#but start claiming they were abused because their life looks unpleasant from an outside perspective

[bondsmagii]

If you feel comfortable sharing, what do you mean when you say that psychiatrists don't think you can exist? You know your own experiences better than I do, but the idea of a psych telling a patient what their reality is, rather than observing reality to determine outcome, is killing the methodologist inside me

I have no interest in sharing because like. I just do not. but I can address the rest of what you're saying.

the whole basis of going to see a psych is the be told what your reality is, in one way or another. whether that's seeking out a diagnosis, unpacking bullshit to see what's "beneath" it all, trying to get to the bottom of memories/behaviours, or even just working out Why You're Like That, you're relying on somebody else to tell you what your reality is. some people find this works well for them, and that's great. I'm not denying that there aren't lots of people out there who have benefited greatly from psychiatry, and as a believer in medical autonomy, I'm of course always going to encourage those who feel like therapy might help them to try it out. however, we do need to remember that therapy is a medical procedure, and by undergoing it, people want to be told something about their reality that they either can't or won't see.

sometimes, this works out well. it makes sense. the patient and the therapist are in agreement. but the second that you disagree with your therapist... a lot of people find this is where things get nasty. there's an expectation that your therapist knows best, because they're trained in the field -- but no amount of schooling is ever going to be enough to tell someone their reality. if somebody is hands-down insisting that something is the case, you need to believe them. therapists, in my experience and in the experience of many people I've known, aren't too great at that. advocating for yourself, and disgreeing with an insight or a suggestion, quickly gets you labelled as an uncooperative patient -- and you would be surprised at how quickly you start getting treated like you're the problem, and you're not "committed" enough, or you're not "willing to put the work in".

and this is just things that therapists agree are real. what I have going on is something that therapists do not even consider possible, and after all, they're the experts, right! if I went to a therapist about this, I would be called delusional or psychotic at best, and a liar at worst. despite the fact that I am right here, existing -- and despite the existence of many like me -- the psychiatric community is just not ready for that discussion yet. they refuse to believe that it's possible, and instead of conducting research to prove or disprove this hypothesis, they simply refuse to acknowledge it or even entertain the idea at all.

the psychiatric community, as a whole, has no interest in observing reality. there is a huge confirmation bias in the field, and somewhere along the line they have stopped using science as a tool to find out more about their field, and started wielding it as a weapon to silence dissenters and ensure they're always correct and never challenged. while individual therapists can be helpful and decent, the field as a whole is incredibly toxic. any field of science that looks at a possibility and says "this isn't possible because I said so, and no I shall not research because I Know I Am Right", is not a field of science worth existing. according to these people, I don't exist, yet here I am. they would answer this by telling me I'm wrong, and trying to convince me I have a severe mental illness that I just don't realise I have. if anyone else did that under any other circumstances, we'd call that gaslighting.