Am I being unreasonable to want my doctor to apologise to me?

[tennor]

To cut a long story short my life is falling apart at the moment, I need to sort out work (retrain) and somewhere to live among other things. I’ve been suffering depression and went to the doctor A who referred me to my borough’s psychological services. I spoke to them on the phone and they have made an appointment for me, however they said they were worried about my mental state and asked me to make another appointment at the doctors (I guess for anti depressants). The morning of my appointment I found out that a friend of mine had died. Another Doctor, Doctor B, looked at my letter from Psychological therapies and said “well I don’t know what they expect me to do” she asked me about my mental state too, I replied that I feel stressed and angry. She told me “I know what you’re doing you’re putting this on to bump your way up the housing ladder” – however I am not even on the “housing ladder”. Taken aback by this comment I said I’m stressed out, my friend has died and asked if she could prescribe me some Valium. No she replied, I asked if she would prescribe just 1 pill, she said “I don’t give people like you valium”. I said I think that she is not a nice person and she showed me the door.

I walked out on to the street totally stressed out, muscles cramping. I tried to go home yet found myself walking up and down the road. After about 30 minutes I went back to see Dr B, I knocked on her door, she opened it and said she was busy, I said ok i will wait. She then walked past me and around the corner and that was the last time a saw her. Two minutes later the receptionist came around and asked me to leave, I told her I just want to see Dr B to get some Valium, she told me the doctor doesn’t want to see you and this surgery doesn’t prescribe Valium. She said If I had a problem, write a complaint.

I went back outside pacing up and down and decided I would write a complaint letter, I went home and wrote the letter which included the facebook address of my dead friend and my post to him which I had left that morning before going to the doctors. I went back to the doctors with my letter, I wanted her to go on line and look at it so she could see that I was not making this up.

I was asked to wait in reception and she would see me, 20 minutes later the police walked in and told me that she has made a complaint about me being aggressive and that she is not going to see me. The police had the new video and audio cameras recording everything that went on, I have to say they were the nicest police I have ever met, If they didn’t have the video cameras I would have certainly have been arrested. I told them im not leaving so arrest me but they defused the situation and I left peacefully with an appointment to see a different doctor.
However I am still angry at the way Dr B treated me, and her outright lie to the police about me being aggressive. I asked the receptionist if she had ever seen me be aggressive and she replied no.
i want to add that I have never had valium prescribed to me before or any other drug for that matter from my doctors and that I hardly ever visit the doctor. i want to book an appointment with her so she can read my compliant letter and visit my dead friends facebook page and apologise to me. Am I being unreasonable to the cow?

I hope you've had a restful night and that you quickly get the help you need.
But apart from the housing ladder comment, I can't see that GP B acted in any other way than professional.

Ywbu. No matter how you feel you can't behave in such a threatening way towards anyone.

The doctor understandably didn't want to prescribe Valium. Instead of asking if there was anything else he could prescribe you chose to repeatedly carry on returning.

The op does mention needing somewhere to live in her first couple of lines, maybe she can confirm if housing was something that was mentioned during the appointment?

I think that your behaviour will have been seen by everyone as terribly aggressive.

That your behaviour is the result of your MH condition will have been apparent to the staff, but they were entitled to ask you to leave. A GP's office is generally not equipped to deal with people who are being aggressive.

The fact that you appear to have very little insight is telling.

The issue you need to concern yourself with is not getting an apology (which I don't think is merited anyway) but perhaps accessing a crisis team.

Just let it go. It may have been just a guess on her part because I bet a lot of her patients with mental problems probably come back time and again, asking her to help them with housing problems etc etc. Since this 'care in the community' malarky, there are so many people out there who don't cope and refuse to take their medication. The doctors deal with these people day in and day out. Do you really honestly think a doctor has time to read your letter, over everyone else who has a mental problem or a dislocated hip???

Doctors do not have the time. Please accept this and move on, you are becoming obsessed.

How do you know valium will be good for you. That is the doctors decision which is why they are a doctor and you are not.

Deathraystare

I'm terribly sorry but if the letter in her notes contains information which is invaluable it needs to be read. Not having the time is no excuse I'm afraid. There is an allocated time for each appointment (our emergency/ walk in one is 10 minutes) can you honestly tell me there isn't enough time to read a letter of such importance in this time.

Tennor I'm sorry for your loss. It sounds like you are having a really difficult time at the moment, I can see why you did what you did but I think that maybe you are lacking a bit of perspective at tge moment which is completly understandable under the circumstances.

