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?

arana
I've just read your posts and they're really interesting, thanks. I think Austrailia leads the world in MH provision...
I'm glad you've had such a good experience

Thunk, I agree with a lot of what you have to say, though obviously not all. I felt the same way about the defense of mental health professionals in Daisee's thread and saw it as just the flip side of the way the professional card has been played in this thread.

I don't think it amounts to infantilising people with mental health issues to expect boundaries to be respected, nor to acknowledge that some of us are more vulnerable when we are ill. I know that I was and that the more acutely affected my mental health was and is, the more vulnerable I am. There has to be an expectation that this section will not and should not be a free-for-all. Breaking down the dynamic of these threads and attempting to articulate what I see going on is not intended to infantalise anyone and I apologise to those who felt or feels that I did.

Again, from my perspective, it's not the sharing of stories and experiences that's the issue here.

Morning ... agree strongly with thunk at 08:52 , especially on issue
of blurring of professional boundaries

Think this thread is proving far , far more useful than we could have hoped , though at an unacceptably high cost in stress to some posters

Excellent idea Nilgiri - a vote here in agreement , FWIW.
I would have huge reservations about a resources - only thread as the voice of the poster adds enormously to the bare information , as shown in the posts last night about mindfulness etc

Sorry Hester, not necessarily suggesting your posts were the offenders in that regard. I understand what you are saying about vulnerability, and in terms of the other thread, I would agree wholeheartedly. I also understand some annoyance at a "professional" being involved in, or at least initiating, a thread like this one... and certainly agree that it isn't helpful or useful for this part of the site to be a free for all with everyone just piling in with their own agendas (whatever they may be). MNHQ has been clear enough though that they don't particularly feel that it's an issue. Not sure how I feel about that.

I suppose I felt very affronted to be told it was "hubris" (extreme pride and arrogance) to feel that discussing my own experiences was appropriate on a mental health forum because there are others more ill than I am, though how mathanxiety felt qualified to suggest this is totally beyond me. Having been diagnosed with a mental health condition has been very humbling and sobering for me; my vulnerability shocks me quite a lot of the time and I am learning how to accomodate the idea of this illness with my perception of myself pre-illness. The stigma, as we all know, is real and pervasive. Very few people know about my OCD in real life. My husband is the only one I can talk to who is not a professional and he finds it hard too, it hurts him to see me being irrational, he needs to get used to this too. Yet it is extreme pride and arrogance to want to talk to other people about my thoughts, feelings and experiences because as a human I should think about how it will affect others who are more ill than me? Bollocks to that.

As yet I don't know if this will resolve after the perinatal period or not as a lot of women first experience OCD in pregnancy. It's early days for me and I veer between thinking I am not ill at all and realising how ill I am and have been and all the fluctuations in mood associated with coming to terms with it.

I suspect to be honest that mathanxiety assumed I was a mental health professional but then had to stick with the point about my "hubris" when I pointed out I wasn't. I agree that this thread has become very harmful and I do share reservations about boundaries but I feel the ongoing slanging match here which seems to be all about point scoring and proving points is ultimately potentially more off-putting to people. I think it's probably time for me to hide it, though I know still that the breast and bottle feeding and general health topics are far more triggering for me personally than anything here, which just makes me think talk of triggers on internet fora is a moot point. Professionals and boundaries, potentially, but triggering is a slightly different discussion.

Reference library of suggestions is this what we need

This thread has become about trying to prove a point.

Hello. We thought it might help to clarify a few things.

First off, Ow is right to say we told her there was no need for us to verify her qualifications. That's because MN is not about giving "experts" a platform on which to "advise" others; it's about peer-to-peer support.

No one on Mumsnet has expert status - whatever their RL qualifications might be. And no MNer should view any other MNer as an "expert", whatever that "expert" might claim their qualifications to be - this is t'internet, after all, and there is always the risk that people are not at all that they claim to be.

As for this thread being potentially dangerous or triggering for those with MH issues who may be either posting or lurking, we do take the point. But we also agree with those who said that there are all sorts of threads on MN in all sorts of topics outside Mental Health that could be triggering - and, if we were to delete every thread that could possibly be triggering, we'd be in real trouble as a discussion board.

We do not agree that every person with MH issues is incapable of recognising that this is the internet - with all its risks, as well as all its wonderfulnesses. Nor do we agree that every person who posts/reads a Mental Health thread is necessarily more vulnerable/less capable of rational thought than people who are reading threads in other topics.

As ever, we welcome robust discussion - including posts that voice concern about the existence of the thread itself - but we won't be deleting this thread. We would really appreciate, though, if you could all stick to our Talk Guidelines and not post personal attacks.

We do, as always, though, draw everyone's attention to the note that appears at the top of every thread in our Mental Health topic: "Mumsnetters don't necessarily have the qualifications or experience to help if you're feeling seriously distressed or suicidal, and Mumsnet can't be held responsible for any advice given on the site. If you need help urgently, please see our mental health web guide which can point you to expert advice and support."

Thank you for the clarification.
So it is as I say.There is ,and cannot be definite verification of Ow.
And people should beware.

Mumsnet,at the beginning of this thread and others,that part where it is written that MN has not checked the qualifications,experience or professional qualifications of anyone posting,and cannot be held responsible.....
on my computer and I suspect others,it comes up in quite feint print.A lot more feint than other words at the beginning.
I think it would be most helpful if that could be made to look a lot stronger,as I suspect most people do not even really see it.

@amillionyears

Thank you for the clarification. So it is as I say.There is ,and cannot be definite verification of Ow. And people should beware.

