The NHS and Mental Health — Is it Just a Facade for ‘Care’?
Long.Sweet.Valuable — rejected with the excuse of ‘too long’.
Guess, some medium publications, too, don’t care about mental health and raising awareness for those suffering.
I will. Feel free to submit any mental health content to this publication, Mentall.
I’ve been trying to get help for my mental health for over a decade now. At first, I thought it was just depression and anxiety. I had down days, cried a lot, and had the dermatillomania daily, and whenever I would visit my GP for help, it would just be an offer of drugs. I mean what can you possibly fix when it comes to mental health, through a five-minute appointment? I find them difficult to be vulnerable with.
I’ve been on four anti-depressants in my life — Fluoxetine, Sertrilline, Duloxetine, and Cilatopram. None of them worked. A lot of them worsened my anxiety, and of course killed my sex drive. I guess the only one that gave me some ‘balance’ was Duloxetine, but as well as killing my sex drive, it numbed my orgasms, and I love orgasms. Who doesn’t?
What can I say — I hate medication. I grew up watching my mum medicated, and before she was medicated, I had to watch her getting drunk most days. Today, she’s on one of the last treatment options — Clozapine — for her condition — treatment resistant Schizophrenia. I wish this god who speaks to her would bloody well help her, because this god she listens to is wrecking her existence. Just before she was due to get her new hip, this god told her her not to get it done. She appeals to get off the community treatment order, but the court always sides with the medical establishment, as per usual. She hardly goes out anymore. Doctors don’t care. Social workers don’t care. They are paid big money to drug people so they can appear ‘normal’ in the community. I’m sure you guess I’m a little angry at the system, while mum is deteriorating daily.
Requesting Help
I can’t remember the first time I asked for therapy, but it was specifically for helping me with the dermatillomania or compulsive skin picking that I’ve had since the age of nineteen. I don’t know what happened. One night, I was sat in the home beside the fire and just began squeezing my back over and over and over for hours, causing so much damage that it took years to heal. I would then pick areas like my arms, scalp, legs, bum, and chest. In trying to cover up these awful scars, I became obsessed with tattoos and had a cross done on my upper back and a sleeve of tattoos on my right arm. I would go on the sunbed too in an effort to fade the scars. The only place I don’t pick is my face, and I have no idea of why. Did I mention that not so long before I turned nineteen, I was raped at a house party. I guess it was my fault after drinking fifteen cans of John Smiths, but no means no. I was too drunk to push him off. I had vomit on my mouth. Squirrel was his name. Squirrel the rapist. Sometimes I wonder if my trying to make myself ugly by picking myself day in day out, the mental exhaustion that it causes, and the shame of this disorder as a Christian, when I’ve been told it’s sinful, is a protection to prevent any man ever raping me again. Who knows truly how the subconscious mind works. So I have this dermatillomania to deal with daily. I’ve tried all sorts to heal it, including Iboga flooding three times, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing), and of course medication, yoga, breathing techniques when I was into new age prior to becoming born again about six years ago.
It’s not something I can really talk about with other Christians, for shame they are judging me. It’s a coping mechanism, and believe me I’ve begged for the Lord to take it away, as Paul begged the Lord to take away his ailment, to which God said his grace was sufficient. He is strong when we are weak. Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who is so understanding of my condition, and who always tells me how beautiful I am.
First Experience With CBT
None existent.
I was put forward for something called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I was honest talking about my childhood and past, but it turned out after all of those questions, I had been put forward for something called Basic Therapies. The therapist was blonde, slim, beautiful, and she focussed on the scars on my chest. It was so embarrassing. I thought I would be safe from judgement during that warm summer’s day, and I never went back. I thought therapists were meant to be non-judgemental, especially about a condition that is already so shameful for the patient.
Back to GP
He referred me again.
Counselling offered.
I went, discussed my past and problems, but no resolve.
She was sweet, but talking therapies absolutely is not right for me.
I’m Not Heard
Requested CBT again, as it was supposed to help conditions like dermatillomania, and was now offered clinical psychology (part 1), so off I went — another twenty weeks of talking about the past, pretending that it was going to fix me.
Her thoughts toward my dermatillomania — once I started to feel better about myself, it would just stop.
Yeah right.
I saw her in 2015, and the problem is still there.
Finally…Hear Back
Back to the GP, requested more help for CBT, but after discussing my problem with a male assessor, I was put forward again for clinical psychology, this time with an advanced practitioner.
I knew it would be the same conversations, a person not listening to my needs. I mean I had been requesting a therapy for years that I had never even received. Did they think I was really that unbalanced in the head for them to even want to listen to me and try it to see if it helped? Clinical psychology part 1 hadn’t worked, and sadly Elizabeth the first psychologist hadn’t even written up the notes as she promised she would, as they go to the GP for medical history etc.
It was a lot of pain brought up again and again. I remember telling Kirsty, advanced clinical psychologist part 2 about twelve weeks in that I thought I had Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). It wasn’t just depression that I had, but massive fear of abandonment with patterns of verbal abuse toward my boyfriend (to push him away so that that abandonment would come true), then shame and remorse over my behaviour, impulsiveness, anger, splitting, paranoia, suicidal thoughts, self hate, and of course the self-harm.
Prior to this, I had never heard of personality disorders before, but I was nodding at the symptoms of personality disorder as I read the mental health pamphlet I had picked up from my hubby’s GP surgery.
