To think many mental health professionals are needlessly unpleasant? - TW suicide

[InThisGarden]

Post provoked by recent suicide of friend.
I know she experienced this, as have I; we talked about it within a week of her passing.

They treated her, and me, as if we were worthless.
I'm not talking about lack of services or funding. I'm talking about seeing the person in front of them as a person, deserving of kindness and compassion, not scorn and punitive treatment.

So many people end up in mental health services as a result of abysmal experiences at the hands of others - why do so many professionals then stick the boot in further? Treat people as a burden?

Why can't they be like my GP, who explained, regretfully, there are no services, but treated me kindly?
They seem to project everything onto the patient; preferring to imply the person is an attention seeker or undeserving, or otherwise at fault so not allowed services.

AIBU to think it's cruel and completely unnecessary?

To the good 'uns out there - are you allowed to tell patients there are no services? Or is there something else I'm missing?

I am an ex MH nurse. Of the many reasons I left, poor treatment of patients by some staff was one of them. I whistle blew and my life was made hell. But I would do the same again.

A very wise nurse once told me that more psychopaths would draw a pension having been a MH nurse, than I would ever deal with as patients. They were right.

The profession attracts two types of people. Those of us who genuinely care, and those who fell into the job but likes the power it gives them over others.

With some people who have certain diagnoses, the contempt with which some MH staff talked about them, was disgraceful. I always suspected that it was frustration at not being able to make these patients "better" in the same way that you can with someone who has, say, schizophrenia. That's a matter of trying different antipsychotics until one works and teaching coping strategies.

With something like BPD, it takes lots of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy to be able to see a change. Lots of Trusts don't have this provision so there is literally nothing staff could do to help, other than keep the person safe during a crisis point.

The relief when a DBT therapist was employed was palpable. Finally, we had someone to refer people with BPD to.

It absolutely sucks that for some diagnoses, it is all blamed on the patient. If staff disagree about treatment, some idiot will pipe up "see, they are splitting the team, divide and conquer, and manipulating you". All cries for help are dismissed as attention seeking. I always used to say to student nurses that no-one wakes up one day and thinks "hmmm, today I think I shall have a really hsrd to threat MH problem for shits and giggles".

Sadly, though, changing the culture of the staff will only happen when both the baby boomers, and those trained by them, retire.

I also strongly disagree that it's a funding issue a lot of the time. Mostly it's just a "lots of MH nurses are horrible, hardened bastards" issue.

Someone asked up thread 'where do people go for someone to listen and unpick events'.
I'm a chaplain. I've worked as a school chaplain and a (mental health) hospital chaplain. They come to us. Chaplains (any religion, any person, without talking about religion). We are picking up the pieces of a shattered system. As were many of my teacher colleagues, as are many social workers.
I'm fortunate that I am actually trained in mental health chaplaincy - and we are all trained in listening and caring. The idea is that we are there to listen in a way HCPs don't have time to anymore, and to support service users/students/families through treatment as someone who can take the time to listen and be there, and encourage them to engage in treatment.
Ten years ago, that's roughly what happened.
In the last few years cuts have gone deeper. I'm now finding people asking if I can offer CBT or counselling (no, I can't). When I say no, they come to me anyway because there is noone else to listen, no other services to access. In the school I worked in, we were lucky that I could devote most of my time to that and that I had training. In many schools teachers with no mental health training and nothing other than a lot of compassion were plugging this gap.
Compassion fatigue is a huge problem. But if I felt I couldn't show that compassion anymore, I wouldnt be able to do my job. There is a point of burnout people need to step aside because their attitude damages patients.

I think I read somewhere that a lot of mental health professionals, have mental health issues themselves.

The gist of the article was that they became interested in mental health in order to "fix" themselves.

@tttigress I agree with that. Which is fine when you use your own experience to provide compassion and understanding to others. But not when your own issues make you so inward looking that you lose the ability to have empathy.

^*With something like BPD, it takes lots of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy to be able to see a change. Lots of Trusts don't have this provision so there is literally nothing staff could do to help, other than keep the person safe during a crisis point.

The relief when a DBT therapist was employed was palpable. Finally, we had someone to refer people with BPD to.*^

DBT is far from the only option to treat BPD or various PDs for that matter. We don't offer DBT in a formal way and have very good success with cluster B personality disorders. It's been my specialist area for over 10 years and I'm not a fan of DBT as a single therapy.

We offer CFT, and various trauma focussed therapies and attachment therapies. They have greater rates of success.

So say no DBT means there's nothing that can be done is ridiculous.

Wow a lot of this thread is as bias and prejudice as the people it's aimed at.

Yes I agree with you that attitudes will only change when baby boomers and those trained by them retire SirChing the amount f time I heard some staff say they only wanted to help those who were " genuinely ill " and I saw some staff treat patients with certain conditions with utter contempt, i agree a good proportion of staff have their own mental health issues but a lot of the time it can be caused by the stress of the job and the lack of support from management ,seriously management just didn't give a fuck.if we were woefully understaffed just as long as no major incidences occurred and it a major incidences did happen it was always the nurse on duty,s fault ,never lack of staff .

@x2boys I totally agree with you.

@doublebarrellednurse I was giving an example.

The clue is “mental health professionals”. That’s what they are. They’re not your mate. They’re highly trained medical professionals just like a surgeon, midwife, cardiologist etc etc. They often have to give advice that some mental health patients find very offensive eg get off drugs, stop excessive drinking, get a job, develops routine, start thinking about others apart from yourself. Mental health professionals are not there to pander to the whims of patients. They are there to professionally diagnose and where appropriate treat genuine mental illness.

