I want to echo what others here have said: Crisis line workers as well as crisis team workers who come to my home have often told me when in suicidal distress,that it is my choice to kill myself or not.
I am under the Personality Disorder team and have a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.
It is a diagnosis given mostly to women. It is like being told you are hysterical and overreact and should just get a grip. And that asking for help is manipulative.
Getting back to the crisis line , in my experience they only operate until about 9pm then absolutely no one picks up the phone and it goes to a voicemail or a mobile or an answerphone. I don't think I have ever been called back until the next day when rung at night and this is all before coronavirus shut down mental health appointments and services.
The crisis line during the daytime hours have told me it is my responsibility if I kill myself and not theirs and then slammed the phone down. Other workers repeatedly say after 5 minutes that they have been talking to me for 5 minutes now and what did I want? To talk to someone kind would have been an answer if I had the spoons to think .To talk to someone who talked through my crisis plan which they can access on their screen and try support me in following if I had the spoons to think. To talk to someone who acted like my life mattered.
The other thing they like to say ,and this is their latest get out clause to not speak to their own patients, is why don't I ring the Samaritans instead of them? Well, how about because it is your job to support severely mentally unwell people when they are suicidal and to try and help make the situation better and safer through planning safety strategies. That is not the job of the Samaritans who are a listening service and who can be very supportive but who I will have already tried.
I am on service user groups feeding back to the Trust and these responses on here on this site and elsewhere and what I have said, is said by many. I think it is a problem across many areas but I don't live in many areas I live under the care of this trust and I can't choose where I go for mental health support.
10% of those with my diagnosis die by suicide. Do I think the crisis team and line should be dismantled? Absolutely. I am not sure they shouldn't exist at all but what we need are all night crisis cafes that the MH Trust is not allowed near and employ people who care on a crisis line. Crisis cafes led by service users and those with lived experience because these workers and their managers who haven't intervened for years, don't care and worse, believe severe mental illness and suicidal crisis is some sort of behavioural issue that requires punishment.
"Poor crisis services - again"
About: Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust London NW1 0PE
Posted by Instinctive Warrior Woman (as ),
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