u/Pineaple_marshmalows

I’ve posted on here before but TLDR, have an online friend who’s schizophrenic but medicated, and had enough insight during their episodes to help me navigate them alongside them. Their psychiatrists randomly decided that because they have insight they’re faking it and wanted to take them off of antipsychotics. This sent my friend on a spiral, and now they stopped talkinh their meds and don’t have any insight anymore.

They are posting extremely concerning things on their Instagram story. Three hours ago they posted, quote, “I need to be reborn to go back to my original dimension
I am not going back on meds and I'm not going to the hospital. I told them l'd overdose and they essentially said "do it then and we'll treat it when you get here" as if im going to call the ambulance in the first place”. I fear that they will, or might have already done something to hurt themselves and I don’t know what to do, who to call.

I don’t know where they live, besides the fact that they’re from Norway. I only know their first name, and their social media accounts. If I called the emergency number I’d probably get directed to my own country, and even if I somehow managed to reach the emergency system in Norway, I got no information to give them. I don’t know what to do

This isn’t saying you shouldn’t trust mental health professionals generally. They are, for the better or the worse, the best solution we as a society have. But it’s a god damn bad solution never the less

I posted yesterday venting about my friend whose’s mental health team decided they’re not actually psychotic but just autistic and with a special interests in psychosis in the middle of their psychotic episode. In the meantime I found out two more things from two othet friends who live in two different countries.

One of them ended up in the psych ward after overdosing on the meds their psychiatrist prescribed them due to the prescription amount being way too high. This same friend has been “accidentally” taken off of antipsychotics before and also promised by another psychiatrist that “if he improves his life by the summer he can be taken off of all meds.” Now while I don’t know the specifics of this guy’s diagnoses, I’m pretty sure that if you’ve been antipsychotics for a long time, that probably means you have a disorder which will necessitate taking them for your whole life. Thus why when he was accidentally taken off of them he had a psychotic episode.

Another dude was advised by a lot of their friends including me to seek help after an episode of intense paranoia with what I presume to be delusional thinking (it at least sounds like it, but I’m not qualified to make that assessment). He went trough some weeks of investigation just to be told his issues are because he’s trans and low on iron. (He isn’t even low enough on iron for it to be considered an iron deficiency! Or started HRT for the matter, as far as I know).

On the other hand, I have a different friend who was recently diagnosed with a bunch of stuff and given some low dosages of meds that according to her, are genuinely helpful. So there is hope for competency, I guess. Though I’ve witnessed so much bullshit trough my friends that it got me just kinda, waiting for the other shoe to drop I guess.

It sucks because it always reassured me to know that my friends are taken care of by professionals, it helped me be there for them without feeling that the burden of their well being lays on me. But I’m quickly losing trust. And I suspect that I myself have some sort of mental health issues, and after years of not being able to finally do anything about it I finally got accepted into my uni’s free psych evaluation program. (Though of course I have to wait for months, it’s still something, right?) But with all of these bad experiences I’m getting more and more skeptical and afraid that it’ll do more harm than good. Doesn’t help that I’m a woman, either.

I don’t know what I’m seeking, posting this. Venting, I guess. Looking for people with similar experiences who relate, or with good experiences to give hope. I do feel like a lot of y’all might get it, given the nature of this sub. Because it feels strange to be this upset over othet people’s bad medical experiences. Like I don’t have the right to be, it’s not happening to me after all. I feel bad “making it about myself”

Okay. Well. Yap over. If you read all this, you’re a legend. Or well, more seriously, thank you.

TLDR my friends keep being neglected or even put in danger by their doctors and it’s making me feel hopeless about the field of psychiatry for both them and myself

I’ve posted on here before about the situation with my friend’s psych team randomly deciding to undiagnose them with schizophrenia mid psychotic episode instead of trying clozapine. Frustrating ordeal, my friend requested their patient journal and reported them to the government for inadequate care but that could take around half a year so that’s not gonna be solved any time soon. It’s clear in the patient journal that they pivoted suddenly and stopped believing them especially since they never recorded any of their recent mentions of their hallucinations.

Here’s the thing. The reason. The genius. The psychiatrists in charge of their case (who get patient notes from their psychologist, but never meet or interact with them) decided that since they’re autistic, their symptoms are actually them having “a special interest on schizophrenia symptoms” and just “trauma from being neglected and their personality.” God forbid you read about the ilness you’ve been diagnosed with for over three years and know the name of what you’re experiencing, I guess. They didn’t even diagnose them with chronic psychosis or anything, just classed it as “abnormal perception”.

It’s very frustrating and distressing because my friend has really been *going trough it* in the past couple of months. They’ve been hospitalized multiple times both for psych reasons and physical reasons (derived from psych). And now their doctors just decided that they’re faking it and might even take away their meds. They’re contemplating quitting them altogether to prove that they’re actually sick which is obviously a terrible idea, but there’s not much I feel can be done from my end to convince them not to. So, this is how things are right now. Fuck this. It sucks.

(Before y’all ask, they’re from Norway. They’re in a small town and the only way to get a second opinion from doctors who don’t literally work in the same office with their current doctors and will probably agree with them is in the next town over. They might, at some point)