Would this be allowed at an appointment

[busyweeks78]

My friend has got a stockpile of tablets that she intended to use to harm herself. She’s planning to give them to her care coordinator at their appointment tomorrow to keep herself safe. Will her care coordinator take them? She feels this will keep her safe.

I think she’s worried about how the care coordinator will carry them out of the appointment and if she will tell her consultant as she’s not keen on them.

Someone just needs to hand them into the nearest pharmacy where they can be disposed of safely.
We have had our yellow bins filled with tablets (removed from all packaging) from patient returns. Noone will bat an eyelid.

Take them off her and hand them in yourself. Sorted.

I can’t hand them in myself as I’m in hospital with no leave to do so.

@FREEM. This may or may not be attention seeking. Whether it is or it isn’t, the mature and compassionate response to attention seeking is to provide the attention people need. Has it occurred to you that healthy, secure personalities don’t feel the need to seek attention? Obviously If giving then that attention compromises your own well being in anyway then you might need to back off but in normal circumstances, if someone needs or wants attention just give it to them.

I write as a former psychotherapist. I’ve lost count of the number of parents/partners of troubled individuals who have dismissed their loved ones very real struggles as ‘just’ attention seeking.

I don’t think she is attention seeking I think she just wants to be safe but with her history I’m glad shes making an effort to do so.

If she’s worried that her CC won’t take them then she can take them to her GP or a pharmacist and just say she had too many repeat prescriptions or over-stocked - very common - and would like them disposed of. They’ll then be put in clinical waste. No questions about how she came to have so many or presumption that it was to overdose. Sorted.

As an aside, I think your medical team would agree that it’s not beneficial for your health to be in contact with all these different friends with mental health problems and self-harming and suicidal tendencies whilst you’re an inpatient trying to recover yourself. Whilst it’s understandable you want to try to help these friends, it’s also not good for them to have somebody so invested in their problems and doesn’t encourage their recovery either. Could you ask those caring for you to intercept communication?

Luckily she’s given them to her this morning. I have thought about distancing myself but I would worry too much about them to do that.

Least she has handed them over what a shame she isn't well atm you are a good friend I hope you get well soon

It’s kind of you to want to support your friends, but you’re in no place to do this until you’re better yourself. Mental health problems make many people very self-obsessed and attention-seeking, and it sounds like this is true of your friends. It isn’t fair of them to be contacting you, an inpatient with obviously serious health problems of your own to recover from, to talk about their intentions to harm themselves or ask you constantly for “advice” on how to stop them doing it. Your friend didn’t really need to contact you and get you involved in finding out whether she could give her medication to her CC - she wanted you to know that she’s been stockpiling meds because she’s been thinking about harming herself and get you worried and focusing on her, because that’s part of how her mental health problems make her act. Your recovery is going to impeded and you aren’t really helping them with theirs, either. You need to tell all of them that you’ve got to focus on getting better for now and ask the hospital to look after your phone for you if people persist in getting in touch to talk about being suicidal.

Good for you for being so caring and being there. Glad it’s had a good outcome- must have been very worrying for you.

And there are many attention seeking / self- obsessed people without mental illness to blame!