What could be different in mental health care, what helps, and what have you found to be useful reading?

[OwFriggingOw]

First off - this is a thread inspired by another thread - not about another thread.

I am a lecturer who teaches mainly MH nursing students, but also Adult, Child and Learning Disability field nurses about MH, and also occasionally medical students. I have no agenda for this thread bar a genuine desire to listen, share ideas, and have an open discussion about what is helpful / less so. I worked in NHS MH for 13 odd years.

In case anyone links the other threads that inspired this thread - I have been comissioned to edit a book about people's experiences (service users and carers / family / friends) within MH services and with MH issues. NONE OF THE POSTS HERE WILL BE USED IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM FOR THIS BOOK. You have my ABSOLUTE word on that. Similarly, NONE of the posts here will be used in any of my teaching.

My aim in starting this stems from several PM's and several on-thread comments about how this would be useful/ I hope it can be a helpful, supportive and productive meeting place for thoughts and ideas about what people have found helpful with regards MH care / services / support (statutory and non statutory) and what has been less helpful. Most importantly with regards the less helpful - what can be done differently?

And - beacuse I like books - maybe we can share reading ideas :)

Would it be helpful if I shared parts of my long thread from earlier regarding what I see as needed, without any other details from the thread?

Also, yellow is right about triggers. For a severely ill individual, anything - a shadow, a curtain, a stone, a crack in the pavement - can be a trigger. I would wager there are far more people with mental health issues who will benefit from discussing them than there are individuals who will be seriously adversely affected from their participation above and beyond what the illness would bring about anyway.

Nilgiri --
I will not discuss this thread in anything but general terms so will not be dragging my relative into it.

You should not assume anything I have posted here refers to my relative.

Please do not post anything more referring to my relative or attempt to bring up the subject.

Please do not assume you know what I can or cannot do, and do not presume to lecture me on what I should or should do in the case of my relative.

My relative is none of your business.

I agree, Perry, that such a thread is unlikely to effect major change.

Unfortunately threads in which individuals work through their own experiences to shared benefit are likely to be even more the stuff that arouses math's ire, under "pet peeves".

So we are all to be silenced. Again. Go... somewhere else... unspecified. Again.

'Also, yellow is right about triggers. For a severely ill individual, anything - a shadow, a curtain, a stone, a crack in the pavement - can be a trigger. I would wager there are far more people with mental health issues who will benefit from discussing them than there are individuals who will be seriously adversely affected from their participation above and beyond what the illness would bring about anyway.'

So you are willing to take the chance that your words here, or anyone else's, are going to do more harm than good?

Have you ever heard of hubris?

math - bully you? Give me a break, do you really think I'm bullying you? If so, report me.

You've made your point. Several times. Over and over. I don't know why you're still posting. It is ridiculous. We get it. You don't think it's useful. Some people DO think it's useful.

Are people not allowed to speak their truth in case it upsets someone else or harms someone else? I'm sorry but that is bullshit. In my experience, the NHS has been shit. There are others who have had excellent experiences. I'm not going to sit here and say "yes, the NHS is great" when that's not my experience because it might harm someone else. I would NEVER dissuade someone from going to the NHS for mental health problems - in fact, I'd always suggest it as first, second, third, fifteenth port of call. I've only given up in the last year or two, after trying for 15 years to get sufficient treatment and I would advise others to try the same as I did.

Equally, like I said, not going to lie in order to protect people. That's just stupid. And I don't like the hectoring, repeating of things over and over.

Feel free to take "your relative" as shorthand for "relative and others similarly ill", as I used for the first longhand mention.

Or indeed for all the people on behalf of whom you presume to speak in your posts about "how many people's are doing praying their relative hasn't googled mental health" or whatever it was, above.

Sorry, but I am a service user myself. I am not a mental health professional. Am I not allowed to have an opinion then? I was triggered earlier this week by a letter about my son's 6 week check. I measured his head circumference 50 times in an hour and a half. I weighed him over a hundred times. I am accessing every scrap of help available in an area that has an excellent service for perinatal mental health issues. Does that qualify me to have an opinion on mental health services or am I supposed to not discuss my thoughts, opinions, feelings or experiences because there are other people who are more severely ill than I am? .

Nilgiri: -- 'Unfortunately threads in which individuals work through their own experiences to shared benefit ...'

Again -- how do you know who is benefitting and how do you know who is being harmed?

How do you know whether some flippant 'some doctors' is throwing a spanner into a doctor-patient relationship built up for years?

Again -- hubris?

math you can't EVER judge what will do more harm than good. Ever. I thought going to the NHS would help me. I trusted them to help me, I thought it was brilliant, everyone always says, if you're depressed, suicidal, whatever, go to your GP.

