I personally would love psychiatrists to be able to discuss suicide with patients in a way that makes them feel safe and places least restrictive (ideally non-restrictive) interventions in priority status. https://twitter.com/drjanaway/status/1294603337409732608

I would like for us to be supported, rather than dealt with, even when we’re difficult.

I would like interactions with psychiatrists to be collaborative and focused on our agency and ability to make decisions. Teach people who have never been through the system to advocate for themselves.

If a diagnosis is being made, tell them what it is and why, and ask if that feels accurate. If medication is an option (and obvs it generally is when dealing with a psychiatrist), walk us through our options, pros and cons of each, how they affect quality of life.

Education on how medications may interact with each other. Validation around our choice to take meds and how best to communicate if we feel we need to stop a med.

I would love more care around making dx. I was given a bipolar II dx at 21, and learned at 32 that it was wrong. Instead, I’m dealing more with anxiety and ADD. How could my life have been different if we’d caught this earlier? Would I have suffered so much that I wanted to die?

Why did I have to be the one to figure out what I was dealing with, take it to my team, and break it down? How were they missing things?

How do we teach psychiatrists to better interview patients and follow leads? To correct course when things seem off without doing harm?