I want to respond properly to everyone here, and hope to do that later today when I have more time.
I really do appreciate people's respect of me, and I hope after some things that happened on this thread haven't lessened people's opinion of me.
I accept I may have had some inaccurate, stereotyped views and assumptions. This happens when you're trying to understand something, to make sense of something that's so confusing and in many ways subjective.
At the end of the day we're all individuals, and the professionals involved in our care are all individuals. Most of us want to have 'a life' and will work hard at recovery for this. I think many of us when we're in a lot of distress, really struggling, want and/or need respite from life's struggles, a space away from the stressors.
There are a lot of reasons people are hospitalised.
I think in the case of my team they want me to develop independence, and work hard on strategies with them to enable me to remain in the community among the people I know and who understand. Much as some psychiatrists would prescribe me multiple medications, I don't want that, even if some might say I need it, or have at certain times. The psych. I saw said I was lucky with him, another psych. would probably medicate me much more. That was why I chose, with his and my GP's agreement, to be discharged from him once I'd seen him for the consultation 4 appointments, and I was relatively stable.
I can think of several times when I was close to hospital being necessary. One was when I had a breakdown when I was 24. However I stayed with my parents that week. They didn't understand what was going on, but they accepted me, and were there. I wasn't in any kind of treatment at that point.
Another time was when I came off efexor. Especially when the paranoia and aggression was at it's peak.
Then one Summer when I was very vulnerable and my sensitivity was too high and I was really struggling and very paranoid and hyper-vigilant, and everything felt like an intrusion.
Does the fact that I actually managed to 'cope' in the community mean that I didn't need hospital type support? Who can say? And what's coping anyway? Hmm. It's all in retrospect, so it's largely a rhetorical question.
I really do think that there is more in the way of respite type care needed. And options for people in private psychotherapy which support their work. Not places that medicate and restrain. Not everyone needs that. But safe places. It would be so cool if there were homeopathic psychiatric residential places! I can dream!
What I have gained from this thread is that I totally want to celebrate my level of recovery and current state of health. Although it's not perfect, it's so much better than it used to be. I think it's as we get more well we start to look at what happened when we were more ill, as well as when we feel more able to cope we look at what might and what might not have helped us cope when the going was really rough.
I'll come back and reply to people individually when I get back from my GP's.
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