Women and mental health services

My cpn did manage to see my DH though and asked him questions about my ability to clean, care for the children etc... Without seeing me or the children or my house and just took his word for it.
wtf! It's the The Handmaid's Tale' !
Thanks for posting, this is so important to share. I am learning so much about something I had suspected, and so many of us are forcibly isolated through gender structures in this country, it's brilliant to find out what's really happening. Also, none of this valuable anecdotal data seems to be on any reports into gender and MH

Take care Thadius , no wise words, really but I hear what you say.

Even 40 years ago in Glasgow, new mothers were entitled to council provided house help in the early weeks of this job. Women were at least given a while in hospital to recover.

With my last, I gave birth at 7am. They needed the hospital bed at 8.30am and I was making tea and looking after my 3yr old and new baby at 1pm. While husband slept.

Very few civilised cultures across the globe would treat new mothers like this, like breeding cattle. In China, new mothers, used to, at least, spend a month recovering and being fed and pampered.

And English birth procedures in hospitals are awful and exacerbate trauma and injury. Dutch women are encouraged to give birth naturally and stress free at home, and then have again, civilised financial and practical support for the new mother.

This is an amazing thread. OP, you are struggling - and succeeding in your attempt - to describe a situation where the very service which is set up (supposedly) to help you is more focused on fitting its idealogy into the constraints of their finances and the system within which it was created.

It is hegemony. Systems support systems.

However that doesn't mean that medication can't be be useful sometimes, and certainly I am a big believer in therapy where experiences and situations, and the feelings they triggered within us, are analysed with support and attentiveness. Unfortunately this kind of therapy is expensive and hard to find (some practitioners aren't competent). But it can be life changing.

Drugs and cbt are quick fixes whereas human understanding, kindness and giving someone the space to feel heard - helping them slowly build a sense of security - is real healing. It's sad that this is in such short supply and our society doesn't operate around that premise.

I wish that there was a way where people could come together within a community, tell stories, listen to each other, hang out, eat together...spend time together in a healing way which didn't revolve around drinking or religion.

Just wanted to say, I hear you.

I am finding this thread very interesting.

I have recently come under the care of CMHTs but after two months and being told my cpn will arrange a visit with me I am still waiting.

My cpn did manage to see my DH though and asked him questions about my ability to clean, care for the children etc... Without seeing me or the children or my house and just took his word for it.

Before I got passed on to CMHT everyone's main concern seemed to be getting me back to work, wife and kids with no real interest in why I have problems or what I feel.

would be hideously impractical for whom? Namey Just depends on where you think resources should be spent.

Talking cures work, pills and CBT don't always, according to this great documentary on radio 4 today.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b084x6m6

Imagine a world in which middle class and upper class white men were being forced to stay in abusive relationships because they have no other option, told they were suffering from PND after having to provide 24hr care for a newborn infant after a serious medical episode they had just endured, etc etc.

If they wouldn't put up with it, why should the rest of us? Economic and social equality is being decimated. That is having a deleterious effect on a range of people's mental health.

"Are you speaking from experience? Is this thread really about the fact you've been diagnosed with a PD and you're pissed off about that?"

Namey, you're not coming out of this looking very good. That's a pretty unpleasant personal attack on someone who is suffering from mental health issues and not receiving the help they need. Yes, I get that you've been lucky enough to receive the support you need from NHS mental health services. That's great. But it doesn't change the fact that many women are not, and there is a long and well documented history of institutionalised sexism within psychiatric medicine which is probably playing a part in that situation. You coming on here and saying "I'm alright Jack" would be like me going onto a thread about poor maternity provision in overstretched London hospitals and saying "I don't know what you're all making a fuss about - my maternity care in my small, regional, well-funded hospital was excellent." By doing this you are in effect claiming that they haven't experienced what they actually are experiencing, and by way of evidence referring to something completely irrelevant - a one off anecdote that you personally were okay.

