A ME patient reports how she was treated by Prof. Michael Sharpe

[Countrygirl]

I have withheld the patient's name which was given.

I had the misfortune of being treated by Michael Sharpe with CBT and GET for nearly a year in 1990/1991. He started off by telling me I was a model patient and would be well in 3 months. During treatment he did various questionnaires with me to 'prove' his theories, and when the results didn't fit his ideas he dismissed the results and said they weren't very reliable questionnaires anyway.

After 9 months I was so much worse that my horrified GP demanded that he admit me to hospital. I was an in patient for a week. He and his colleagues visited occasionally to tell me off for not getting better. They accused me of subconsciously wanting to stay ill because they said I was afraid of having to return to university if I got well and then not getting a First (a First I had never been aiming or hoping for but they refused to believe that).

They said I obviously wasn't trying hard enough and owed it to them to do better and get well as they had invested a lot of time in me. His final comment to me as he left before I was discharged (by then suicidal, for the first time in my life, as well as physically iller than I had ever been, after all they had done and said to me) was 'We will be proved right, our careers depend on it'. The signs were all there in 1991 but there was no way of stopping him.

 

[lafarfelue]

 

[Diwi9]

There have been many patient communities that have come before us, but it is incredibly disheartening to see that not only are human rights still abused by psychiatry...but funded and supported. I know a biomarker will defend us in the end, but it's terrible that it should come to that. Many diseases, as I've learned, do not have biomarkers...our sort of loss of function just isn't the sort of "evidence" that garners sympathy or pique medical curiosity. I realize that biological evidence is available now, just not readily or financially accessible to patients, nor are most doctors informed well enough to refer for the tests.

But, this patient...gives testament to the ego behind the current BPS regime. How many patients have unnecessarily suffered for decades because of this? How many lives have been taken? I wish the public cared now, but am afraid compassion will only come when we are "proved" right by a biomarker, because patients certainly can't be believed when the professionals describe us a malingerers of sort.

 

[lilpink]

It seems the crack in dam has widened to a considerable fissure. This together with Emma Reinhold's and 'Robin's' tweets illustrate that when one person talks it paves the way for others to do so too. The description of the treatment at the head of this thread is no surprise to anyone with ME but these things have been hidden for so long. Thank goodness light is now shining on them.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1014448075765452800

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1013701735301419008

 

[Kes]

I feel really sorry for all the people who have been treated so shamefully and scandalously. Unfortunately the blind arrogance of some psychiatrists and doctors makes them impervious to what's right in front of them. If anyone needs a psychiatrist they do. I doubt many of them can bare to read the critiques of their work and the testimonies of the many who have been severely harmed by what they continue to push. They feel they have to just double down I suspect. Their careers are at stake. I'd have great respect for those who could see the damage they'd done and be truly sorry for it. That would take a lot of humility. It would cost them a lot but they would be free, free in a way they've never been before. You can't put a price on that. If any of you guys happen to read this, I encourage you. Do the right thing. Step into the light. You'll be much happier.

 

[lilpink]

I hear this has been shared from a private FB post without permission? If this is so it should be removed now. This is a public forum.