"‘Mental health care’ left my boyfriend feeling..."

My partner was admitted by ambulance after taking an overdose with intent to end his own life... he is known to mental health services due to his extremely poor mental health and his repeated attempts on his own life.

Because of this, the A&E department at the Alexandra treated him as a malingerer, with one nurse even discussing him right behind our backs, saying he was a “regular” and sighing, moaning about his regular admissions, obviously not realising we were sat there.

Maybe he has so many admissions to hospital with suicide attempts because the response to mental health in the Alex A&E is so poor!

We were admitted by ambulance at 1am and waited until 2pm to even be seen, and then they took a blood test and questioned whether he had really took an overdose or not because the drugs didn’t show up in his blood test! Well they wouldn’t after 13 hours of waiting, crying and vomiting would they!?

My boyfriend tried to discharge himself after this blood test as he felt he wasn’t being listened to, only to be told he wasn’t allowed to leave and if he did they would call the police. Great way to speak to an already vulnerable person. I should mention my partner not only has mental health issues but is also autistic and often doesn’t understand why people are talking to him in a negative way and blames himself. This caused a huge self esteem and self worth issue when we eventually got home.

Before we were allowed to leave we eventually saw the mental health liaison, who presumably got their knowledge of mental health from google. She began trying to place the blame of my partner’s mental health on the fact that he is gay, even when he said he has never had any issues accepting his sexuality and felt that it was quite discriminatory to claim that he must have attempted suicide just because he’s gay.

When my partner tried to explain that he had been hearing voices and seeing our dead relatives in his bedroom... the liaison barely managed to hide a smirk, implying she found the entire thing funny. His complaints of hallucinations were completely brushed off and he was told it’s a part of his autism that he’ll just have to learn to live with. I’ve never heard of hallucinations being one of the main components of autism and the fact that he’s only just started experiencing them in his mid 20s surely implies it’s something he needs help with!

We were discharged with nothing but a piece of scrap paper with the Samaritan’s phone number written on it by the mental health liaison. My partner explained he can’t speak to people over the phone due to his anxiety and autism but he was told to “just try anyway”. The fact they referred us to the Samaritans instead of trying to help us within the trust just proved my fears that this trust does not know how to deal with mental health crises and isn’t interested to learn.

If my partner ever needs mental health care again, we will be going all the way to Worcester. Not impressed!!