I visited the GP and told him I thought I had the symptoms of BPD, but he said it was just my personality.
Why do GPs rubbish critical thought? I’ve always wanted to better myself, or else why would I put myself through all of these therapies? I am fairly intelligent. I read up on things. I am heavily analytical of myself and believe that the right therapy could work, but I’m blocked at every attempt to get that help.
Even when I mentioned BPD to Kirsty, the advanced clinical psychologist part 2, she didn’t seem that bothered. It’s a serious condition with 10 percent of people diagnosed with BPD losing their life to suicide.
Yes, we BPDers are difficult, but I remember reading in Blaise Aguire’s book about the brain of a person with BPD — the amygdala has a far greater overreaction response in people with BPD, so when those stresses come — however small they are — it completely overwhelms us. And of course, the pre-frontal cortex that deals with rational thought is impaired, so that’s a complete block during stress. In fact, it’s during those moments of such darkness when it would be easier to die. The constant pain I have put my husband through in having to hear such words about ending my life. It leads to irrational thoughts and actions that are later seen to be embarrassing, shameful, and I have to apologise to my husband.
An example of how quickly I can split. I was unable to loosen the straps on the pram quickly enough, and yelling at my husband to help, and strangers were looking at me everywhere I walked, enough to cause me paranoia as to why they were staring and giving me dirty looks. We lasted only about fifteen minutes in Hebden Bridge before I had to hurry back to the car and drive home in tears and embarrassment. We had paid for three hours of parking.
I told Kirsty, clinical psychologist part 2 that I didn’t think any of the therapy had helped me. At one of the sessions I reported thinking about buying cyanide online and she had to call the ambulance for me. I had recently had a miscarriage. At the hospital in crisis, it was another talk with another mental health professional, and yet I was still invisible to them.
At this time I had no diagnosis of BPD. I think Christian, my then boyfriend, believed me when I explained to him about my behaviours. I tried to explain it to my family, but I think they just thought I was being manipulative. Every time I attempted suicide, I spoke to another mental health person, who was just telling me I would feel better. It got to the stage where I had had four attempted overdoses and I was finally under the admittance of the crisis team who were visiting me daily, and they asked me what I wanted. I told them I wanted people to understand me and a correct diagnosis of BPD, which they called EUPD (Emotional Unstable Personality Disorder) would explain my behaviour to my friends and family.
During my final sessions with Kirsty, I had received a diagnosis of EUPD by a psychiatrist at Birch Hill, and I asked her to refer me to the correct team that specialises in personality disorders — Democratic Therapeutic Community. The referral went through and in 2021 I finally had to undergo an assessment by a member of their team.
I was shocked to read that my assessment had proved unsuccessful. From what I had told him, and my self-harm behaviour, it was deemed I was too emotionally unstable to take part in Democratic Therapeutic Community, which was an intensive year old therapy specifically for personality disorders. I was told I needed to access other help.
It was so frustrating. I obviously needed to access Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, which is the most appropriate therapy for BPD, and can greatly help from what I had read, but DBT is what I thought I was accessing anyway through the assessment.
Right now, it felt near impossible that anyone would ever help me. Did they truly want to help me. Sometimes professionals can go above and beyond their duty of care to actually provide care, yet I was just being left to rot.
Second Attempt at Help
It was at the time of Covid when GP surgeries were not open, so I requested a telephone call from my GP, who asked how could he help. I explained that I needed referring to the Community Mental Health Team for EUPD/BPD, and he said he would do that.
I followed up on a phone call, which was with a different GP weeks later who told me that that same GP I had spoken to had actually filled in a form for funding for me to access specialist NHS services. I left it at that.
It got to August 2022 when I actually had an appointment at Birch Hill to try to fast track my access to DBT. I showed them the letter saying I had been denied Democratic Therapeutic Community due to me unable to control my emotions, and although she was difficult at first saying I needed a diagnosis, I pressed her over and over and she finally saw I had a diagnosis of BPD. I had to talk about the past again, lots of tears, my sister and husband were there, and she promised me that she would get this to a psychiatrist to fast track, as she was leaving to move into alternative work. We filled in the same form I filled in with Kirsty for Democratic Therapeutic Communities, but she assured me that this was the same form to access Dialectical Behavioural Therapies, so I took her at her word.
It was in August 2022 when I discovered my second pregnancy, and it went to full term. I gave birth to a healthy girl at 37 weeks, and she’s now 14 months. However, my mental health has worsened.
I even spoke to a mental health practitioner at my local GP surgery around December / January 2023, who said she would look into what was happening about the DBT therapy, but nothing came of that.
I have sent emails to Democratic Therapeutic Communities asking them for an update, but my emails are ignored. Do they even care about those with BPD, the frequent stresses that lead to overwhelm and such dark thoughts? What about a basic two liner saying, Hi Helen. You are still in our system awaiting placement, or even, Hi Helen, no we have not received any referral. Contact your GP.
But nothing.
Update 2024
No one can say that I have not tried to help myself throughout all of these years. Yes, I have caused a lot of pain to my husband and family, but I want to get better. I desperate do, so I believe that the NHS pretend to care about the mentally ill, yet it’s a facade.
I believe it’s a conspiracy of depopulation in weakening the vulnerable into suicide. NHS — you can correct me if I’m wrong in my belief, but don’t make it so damn hard to access specialist therapies that people like me desperately need.
