To feel a little let down with nhs ?

[luluxxx]

I’ve had anxiety for years now
At the minute I’m dealing with intrusive thoughts really bad.
I worry about illness /death
I worry about all of the bad things that could happen
To a point I track my partner on the map for accidents when he’s driving
When my elderly dad is heading to town I will check the route for anything he might fall over.
I scan for body symptoms constantly and check for lumps (my mum passed when I was 14 from breast cancer )
Anyway I had my initial call today
He told me I would benefit from CBT
He told me the wait times was 92 weeks
I knew it would be a wait but that is crazy
He said “I think CBT would be helpful for your silly death intrusive thoughts”

So now I feel pathetic
I knew the thoughts were not normal but I don’t think il be able to speak to someone knowing it’s stupid.
I also have a choking fear.

i have bought a book called anxiety panicking about panic and im reading that

That isn't how the French model works.

I completely believe the OP.

A few years ago I was struggling and referred myself to silver cloud.
I was deemed too high risk to self-manage due to intrusive thoughts so I was referred to a person and silver cloud access was blocked.

It took 26 months to speak to a person.

I had 6w input. It was enough to build a relationship and identify the issues but not enough to deal with them.

I then ended up with the work related stress team who weren't concerned about my work addiction issues but only the lack of work-life balance. They were over the moon when I added going to the gym to my 60hr work week.

I ended u paying privately for support.

The irony is, I work for the NHS and due to my working hours, my service has no waiting list and needs are met in a timely manner.

Can you afford to go private ? I know it’s not cheap but it’s better than this?

92 weeks is nuts. I’d go private if I were you. Have you got insurance, or could you afford to pay?

I can't find anyone private and my insurance company is paying. I have to have CBT specifically and nothing else. I've googled and all I get is the midlands when I'm hundreds of miles away. I'm not surprised that the NHS wait is so long when this treatment is virtually unobtainable.

I doubt that due to one persons work hours an entire service meets its targets when it would not otherwise do so. If you genuinely believe this then I recommend you quit for your own sanity. It probably won’t entirely crumble without you. If that is the case then you are doing them no long term favours single-handedly propping it up. I say this with kindness as I have been there and got the tee shirt and nobody cared when I finally burnt out.

CBT is the most common therapeutic modality for people to be trained in. It’s very surprising that you can’t find anyone privately just to do a course of CBT. The usual issue is that the NHS trains all the psychologists and therapists and then they piss off to the private sector.

Agree. CBT is an extremely common therapeutic modality, in both public & private sector.
Sadly intrusive thoughts around health & death is a very common problem, and there are countless CBT therapists in each local area who provide courses of CBT on it.

Remember OP, even if you can’t find a F2F CBT therapist for some strange reason, you can do it remotely on Teams or Zoom. Almost all private therapists offer this these days. People on oil rigs etc access CBT these days (I say this as someone who has treated people on oil rigs).

With the incomprehensible 92wk wait (for IAPT!?! 🤔), the insistence that a qualified clinician called a known condition ‘silly’, and the apparent lack of any private CBT therapists either locally or nationally there seems to be lots of reasons/barriers arising for you not to have a short course of common therapy. I’m mystified and feel like this could be sorted quite easily with a slightly different approach.

@ShrinkholeDoes CBT have another name then? I'm in a fairly well populated area and my attempts to find a therapist have drawn a complete blank. I've never had any sort of therapy and am very reluctant, but have to have it for a court case. I'm getting desperate as my solicitor is pushing for me to do this. I know nothing about therapists and don't even understand what it's about. They just seem to offer counselling and I know exactly why I feel the way I do and don't need to analyse it.

OP, Im kind of hesitant to suggest this as I think real therapy with an actual human is invaluable but I have heard people talking about using Chat GPT for CBT and report really good results. Maybe you could give it a try whilst waiting?

Intrusive thoughts are different to ‘anxiety’, and often intrusive thoughts and anxiety are symptoms of a deeper underlying condition. Telling people who are struggling with their MH to stiffen up their upper lip does not help.

That being said, one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever had has been the every day should have something that brings me a sense of enjoyment and a something that brings a sense of achievement, even better if those are one thing combined.

Where are you? I have BUPA and tons of CBT people come up on the search in my area.

Your insurance company should offer you three local options.

