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?

garlic :( i am gutted that this is the result of the constant nitpicking by one person. but it is very indicative of how ignorant public perceptions and comments can be very harmful. i hope that you come back too :(

ps garlic and others, whole thread sent to contacts in national mind who have fought this sort of attitude and more for decades now. maybe one of them will even be able to come on and address it. linking it to other places too. nobody should feel that their experiences are invalidated or unworthy.

You do sound like you have a real axe to grind mathanxiety.

Should all mental health forums be banned? Should there be no discussion of mental health issues?

Regardless of how you mean to appear or seem the vibe you give off is that ALL MH service users are irrational, deluded and unable to evaluate information appropriately or safely. And that any information about mental health services will trigger people.

As it happens, my experience has been largely positive, hospital was not the terrifying place I thought it might be. I posted about this this week.

You make sectioning seem scary and almost inevitable if relatives are involved (my husband asked the crisis team to admit me today as it happens - they listened and then explained why they would not).

When I read your posts I feel like you think that someone like me (service user, acutely unwell, at risk) cannot possibly make any decisions about whether care is appropriate or good. Like I asked, should I avoid everything? Should I go to A&E again and again and again and not discuss my care online until something happens? Should I be silent and not be a presence online?

I don't think math is displaying ignorance and prejudicial attitudes against people with mental illness though, I think the concern is that exposure to negative accounts of psychiatric services could deter people from seeking help for themselves or others.

"What you can't do is assume that you can present your thoughts or feelings as applicable to others."

"I am concerned about families who have up to now had no experience of the MH services and who may be reading this thread in horror."

So math does assume she can present her thoughts and feelings as applicable to others.

Oh, and since you suggested we should challenge statements, math I challenge you to produce actual evidence - not extrapolations from your own experience, mind - for your assertions

a) that this thread (that is, the thread as intended rather than the bunfight you've turned it into) is harmful to people who may be considering approaching MH services, and

b) that this harm outweighs the positive effects of the thread.

Last time I asked this (in a simpler form), you ignored the question.

(I don't agree, I think it is probably just as bad to give people false hope about the quality of help available by painting unrealistic rosy pictures and I think even when stretched to breaking point most relatives are capable of evaluating information for themselves and making the right choices.)

O just wanted to echo the posts of garlic, yellow, fluffy.

math you have succeeding in upsetting at least 2 posters to the point where they've left the thread, and upset several others on here. You absolutely, as MN said, have the right to post on any thread and any board. But you have relentllessly pulled apart people's threads, with nothing supportive, to repeatedly make a point that could have been made in a few posts.

Your tone has been unremittingly critical, bordering on attacking at times, even when I have tried to be polite, respectful and calm. I have acknowledged your point several times, and apologised to you up thread, and provided numerous explanations / clarifications / responses to you. None of which has resulted in any useful dialogue.

I have no idea what your aim was with these posts. But through them - and yellow and garlic are clear that is is your posts that have caused this - you have caused upset and offence.

I'm sure that shortly you'll be along to say that it was me that caused the upset and offence by starting the thread, or to find another point to hammer me with.

I'm really, immensely sorry that the very useful sharing of ideas and links, which the thread has many of, has been derailed to a massively unhelpful place.

I am really, immensely pleased that posters both on and off board have said this is a useful, constructive and productive thread. That was it's aim after all.

I understand that concern, alameda.

But two things:

1. this specific thread was intended to contain a lot of positive stuff, but realistic not utopian;

2. negative accounts of psychiatric services are not in short supply from sources other than MN - be they from newspaper articles or a family's first contact with an unhelpful GP. So accounts like, "My first GP was crap, so I moved GP and the new one was great," are much more useful than a mentality of, "Go to your GP, they will take care of everything," for someone for whom this is already untrue.

Oh x-post, Alameda. Yes, agree.

Thank you for voicing what I so want to , Nilgiri

I hope you will be able to come back, butter and yellowrainoatand thank you for your posts here

Thank you for vuch illuminating posts , fluffy- truly encouraging to me and I so hope you will feel better soon.

Alameda - ironically, that was exactly my concern with the other twothreads, hence this thread to try, as Nilgiri has very eloquently put it, to put a balanced and realistic perspective with a range of reading, links etc. Which are all still there :)

to all who have posted their experiences here i wanted to say thank you for being brave enough to post painful stuff. i am not sure what will happen with this thread but i have as said sent it to various people (MIND etc) and am hoping to hear back. it is not an issue that will go away just because one poster has a bugbear and it should be discussed openly. i am upset that some on here feel invalidated and shat on. i am quite new to posting on mn but through this and the other threads i have talked to some quite amazing women so thank you for that too. i hope that the thread continues and people feel able to come back despite the constant negativity of one person.

Good point , Ow . We mustn't be diverted from posting - thoughtfully & in a spirit of finding useful options for real life mh needs

Hear hear , aesop - thank you

Your posts are highly hypocritical, Math. Sharkey can't assume her experience to generalise but you can categorically state this thread is more triggering than other sections of the forum because, of course, people with mh issues are only triggered by discussion on mh facilities. You have repeatedly stated this without evidence yet state others require evidence to validate their opinion. Their opinions are deluded, yours are rational. Their opinions are triggering and they should think of the impact on others, you can post with impunity and twist words at will. Really? Can you see an inconsistency in your opinion here? At this point your justification of why mh service users shouldn't talk about services critically has taken so many twists and turns it appears as jumbled and illogical as can be. Yet you persist. You derailed a helpful conversation on mindfulness to continue to repeat all sorts of nonsense about the negativity of the thread. The mind boggles!!! What do you want to achieve at this point?