Is there an a+e for psychological problems near you? I don't live in the UK but here we have an a+e dedicated to psychological problems which can really help if you find yourself struggling to cope and it's an emergency situation which it sounds like your situation is.

I think you need to see someone who specialises in mh issues, I can see the situation from the Dr's point of view too, some of the Dr's actions do sound inappropriate when faced with a patient in your situation.

I hope you have support today and yiu can see a Dr who can help you.

Please just go - yes if it is important but basically she is just going to go on about how she is not on the housing list, blah blah and is getting a bit obsessive about that. She may well bring anger issues with her and the doctor needs protection from that. Maybe she can be seen on an 'emergency basis' at the nearest hospital which has a psychiatric unit. We used to get people turning up all the time who realised they were getting worse and got seen 'on the spot'. I don't mean right away but t some time that day.

Oh I missed the part about her going about getting on the housing list. I understood it that the doctor assumed this.

I read the part about the letter saying she was a danger to herself and the community, that alone should have called for immediate intervention of some sort of psychiatric services as far as I'm concerned.

Please let it go- No no! I did not mean she would go on about wanting to be on the housing list. I meant there would have to be a long overheated convo between Dr and herself where Dr would have to apologise for saying that, after a very angry, not quite herself woman had told her life story and the fact that she is not applying for housing etc etc. Even if it did all get sorted I don't think they woud want that patient back as it may be brought up again and again.

I do think a properly trained Dr/Consultant of a psychiatric unit would be able to deal with this problem rather than a GP with a room full of children, the elderly etc etc. It is not very nice when someone kicks off. I am not saying that it will happen but obviously the practice has to protect it's other patients.

I am sympathetic to the OP (that was a shitty thing for the Dr to say, but as I said upthred, they probably get this a lot) but the state she is in at the moment, she would not be capable of calmly stating her piece.

Community care malarkey . What an utterly narrow minded comment.

The comment about getting on the housing ladder was probably unwarranted, but you mention having nowhere to live and some people do exaggerate mental health problems to get moved up the housing ladder. If you need to sort out somewhere to live she maybe assumed you had already contacted housing.
Demanding valium and repeatedly going back and being menacing was unwise and threatening. You say you haven't had a script for valium before but have got other people to get it for you which is illegal.
A single valium tablet isn't going to sort out you getting a job, house and feeling calmer.
I suspect you'll be removed from that surgery's list.
I hope you manage to build a better relationship with your next GP. There are antidepressants with sedative effects that may help, although as you say you have been suffering from depression I presume a doctor has diagnosed you with depression and started you on antidepressants already so maybe a change of tablet will help. No tablet helps with acute grief when someone has died. feeling sad is normal then.

I don't know how it works where you are OP but my husband has a mental health illness and very recently he was at breaking point.

I got him an appointment with the out of hours GP and they instantly referred him to the Crisis Team. The Crisis team have been in and out for a few days now and managed to get him an appointment with a top doctor. Sadly, he only gets to see one when he is at breaking point because they changed the system and it sucks, so it is between me and him to work out when he needs emergency help. It would be much kinder for us all to have a professional ward that off in the first place though.

I would ask a GP (not that one) for a referral to the Crisis team if you have one in your area. I have nothing but good to say about them. My husband is well known to them so he gets to see them a bit easier than most.

I am very concerned about you and urge you to seek help today.

I also think you should try posting on the MH board. Your actions were not great but if you are really ill which is sounds like you are then you deserve sympathy not judgment. God knows my husband does things completely out of character when he is unwell that makes perfect sense to him at the time. It's just a symptom of being unwell and on AIBU you will get people who will see no further than your OP and simply judge you on that. No one should call your actions fucking disgraceful, of course you shouldn't have plastered the GP's name here but it is obvious that you are unwell and not thinking straight. You need help, not judgment on your actions right now.

The GP let you down. I understand they were probably scared but come on, if the MH team thinks you are a danger to yourself or others they should have called the crisis team on your behalf and got you urgent help, even if that was after you got home.

Just to clarify.

I understand them calling the police, I don't think they were wrong at all for doing that. What is wrong is them simply leaving you to it afterwards :( The police and GP should have called the crisis team once you were calmed or out of the premises.

But you behaviour sounds odd and scary

I'm surprised to hear a GP use those words describe something that sounds very much like a mental health crisis.

