People don’t get it and don’t want to. You see threads on here and posters are almost always encouraged to leave a partner if they develop a mental illness. You don’t see the same if they have cancer or a life long physical illness. Not only is it ignorant, but it directly contributes to people not being able to acces adequate healthcare.
People with mental illnesses who are in crisis are told do this, do that, or get accused of being horrible, despite the fact that they are not in control of their brain.
Poor mental health is the biggest killer of men under 45. Last year in the UK just under 7,000 people died due to poor mental health, 1/3 were women and 2/3 were men.
Access to health care is shocking in the UK, in many trusts when you muster up the courage to see a doctor you are asked to complete and online questionnaire in your own time and sent on your merry way. Yet this isn’t done if you find a lump, you can’t breathe properly or if you’re in severe pain.
In my area the waiting time to see a specialist is 11 months, if you’re lucky you then receive four therapy sessions. Yet chemo, physio, pain management etc isn’t limited to four sessions. GPs frequently refuse to sign prescriptions for medication used by those with poor MH as consultants don’t review them on an annual basis, this can leave people without medication for months. Yet this doesn’t happen to diabetics, asthmatics etc.
If you’re in mental health crisis you are given a number to call where you leave your details, it can take upto a week for that call to be answered.
I have depression and anxiety, I also had two eating disorders for a long time, bulimia and diabulimia (using my insulin in a way that reduced my body fat).
I was going to the doctors from about 17-19, I had to see a different GP everytime, not a single one bothered to read my notes and not a single one referred me on to any service. I remember one suggested I took up river fishing.
I ended up being dragged to A&E when I was 22 (eight years after I became ill) as my body fat was dangerously low, my blood sugars had been so low friends had needed to rub sugar into my gums to bring me round and I they had witnessed some psychotic episodes.
I was kept in over night, as soon as my blood sugars were stable for a three hour period I was discharged. No offer of help for my mental health, my discharge notes also showed that all HCPs who had treated me had failed to correctly complete my noted as they noted that I was admitted due to an insulin error.
If I had to rely on the NHS I would be dead. I’m lucky that a friend funded private treatment until I was well enough to pay for it myself.
I’m now 31, my eating disorders haven’t been active for about four years with the odd small blip here and there. I have therapy once a fortnight and I take daily medication for my mental health problems.
If people with physical illnesses were treated like this it would be regular front page news. Look at the issue with a CF drug not being funded as it both prolongs life, but also improves quality of life, due to the press being involved it has now thankfully been approved for use in CF. My treatment prolongs life and improves the quality of my life, it enables me to have a job, hobbis, a partner, a son etc. Yet it is not funded by the NHS and apart from the odd token article in the press no one is willing to take the issue on as it is accepted that if you’re mentally ill you’ll get no help but drugs until you either kill yourself, you commit a crime or you end up being sectioned.