Fabulously well worded , thunk < own mind sleepy and similarly boggled by the twists and turns - goodnight all >

Also off to bed - very much looking forward to learning more about mindfulness tomorrow :)

'You've succeeded in feeding my fears of being thought unworthy, unintelligent, irrational and incapable - all bigoted ideas which you have expounded through this thread. Congratulations, you've triggered a setback in at least one patient.'

Don't mock, GB. The potential problems I identified for this thread are not funny. I did not outline them so that you could use them for petty point scoring.

Aesops -- so you did report to the prefects just as you threatened.

I sincerely hope the people at MIND will see exactly what happens when people who believe they are accountable to no-one, including, shamefully, someone who claims to be a MH professional, get to run amok on a public forum.

I mentioned ACT earlier ( for anyone who was interested) it's acceptance and commitment therapy and can be useful for some people CbT might not be appropriate for.

ACT isn't really about changing your symptoms in the way that CBT is...but really it's more about making their acquaintance and accepting and recognising them. The ability and knowledge of being able to observe a thought pass by without needing to act upon it is at the base of ACT
Hope this makes sense...

I thought it was nonsense when I first came across it. The therapist I has was very peaceful and understanding.
Far, far too kind for what I wanted.

However the idea of getting to a stage where I could start to recognise thoughts or feelings and be able to calmly dig to see where those thoughts began was almost too good to be true. That idea and suggestion I could get to a stage where I could just observe thoughts without some extreme reaction was very helpful.
The other thing that I now love about ACT is that it uses metaphors to paint a picture that can change things and attachment to shitty dread thoughts/associated feelings at the drop of a hat (
It's odd and hard at the beginning. If you love to dwell in dark places it's hard to imagine watching them drift past ever but knowing that maybe you can learn enough to do so is great for me, anyway
Still far from a perfect self practioner though.....

Here's an article by the fantastic Russ Harris For anyone who is interested.

Fluffy --
'Regardless of how you mean to appear or seem the vibe you give off is that ALL MH service users are irrational, deluded and unable to evaluate information appropriately or safely.'

Your post serves to illustrate the importance of reading what posters actually post and not using posts as blank canvases on which to paint your own impression of what has been posted.

And just as you insist nobody on this thread has any responsibility to patients and families who may be lurking I would also like to take this opportunity to announce that I am not responsible for how anyone here feels when they read my posts, and that any vibes you are getting are entirely your problem.

If you and others are insisting that I am hurting feelings or making sectioning 'scary or almost inevitable if relatives are involved' (how you came by that particular vibe I have absolutely no idea) then you also have to ask yourselves whether there are other posts here that may have had an offputting effect on others.

Nilgiri --
Since I am pretty sure you can read, take a look at the posts of people who have read all sorts of vibes into what I have posted, and blamed me for all sorts of emotional reactions they are having, and ask yourself honestly if there is even a remote possibility that there are others who are reading similarly unintended meanings into posts criticising MH services, and having similarly unintended responses.

Good intentions are not enough.

'I don't think math is displaying ignorance and prejudicial attitudes against people with mental illness though, I think the concern is that exposure to negative accounts of psychiatric services could deter people from seeking help for themselves or others.'

Bingo, Alameda, and while you don't agree, what there is today, here, and now, is the best and in fact the only help that is available. There are people who do not have the luxury of waiting for things to be perfect before they get help. There are people in need of sectioning tonight.

As to 'false hope about the quality of help available by painting unrealistic rosy pictures' -- I did not do anything of the sort. Do not make things up.

math you have succeeding in upsetting at least 2 posters to the point where they've left the thread, and upset several others on here. You absolutely, as MN said, have the right to post on any thread and any board. But you have relentllessly pulled apart people's threads, with nothing supportive, to repeatedly make a point that could have been made in a few posts.

Your tone has been unremittingly critical, bordering on attacking at times, even when I have tried to be polite, respectful and calm. I have acknowledged your point several times, and apologised to you up thread, and provided numerous explanations / clarifications / responses to you. None of which has resulted in any useful dialogue.

If you had taken your responsibility as seriously as you said you would when you started this ill advised thread, then I would have left well enough alone. Your cop outs did not have the desired effect because they did not address the fundamental issue that I brought up -- not all complaints about MH services are created equal.

As I said before, if this thread is to be about reality then keeping it real is necessary and you have not done that. This thread went tits up long before I posted. It was a charade from the start.

I have no idea what your aim was with these posts. But through them - and yellow and garlic are clear that is is your posts that have caused this - you have caused upset and offence.

What I have seen here on this thread is words of mine misread and mischaracterised and misconstrued by people determined to present themselves as misunderstood victims of the MH system, who have accused people who have challenged their views of doing to them exactly what 'the system' did. In other words - projection.

If you as a self-proclaimed MH professional posting on a public forum think it is your job to 'validate' the feelings of people who are not your patients and who have not gone to you seeking treatment, about whom you know absolutely nothing, as you just did in your last paragraph, then you are behaving unethically.

Thinkshead, I have not categorically stated any such thing or used any such logic. It seems the mind does indeed boggle.

Ow -- 'Keeping it real' means asking posters to stop using terms like 'some!' doctors, to stop spreading local gossip about psychiatric aides as if it was the gospel truth, to provide evidence to back up a personal belief that there is widespread mistreatment of patients in the MH system, and to stop extrapolating from personal experiences and suggesting that since a matter may have been an issue for an individual poster it is a matter that needs addressing on a widespread basis.

Of course if you see your role here as therapeutic then of course keeping it real doesn't come into it, does it?