Mental Illness Is Not a Moral Failure
↑ This is Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, where I received the most intense and inappropriate medical gaslighting.
It is important to view mental illness as something serious and to approach patients with grace and understanding rather than punishing them.
Punishing someone is not the same as treatment. Symptoms of mental illness, such as suicidal thoughts or urges, require treatment and immediate assistance. Using threats is contrary to treatment.
Are you blaming the person who committed suicide for causing others to take their own lives? It is important for us to understand that symptoms of mental illness, such as suicide, are also the result of systemic failure.
There is a true story where a patient had repeatedly asked a doctor for help. However, because the doctor assumed they knew better and looked down on the patient's opinion, the patient who was experiencing akathisia took their own life.
↑ A recent post (I reposted to the Fediverse) by @publichealthmalaysia@threads.com themselves intervening by cooling down netizens' heat and speculation.
Translation: “Threads users (or netizens), keep your views to yourselves for now. Some are fighting for their lives and we should be praying for their safety and recovery.”
PHM posted to condemn online blame of a human being in ICU, whose life is at risk. They faced mental health crises, alleged betrayal, and social judgment. PHM urges compassion over criticism, emphasising her humanity and the need for support, not blame.
I Can Relate To These Very Much
It is very relatable to my situation of two years of experiencing akathisia and its intermittent symptoms.
I even received medical gaslighting for seeking a second opinion at the emergency room. The professionals there tried to dismiss my concerns by claiming it wasn't an emergency, and a psychiatrist attempted to find my mistakes or interrogate me as if I were wrong for skipping classes because I'm struggling with akathisia.
And because of akathisia, I expressed many times consistently that I felt suicidal, only for platforms to censor my posts, tell me to seek emergency care, and a so-called friend (perhaps more like a spy) betrayed me and spread my confidential chat messages to others, twisted the narrative, and degraded me online.
Other people also had a bad perception of me because of that one betrayer, leading me to think or falsely claim that I am only a drama.
And people who take advantage of me need monetary help, implying that I badly used my mental illness to gain money, and that psychiatrist in the emergency room seemed not to take my financial distress seriously.
In their medical document about me, it was noted that I skipped classes (not mentioning my akathisia struggles) and blamed my financial constraints for it.
This is highly inappropriate and dehumanising.
Maybe the psychiatrist in the emergency room receives a salary every month, is able to pay PTPTN loans daily, eats fancy meals, and has the ability to choose what to eat, and works in air-conditioned rooms every day.
That’s why they lack empathy and display grandiosity. Oh, plus, perhaps it’s because they are graduates and know everything in medicine.
They're protecting themselves from accountability (or maybe what they claim: liability). The psychiatric clinic I am under lifelong treatment at seemed to lack effort or to be actively trying to curate communication with me to cover for the psychiatrist in the emergency room of another hospital's mistakes.
It's simple. I needed the responsible doctor's details to talk to the proxy they told me to interact with. Maybe censorship, I guess. But they rejected my needs and, instead, told me many times to interact with their proxy, possibly to control the narratives.
This essay, I think, makes you want to know more about it. Let me know if you need to know more.
Punishment, blame, and silencing are not treatment. Mental illness requires care, accountability, and systemic responsibility—not threats or dehumanisation.