Langley Mental Health

Waited well over a year to get help with some very serious and frightening mental health issues my gp was unable to solve only to meet over zoom with an unfeeling and unsympathetic psychiatrist who not only was unable to diagnose me - after the clinic promised this is what I'd get - but who told me that group therapy is my only" option to deal with my issues. She did absolutely nothing to provide any further support

it is unfortunate that LMHC is the only point of direct-care access for this region when there is social infrastructure in place for a much more helpful and compassionate system. the info on their website is inaccurate: LMHC is a recommendation hub for folks without family doctors and yet when i came here desperately in need of help i was hassled for not having a referral from my family doctor. i had just moved to the province but furthermore, the website explicitly states this is not required. after stating plainly that i have been suicidal for 36 days straight the receptionist reluctantly gave me a clipboard to write my own self-referral. the psych nurse who did my intake and the case manager i was eventually matched with are both kind, knowledgeable, and professional individuals who listened closely to my needs and did their best to help me how they could. they both have had to express limitations with the mental health system and how it creates barriers to their ability to offer care. i had an appointment with my CM today and i was notified 5 minutes into my appt time that it was cancelled. i was then berated for not having a working voicemail, and my CM knows that the best way to contact me is by email because of this. i have the luxury to have a phone; i know there are clients who are barely surviving and don’t have these things and yet they’d be met with this same hostility. it is sad that vulnerable, mentally ill folks have had to become experts at navigating the system in order to receive basic decency and to be thrown around an entanglement of bureaucracy that is so tedious and ableist it kills many of us in the waiting. i am sad that Fraser Health honestly believes this sad excuse for care is all that we are worth. those of us surviving mental health and addictions struggle every single day to stay alive. we should not have to fight this hard to be treated with basic respect by those who are supposed to be helping us.

Ironic how after visiting a mental health clinic, my mental health has worsened. It took almost a year to even book an appointment through my family doctor. This place has claimed to attempted to contact me but I never received voicemail or anything of the sort so I had to ask my family doctor a second time for another referral months later to actually get booked for an appointment. Even when my appointment was booked and I was finally there, it turns out that I wasn't actually booked because one of the receptionists messed up and didn't actually book me in the system.Don't bother with this place. I was told any help is better than no help for mental health but my experience or should I say the lack of experience I had with this place made me consider otherwise.

Psychiatry within the past 10 years has taken a huge decline. You realize in life what does and doesn't work for you... but to get told you don't know what works for you. That seems like a really degrading thing to tell a patient that has the most experience living with thesmelves. Refusing to medicate someone with what they know works. Very uncomfortable experience. Psychiatry now is like someone giving you milk when you are lactose intolerance and asked for a glass of water. I didn't ask for this, can anybody hear me? Lol

When it comes to reviews I notice that people are often really geared up to come and pour their feelings out when they're unhappy, but the opposite tends to be true when someone is pleased with a result or service. I read the reviews for this place and was having MAJOR anxiety about being referred here. Thankfully my experience was not in line with a lot of these other people. I felt comfortable with the doctor and answered his questions as honestly as I could. He came to the same conclusion that I did. I have adhd and we came up with a plan to properly handle itbefore leaving. He listened when I told him about my families history of over using prescriptions so he opted to not treat my anxiety with a second pill but to work with the prescribed Ritalin over time to adjust the dose as needed and treat my anxiety through helping me properly handle my adhd. I would definitely recommend this place.

Out of all the reviews, one person wrote something positive about this place. Seems odd, doesn't it? I have had a terrible experience with this place too. I was prescribed psychotic meds without diagnosis. Started seeing shadows everywhere. Stopped them and felt better. I was prescribed ADHD meds which helped, but when I shared how the meds made me feel after they wore off, the Dr. laughed at me and shrugged my experience off as if I was wrong. No follow up. No care. You buy the prescription and the Dr. disappears. I feel worse today than I did before seeing this Dr, and no where to turn it seems.

It was a poor system, impatient doctors when recounting sexual trauma, always late, truly havent gotten anywhere with them after years if being re-referred. With covid their help" only gets more disconnected. The system is broken but its hard to travel an hour away when your mental health isnt well at all. I truly wish there was even a bit of improvement of not only the set up but the doctors. I got told to sleep more and less phone time. Once I got a good doctor i was finally diagnosed with PTSD and alot of other issues i clearly had going on. The disappointment in their services is there everytime i reach out to them. If youre looking for fast NEEDED treatment

They almost helped me several times (I've spent many weeks here many times). I was connected with an amazing psychiatrist that was patient, kind, understanding, and knowledgable. Dr. Siminano? Then he suddenly passed away. This was years ago now though.After that I was connected with Dr. Adeamo? Not sure how it's spelled either. She was incredibly cold, distant, disrespectful, and lashed out at me whenever I started to panic or get frustrated. She shamed me for my mental health and I have had trouble feeling safe there ever since.Smokers need to be very, very, very careful when entering this place. You are not allowed to smoke. They will not give you nicotine replacements without a psychiatrist ordering them for you. The staff are far too terrified and stubborn to give you a piece of gum without orders from a psychiatrist. They will force a confrontation over this before giving you one. They will blame you for that even though they know you aren't in your right mind. Ask to see the orders written on paper from a nurse who works in the ward before you enter. They could help a lot more people if they would give out patches and gum. Pretty simple and stupid, but I connected with dozens of people over this who all had a great deal of agitation and anger over it.They will shame you for being difficult or upset. They don't care if you are panicking or angry or sad or worried. The nursing staff is strictly there to fill out paperwork and sit on their iPhones. You will slowly go crazy from boredom if you don't bring books or entertainment for yourself. They will take your things when you get there and use them as leverage against you. Bring lots of stuff. If there 10 things to ask for they are more likely to give you 1 as they will still have control and possession of your other things.If you lose your temper then they will drug you or throw you onto the street. Be quiet. Be complacent. Pretend to be completely mentally sound or they will assume they can treat you however they want. It's terrifying and authoritarian in there. They have good intentions, but are very controlling, stubborn, and irrational because they are exposed to mentally ill people regularly. Find the staff that are competent and haven't been broken yet. There are a few, but most are one and/or the other.They put me out on the street with nowhere to go because I broke a hand sanitizer bottle over not being able to get a nicotine replacement. I was specifically told they were ordered as I'd experienced this before as have every smoker I've met in there. They leverage everything against you, which is really hard if you're going through a mental health crisis.Maybe they won't give up on you if you keep total control and discuss your mental health with them only when you're feeling calm, happy, and safe. Something that's very hard to do in thisbplace. It's not entirely impossible with a lot of inner strength and the support of the other patients.The inside is brown, dated, and honestly disgusting, but you'll get used to it eventually. It's similar to a really nice prison with slightly better food, but still hospital food.I was released onto the street without a coat or pants and I'm going to freeze to death over a sani bottle.Hopefully they don't treat you like a criminal and throw you on the street to die like me.The freezing cold is making me tired so I'm going to sleep for good now. Goodbye everyone. Hopefully they do a better job for you.

Just seek another resource, there's lots out there. Too many words to describe my experience.

When you finally work up the nerve to deal with your childhood trauma as a result of neglect make sure you call these guys so you can hear your problem isn't important to them either. I have complex PTSD and almost stopped my recovery journey entirely between the two times I've interacted with these people. It's pretty rough to hear your problem is simultaneously too deep" for them to handle