shoes (against the law), so do one of us quit our job to stay home with him? Do we allow him never to go to school again? What do we tell the truant judge? Does he go barefoot in the winter, the rain, stores?

Come on, people think.

Finally we put him in a military school. They said, "Buy a couple dozen pairs of $2 flipflops. We'll make him do PT in it. That won't be any fun."

It wasn't and the problem went from him disappearing his shoes to him disappearing his uniforms. The school gave up, he's the only kid in military school who doesn't wear uniforms. They do make him clean the bathrooms every morning he doesn't have one tho.
 

Steely

Active Member
What an awesome post MWM.
I do not have time to read all the replies, but I will later.

Here is my all time favorite. A psychiatrist told me to allow difficult child to "break things" when he got angry. So if he wanted to pound a hole in a wall, give him a wall to do it - if he wanted to break things, give him things to break, etc.

OMG
- Seriously? The kid was over the top manic!!!!

It was 6 years ago the ONE time I allowed it - I still have a whole closet wall destroyed, not to mention the rest of the walls that got damaged that were fixed - and no kidding - I am still finding chards of plates that he smashed in my backyard, years later.

Once he started he could not stop. It seriously was the stupidest advice I have ever received in regards to difficult child. Maybe for a moderately angry non bi-polar child............but difficult child??

I still am in dismay about that suggestion.
 
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Josie

Active Member
From a therapist we went to one time: Kids need a hierarchy among themselves. difficult child 1 should always have the front seat, always go first, etc. because she is the oldest. difficult child 2 will learn her place.

From our current therapist that I like but didn't like this: difficult child 1 is not ready to make her own sandwich for her lunch. (difficult child 1 was probably 11 at the time and very capable of making a sandwich.)
 

BestICan

This community rocks.
"Caffeine is a stimulant. Why don't you give him a bunch of caffeine and see if he calms down? Then you'll know if he has ADHD."
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
OMG!!

These are SOOO awful...and SOOO funny....

and SOOO sad that we are paying good money for this kind of "advice"
 

rejectedmom

New Member
After my difficult child had attacked me the first time while on drugs and I had to defend myself his therapist told me that she could help me be "less reactive". What are you supposed to do when your mountain of a difficult child has both of your hands and is bending them back to your wrists and you feel like they are going to snap any second? Oh yeah... you get "less reactive" -RM
 
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trinityroyal

Well-Known Member
Hmmm...

I think it would have to be, "Why don't we put him on Paxil?"

This, after difficult child had been raging uncontrollably through the house, chasing his sister with a butcher knife while she cowered behind the locked guest room door. The psychiatrist figured that Paxil would lessen his anxiety and "smooth out" the rages. (Kinda like taking downers to counteract the peaks of the uppers? I don't know)

Anyway, in combination with the Concerta 72 mg he was already on at the time, difficult child's behaviour on the Paxil caused him to be dragged away by the police in handcuffs and taken to the local lockup.

Of course, all this was before difficult child's bipolar had been diagnosed, let alone on anyone's radar. The combination of stims AND SSRIs on my poor difficult child's brain. No wonder he used to say that his medications were killing him.

Thank God those days are behind us!
 

Janna

New Member
That would be our current idiot psychiatrist, offering Thorazineeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Telling me *AND I QUOTE* "keep Benedryl in the house in case his eyes roll back into his head"

O

M

G
 

cadydid

New Member
I too like the others have much experience in this area.

1st psychiatrist

US: Son isn't sleeping. He stays up all night getting into everything under the sun, waking us up, bugging his sisters.

psychiatrist: It's summer time.. he doesn't need sleep, Let him do what he wants and he will tire himself out.

2nd psychiatrist

US: His anger is getting worse as are his outbursts?

psychiatrist: What did you do to make him angry?

US: Asked him to finish the bowl of cereal that he made himself.

psychiatrist: What did you do to make him not want to finish it?

US: Nothing he got distracted by something

psychiatrist: Then I wouldn't let him eat anymore.

