I’m in the process of being judged by a doctor and I know the doctor will be judging me for having a mental illness, not to mention my mental illness treatment. This is happening because I just put in an application for a new general practitioner (GP). On the application, I had to write down my medical conditions, medical concerns and all medications being taken. As I looked at it all, I knew it didn’t look good for me. It’s funny that having a serious mental illness makes you appear like a less-than-desirable patient seeing as you’re one of the people who actually need help more. And that’s because of judgment. It’s about a doctor judging you for your mental illness and your treatment. It’s unfair, but it definitely happens.

Why Am I Being Judged by a Doctor?

Unfortunately, where I live, there is a huge shortage of GPs, so many people don’t have one. I lost mine last year when she retired. So now, when a doctor agrees to take on new patients they get their pick of who they want.

Now, to be fair, I don’t actually know what the doctor will be judging me on, but I know the doctor is judging me. The receptionist said she will call me “if I am accepted.”

Do Doctors Judge Based on Mental Illness?

Yup, they sure do. I was really lucky that my last GP treated me like a regular human-type person and not a “crazy” person. This is not always the case, though. Often, as soon as a doctor sees the dreaded “mental illness” on your chart, everything you say is suspect and you must be an addict and drug-seeking. This happens absolutely every day. (For whatever reason, it seems to be worse in emergency rooms.)

But what’s worse, perhaps, is that doctors judge based on mental illness treatments. For example, if you take a benzodiazepine (like lorazepam [Ativan] or alprazolam [Xanax]), which is a completely reasonable treatment for some people, some doctors won’t see you, period. I’ve had two doctors reject me over the years because of my mental illness treatment. What doctors don’t seem to understand is that the more complicated the case, the complicated the treatment, and the more standard “rules” one may break. That’s pretty normal in a hard-to-treat case of serious mental illness like bipolar disorder.

I remember one doctor, years ago, refusing to see me because I took sleep medication every night. She was aggressive and bitchy about it, too. Apparently, if it were up to her, I would just never sleep again. Empathy — some doctors don’t know the meaning of the word.

What Happens When a Doctor Judges You Based on Your Mental Illness

And what these judgy doctors fail to realize is that it makes the patient feel even worse about themselves. It’s hard enough to maintain positive self-worth as a person with a mental illness without being judged for this mental illness by a doctor — one of the people who are supposed to help.

And even worse, patients tend to question their own mental illness treatments in these situations. Now, it’s not necessarily a bad idea to question your treatment. If it isn’t working for you, then, yes, questioning it makes sense. But this questioning should be an in-depth conversation with the prescribing physician, not a snap decision to flush your medications based on a judgment made by a general practitioner about a treatment prescribed by a specialist.

Should a Doctor Judge You on Your Mental Illness Treatment?

I respect a doctor’s right to work with patients with whom they think they can help. I also know that some doctors aren’t comfortable with some treatments and so don’t want to work with patients on those treatments, and maybe even this is okay. But I think the problem comes from how it’s handled and what happens next. For example, if the doctor sits you down and thoughtfully and empathetically explains their reasoning and says that while they don’t work with that treatment, it still may be right for you, that’s one thing. Simply rejecting you, is quite another. If the doctor provides a referral to someone who can help you after admitting they can’t or won’t do it themselves, that’s one thing. Leaving you with no one is quite another.

The thing is, making that responsible choice and actually helping the patient instead of merely judging them and pushing them out a window means the doctor has to do more work and actually admit that different doctors treat people differently. They have to be able to deal with their own fallibility. I don’t find doctors are awfully good with that.

When a Doctor Judges You Because of a Mental Illness

I wrote this to remind myself that being judged by a doctor and then, ultimately rejected, is about him and not me. If a doctor judges me unworthy, then so be it. I suppose he is unworthy of me, too.

The important thing is to make sure it doesn’t impact self-worth and doesn’t change your treatment without a consultation with the prescribing physician.

I get it, my medication load is challenging and no one wants to deal with a “crazy” person, but I fundamentally believe that if a doctor is in the business to help people, if they truly are a healthcare provider, then they will want to help me, regardless. And if not? Fuck ’em. I know what I’m doing. I know what’s right for me. Their judgment isn’t.