To agree with Wes Streeting's statement that MH issues are overdiagnosed?

[Locutus2000]

Pretty controversial stuff.

Who decides?

As someone who is currently dealing with 2 grieving children who lost their other parent to suicide who seeked help for months prior I can’t say I agree that it’s over diagnosed. Suicide increasing along side the increased amount of mental health correlates.

T his. I am a parent of a child who has tried to take their life several times and it has taken 6 bloody years to get her correct diagnoses after years of hospitalisations and treatment .

Her brother is equally as ill and has only just got his ND diagnoses x2 after 6 years. He has got steadily worse and worse as regards his mental health as he was given completely the wrong treatment by CMHT because they just robbed him off with useless unskilled support workers. We have had to spend £4k we don’t have on proper assessment and the right therapy and need to keep going, it’s£500 a month!!!!He gets nothing as regards benefits.

MH is anything but over diagnosed! It’s quite worrying how ill informed Wes Streeting is.

I’m so sorry for your loss. ❤️

It’s a battle to get accepted to CMHT, a battle to get a proper diagnosis, a battle to get treatment and a battle to stay on CMHT and keep support at all levels of difficulties. Any whiff of being able to say you’re too complex and need to be passed on, they do it.

Perhaps Wes would like to point out what’s so easy about the process. And don’t get me started on the shit that young people endure under CAMHs, things left untreated that get worse and the woeful transition procedure to adult services that he should be well informed about.

The walking anxious as some like to describe struggling people and children are all too often left to get worse, much worse.

I strongly believe if my dc had had the right treatment and support under CAMHS and CMHT we wouldn’t be where we are now. The longer it is left the more complex it gets and layer on layer of crisis and trauma end up needing to be dealt with.

But hey let’s just ignore what families actually living with MH and the beyond shite system that we have say.

This has been a long time coming. MH is definitely over diagnosed and used as an excuse not to work. There is no incentive for people who claim benefits when they get their rent and tax paid for them. They quit the jobs they get because they get 50pence more staying on benefits rather than working and earning a wage. A lot of them sit around on their backsides smoking cannabis watching Netflix on massive television screens. A lot of them need a kick up the backside and this country needs to stop being so bloody soft.

The only time I would agree with this is the overuse of antidepressants with menopausal women

We are NOT depressed but by the end of it we are

I agree that there needs to be early intervention, and the system at the moment is to stuff people on antidepressants and leave them to it, but surely it doesn't help if so many people are apparently struggling with mental health? The people in need should be getting the help, but how they can be if so many people are being diagnosed with poor mental health and signed off work that it is impossible to see the wood for the trees? Streeting is correct that there needs to be far more preventative strategies and cahms interventions, and that needs to be put in place.

Its not politicians though who make decisions about diagnostic criteria, so for example people that have repeat suicidal ideation/attempts and SH are now being viewed has having or exhibiting a behavioural habitual presentation rather than a MH one, particularly children. There isnt a role for CAMHS with this, theres no MH diagnosis or disorder with it. These are practitioners on the ground . Quite often with long term behavioural difficulties there isnt anything CAMHS or adult MH services are going to 'do'.

What utter tosh have you even read my opening post on my thread.

I wasn’t benefits bashing but that’s just name calling when someone disagrees so hey ho whatever.

I said that there are many people gaming the system/on the make and spoiling it for for genuine cases…we have a problem the spiralling benefits costs which are enormous and the facts are not all are legitimate.

That is reality….for some it is all too easy to say MH/depression/anxiety and opt out …life isn’t like that it’s tough with ups and downs …pulling out MH at every opportunity and wanting a life on benefits isn’t the answer for the person or the tax payer.

Could be. I work in a mental health related charity and NHS talking services are in a bad way; there are a shortage of therapists plus long waiting lists. I also know in terms of ADHD, that this condition has been de prioritsed within the NHS despite the condition being under diagnosed. We are generally playing catchup with this condition as many girls and women have been ignored in the diagnostic criteria (as its mainly based on male presentations). I personally think its a good thing that we're now picking up adults who have struggled all their lives. If we have an opportunity to support them either through medication and/or psychotherapy, this would have massive benefits for them, their families and wider society.

Agree!