HUH????????
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
It's been interesting reading all of these stories.
I think the most useless for us was when I called difficult child's old psychiatrist and asked him if I should take difficult child to the ER. He was experiencing some bad side effects to the Abilify he had just started. I told him I thought it might be Tardive Dyskensia. He said not to go to the ER because we would wait for hours and they would call him and he would tell them the same thing he was telling me over the phone. Give him some Benydryl.
He said he was sure it wasn't TD and that was it.

The next day he called and told us to stop the Abilify and had us wait 5 days before we saw him.

Turns out after all that it was TD.

Talk about a useless psychiatrist!
 

Marguerite

Active Member
The road to diagnosis is gridlocked with idiots at a standstill trying to pretend they're moving fast with no obstructions.

My fun was multiple. Our GP took on a new partner, at about the same time as my 'stalker' was exposed (at least to me) and I realsied that my now former good friend was telling a lot of people some very large untruths about he. He began to recruit the new doctor, having coffee with him every day and undoubtedly fiulling him in on the social climbing opportunities in the village. As a result, the new doctor was prejudiced against me from very early on.
However, as our GP was very busy we had to see the new bloke. He reluctantly referred difficult child 3 to the pediatrician, "ro prove you wrong," he told me.
Then, a few months later, difficult child 3 was running a fever. As the kid couldn't tell me if he was in pain or not (he didn't seem to respond to pain, and was still non-verbal) I took him to the GP to get him to look in his ears and down his throat.
The GP said, "There's nothing wrong with him, his ears and troat are fine. Why would you think there's a problem?"
"Because he has fever."
doctor: "If he had middle ear or tonsillitis, he would be in pain and would tell you."
Me: "He doesn't react to pain like other kids, he is autistic."
doctor: [opening the door to let me go out into a full waiting room, all ears out there flapping] "Don't be ridiculous! There's nothing wrong with him! Stop trying to find things wrong with your children!"
[at about this time, my stalker had written to an organisation I had been involved with and which he was a member of, telling them I had Muchhausen's by proxy. Here was the doctor telling half te town the same thing]
Me: "I did not diagnose my son. The pediaitrician did - the one you referred him to."

And I walked out. None of us ever saw this doctor for anything again. He turned out to be a real *******, shafted his boss, spent several years trying to assassinate various local characters and is now "practising" cosemtic surgery, for which he needs no more qualifications than GP. As I say - if you keep on practising, one day you'll get the hang of it. Maybe.

I have more, but maybe later.

Marg
 

Sheila

Moderator
He has ADHD (corrrect) and maybe some language delays (delays????????????). If the medicine doesn't work, bring him back and we'll turn him around in 6 months.:faint:

Let's see --- that was 9 yrs ago. roflol
 

Marguerite

Active Member
OK, I'm back. [had promised difficult child 3 I'd play a game with him].

A couple more quick stories.

difficult child 1's first pediatrician was a weirdo. He at first seemed really helpful, diagnosed ADHD and even came to the school to explain what difficult child 1 needed from the teachers. Mind you, he didn't tell me anything about the social security payments we were entitled to. Also, he was niggardly with medications. He put difficult child 1 on ritalin but in very tiny amounts. He then began to take an unhealthy interest in my physical disability which at the time had been tentatively labelled Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He told me he thought that CFS was a mental illness, I gave him some literature from leading psychiatrists which explained it was not. But eventually it got too much - he would make appointments for ME to see him, "Don't drag difficult child 1 out of school, I only need to see you," and when I casually mentioned that the date the doctor had given me would be convenient, since husband would be able to be there too, the doctor changed the appointment! I finally challenged him on this, said, "I felt very uncomfortable that you changed the appointment."
Of course I got from him whatI expected - "What a dirty mind you must have, what did you think? I am a doctor, after all!"
To which I replied, "You are my SON'S doctor, not mine. Yet you didn't wqant my son there, or my husband. What did you expect me to think?"

He finally told me, "You're an intelligent woman who has failed to achieve to your ability, and you have therefore developed this psychiatric illness as a way of legitimizing your lack of success, this is your way of opting out of life's responsibilities and trying to reduce the inevitable depression from your lack of achievement because you never felt you had what it takes. And I am concerned that your son is also being negatively affected by your own depressive illness. I didn't want your husband here because he might have taken exception to me saying this to you."
[what about ME taking exception?]

