"feeling let down"

“I don't know where to start with my story, i will try and be as coherent and as clear as possible i first however would like to say, although as you will soon read i don't feel i have received the care or even respect i deserve from the mental health team that have been helping me, i am grateful that they are there anyway even if i feel they have failed me personally at this stage. I am truly grateful for however little the help is they have gave me that being said, I am going to try and put my point across.

So i have been suffering from a multitude of mental health issues, i have been in and out of the GPs in regards to my mental health since roughly 2014, i have however had mental health issues for as far back as 2009 by my own reckoning.

I feel however since 2014/15 i could no longer keep it together myself and against my own judgment my family and friends persuaded me to seek help. i have gotten myself in to major debts spurred on by business ideas, outlandish spending, falling to easily in love and being a too overbearing. I feel me having this kind of insight into my life also means i won't get help because they wrongly assume i shouldn't be able to cross the street if I'm mentally ill it seems.

It's August 2017, i break down, for the first time ever i phone NHS 24 anxiety and depression are torturing me. i call NHS 24, my brother speaks a little for me, the CPN on the other end wants to talk to me, she tells me 'do you have access to the internet', i say 'yes' she says I should try an google self-help'.... sorry, but I feel like i am battling the devil in my mind for control of my soul and you think i should consult google? i never said that at the time because truthfully i felt i was dying inside.

My friend comes to take me to hospital instead, i go to Crosshouse, i see the triage, they get a CPN to come and see me in A&E. It was the same one i spoke to on the phone, they tell me to contact my CPN on Monday, my friend takes me home and keeps me safe as best he could until it all blew over enough that he trusted me to be left alone by myself. it is at that next appointment with my CPN i break down and tell them that i didn't feel enough was being done especially at the weekend to help me. It's at this time thiey discharge me back to the GP.

I try on and off to get back to them, my GP allows me to self refer i miss their call to assess me, then they miss my call back then they just say it's to late so at this point with PIP Assessment looming I just let it tick over, I virtually barricade myself in the house more or less.

So i spend a whole year just taking the medication i was given and feeling too anxious to even consult my GP i just get bigger and bigger weight-wise i lose my PIP benefit because I no longer had a specialist (psychiatrist) in charge of my care I get my self in to more and more debts, culminating in the last 4 weeks being marred with crippling anxiety the worst it has ever been that bad I was screaming in my sleeping, breaking my teeth with grinding them so hard whilst sleeping, not being able to eat for 2 weeks of that 3 week period because i couldn't stop being sick, also no appetite whatsoever i had a stool sample and blood-tests all of which came back clean, meaning it was anxiety causing these GI problems and nothing else afoot. during this time my friend and sister called NHS 2-3 times during the week because i was that scared i was dying and they feared i would take my life. eventually i was told by a CPN on the phone that the appointment my GP had made with the Mental Health practitioner was the best thing for me, this was a few days later. The CPN felt I just needed to make it to this appointment so I was prescribed Diazepam to help me ride it out until i could be seen.

My sister accompanied me to this appointment, I go in, mildly still sedated from the medication. my sister and I tried to go over everything again with the mental health practitioner my sister also noting I am talking really really fast. the mental health practitioner can only offer me a community care worker or CBT, my sister and I ask if i can see a psychiatrist I am told no, because that Psychiatrist deemed me to be alright a year and a half ago. The member of staff also tells me that 'a psychiatrist is only for Medication and diagnoses' and prescribes a new anti depressant.

My new antidepressant was meant to make me sleepy, and I was also taking my propranolol. i felt i was bouncing off the walls and getting higher and higher. Just because i know I'm getting higher doesn't mean i am lying or putting it on, Whatever is wrong with me has been the same thing for 7-8 years, of course i can tell where it's heading, I'm not saying it is bipolar but i know it's something. it's not my fault it manifests by making me go from up to down, i never asked for this to happen to me. i feel because i have a little insight into my illness i am being punished for it. which is ludicrous I'm not self-diagnosing but i am me and this is happening to me so of course I'm quite pro-active in trying to get to the bottom of it, it's speculation, it's because i have limited knowledge and a limited frame of reference i am thinking this way. that is why i am asking for professional help.

Again i appreciate what little help i have been giving but i feel I am excluded by the mental health service for having a coherent thought at an appointment almost like 'If you truly have a mental health illness you shouldn't be able to add 2 and 2 and get 4'. i would like to think staff understand of course me and others like me have good and bad days, if you catch me on a good day doesn't mean i have never had a bad day. i know the mental health team are amazing people, but when i am fighting with the devil in my head suggestions of Baths, Showers, long walks seems when you're hearing other worldly voices seem insignificant. I don't have anything against CBT but I have said I don't want to take up an appointment space so i can end up not showing up because of my anxiety. I don't have a handle on my mentality to go to CBT. My sister even asked if we could work around it by having it in my home and she was told no, because it has to be an out patient appointment. How can i attend if I'm too bogged down in my own mind? i was told by staff that the anxiety can only get so bad before it comes back down. no, no it does not! I Was literally being sick non stop my anxiety was so bad. So it won't just 'go away' She told me 'a Psychiatrist is only for medication and diagnoses' I'm not a mental health professional, i know that, but what do i need? i want to get better, hence why i am writing this, I am truly that desperate. i don't trust myself at all.

Also i was told bipolar disorder was NOT hereditary, i was also told i couldn't have an anxiety disorder and Bipolar disorder both at the same time, a quick consultation of that great bastion called google the emergency CPN told me to consult says other wise.

Sorry this letter does ramble a lot, but i hope someone reads it that can help in someway, because at present i do feel like i am getting worse as time goes on, and i am really not getting giving the light of day from this mental health team. it seems i will only get help if i hurt myself or someone else. Which is ridiculous. Whoever ever takes the time to read this, i thank you from the bottom of my heart, as i know it's a rant, it's a ramble i don't even know if half of it makes sense.

I feel that when i inevitably fall through the cracks of this mental health team i hope other people like me who are lost push even harder than me for a diagnoses of their illness or the proper help for the ones they have. I know one day, i won't be fortunate enough to have my friend and family there quick enough to catch me when i fall. even though they're not the ones that get paid to catch me.”