I did and nothing was done. I went to A&E, nothing was done. I was in hospital, nothing was done. It left me feeling like the most worthless piece of shit on the planet, like I wasn't even ill, like I was making it up, like I wasn't worth their time.

So don't sit there and presume to tell me what is harmful and what isn't. Because the NHS has done more harm to me than anything I've ever read on the internet.

Give the people reading some fucking credit for fuck sake.

Thunkshead:

You have an obligation as a human being to have a thought for those who may well be more ill than you when you post.

It is not all about the rights of individuals.

• to post.

The thing is math is that an obligation? Because really, that's getting quite deeply philosophical and I very much doubt that we're going to solve the question of positive and negative liberties on this thread.

And you don't, math? Honestly? You feel you have a right to say that no one can talk about their own mental health because there will be some people who are more ill than others? Who gives you the right to place others on a hierarchy of who can discuss their experience and who can't? It's okay for women to talk about adoption, relationships, bereavement - but not mental health? None of those things might trigger someone mentally ill, no? You can post, over and over, the same opinion that the opinions, feelings, experiences and thoughts of those with mental health issues are a symptom and not real and that's okay? Sorry love, but you are actually displaying extreme prejudice about mental illness.

mathanxiety - do you tell the posters in the Childbirth topic who have had horrible experiences with medical professionals not to post in case other posters are frightened and their relationship with their doctor damaged? Or posters in the General Health topic?

Amazing post , Nilgiri . I have been reading Maryz's posts about her son for a very long time & have also learnt a great deal

Thank you for your recommendations , HarriettheSpy , will ask more if OK ?
Agree with your points , thunksheadontableand glad the extra piece of information proved so important in accessing therapy .

math , I was not the one drawing attention to a specific negative experience - you asked me specifically just now !. Some posters in mh know me -somewhat !-in RL too and I am a person of integrity < rose to bait , sigh >
I very well see that your concern is not the posters on here , but people in highly vulnerable situations .

mathanxiety

I know who is benefitting because they are saying so on this thread.

I also know I've been harmed by people who behave as you do and cannot abide the content of MH services being discussed. I've been prescribed therapies that were inappropriate for me, and then blamed by the therapists for not getting better (cheers mate, that really helps.) I've also had wonderful experiences at MIND, where no one attempted to censor or invalidate my experience and which therefore allowed me to repair the damage done by the blaming.

How do you know who is benefitting and how do you know who is being harmed?

I am staggered math when you say "You have an obligation as a human being to have a though for those who may well be more ill than you before posting ". Well , who'd 'a' thunk it ?

And you assume posters in mh are "ill" ? ( on the other hand , maybe best not to go down that road )

this is bizarre and insulting, people are really not so stupid that they will evade medical intervention on the basis of a discussion on here

I've had to have my daughter sectioned, on more than one occasion, despite my own experiences and knowing about the awful experiences of others - I wouldn't hesitate to do so again if she was seriously unwell

"I also know I've been harmed by people such as you who cannot abide the content of MH services being discussed "- YY, Nilgiri*

"..also had wonderful experiences..where no one attempted to censor or invalidate my experience & which therefore allowed me to repair the damage done by the blaming -same here

Thunks,

The difference between posters on other topics and those who may be assumed to be reading this one is that this one appeals specifically to people who have experience of MH services to post their bad experiences.

Posts here may therefore be assumed to be potential triggers of memories of specific negative experiences in MH services and the associated trauma both for posters and for lurkers, owing to the fact that triggers play a part in mental health issues -- a fact that was surely known to Ow when she started the thread.

IF YOU ARE DEPRESSED, SUICIDAL OR FEEL YOUR MENTAL HEALTH IS NOT WHAT IT SHOULD BE, YOU NEED TO GO TO YOUR GO OR PRESENT YOURSELF AT A&E OR AT A MENTAL HOSPITAL FOR HELP

No-one is saying any different, math. We are saying that that hasn't always helped us in the past.

Who is my post going to help? I'm sorry, I'm not on a mission to save the entire planet. Maybe it will make some people realise that they are not alone in their shitty experiences.

Thanks for calling me self-indulgent though. That's nice. I've been called that a few times by various twats who thought I should just buck up.

Wrt mindfulness

I found everything by Jon Kabat Zinn really brilliant but I'm not sure how you access it without buying.
The idea of turning kind attention toward problems is very useful for lots of people

Also Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can be very useful for some people and better for them than CBT

Fucking hell, I actually CANNOT BELIEVE THIS THREAD.

Are we really supposed to not talk about our shit experiences for fear of being labelled self-indulgent?

Unbefuckinglievable, seriously.