If private is too expensive, then you can get quite far with Chat GPT, describe what's going on, the wait for CBT and ask for it to work through a CBT programme with you. (I'm not saying this is acceptable, we also need to accept the NHS is currently not fit for purpose and fundamentally review how it works.)

@Gardeningsideeffects I'm in Kent. The insurance company is the motor insurance company of the driver that nearly killed me. I'm too scared to drive anywhere, not near public transport and don't have private health insurance. His insurance is supposed to pay to try to get me back in a car. I hadn't thought of private hospitals though.

Well whoever your insurance contact in should help you with this.

I can't imagine Kent is a CBT desert! Definitely go back to them for ideas.

And yes, private hospitals will have them definitely. Like they have Physios etc too.

My dc is suicidal and DH etc and camhs rejected.

However maybe the person meant it in the sense its a worry not likely to happen.
Some people try to reassure with dont
be silly itll never happen.

The guy who rejected camhs said keep everything sharp etc out of theway. WTF its a teen and you have rejected. I dont have a safe to put knives, scissors etc etc fir the rest of their life. Its a teen not atoddler you can put asafety lock on stuff. But more important so they do think theres a real risk then

Have you tried reading Claire weekes.
You can listen to her books on line.
Shes a life saver.

For anyone doubting how long the wait list was ,got my documents through this morning and on here it says 72 weeks ..so still a crazy long wait

*71 weeks

I'm sorry you've got such a long wait. Unfortunately you may have to take matters into your own hands in the meantime by either sourcing a private therapist and also engaging in some self help techniques of which there are hundreds of resources online, including apps if that's your thing. Learning about GAD and death anxiety, how it manifests and what others have done (forums are often helpful for this) might be a good start. Understanding the beast is normally one of the best ways to beat it. It might also be helpful to look at OCD intrusive thoughts and see if any of that fits. Ultimately CBT is what you need, and hopefully that waiting list won't be as long as they are predicting. Medication from your GP might be helpful too, they can also signpost you to other resources whilst you're waiting for therapy. You are certainly not alone, good luck OP

I am inclined to this too. Past events have caused you to lose trust that you and your loved ones will be safe, because, you know, people turn out not to be safe when we're not looking, don't they? So we don't want to take our eye off the ball in the hope of controlling outcomes, and we need constant reassurance.
The problem is with that, is that the checking and reassurance doesn't make anyone any safer. And the reassurance is only temporary. All you know is that they're OK right then, not that they will continue to be. So you need to check and check again, chasing a peace of mind that will remain out of reach.
Risk is part of life, and the object has to be to learn to live with it in a way that doesn't spoil your life. This basically means acknowledging it, then boxing it up so its at the periphery not front and centre.
And the most important step in this is to reduce and eradicate the checking behaviour. Because the checking is forcing you to think about the risk, when you need to try to stop thinking about it.
CBT would be likely to focus on a plan to reduce and eventually eradicate your reassurance seeking behaviour. So you would probably be asked to wean yourself off, for example, only checking for lumps once a day, then once a week etc. You would also be encouraged to record your feelings before and after reassurance checking and note for yourself that it was a viscious circle.
There is some really good stuff online where you could start practicing this yourself if you can't get therapy. Start with the NHS website.

That's an appalling and dismissive thing to say. I'd make a formal complaint.

@5128gapyou have hit the nail on the head with this ,this is what I do constantly with phone calls ,it eases the worry for a few hours but then the urge to check again gets really strong
its honestly exhausting at times

That's absolutely bonkers for Talking Therapies! IDK if the wait time standards apply to them, but I'm fairly sure patient choice does. So, if you are able to get to a different area with a shorter wait time it might be worth seeing if they can see you sooner.

I think @5128gap is completely right re goals of therapy, but it can be really hard to do on your own, so please don't beat yourself up if you can't.

Also agree with the pp who suggested looking up OCD intrusive thoughts and seeing if they resonate. OCDUK does a lot of work on access to Talking Therapies, so it might be worth contacting them too. They run a yearly conference and you also might find some of the presentations helpful. I'm not saying you definitely have OCD, just that you might find the materials helpful.

I hope you can get some more than temporary relief soon. I know from experience how draining these kind of thoughts are.

@ParmesanRealignment

Your posts are awful. Putting someone down and disbelieving them whilst claiming to be a professional.