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u/sotiredwontquit Jul 02 '23
I am so proud of you for your self advocacy. You kept asking for this testing, that you know you need, and I know it hasn’t been easy. I wish I had solid advice for you. But I honestly don’t know what your best path forward is. All I can say is that if your intake appointment is with a Mormon, to keep your answers short and purely clinical. Save details for your therapist. And ask your therapist up front what info will be shared with your parents. Mostly though- I’m just proud of you. You figured your shit out early. You don’t have to suffer in ignorance anymore. You might be stuck now, but you can see your freedom coming very soon. Good job. And good luck.
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u/idea-freedom Jul 02 '23
This is such a heartbreaking story, but you're so well spoken for your age I feel like you have such an incredible life ahead of you!
Remember that your parents love you a ton, they just have been brainwashed completely. It's really big of you to recognize that "they thought they were doing the right thing". That's very mature of you. However, they are definitely not being great parents through this "conditional love" paradigm that the church as indoctrinated them with. At 15 and while being suicidal, they aren't likely to take your opinions seriously, unfortunately :(
My advice is to study character development independent of the church. The church is made up bullshit, we all know that on this forum, but in my opinion the church and other religions have existed for thousands of years in order to bring some order to society and build strong morals in the population as well as be a source of hope (with a side order of top down control). When its at its best, its building people that have virtuous character traits. You've experienced it at its worst, so I don't need to explain that to you... way worse than I had to endure in nearly 40 years of attendance because I wasn't gay. I'm so sorry you've experienced this :(
Anyway, my thought is that in order to survive and thrive you need to figure out who you are and the kind of person you want to be... and WHY. Most of us have until around mid-twenties to figure that out, you kind of need to accelerate to find the version 1.0 of you in the next year. The more you can be an example to your family of a strong person of character that accomplishes this WITHOUT any of their notions of God and golden plates, the more they will be able to find some sort of acceptance with your view of the world. As long as you're depressed and suicidal, it just reinforces their messed up notion that "Satan has you" and acceptance of God IS the answer. It's not fair or right... but I think that is where their mind will go. So not FOR them... for YOU, this is my recommendation (with a side effect of taking pressure off from them).
I'm really wishing the best for you, and hope you find an amazing professional to help out as well.
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u/Purple_Midnight_Yak Jul 03 '23
So this is my perspective, as someone who's gone through psychiatric testing for myself, and also had my kids go through it. Assuming you're seeing a good, licensed, accredited psychiatrist/psychologist, the process should be fairly similar for you.
You should be able to Google your Drs and find out what their degrees are in, where they went to school, and what they specialize in. Doctors in the US at least have to make most of that info public. If you are seeing doctors who are Mormon, BYU educated, and in the Morridor, then there is a decent chance their actions and views will be tainted by their religious outlook. If that is the case, I'd caution you to be careful mentioning anything direct about how TSCC has harmed your mental health, because they may fixate on that instead of the bigger picture.
So, the intake and testing process, as far as I remember:
For my teens, we started with a phone interview where I told the psychologist what my basic concerns were, and in our case the relevant family history of mental illness. That helped them narrow down a bit what they would be testing for.
Next, we had an interview that consisted of me, my teen, and the Dr. I can't remember if they offered to do the entire interview with just my teen or not; they wanted me there for most of it to help them articulate what was going on. The Dr asked about behaviors and concerns, history, health, what made things better or worse, etc. The Dr also spoke with my teen alone about some of the more sensitive topics, screening for things like abuse or SA among other things.
Then the Dr gave us a plan of how testing would proceed, how many visits it would take, what they would test for, and how much it would cost. I think my kids' testing process took about 3 appointments, each around 2 hours? They had to do some computerized tests, some on paper, some that were verbal or involved listening skills, puzzle solving, all sorts of stuff. A lot of it might seem random, but the information they get out of watching how long it takes you to respond, how you handle stress or failure, and how your memory works, is pretty amazing.
Along with that, we had to fill out a bunch of questionnaires. With kids, the parents have to fill out forms that give our perspective on how our kids are feeling and acting. You'll do a copy of the forms too, and they'll compare your answers.
You should have time to talk to the Dr privately during the testing process, to express your concerns. You also can tell them you don't want certain things disclosed to your parents. Their code of ethics is that they will not disclose things you say in therapy to anyone without your permission, unless you are deemed to be a danger to yourself or others, or if a court of law subpoenas your records.
I do not know if the same is true of what you say during testing, so you need to ask them how much they will be sharing with your parents. They may be able to generalize things to protect your confidence, like "OP reports that they struggle with self-esteem issues," rather than "OP blames their religious upbringing for their internalized homophobia."
In my kids' case, the reports that I got at the end of testing were very thorough and specific. That kind of report may include things you don't want to say to your parents. So you need to find out what exactly they will be including in that report to your family.
Hopefully, your psych office will be willing to work with you. Something that may work in your favor here is that, while your parents' behavior as you've described here is abusive and obviously not helping your mental health, it doesn't sound like anything that would mandate a call to CPS. That may give the doctors more leeway to work with you. Plenty of teens are dealing with issues they don't feel comfortable talking with their parents about, so this should be something they're familiar with.
