"111 option 2: mental health crisis"

25th December 2020: I have Mixed Anxiety & Depressive Disorder diagnosed in May 2019 after a suicide attempt. I am female and nearly 48. I got up today extremely depressed, I would say now 90% caused by external circumstances. I had a severe bout of anxiety, uncontrollable shaking and sobbing. I called 111 option 2. I got on the other end of the phone a slightly sarcastic woman who was completely devoid of empathy, sympathy, understanding and and any reasonable intelligent insight into what she was dealing with, i.e. someone in the depths of despair to the point of almost being suicidal. After 5 minutes of her pontificating about "other people" I slammed the phone (my landline) down on her. I then called a good female friend who has severe mental health issues herself and we ended up seeing the funny side of it, after I had ranted and swore over the phone to her (not "at" her, but telling her what had happened.) Mental health services in this country are appalling beyond belief. If I had been living in another country I feel that they would have been taken a lot more seriously, in my case. This woman did not care, she was just sitting there taking calls on Christmas Day which is a time when people can become extremely depressed for all sorts of reasons, and I would not recommend this service to anyone. You are better off calling a friend who understands what you are going through than someone who does not even attempt to empathise with your problems. You may as well talk to your pets (I have 2 cats)- at least they don't judge you and they give you something to live for each day. It makes my blood boil how many so called mental-health "professionals" only qualification is all the academic knowledge that they learned parrot-fashion at university or whatever. Well we can all do that, you might as well be sweeping the roads for a living. If you are working in psychiatry purely for the financial gain then you deserve to suffer the same mental health issues that you are supposed to be treating; if you want money go and work in a factory all day, or on a farm picking vegetables, or train to be a plumber and get your hands dirty. And do some hard work. Then you'd know the REAL meaning of what it is to work hard, not sitting in some cushy office all day answering phone calls.