Trusted?

I guess I should be glad I saw the locum doctor. This supremely disinterested man who hadn’t bothered to read my notes before seeing me, even though I’d given the receptionist a detailed description of what I needed to discuss. If it wasn’t for him desperately trying to play catch up he might not have blurted out the wrongful diagnosis recorded on his screen.

I say wrongful (mainly because it doesn’t fit with my experience) but it might be what the Community Mental Health Team believe is wrong with me. Which perhaps would be fine if they had bothered to discuss it with me. Except they didn’t. Ever. The letter the locum quoted from was written a year ago.

I asked the doctor to print me a copy of it which to his credit he instantly did. On this letter they spelt my name incorrectly and later on referred to the psychiatrist being willing to see “David” again as necessary. Now I appreciate my middle name is David but bearing in mind the mess with my first name I think it unlikely they were covering all the bases.

I don’t want to go in the specifics of the purported diagnosis. It’s in the personality disorder spectrum and it’s fair to say that if it’s right I should more properly be being treated by the well known local hospital of Broadmoor rather than trying to re-access the secondary care functions of my local trust. However what it raises is the spectre of me explaining to a doctor that it’s incorrect and them seeing that disagreement with the diagnosis as a manifestation of the disorder, that I’m trying to manipulate their thinking. More rationally I know it could be a cut and paste mistake, after all, who is this David chap referred to in my letter? Either way it’s distressing and confusing.

At the root of this all is one word – trust. To quote the number one definition at dictionary.com “reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence“. So at a time when I can’t trust my own mind, the very people entrusted to look after me, so much so that their organisation is called a “Foundation Trust” have either confused several patient records, wrongly diagnosed me, or correctly diagnosed me and failed to treat me appropriately. It brings to mind the old mental health joke – “Just because you’re paranoid and delusional, doesn’t mean the government isn’t out to get you”.