"Crisis support"

I’m struggling with my mental health at the moment.

I hurt myself badly last week and my LMHT peer support worker just told me to go to A&E but didn’t support me to do that and I wasn’t in a good place emotionally to sort it myself.

I hurt myself again the following night and spoke to the Mental Health Clinical Access Line who told me to go to A&E but again did not check how badly I had hurt myself and offered no support to get there.

I finally went to A&E the following day and received good care.

However I saw someone from the Department Of Psychiatric Medicine who did a care plan including a review by a psychiatrist and a referral to a crisis house.

I saw my LMHT duty worker today who was flippant and said that none of the actions from the care plan would be done and I could probably get an appointment with a psychiatrist in October if I was lucky! No further support was offered.

I left feeling worse and rang to speak to a manager to raise my concerns. They said they would get back to me.

In the early hours of this morning I found myself in distress and rang the clinical access line again but was too distressed to be able to talk to someone I didn’t know. He wouldn’t put me through to the crisis team whom I know well. There was no understanding of trauma and dissociation.

I spent 2 hours curled up on the floor in the kitchen in distress. I rang the access line back and was on hold for over 40 minutes. On answering I was told to get up off the floor and clean myself up - if only it was that easy. I said I was hearing loud voices and felt frightened and overwhelmed but no support was offered.

I have to go to work in 3 hours and I feel awful. 

Crisis support is the worse it has ever been. I hurt myself severely at the weekend but feel completely unsupported and overwhelmed.

False promises, lip service and a crisis support line that has no idea about trauma is just not good enough. When is this going to get better? People like me are at risk of harm and changes need to be made.