Whenever I speak at colleges or hospitals to future psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, I stress the importance of listening to patients and patients' loved ones. I am able to emphasize this point to the students by giving four examples from my own family.
My Grandmother
My Grandmother (on my father's side) was in more than one psychiatric facility in her lifetime. When she started expressing suicidal thoughts to my mother and father, they told the psychiatrist of the facility. He dismissed them saying my grandmother had never told him anything like that.
My grandmother continued telling my parents of these thoughts during subsequent visits. They were understandably more concerned. This time the psychiatrist assured them that there was nothing to worry about because he himself had asked my grandmother if she would ever take her own life, and she said no. If only the psychiatrist had listened to my parents' concerns and taken them more seriously, perhaps my grandmother wouldn't have commit suicide.
My Father
My father was an alcoholic and whenever he would be hospitalized, whether for cirrhosis of the liver, or when he fell on the train tracks, alcoholism was the one and only diagnosis. If only he would stop drinking, the doctors would always say, then everything would be alright. Well, after 30 years, my father did stop drinking, but everything wasn't alright. Although my father was now able to function and work for the first time in decades, he never seemed to be happy, not even with his new career or when seeing his grandchildren.
A few years later he was diagnosed with terminal neck, throat and jaw cancer from years of smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. It was only at this point that a doctor mentioned to me or anyone for the first time that my father had probably been suffering from depression, and that this was probably the main reason he drank. If only the doctors had listened whenever my father told them about his mother's suicide and that he never felt happy. Perhaps he could have gotten the proper treatment to prevent his self-destructive behavior.
Me
One day, when I was 20 years old, I just couldn't get out of bed. At first I wasn't very concerned and thought I was just overdoing it and needed a well-deserved rest. But when it came to the 4th day of not being able to rise and suicidal thoughts occurring, I knew I was in trouble. Nothing like this had ever happened to me.
That very night I checked into a psychiatric ward and ended up staying just over two weeks. During my stay, I saw three therapists and a psychiatrist two or three times. Even though I told each and every one of them the complete history of my grandmother and my father, not once was I told that my feelings could be genetic and/or chemical/biological in nature. They all convinced me that everything had to do with how I looked at things; if only I would change my "thought patterns" then everything would be just fine. When I left the hospital I was only given a five-day supply of medication and no refill prescriptions or referrals to a psychiatrist. When my depression lifted a few weeks later, I was convinced that "thinking correctly" was the key.
Five years later, I went through another very similar depression. For weeks and weeks I blamed myself for not being able to think myself out of it. Only then did a psychiatrist inform me about the genetic and physical nature of my depression. If the three therapists and the psychiatrist I had seen five years earlier had only listened to me more closely, perhaps I would have received the proper medical treatment and not had the recurrent depression or wasted valuable time and energy blaming myself.
My Son
Although my son was born with mental retardation and autism, he was always an extremely happy child. All this changed dramatically when he was about seven. Without warning, one day he started to laugh hysterically followed by hysterical crying for no reason at all. This escalated into violent acts against himself and others. Also, he started sleeping just two hours per night, if that much.
Since there is a history of depression and bipolar disorder on my side of the family, we went to the doctor with our concerns. The first two doctors were adamant that Little Kurt's new found "behaviors" were all due solely to his developmental disability and they refused to try antidepressants or antipsychotics.
Kurt's violence exacerbated to the point where we had to take him numerous times to the children's psychiatric emergency room. It was only at this point that he was diagnosed properly and given medication.
On the right mood stabilizer and antipsychotics for over 10 years now, he has not had a single violent episode close to the magnitude that he experienced when seven. If only one of the first two psychiatrists had listened when we told them of my family's three generations of mental illness and the possibility of a dual diagnosis, my son could have been saved many months of agony.
To sum up, I must again stress to doctors and therapists the utmost importance of carefully listening to their patients and patients' family members. A little extra attention to detail can save people a lot of pain and suffering.