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.