I tell you what - why don’t you both take this in to a personal DM to each other, scrap out “yes you are no I’m not” in private for two hours and come back to this thread when you have something else to add which adds some value to the conversation.

Completely agree with this. It’s not as black and white as people commenting on here. I work with young people and their world is bleak! They were small through a global pandemic where life and school was disrupted, they have the internet and social media 24/7, threats of war, violence, gangs, climate change, etc. We are bombarded with info and it’s not healthy for growing brains. I have probable menopausal induced anxiety i have found my own was to manage it (because i know the strategies to try!)

Its not as simple as people are not robust anymore. my mum spend her whole life suffering with MH issues ( suicide attempts and unit stays ) and her dad before her. It wasn’t talked about and was a stigma, i didn’t tell anyone in the 90s she was in hospital.

Its all out and talked about now as it should be. No one should suffer in silence,

As a mental health nurse, no, it's not over diagnosed, however, it's how people cope and what people expect which is frustrating.

Lots of service bashing here, but so many people expect services to fix them without actually doing any work themselves. If you broke your leg, you'd see a doctor but you'd also do your physio at home. People come to psychiatry and expect medication to fix everything without changing the underlying reasons behind their illness, or expect immediate access to therapy without putting in any of the groundwork themselves.

Illnesses like BPAD and Schizophrenia can be blooming hard work. Hard for the person, hard for their families, hard for services to manage effectively and when it goes wrong, it goes wrong (see Calocane) so when budgets are tight, as they are as mental health has never been properly funded, we have to be able to focus services in these areas rather than the worried well, except the worried well make the most noise about needing help, so chronically ill, psychotic patients, go unnoticed and the lack of funding for these patients, and the service as a whole, continues.

Plus, serious mental illness is very difficult to 'fake' ; I've been a nurse for a long time, I could probably just about manage it but Joe Public couldn't!

Long waiting lists yes because the system is clogged by the worried well holding their adhd and anxiety cards so those with genuine serious issues get lost in the crowds.

Gps need to do better in identifying those with genuine problems and if they can't do that they need to do some training.

How can someone like Ben shepherd a successful telly presenter proudly sit there and 'reveal' his adhd diagnosis? Doesn't he see that it actually minimises it for people who have severe struggles with it?!

Bloody hell this comes from such a position of nativity about ADHD.

My daughter masks her symptoms all day long. To the outside she looks like she copes just fine. Her school grades are good. She doesn’t get into trouble.

She gets home from school and sleeps for two hours because the effort to behave in the way she is expected to exhausts her.

Her anxiety levels are through the roof all of the time. Her self loathing is painful to see. We see this every evening and every weekend. It’s emotionally awful for the whole family as we become her safe space and her verbal punching bag just to get through it.

Then she pops on her mask on a Monday morning (after a panic attack because she’s running behind by five minutes) and no one is the wiser.

So if he is having those sort of struggles too, it’s no badge of honour to feel that shit.

Because he wants to ingratiate with what, these days, appears to be the masses. He actually made himself look really naff. Revealing his ‘diagnosis’ was just an act of narcissism.

I have read your whole thread and do not believe a large majority hold your ableist views.

Agree 100%. Have experienced similar difficulties in my own family.

Of course there is

As soon as a certain type of person cottoned on that a label for them (and increasingly their child too) came with a cheque it was a free for all.

Do you understand how hard it is to get a diagnosis? Or do you think people can give themselves a label and claim disability benefits? 🤣

But many people have to modify and control their behaviour, a lot of it is social etiquette and social skills. I think we all mask to some degree. Many people come home from work or kids come on from school, exhausted from having to conform to social norms etc and then relax or have a sleep.

Obviously self loathing is not normal but many kids and adults to struggle with confidence.

I'm not saying that ND and MH problems do not exist, of course they do the thing is everyone seems to have one nowadays and genuine cases like your dd get lost in the crowds.

Really, how do? Repeated suicidal idealisation is very much tied up with MH and people do get treatment and medication for it. Of course there is a role for CAMHs and they do play a role and there are MH disorders and diagnoses for it.

Do you not get it? It is not the same.ND are having to mask all day every day. The massively damaging impact this has particularly with girls is well known. You can’t ignore self harm, EDs, self medication, suicidal idealisation, dangerous impulsivity etc