Mining Mental Illness

A couple of days ago a man pulled a gun on his psychiatrist at an office building in Seattle's Lower Queen Anne district. Then he crossed town and jumped to his death from the West Seattle Bridge. I missed the local papers' account of it and learned about it instead Oct. 4 at Furious Seasons.

I wasn't surprised by it at all. Seattle has had a high suicide rate as far back as I can remember, at least since the 60s. Jumping off bridges is one of the more effective methods.

Then I found out which building it was that the confrontation with the psychiatrist occurred, and I recognized it. The address is 200 W. Mercer St. That building is very familiar to me.

When I needed state aid for disability due to mental illness in 1988 and 1998, and subsequently whenever the state wanted to confirm that I was still disabled, I was sent to psychiatrists for evaluations to determine the nature and degree of my disability.

I was always sent to 200 W. Mercer St.

In 1988, the interview was 40 minutes and I was approved for benefits. But I found out later that the diagnosis, out of that 40 minutes, was way off. I was diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder, apparently just because when I was asked if I had any close friends I said, "No." Well, I'd just been homeless. He never gave me a chance to talk about that.

I thought that was pretty cheesy. But the 3 times I was sent to 200 W. Mercer St. from 1998 onward showed how much worse it could be. Each of those times I was seen for only 20 minutes. I noticed that I was meeting these guys as other "clients" were on their way out.

Evidently the psychiatrists I saw were seeing people on an assembly-line schedule. 20 minutes for each, with little time between visits. They were probably all evaluations for the Department of Social and Health Services.

In 20 minutes, there's no time to tell a psychiatrist your background. You just have time to tell them your name, age, and weight, what drugs you're taking and not taking, and to give a rough description of your symptoms.

Not one of them was able to diagnose PTSD. In all my dealings with DSHS the diagnosis has been either borderline personality disorder or schizoid personality disorder, neither of which even remotely applies to me.

Those diagnoses weren't accurate for the simple reason that they were made too hastily. They were made hastily because the psychiatrists at that building who were doing evaluations for DSHS figured they could make the most money by cutting corners and dealing with DSHS referrals on an assembly-line basis.

Given my own experiences with the psychiatrists who work out of 200 W. Mercer St., I can't help but think it likely that the man who pulled the gun on one of them and then killed himself may have had cause.