"Felt my care has been dismissive and dehumanising"

I have been under the care of DHCFT’s community mental health team in Derby City for about 18 months now. I am autistic and I have diagnoses of anxiety disorder, adjustment disorder and emotionally unstable personality disorder. I was referred following a pattern of severe self harm behaviours and repeated overdoses of psychiatric medication.

During this time I have seen the lead psychiatrist in the team multiple times. They have been unsympathetic and lacked interest in helping me in any way. They have made a few referrals to psychotherapy services but all have been declined because of my ongoing self harm, which they have  made clear they believe it is my responsibility alone to fix despite the presence of a wide range of stressors and a lack of support. 

I was assessed by the Trust for intervention by a CPN but was rejected for this also because they believed my problems were caused by my autistic traits and that I should do more to ‘help myself’. When I initiated the formal complaints procedure and met with the service leader they told me once again that I had to fix things myself and openly criticised my GP personally for writing repeated letters and calling the service to try and advocate for me. 

The service leader also, when reminded about my history of childhood sexual abuse, referred my case to the police without my consent. There was no risk to any children or other vulnerable persons that would necessitate a referral being made and I had full mental capacity, yet I spent several months having to repeatedly tell the police I was unable to act as a witness as I was not ready to process what had happened - and was unlikely to be able to without proper psychotherapy and support from the Trust.

The community mental health team have been claiming my autistic traits complicate the issue and the autism team in the same Trust rejected a referral to see them on the basis that I should see the community mental health team. Nobody seems willing to take responsibility. I want to get better but I can’t do this on my own.

The most recent bad experience was when my GP wrote to request a second opinion with an alternative psychiatrist and I was sent an appointment to see the same psychiatrist I had seen in the first place. I found this encounter so distressing that when I was asked why I wanted a second opinion I was unable to answer. Again the result of this meeting was another referral to a service which had already rejected me and telling me to ‘look within myself for the answers’ rather than thinking psychotherapy would help me. If that was a true solution I wouldn’t be writing this.

Meanwhile I am self harming worse than ever with injuries that will likely never heal, and I am reviewed by my GP multiple times a week to ‘hold’ me in place until somebody will offer some assistance. Derbyshire Healthcare will not help with medication or provide any advice at all. As I have said a request for a second opinion was not correctly actioned, and neighbouring areas’ services are not taking referrals because they are overwhelmed.

Mental health  care needs to be better than this. There is a really poor culture of lack of care throughout the organisation and I feel that service users are not treated as individuals, just parts of a pathway, and if you do not fit neatly onto a single one of their pathways you are left in limbo. I feel like I was punished for speaking up to them by being put through the police investigation for my childhood abuse, something for which I have not been apologised to for. ‘Safeguarding is everyone’s concern’, they say, except when it is the safeguarding of someone who stands up and asks if the care they are receiving is right. I feel like they are just hoping if they reject patients enough they will go away. I have gone away from them largely, to protect myself as they themselves have become a trigger for my illness.

Finally though I must say the patient experience team are brilliant, very proactive and happy to help with any questions or complaints. I would like to thank them for their many small kindnesses. I only wish the clinical teams matched this with the level of care provided.