Yes U2. The op shouldn't have been left to it, although calling the police was probably appropriate.

PacificDogwood - yes im totally convinced the only reason the police were nice to me is because of the video/audio devices. i think if all police wear them then we will see a huge reduction in petty arrests that the police know will get dropped by the CPS.
when the police asked me leave i said "im not leaving, arrest me" i stuck with this for ten minutes or so but they we so nice that i ended up doing exactly what they wanted, its a shame my doctor wasn't as nice.

But the whole calling the police could have been so easily averted had the GP taken an appropriate approach in the first place.

That so simply could have gone something like this...

oh you have housing difficulties, have you contacted the local or national charity service what ever that could give you some advice and info. With regard to your request I don't feel that would be the best treatment option for you just now. However having read the psychological services recent email to me it is clear that you do require some expert support. Therefore I shall contact the crisis team or make an urgent or non-urgent referral for a mental health assessment which ever the GP thought was most appropriate. I understand this is a difficult time for you but let's get you the best support and treatment you require, carry on with the talking therapy and I'll get this referral made. Or I feel you need immediate support therefore I will call the crisis team/ hospital at home team for immediate help.

I would imagine the police also don't want to take a psychologically unstable person into custody unless it is absolutely neccesery. Maybe they were just nice police and they saw that it was for your best to just go home without a fuss.

OP, do you have a friend who can advocate for you? Perhaps you could get in touch with MIND? You sound in a lot of distress.

My GP was brilliant when I went to see her with suicidal thoughts. The team she referred me to said exactly what OP reports "what do you expect us to do?" Because I was dressed and articulate they thought I was bullshitting. So I have some sympathy with OP here.

Canthisonebeused that's a nice theoretical conversation, and I'm sure would be most people's approach.

But we only have the OP's account of what happened in the surgery, and that was alarming enough (although the OP seems unable to see this).

If the OP was in fact so aggresive that the GP felt threatened enough to disappear, you can see how a conversation like the one you propose would never have left the ground.

The GP probably hoped the OP would be taken to a place of safety.

I think the fact that the OP focussed on valium so much made her come across as a drug seeker to the GP. Seeing the GP she'd seen before when she'd been diagnosed with depression may have been more helpful and asking to talk to someone rather than have valium.
There isn't anything that instantly makes situations like this better though and the GP is limited in what she can do to change around someone's life in 10 minutes.
The psychologist was passing the butt a bit by not arranging to see her themselves if they felt she needed urgent help. They have much longer appointments than GPs and the GP had already referred her to them.

But the GP was so ineffectual in offering up any kind of support, compassion or referral. regardless of OPs behaviour why did the GP not take the action she should have and contacted the appropriate expert mental health services.

I have been in similar situations as the GP and no action is not an option I'm afraid. The GP did not have to engage with OP if she felt threatened or was not confident in communicating effectively. However the GP should have acted on the email and how the OP was presenting but failed to do so. She walked off and washed her hands of the situation and massively let down a vulnerable person who was reaching out for help.

That theoretical conversation is the bases of what should have happened end of. Even if GP was unable to effectively voice those actions that is what should have occurred a referral wether immediate or not should have occurred.

“well I don’t know what they expect me to do”
“I know what you’re doing you’re putting this on to bump your way up the housing ladder”
“I don’t give people like you valium”
Jeez Tennor, I'm not surprised you're angry The GP's comments would've peed me right off too, and I think she was the catalyst to how you later behaved. If she'd treated you as the vulnerable person seeking her help as she should've this wouldn't have escalated. You were asked to see the GP, so it's not your fault it was wrong according her. Then she assumed you were trying to cheat the system (even if she though this she was wrong to accuse you). As for the "people like you" comment, how rude!

There are great GPs out there and there are some awful, unempathic ones; you unfortunately just met one of the latter, who really should stick to patients with purely physical problems as she doesn't appear to have the right temperament for MH issues.

Many years ago I went to the GP as I'd been feeling really angry and down for a while and needed advice/help on how to deal with it. I told her how I was feeling and she said (and I kid you not)..."everyone gets down, you just need to pull yourself together". I get irked every time I think of that and I was no-where near as ill as Tennor. I'd plucked up all my courage to see her and that's the crap I got. Inwardly I was fuming but kept it hidden; I wonder if she won't be so lucky with the next MH patient she is dismissive of.

I hope you get all the help you need Tennor. Look after yourself first then when you feel better consider writing a formal complaint about the GP. She might benefit from some MH training.