The doctor continued, "You never show emotion, You don't react. There is something wrong with a person who just won't get angry."
I said, "I choose to not get angry, my son needs your help and getting angry with you is not going to be productive. Besides, my mental health or otherwise is not the issue. I have already shown you that I have a clean bill of mental health from a psychiatrist, who also happens to be your boss in this cliinic."
doctor: "What would She know? Besides, you must REALLY be mentally ill, to be able to fool a psychiatrist."
Me: "So what would YOU know? You are a pediatrician, not a psychiatrist."
doctor: "Well, I did top my year in psychiatry at medication school."
Me: "Need I remind you, my son is your patient, not me? What do you intend to do for him?" [we were due to have new prescriptions written]
doctor: "Well, I could double his medications, or I could halve his medications, or just leve it the same. What do you think?" [OK, he's clearly trying to make me angry, so I refused to give him the satisfaction]
Me: "I'd appreciate an increase."
doctor: "Let's leave it the same, then."

I left, utterly gobsmacked by the way the bloke had spoken to me and some of the things he'd said. Then I wrote him a letter in which I said, "Dear doctor, I find it interesting that you say you topped your yer in psychiatry at medication school yet you chose to become a pediaitrician. Did you feel you didn't have what it takes to be a psychiatrist, and the resulting deprssion from failing to achieve your life's ambitions is needing to be sublimated by attacking the mothers of your patients? Let me tell you - this is NOT an easy option. My life is much mroe difficult because of my illness/disability. For me to have chosen this - illogical. According to such logic as yours, my preferred sexual position would be standing up in a hammock."

Of course, we switched pediatricians. We were also seeing a psychologist in an affiliated clinic, and apparently the pediaitrician thought my letter was very funny and he was showing to everyone he could. The psychologist refused to read it, said it was VERY unethical. It was the psychologist who gave me the name of another pediatrician. With hindsight, I wish I'd sued the first ratbag (using "ratbag" to replace previous word which got censored - let's just say I was casting aspersions on his mother's marital status).

I was glad that my letter was being shown around - the pediatrician had also accused me of having no sense of humour (I mentioned that in my letter also) and I know my letter made it clear that the only humourless idiot was the doctor.

Funny footnote - when difficult child 3 was 2 years old, he was admitted to hospital with croup. Because we chose to have him admitted as public patient (it's cheaper, and in an emergency like that, there's no point having choice of doctor if you're going to get someone you've not seen before anyway) we simply got assigned to whoever was on duty. And it was the same bloke! Fourteen years had passed so I hoped he wouldn't recognise me. I don't think he did. I didn't worry too much about his treatment of difficult child 3, I knew enough to know if the doctor was making incompetent choices. Of course, at any follow-up post-hospital appointment, things could have been sticky, so at that point I chose to take difficult child 3 to a different (our current) pediatrician.

I think the final idiotic statement has to go to the school counsellor. We'd just ocme out of a Learning Team meeting, we were stadning on the steps of the school office looking down two storeys onto the school playground. The kids were little dots, all dressed the same in school uniform. Right on the other side of the playground we could see, in the crowd, difficult child 3 - walking along the white lines of the basketball court markings on the asphalt. He was totally oblivious to the crowd of kids around him.
The school counsellor turned to me and said, "Isn't it wonderful to see how well difficult child 3 is doing? He's talking really well now, you must be so pleased that he's no longer autistic."

Excuse me? You got your qualifications in what cereal box? Autism is a lifelong condition. If difficult child 3 is talking well now, he still has a HISTORY of language delay. That HISTORY doesn't go away, it is what defines his symptoms as autism and not Asperger's.

Flamin' idiots. Ratbags. Circumcision scars on necks, every one of them.

Marg
 

susiestar

Roll With It
We had a therapist who was doing post-doctoral work at the Children's hospital our psychiatrist was in. We LOVED this therapist's supervisor, but he had the most moronic advice.

