The 'Magic Questions', Unasked

What Question or Questions Have You Not Been Asked by Health Professionals & Which You Think Now, If Asked Might Have Changed The Journey?

This is a personal bugbear of mine and I hate the thought that there may be folk in more pain than they need to be in, ‘cos the Right Questions, the guts of it all, have not been asked of them. Its gotta be asked, ‘cos volunteering it is usually not an option, not at first.

These are my Two, my “Oh why didn’t anyone ask me them” conundrums.

I got asked lots of other stuff and I just told ‘Them’ what I thought they wanted to hear, being so clever ‘n all, Hmmmm. Explains some of The Binnings, sigh.

Q1. What is REALLY Wrong?

Q2. What about you do you feel is so Unfixable?

That is, for me. The two biggies. The closest I ever came to telling the truth whilst in 'care' was to an very astute Art Therapist bloke, then employed with Richmond Fellowship, Christchurch. Because he said something from an observation of something I’d not willingly partaken in, but ‘twas more or less obligatory. If he had any idea how close he was to the Magic Questions and if I’d had the balls to speak out, I wonder, ya know?

In the end, I kinda think I’ve more or less, sorted answers out for myself with duly acknowledge gratitude to various shoulders upon which I’ve howled, and the Boxed Tissue Industry etc.

I know we all have to buy into our own recognitions and recovery plans, but sheesh, just being asked those two questions, mighta helped get help. That and the Pills, pffft.

Are there any other Big Questions that should be asked of us?

Paddy.

If anyone had asked me those questions at the 'beginning' - when I first saw a Dr - the answers would have been:

I don't know .... and

I don't know .....

even several months, well many months later, my answers would have been the same.

I'm a slow learner! ..... Really, I didn't have a clue why I felt like I did. I now know I was experiencing severe anxiety and clinical depression.

Daze

My big learning eureka moment was when I heard a psychiatrist say to the client something like "Ah the seduction of Madness" and went on to explain how people, all people should own and take responsibililty for their behaviour.

Instead of saying I was manic at the time or on P at the time its not my fault, take ownership of your own behaviour. Its very liberating.

I have also heard a judge say to an offender with whom I was working, "everything went black?" aye if I had a dollar for everytime I heard that I'd be King Midas.
The notion of not blaming our behaviours on our moods and choosing our thoughts and behaviour was a revelation to me.

Martine wrote:My big learning eureka moment was when I heard a psychiatrist say to the client something like "Ah the seduction of Madness" and went on to explain how people, all people should own and take responsibililty for their behaviour.

Instead of saying I was manic at the time or on P at the time its not my fault, take ownership of your own behaviour. Its very liberating.

I have also heard a judge say to an offender with whom I was working, "everything went black?" aye if I had a dollar for everytime I heard that I'd be King Midas.
The notion of not blaming our behaviours on our moods and choosing our thoughts and behaviour was a revelation to me.

I think I have always been a believer in personal responsibility, but I think it has really hit home for me recently how liberating and powerful this belief is. I think this is what has kept me going all these years. Owning, accepting and learning to deal with our problems is truly liberating. This is what makes us different to animals, our ability to reason with our instincts.

I had a similar revelation recently after reading a post on 4chan, of all places. It was in reply to someone asking for suicide methods and basically went something like this " You are contemplating suicide. Something that takes a lot of courage to do. You are willing to kill your self, removing any possibility to experience life ever again. The way I see it you have an opportunity to do something extraordinary, go bungy jumping or rescue a child out of a burning building, the possibilities are endless. After all what do you have to lose." Obviously i wouldn't take this literally. It does make one think though. It makes everything else pale in comparison. We have survived the worst thing imaginable taking our own lives. Every other problem we have in life really is insignificant in comparison.

Wow Doc Lazy

Thank you for telling about your revelation, its very liberating indeed to take responsibility for our own very own actions and NOT blame depression, Mental Health Services, meds, winz, and your description of should I or shouldn't I is very real.

Thanks again
Martine