"Northallerton Crisis Team/West CMHT"

Unfortunately almost all of my experiences with the above teams have been negative. They did not understand my autism and rather than listening to my advice about this and my needs they dismissed me as -attention seeking and manipulative. They even repeatedly questioned my autism diagnosis, and told me my autistic traits were not autism at all, even though they were not qualified to make these statements and I’d had my autism diagnosis for 8 years.

They diagnosed me with EUPD despite not having enough history to do so, not having clinical understanding of autism, not doing proper assessments/interviews for this and me never meeting the diagnostic criteria. They deliberately kept this diagnosis from me until I discovered it by chance, at which point when I requested it be explained I was told to “Google it”. At my insistence, I eventually saw a senior Clinical Psychologist who was supposed to explain the diagnosis to me, instead they told me I didn’t have it. They requested in light of this the management of my care be changed to suit my actual needs, and finally told me how to access the therapy I had been begging for for over 3 years.

Unfortunately, the diagnosis of EUPD stayed on my records despite the psychologist’s requests, and clinicians continued to treat me as though I had EUPD, plus they advised other agencies in line with the Trust’s BPD protocol. This caused me considerable iatrogenic harm, and left me in absolute pieces. Only when I refused to see local teams outright did some of this harm begin to stop, though unfortunately they do not keep to my written requests to never be involved in my care again and still like to have/request secret meetings (which I find out about later when I request notes) with my social workers/GP etc. which leaves me afraid to go to anyone for help for fear of more misdiagnosis, misunderstanding, and judgemental comments.

Overall, I feel that they have caused me nothing but more harm. I have post traumatic symptoms from my experiences from these teams and I do not recommend their services to anyone based on my experience. They are particularly adept at making rude and insulting comments when you are in crisis and gossiping about you to others, naturally this is highly psychologically damaging and dangerous too in my opinion.