bigsinky

@PF

Can you let us know how long the psych residency is for JHO and SHO is. You mentioned horrible acute admissions. Do you feel the training you got was adequate to cope with the multi-faceted mental health problems that present in A&E?

Pink_Floyd

Bigsinky,

I'm not sure if its come across wrong, but I was writing purely from the view of a service user, i.e. Me

As for the info you seek, I can easily find out as my girlfriend is a psych nurse, and I have a few contacts through my experience, and through charity connections.

richiewong

The majority of people I've assessed at A+E are drunken arseholes with 0% serious mental health issues.

Pink_Floyd

That might be your experience, but do you think it's fair to say every person who ends up in A+E who has self-harmed is a drunken a**ehole with 0% serious mental health issues?

As for me reference to acute admissions, I was not referring to A+E, rather to the admissions I've had into psychiatric units.

To be honest it's obvious why this country has such a poor understanding of mental health because as soon as people choose to share their experiences they have the **** taken out of them

richiewong

I actually said 'majority' the minority tend to be genuine cases that services can deal withh effectively but only if that service user is prepared to make positive changes as well.
Also I worked 'acute admissions' for over 11 years so from an experience point of view, I think its rather plentiful.

Pink_Floyd

I'm not questioning your experience and I think that's clear, or should be. I merely asked you to clarify if you felt it fair to suggest the majority had as you say 0% issues.

I also think it's unfair for people to take my original post out of context. It was written purely from my experiences. I stand by what I said originally. Some A&E departments are sympathetic, some are not and I'm not talking exclusively about self-harm incidents. I've had to attend when I fell unwell due to my lithium level being way to high, and was treated like a moron until they got my bloods back.

Likewise with admissions. Sometimes people get admitted and have a positive experience and, as you say, make positive changes to aid their recovery. In contrast I've had some hellish times in hospital that I'd sooner forget.

Turbohot

Don't let that get to you.

Not in 1 in 3, not in 2 in 4, almost everyone suffers from some kind of mental health issue once in their life time. Continue to talk about it to who you like, whenever you like.

In my opinion, mental health and mental illnesses are far worse perceived in many other countries than they are in the UK.

However.......

Back to the UK, never mind A&E (that's blacklisted, anyway), even primary care is appalling.

I heard a fresh, primary mental health care story today, where a very unprofessional mental health community professional rang up a young self-harm patient just 20 minutes prior to his appointment, asking him to make it any sooner if he could. Nice. Asking a mental health patient to work around your convenience on the very first instance is so very caring! Yes, It was the very first, 6 months long awaited appointment for the patient on GP's kind referral after 2 years of patient's ongoing self-harm issue. Patient couldn't get there any earlier on such a short notice, so mental health unprofessional had to keep to the original given time, although it must have hurt her very much! On patient's arrival, he was put through a dry, authoritative, and a very interrupted assessment, further referral to some other organisation, and a news that the attending service was closing the case on him, job done. One may presume that the victim mode can cause one to feel like a victim in whatever other situation one may face. But it wasn't the patient who complained, he simply left with >< face. There was another unbiased professional shadowing the process, whose feedback indeed classed it as a very poor performance by the unprofessional one indeed. Limitation on help and further referral wasn't the most negative pointers. It was the humane treatment to the service user that deserately lacked in this real story.

That was just a snapshot of someone's front line experience. Further along the line, more and more disappointments, long waits, clinical sternness and even bullsh!t diagnoses make it very hard for mental health affected people.

Pink_Floyd

That's a terrible story, but one I hear from other service users quite often sadly

To be honest I wished I'd never posted on the thread. I could have offered advice to the OP but felt it wasn't my place as I'm far from qualified. Instead I offered my perspective to another poster based on my experience and I get lambasted.

Perhaps the "professionals" on the board who have contributed to the thread should aim their response in being helpful to the OP, and educate those who wish to offer there advice to the OP about the issue in a constructive manner. That is of course, if they actually have integrity left and not just cynicism

Ellie*

I dont think anyone meant to offend you personally. I may have naivly missed it, but i took it all that has been posted to mean 'generally', not anyone personally.