@Speckledhen10 I agree with that but I don't believe someone telling you to get a routine and self care feels helpful to people who just want a magic pill/ feel overwhelmed and unable to take basic care of themselves. That's where good support workers and mentors who can build relationships to work with people unable to get started with a healthier life can work.

Omg YANBU. I’ve been treated very badly by usually locums that were more interested in my appearance and one just looked me up and down and said ‘you live in a council house, yes? What drugs are you on?’ I’m a homeowner on no drugs! I have dreads so obviously I’m a junkie 🙄 they were not helpful at all! I’m a veteran with ptsd and they just fobbed me off with.... prescription drugs. Not helpful and they were very mean. I go to a shaman now!

"I doubt someone is giving advice like make a cup of tea to get someone off the phone as they would prefer to do something else is far more likely they are having to prioritize people’s needs."

I was told, when I took my mother for an emergency psychiatric appointment, that she needed to go to clubs, etc., and that you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink. The general gist was that she needed to 'pull herself together'. The next day she needed to be admitted to psychiatric hospital. For 3 weeks we were told nothing about her situation, until I finally asked how we went about making a formal complaint. We then saw someone, who told us that she had a bipolar crisis, would be in hospital for 3 weeks and would be completely back to baseline in 3 months. She ended up in hospital for 3 months, was finally released because they couldn't do anything for her (she only wanted to be with her family) and 2 years later is worse than when she was in hospital. The psych team have discharged her and won't see her again.

When my DD (now 17) took and overdose at 15 the mental health worker who came to see her in the hospital made her feel worse.

Notable points were "When you feel very bad, what do you do to relax? Have you tried reading a book or watching Netflix?" and "Most people I see don't have loving parents like you do, you should be thankful." Both things made DD feel like she wasn't being listened to. Also DD says the mental health worker kept smirking at her. I was eventually allowed into the room to sit for the rest of the chat and I noticed all of these things as well, along with some an eyeroll or two.

And might I add, she had taken said overdose due to the stress over a sexual assault committed by an ex boyfriend which she had then been harassed by peers over. We got the impression the MH worker felt it should all be on us as parents to help her with it emotionally, which we tried to do for a long time. It was as if she thought "Well she has 2 parents who love her, why do I need to get involved?"

Sadly I have been under high level services (hospital,crisis team and cmht) for 2years in a couple of months.

The people that treated me well stand out, I remember their names.

Mostly staff treat you like shit on their shoe.

I have been told things you would not believe, that I should be greatful I had a misscarriage, that I was selfish, that I was a bitch.

I was regularly illegally restrained in hospital. I was also illegally detained as I wasn't aware of the exact laws (too busy having a mental breakdown) so couldn't fight my own corner.

I saw someone hang themselves in hospital. I was sexually assaulted. No professional intervened or even seemed to give a flying... they just moaned about filling in incident forms.

Services to help those under cmht care are almost non existent. I often think I wish I'd just lied from the start and then I would have had a good amount of CBT by now, no hospital related PTSD and would probably be functioning a hell of a lot better.

Not wanting sympathy
Just want to say it is really so much worse than people think

One of the issues with MH services is that there is not much comeback. By default the patients being treated badly are in no fit state to complain so the bad treatment continues.

I am very grateful that I have had a lot of amazing input from MH services. However I have also had some terrible treatment. When I first had my breakdown I was seeing a therapist (the therapy triggered the breakdown) - she called an amulance to take me to A&E as I was very unwell - confused, paranoid, SHing and suicidal. After a long wait someone came to see me. She asked me what was wrong (obviously had no handover from the ambulance crew). I told her how for the past couple of months I had only had a couple of hours sleep per night. She told me she could only give me a sleeping tablet that I'd already tried but didn't work. I started to cry as I just felt so desperate. She said sharply to me 'now what's wrong with you'. There was no way I was going to speak to her after that. She sent me home and the next day I was back in the hospital as I'd attempted suicide

Unfortunately with the lack of funding this kind of thing will continue. But to anyone with MH issues I would say keep pushing for help if you possibly can as there are many truly amazing, compassionate and hard working professionals out there.

I do also think there is a massive bed crisis in MH. I was on an acute ward for 7 months and saw how the consultant psychiatrist had to make some really difficult decisions over who to discharge as beds were in constant demand. Some clearly very unwell people were discharged as it was felt other services could deal with them better or the service offered on the ward was just not going to help them. Other patients had to be prioritised who would be helped by the acute ward. I also saw how beds were blocked very often by people awaiting housing. They could be on the ward for months and months - perfectly well but needing supportive accomodation and a community treatment order. I did not envy the consultant her job atall.

@purple - I agree that sexual assualt is rife. I was sexually assualted on the first 3 wards I was on by multiple men. Doesn't happen now as I am on a female only ward. The staff did take it seriously in the most part (although one suggested it was because of my clothes - I was just wearing a normal vest top in the summer - but as I am big breasted I had a bit of cleavage. I started wearing my BFs baggy hoodies after that even though I was hot). But there weren't enough staff to put these men on level 4 obs (which was staff within touching distance of the patient) which was the only thing that would have at least meant staff were aware the moment something happened. The consultant was reluctant to put people on level 4 obs as she knew it would mean very little staff to run the rest of the ward which is very dangerous.