My Journey To Normality (Part 2)

1/4/19

I'm finally back home after being discharged... That's not an April fools joke. They really did discharge the suicidal person who ended up on life support a week ago after an overdose. Even better is they let me go home with no support. After telling them the reason for the overdose was because I felt like I had no support and the Mental Health services weren't doing enough, they let me leave hospital with no new support put in place...What do they expect to happen? I actually thought things would be different this time. I actually put my faith back in the Mental Health services again, even though I knew they'd let me down.

They asked me what support I wanted and I actually believed for a second that they were gonna listen to me and give me the support I need. It really bugs me when they ask you "what help  do you want?" If I knew what help I needed I wouldn't be asking for help. If I knew how to help myself I would have already cured myself. It's your job to help people like me, that's what you're trained for, so why ask me what help I want? All that achieves is letting me know that there is nothing to help me and you have no ideas, so everything is hopeless...Anyway I told them that I wanted some sort of regular appointments or something till I started therapy. The guy from the crisis team said that it was possible and I was very happy that it was gonna happen, till this morning when my Doctor basically said I'd get one check in appointment to see how I was after discharge and that was it.

You know another thing that bothers me? These professionals they tell you everything you need but then they don't give it to you. I keep getting told I should have a care coordinator. The reason I don't have one though is because there's a long waiting list and no one can be bothered to refer me to their services. They tell me I could benefit from this and that, so why don't I have any of it? They don't have the funding, the resources, the facilities or some other excuse for why they can't give it to you. You can't just tell me what I need and not give me it. You don't tell a patient they need surgery or they'll die and then not bother to do the surgery and let them die! It's so completely... (insert angry swearing that sounds more like Gibberish then English).

They make me go into hospital because I'm not safe and then discharge me a week later with nothing changed. What are they expecting to happen?! Nothing has changed and if you just look a month back into my records you can see I just end up back in crisis. Next time what if no one finds me in time? They won't keep me in hospital though because I'm mentally capable and not aggressive. I don't need to be in hospital and in fact studies have shown it could make people with my diagnosis worse. I get that hospitals are not the best places to stay, but being in and out of them is also not good. There has to be some sort of compromise. There needs to be something for people like me in between that we can use while waiting for treatment, that stops us from getting to the point of crisis and isn't institutionalisation.

There is a massive Mental Health crisis at the moment. How can we keep ourselves out of crisis if the very services that are meant to help us don't even know themselves? How can vunerable people put their faith in a service that is in crisis itself?

Then people are surprised when the same names pop up again in A&E complaining that no one cares about them. We're being let down and I know it's not their fault. I know they're doing their best, but we deserve so much more. It's not good enough because when one of my suicide attempts succeed people are gonna ask why nothing was being done. I tried to get help, I fought as hard as I could to get help but unfortunately help was too far away. Could my death be prevented? Of course it could. Many deaths could of been prevented if only they were given the right support when they needed it, not ten months after because sometimes that's too long for people to continue suffering. There needs to be change, otherwise you can't be surprised when I do finally die. No one else is doing anything to stop the pain, I've exhausted every option, so what other choice do I have but to take my life into my own hands and stop my own pain?

There needs to be drastic change to the way mental health services are run. The people hired need to be screened better and given better empathy training. I think after assessments patients should be able to fill in feedback forms about the individuals that conducted the assessments. So often I come across professionals that are rude to me, call me selfish, tell me I can't be helped and are just so awful that I can't believe someone actually signed off on them being allowed to be near and responsible for the care of vunerable people. Diagnosis needs to be done quicker so patients can be referred to the right treatment faster. Like I've said before, more resources need to be available short term for patients while they wait for more specialised treatment. There needs to be something like a crisis management class or information for staff and patients. Something that helps teach people how to avert a crisis before it is too late. More funding, more resources and research could not only help people who need it but it would also take the strain off emergency services and it would save money in the long run. This is such a massive problem and more needs to be done to fix it.