We were supposed to get a bunch of poker chips and every time we saw Wiz interacting with Jess, or even just being in the same room and not hurting her we were supposed to make a big deal about the fact that he was being nice to her and give him a chip. For every 10 chips he was to get to pick out a brand new book - totally his choice, no restrictions from us as to subject, appropriateness, cost, anything.

When I looked at him and asked him what I was supposed to tell Jess about why her brother had to be PAID to be in the same room and not hurt her, this therapist's jaw hit the floor.

He said, "I am not treating HER. I am treating HIM. Ask HER therapist what to do."

I IMMEDIATELY got up and had the supervising therapist paged. She was in a session but I had such a fit they pulled her out. This guy had the audacity to tell her the plan, and my question. AND his answer. If looks could kill he would be DEAD.

The supervisor said that clearly this guy didn't have children, and that I should ignore the "plan". That she would join him for further sessions with us.



We also enrolled Wiz in a Social Skills Class. It was a 90 minute drive each way, so you can tell we were committed to helping Wiz and the whole family.

The first session the 9 boys (age 11) all walked back to the room nicely. Then they came out running and yelling and screaming - even screaming obscenities. ALL of us were stunned and upset. The therapist running the group came out telling us that things went very well and the boys were great. EACH boy came out with a little toy sword.

EVERY parent expressed concern because the behavior, and because these were all boys with ADHD and aggression problems - rewarding them with swords seemed unwise. We were ASSURED the boys would not hurt anyone with them.

The next week the boys all went back chattering loudly. We heard screams from the room they were in (it was supposedly soundproofed!). The boys came out faster and louder and ruder than the week before - and each one had one of those little hand-clapper noisemakers. Now we had all talked and the shortest drive to this office for therapy was 1/2 hour. One family actually came 2 hours each way. How many of us wanted to spend that much time trapped in a car with a child behaving like that with that kind of toy?? NONE!!

The doctor had the NERVE to tell us we were too uptight. That the candy and caffeinated soda he gave the boys (unlimited amounts of each - by HIS words) would not have any effect. He even said we were too controlling and unless our kids felt free to be themselves all the time they would be miserable. (One parent commented that a little misery can be an effective teacher!) It was the LAST of the sessions we took him to.

I filed a complaint with the doctor who ran the practice when we got a call saying that if we did not take our child to ALL the sessions the therapist would file a complaint with CPS for medical neglect. No other people were in the office when these sessions were done, so no one knew what he was doing. They were calling ALL of us with this cr@p because of the 9 boys only 2 showed up for the 3rd session - and we all cancelled because the guy was an idiot.

When our dev pediatrician (the owner of the practice) returned my call a day later he had NO IDEA we had been threatened with reports of medical neglect, that the kids were given unlimited coke and candy (against practice rules - only non-caffeinated drinks and sugar-free candy were to be given out) AND the exit behavior (including screamed obscenities and shoving each other) was worse than the behavior we started with!

Needless to say, we never saw that therapist again as he was asked to leave the practice when he refused to let a senior doctor observe his "classes".

At the same time, this sr doctor, the dev pediatrician, was the BEST doctor we ever had (he was NOT the one who ran these classes - he is the one who stopped them). He was responsive, he listened, he even worked with us via email because he understood the distance.
 

Stella

New Member
haha. This thread has cheered me up no end!! :D i was once told by a 'leading' child pyschiatrist. "In my expereince there is no such thing as child with problems, only parents with problems". hmmm....
 
W

Wonderful Family

Guest
One more to add - although no psychiatrist related - but more about how some people do get paid back for not listening to us.

When difficult child was 3 he needed surgery for tubes. I told the docs and nurses to let me back early into recovery; if we're not there; he'll be terrified and you won't be able to get him to stop screaming and raging.

I was patted on the head and told, not to worry Mom - they could handle it . . . Well, 1.5 hours later 4 nurses brought back a raging, crazed difficult child too me. They couldn't figure out why they couldn't get him to listen. This is still one of husband's favorite stories.
 
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