Ive never been admitted and only been to a&e a few times ( prefer to not look after wounds) so i dont have much to say other than i waited a LONG time for psych liason to bother seeing me.
Ive also worked in the hospital in close proximity to the a&e dept so its a bit weird for me anyway and put me off going anyway.

Ive been lucky in many ways. My gp has been amazing and looked after me, sometimes weekly, for 6yrs. Ive had counselling, a year with the eating disorder team, a year with a psychologist doing dialectical behaviour therapy, seen the CMHT a few times.
But, its also taken that long for a psychiatrist to understand something complex is going on and to actually keep seeing me. (one horrible psych dissmissed me 7yrs ago).
I spent summer to new year quite, actually very, suicidal. Eventually my gp got me an appt with a psych which gave me a little hope and he prescribed anti psychotic meds to boost other meds and control my ****in thoughts. Finally, my mood is out the gutter and I want to stick around.
20mins of someones time=possibly my life back (im trying hard).

Possibly going off-topic, and leaving myself wide-open to judgement so ..yeh.

Lee247

What a tragic thread I cannot begin to imagine how it must feel to get into such a dark place, that harming yourself seems the only answer.
To the OP, she must get help, to bring her self confidence back up to a level where she can tell him to "do one". Once he is out of her life, she hopefully will be able to enjoy her life with the little ones and find someone new.
My best wishes to all who have had the bottle to post on here, their experiences of this dreadful condition.

alloy

Thanks for your replies SN, you always know how to save the day.

Good news is they are getting help, she has been prescribed pills for depression and the relationship side of things, well they are both going to counciling so time will tell......

bigsinky

good job. while happy pills can be seen as as "get you in, get you out quick" remedy, i have found that the correct tablets used in conjunction with counselling or talking to someone greatly improved things to the extent that some semblance of "normality" can be realised. I know "normal" can be very subjective, but you get the idea, being able to go out, being able to shop, being able to come home knowing there won't be a major crisis over tiny things, not sleeping in to 2 and 3 in the afternoon every day, not blowing your month's wages on a holiday (subsequently not being able to pay the rent).

Good luck and best wishes to the girl in the OP. Hope she makes significant recovery and turns her life around.

Pink_Floyd

I think what was annoying me, in the early hours whilst procrastinating when I should have been writing a paper, was that I clearly wrote what was my opinion and experience. It was then, in my eyes, twisted. All the more annoying as it would appear two of the people who made the sarcastic remarks are in some form professionals

Anyway maybe I have it wrong, and in any case I don't want a war of words, or detract from the OP. So I'll leave things like that

Glad that you are getting help, good support from all corners definitely helps me

Ellie*

Thats a nice thing to say

Glad the OP is getting support and help and i hope she feels better very soon.

Pink Floyd-things are always different in the light of day!!
I wrote my reply at 4.30 this morning and was nervous to come back!!

Lee247

Don't ever be nervous. There are friends here
It's a good site with some really nice people. And I meant what I said

Pink_Floyd

That's very true I thought your posts were very honest and open hence why I wanted to share my experiences. Just a shame that the 'professionals' decided to take what I said out of context.

All my friends and family know about my challenges. I'm also very open with new friends and people I meet through charity work etc. Being bipolar is not who I am, merely a diagnosis. I just try and get on with things as best I can. I lost everything at one point, my military career of 10 years, friendships, finances, the lot.

Thankfully I've had help and learned to spot the early signs of relapse. It is still a struggle but my life is on track. I have a nice home, good friends, and place at a world renowned university. Most of all I've found peace and acceptance in myself.

I hope things are going well for you this year

Turbohot

Rest assured, not all MH professionals have done that.

Well done for what you have done to change things for yourself.

Pink_Floyd

Thanks mate

Ellie*

Thanks Lee.
Pink Floyd thanks aswell, so far things are improving.
Just wanted to add a well done also, thats really good and im happy to see your seem to have reached a good place to be at. Its not easy to re-build your life so youve acheived a lot.