Talking therapy can be pursued on a private basis by those who want it. And afford it .

And I find you very aggressive and confrontational. Whereas It would carry about as much weight as this argument. isn't confrontational or argumentative at all.

I think the best therapists are the ones who go through it themselves. They understand and they get it where as book worms will never understand how you feel.

When I went to my doctor when I was depressed all she offered me was anti depressants. How is that going to help me solve my problems by turning me into a zombie. My mum was on them for years and it never helped her. The doctor refused to give them to her in the end. There is no funding for therapy for people who need it and the doctor can't wait to throw you out of the room.

I didn't read it as OP blaming mental health services for having suffered abuse, but that mental health services often don't/can't treat root cause of trauma which is now leading to poor mental health. Often sticking plasters of cbt and anti depressants are all that's offered.

Often diagnosed as "personality disordered" for a start!

Are you speaking from experience? Is this thread really about the fact you've been diagnosed with a PD and you're pissed off about that?

I don't think it's reasonable to blame mental health services for the fact that people have abused you. I'm sorry it's happened to you, but blaming healthcare professionals seems pretty bizarre. And I find you very aggressive and confrontational.

Great thread OP.

Completely agree with other posters re pnd. I would have worn that t shirt. I had a horrendously traumatic birth, pain for 6 months,was isolated, had mastitis three times. Of course I was depressed and traumatised, but that was a completely proportional response. Not an illness.

I think approaches like anti-depressants and cbt are quick and cheap ways of dealing with far more complicated situations like posters have mentioned in terms of abusive relationships, and other very, very difficult life situations. In reality though many good doctors hands are tied by the sheer lack of any other services.

I'm interested too in the idea re suicide rates in women being lower as a result of their ultimately responsible role as care giver.

My husband is currently under section for the second time in two years. Previously the stress of dealing with him and his illness has had bad effects on my mental health. So my notes now say mental illness. They should say carer of husband with bipolar with psychosis diagnosis and mother trying to keep things normalish for two young children.

I'm sadly not convinced his hospital stay is in any way therapeutic either.

Which can't be correct. There needs to be a clear plan put in place, a proper efficient process, that models the private sector. It needs reform

I think the difference in private mental health service and NHS mental health service is vast. Much greater than any other area of private service and the NHS.

Wow...this has got me thinking.

I have a diagnosis of Generalised Anxiety Disorder. I saw a great female counsellor for 8 months last year but we had to stop as she was a student and her placement was ending. I really wasn't convinced at first - she was a CBT therapist mainly and I've had CBT on the NHS numerous times and found it useless. But she also had training in person centred counselling and we just talked, talked and talked.

It made me realise that my anxiety comes from trying so hard to be the perfect daughter and wife. I felt like I didn't know who I was anymore and hadn't for a long time when I walked into that office. I still have a long way to go but I keep reminding myself that I have a better understanding of who I am and all the pressure I've internalised. And this is the case for so many women - stamp your anger down, lose sight of yourself, feel like it's you that's broken when expectations are what broke you.

True but it makes the system inefficient. Generalised treatment doesn't really tackle the problem.

Depression and anxiety are so hugely common that to provide every patient with free form talking therapy (which often takes place over years, sometimes even decades) would be hideously impractical. That's why the focus is on relieving symptoms, not digging into why things have happened.

Care is prioritised for those who are psychotic or at risk of harm. Talking therapy can be pursued on a private basis by those who want it.

Free form talking, is also crucial in the assessment of mental health, imo.

No assessment. It was completely patient led. The courses were for depression, anxiety and also CBT.
As you know depression and anxiety can manifest from many things. It can be a biproduct of many conditions or experiences.

Kane you seem to contradict yourself there. Courses are designed to help certain conditions, so an assessment must have taken place in order for appropriate courses to be offered.

"Free form talking therapy" is not proven useful for most psychiatric conditions.