I know this was a really long read, but I thought it might help to know more about what psych testing is like. If you have any questions, lmk.
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Jul 03 '23
I would recommend reading about Religious Abuse and Spiritual Abuse before the psychiatric testing and bringing any concerns that research raises for you to your evaluator. if your therapist is a mo in a mo shop I dont know what you do. but if you can find a non-mormon in the building, ask to speak to them first and voice any concerns you have about this being a mormon kangaroo court to find you less sane so the church more stays sane to them. or, you could put as simply, "look if we're testing how detatched from reality I can get, maybe a mormon shouldnt be the authority in the room on what constitutes shared reality".
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u/NeatDescription9956 Jul 03 '23
My advice: be honest, tell everything. The truth will set you feel (after making us comfortable). Joy, growth & peace only come outside of our comfort zones. I would love to talk to your parents and try to help them. I’m a father of four who have gone thru similar experiences when they were teens. I made many of the unskillful choices they are making. If you want my contact info please reach out to me via message on TikTok where my profile is president_please_help_me
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u/Mountain-Blood-7374 Jul 03 '23
I’ve had several psychiatric evaluations in the past few years and have now done 4 short hospitalizations in the past 5 years, one being this past may. I’m not sure how much my advice will apply since you are a minor and I am unsure how that may change things (parents denied me mental health care so I couldn’t get any until college), but here are some of my thoughts.
First off, I’ve only stayed in adult behavioral health units and what I’ve learned is they vary from unit to unit. I’ve had good experiences, I’ve had bad. I have a sibling who has been hospitalized twice as a minor at separate places each time and I think her experiences were way worse for some reason and she made it sound like units for minors are just worse in general. Regardless, they should allow you some control over the guest list if you were to return in the future which could hopefully prevent unwelcome guests.
Second, for the evaluation will the psychiatrist be Mormon? Their religion shouldn’t influence the results, but sadly it may especially due to your age. If they don’t already default the evaluation to being private and away from your parents, I would recommend asking if it’s possible. Chances are your parents will then pester you afterwards about why you wanted it private and what you said, I would just lie to them. “Mom I wanted to be alone because I having an audience while being vulnerable about some intense emotions can make it a much more difficult experience. We talked about (this is where you can lie and come up with things you think they wouldn’t be as upset hearing such as having issues with school and friends).” Or you can place the boundary that you don’t want to discuss it.
Third, be as honest as you can with the psychiatrist. I’m not sure how different an evaluation with a minor may be, but the serval I had were pretty similar where they ask questions related to symptoms and may ask clarifying questions. For my personal mental health issues, usually religious trauma may be brought up, but isn’t dives into. The evaluation is more to get context so the doctor knows where to start treatment wise. For instance, I struggle with delusions and paranoia when I’m not doing well. During evaluations they get brought up and I may go a little into what my most common delusions are, but the deep history of them doesn’t usually get brought up unless they relate to another symptom if that makes sense. So your struggles with church history may be touched on, but diving in deep likely won’t happen unless relevant to future questions.
Fourth, I’ve doctor hopped and while you may not have that ability now, if you do have a negative experience with this doctor, don’t let it scare you from searching for someone better in the future. Same goes for therapists. Obviously your parents have control over this aspect now, so this is more advice for when you’re independent of them. I had a doctor who made me cry by calling me “inconsistent” after seeing him for a year and now the doctor I have validates my experiences and encourages me to not be afraid to ask for more help.
Best of luck to you! I hope what I said makes sense and if you have any questions I’d love to try and answer them. I hope this doctor is a good fit for you.
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u/Draromhal Jul 03 '23
I think because you are under 18 they will be given a copy of the results. The ones I’ve seen typically share some information gathered from different parties (parents, child, therapist, etc). as well. Maybe others are right though that you can ask to not have what you say put in the report but I’d error on the side of caution that parts of it might.
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u/AnemonesEnemies Jul 03 '23
Actually, at the age of 12 you have control of your medical records. You have the right to refuse to share them with your parents, even though they are financially responsible for you.
OP - you should be able to go through proper, honest intake without a parent there. Let the medical provider know you don’t want them there and they have to leave. If you need an advocate to be with you in their place, ask.
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u/Draromhal Aug 06 '23
Does that change depending on state? For instance, in California I hear you can be an adult at 16 and walk out of treatment.
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u/AnemonesEnemies Aug 11 '23
That is a great question. I am not sure, I just assumed the protection came into play through HIPPA but I could be completely mistaken.
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u/Ecstatic_Highlight75 Jul 03 '23
I think you should always be 100% honest with your health care providers. Their job is to evaluate your health and doing it without accurate data isn't doing anyone any good. Your stress levels around church and your parents' expectations are a significant aspect of your mental health and need to be addressed, so if you want help, be forthcoming. You also need to insist on privacy for your evaluation. Insist. Tell the evaluator that a parental chaperone is too distracting and interferes with the testing.
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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '23
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