"Mental health support"

I feel the need to share my experiences in the hope that it might help someone else, or that the mental health services might help someone else, unlike me.

After a few years of stability I began to struggle recent and was, reluctantly, referred to the Mansfield (Notts) crisis team. I say reluctantly due to past experiences where I felt patronised. However, I accepted that this was a couple of years ago and agreed to try again after considering suicide.

I had several encounters. A couple were positive, and I spoke to two people (I wish I knew their names but I was too distressed to retain the information) who listened on the phone, spoke to me, rationisalised what was happening and got me through the crisis. They gave me hope and arranged plans on how to move forward.

This was overshadowed by the other times when I was patronised, ignored and made to feel as though I was a complete waste of time.

On one visit I was told that all my problems were due to a drug addiction and did not need crisis support but drug addiction counselling. I explained, I thought quite clearly, that I have absolutely no drug addiction what so ever, and this was so far off the mark it was nearly laughable. I was told I was wrong. There was no point in me even being at that meeting, the people had made up their mind before they even met me. That is not care. They made me feel invisible, told me that I have nothing to be unhappy or depressed about – that made me feel worse. They also berated me for previous contact with the crisis team and the time I had taken up. I took an overdose the next day because I had been worn down so much by this encounter that I didn’t see the point in continuing.

On another encounter, I explained (for what felt like the 100th time) why group sessions will just not work for me. If I could go to a group counselling session I would, but I can't even be in rooms with people at times, and verbal communication can be near impossible on occasions. I was told I just need to try mindfulness and to phone the library to attend a group mindfulness training. At which point I was screaming internally, "don't you listen to a word I say? We’ve just discussed how I am unable to go to a group." I've since had an opportunity to try mindfulness, it really does not work for me on any level, irritates me to the point where I self-harmed during the session. I won't be trying it again.

So, after yet another series of degrading encounters, I now have absolutely zero support from any mental health services and I've given up trying. Next time someone encourages me to speak to the crisis team I’ll tell them that it’s safer not to.

These are just a couple of my experiences, there are a dozen more that follow a similar theme unfortunately. There are also other positive experiences – I do not want to detract from those who are doing their best to help people, but perhaps if I had actually been listened to on all those occasions when I tried to explain what the problems were – instead of being told that I’m wrong, and I should just be happy, and I just need to try mindfulness – then I may be in a better place.

There are some people there that try and help and to those I thank you. Unfortunately, the probability of speaking to one of these people is so low that I will not be risking it again. There’s only so much you can take. I am no better, I am struggling every single day, but I guess there’s not much I can do about that, I tried asking for help like people say – it didn’t work, not even close, not even when I was desperate.