How to get out of an anti-medicine rabbit hole

Post date: 2023-06-01 09:07:09
Views: 30
I recently got pulled into unhelpful online circles that are very anti-medicine in all its forms: anti-treatment, anti-therapy, anti-medication, and anti-recovery. I understand and respect people's own personal distrust and experiences of harm within these institutions, but this type of content is starting to make me distrust my doctor, my skilled therapist, and mainstream resources around modern medicine and mental illness. Ideas on getting out of this headspace?

CW: discussions of medical harm and anti-treatment perspectives.

(Note: I have a good therapist and will discuss this with them. Posting this anonymously because it contains personal mental health details. I'll also humbly ask for everyone to try to be respectful to everyone's lived experiences here—I'm aware discussions around mental illness, politics and medical institutions can, understandably, get intense. Thank you.)

I'd like to be clear that I'm not attacking anyone who has found medical practices, therapy, medication, or psychiatry harmful. I'm aware that medical harm happens much more than it should and can be incredibly traumatizing. Every person has the right to disengage from and to critique systems that have harmed them. I'm also entirely on-board with fully reforming our current medical and mental health systems to mitigate their current issues—I'm aware that there are a lot of deep problems.

All that said: I've been incredibly privileged in this area. My doctors have always been somewhat helpful, therapy has never seriously harmed me, psych meds didn't work for me but I had no lasting effects, and I've generally found a life-saving amount of relief in mainstream and peer resources that discuss complex PTSD (which is my diagnosis) and coping with physical illness. I also have affordable access to a specialized trauma therapist. Again, I'm aware this is a huge privilege and a lot of people do not have access to this, and is mediated by where I live (I'm not from the USA), my race, class, luck, etc.

The issue is this: a few months ago, someone on reddit reached out to me after I shared an idea I'd gotten from my therapist on one of the CPTSD subreddits. This person explained how they were severely harmed in their trauma treatment and that I should not trust my current doctor nor my therapist. That it's only a matter of time until I'm abused by them because therapy and medicine are inherently abusive. Their arguments got into my head—what if I am just brainwashed and can't see that my doctor and therapist are actively hurting me? Just trying to make me "normal" for capitalist gain? This person sent me tumblr blogs where anti-medicine circles mix with anti-capitalist ideals of anti-institution and of supporting victims who have been harmed by them. All which aligns with many of my far-left political values.

I genuinely feel for these people's suffering but I also feel deeply uncomfortable being in these spaces since I don't share their traumatic experiences with medicine/therapy. Most people in these spaces are perfectly kind and friendly and just want to talk about their traumatic experiences in a safe setting without people invalidating them, and most aren't pushy, so I'm not saying every person in these circles is so intense about this. Normally, I would've walked away by now, but I've been talking to these mutuals for a while, and feel guilty cutting ties. I feel too entangled in it all.

But I'm mistrusting everything around me now. I keep fighting the strong urge to drop out of therapy and throw away all my self-help books because it all feels unsafe and all I can hear in my head are horror stories and political danger. Can't trust my doctor, either. It's making me want to take back any advice I've given to friends seeking relief from their mental illness where I told them to give therapy, meds or self-help literature a shot. I'm also currently writing a book—the main character goes through a whole journey of helpful trauma therapy. Now I want to delete that part of the book because it could be promoting harmful institutions and abusive concepts and that feels morally wrong, even though I note within the text that therapy is only one path to recovery, not the only path.

It's gotten really hard and emotionally crushing because I want to trust some things, sometimes. Yet I'm incredibly anxious writing this question because I feel like I'm betraying the people I've met and the people who have been harmed by these systems. Like I'm abandoning them and going along with therapy/medicine just because I'm too brainwashed and neoliberal to walk away. Clearly, my brain isn't entirely in touch with my current life. My therapist, doctor and the mainstream mental health literature on my bookshelf are, luckily, not hurting me. But it feels like my peers are warning me about serious danger I can't see, and it's so hard for me to turn away from them when all my trauma-brain wants to focus on is their warnings.

All this might sound naïve and high-school—I'm in my mid-20's and worrying about what a small subsection of online peers think about my personal medical choices? It's ridiculous. But this sense of hidden threat is pervading everything I do now. I'm assuming getting out these online circles (e.g. deactivating my tumblr/reddit accounts, maybe) is the first step, even though that feels like a betrayal of my peers and politics.

My question is this: do you have any resources or thoughts on how to get out of this type of anti-medicine, anti-treatment thinking, especially when mentally ill and isolated and therefore more prone to anxious thinking? How to (cautiously, with an acknowledgement of the issues and my rights) trust current medicine and my therapist again? Again, it's completely understandable if someone doesn't want therapy/treatment or doesn't trust medical institutions—but that experience is not one I share so any ideas in stepping away from that perspective would be helpful. Sorry for the broad question, but any thoughts at all here would be useful. Thank you very much.
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