Mumsnet,at the beginning of this thread and others,that part where it is written that MN has not checked the qualifications,experience or professional qualifications of anyone posting,and cannot be held responsible.....
on my computer and I suspect others,it comes up in quite feint print.A lot more feint than other words at the beginning.
I think it would be most helpful if that could be made to look a lot stronger,as I suspect most people do not even really see it.

To be clear, we're not saying people should beware of Ow - or anyone else. That's much too strong.

We're just saying that no one has expert status on MN. So there is no need for verification. That doesn't make her posts invalid - or anyone else's posts less valid.

We believe the font used for the Notes is the same across the site, amillionyears, but we will check.

Thank you for going to check the font.
On mine at least,it is much much less than the subject heading,actually everything up there.

I'm afraid I have to agree to disagree with you about being aware of Ow - or anyone else.
Everyone has to beware of everyone else,as you say that "there is always the risk that people are not at all what they claim to be"

'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.

How was I mocking, point scoring or joking?

My reply was correctly deleted for being rude to you personally, Math. In it I said your insistence - that mental illness renders people incapable of knowing what's good for them (to paraphrase) - is more likely to put them off seeking treatment than a discussion of the system's failings. Being thought incompetent is the fear most likely to stop people seeking treatment, and your arguments illustrate that thought most passionately.

You've basically been saying all along that mental illness sufferers aren't capable of evaluating their own treatment and can't know whether or not they're being abused. Can you not see that this viewpoint is exactly what enables abusive and sloppy treatment? I hope you can also see why it distressed me and others.

@amillionyears

Thank you for going to check the font. On mine at least,it is much much less than the subject heading,actually everything up there.

I'm afraid I have to agree to disagree with you about being aware of Ow - or anyone else.
Everyone has to beware of everyone else,as you say that "there is always the risk that people are not at all what they claim to be"

That is indeed true, amillionyears, but, in the nicest possible way, that applies to you as much as it does to Ow.

Absolutely HellenicGamesMumsnet.
Nobody can be trusted.Which is why I stick to the same username,so that at least people can search me and at least get some sort of idea about me.I find that the most possible alarming posters are the ones where there is no previous information about them.

"Accepting those allegations without question, and with a 'thank you for your contribution' constitutes therapeutic validation when someone has explicitly claimed to be a professional in the MH field. "

no it doesn't. it is acknowledgement and courtesy. and there is nobody more "professional" in the mental health field than somebody who has been through it as many on here have. qualifications on this thread are irrelevant, the main players here in terms of useful info and ideas have all been through the system in some capacity and are helping each other. which was the whole point of the thread.

"One poster in particular here (GarlicButter) explicitly acknowledged on this thread and on the last how therapeutic the threads have been for her because of the validation provided "

that is i guess because she is talking to peers who understand and are sharing their info.

"and has singled me out as a particularly unvalidating poster who has not helped her at all."

that is because you have been totally unvalidating poster.

ps "service users" can also be "professional" you know.... just a thought

Aesop,

I have been explicitly berated for not validating people's experiences here.

I have been told explicitly that validation of experiences at face value is the purpose of this thread, by Ow herself.

As an add on to what I said in my last post,I believe trust has to be earned.Which is why I use the same username over and over.
I believe it takes time for trust to be earned,so a poster who has only been on MN briefly,by definition,should not and be trusted for quite some time.
It would be very easy for me to change my username,start up a thread on general health saying I am a surgeon,say I am doing a survey about the NHS,not have to get checked out by MN,and encourage people gently to tell me all about their NHS medical details.But on there,it does at least say "Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications,experience or professional qualifications of anyone posting,and cannot be held responsible.......
At the top of the mental health forum,it does not say that,and I really believe it should.

gb is not here to answer but i doubt that gb means it in the context of ow saying the right things as a professional. ow is here as another mumsnetter regardless of her "job".
more likely ( and forgive if wrong garlic) it is the brilliant advice from others who have been there that has led her to find it therapeutic, and the ability to be open on a thread with so many who understand.

i wish you would stop hounding ow. i wish you would accept mnhq post. can you not take it up with them instead of creating this awfulness on a thread that is intended to support people?

Thanks Helen.

This will be my final post on this thread. I just wanted to reiterate and clarify a few areas.

• I am truly sorry that this thread has ended up whereby people's posts have been picked apart to the point that they've felt attacked. While I've not picked anyone's posts apart (far from it - and have been told that I SHOULD have done) - I am sorry that I began a thread on which this occurred.

• As I've already said - I posted initially about my background and book because I'd been very open on that point on the other now deleted thread, in a different context. I accept that I could have namechanged for this thread, but I figured I would have been outed anyway. It also feels dishonest for me to have a conversation such as this, and on the other threads, without being open about my background - not to posit myself as an 'expert', or to lend authority to my posts - but to be open about the perspective that I come from. This was evidently naive of me, or ignorant, or both. I have learnt from this, and I am sorry if people feel boundaries have been crossed. That was not my intention.

• RE: the issue of 'expert' postings - I have read back through my posts, and am comfortable that I did not offer any more 'expert' advice than would be generally available, including about directions in nurse education, service set up, and the resources I posted. I responded to people's posts in what I felt to be a respectful and supportive manner, without validating their experiences other than to acknowledge them politely. I haven't been advising from any 'expert' position 'you could / should do x / y / z / make a complaint etc etc'.

I can understand the points made about why this may have been misperceived and how it may have entered into the grey area between people posting who have experience, and people posting as an 'expert' which, as MN have said, they are not set up for. I suppose I saw it in much the same way as people who post as midwives, or social workers, or dentists, or whatever else, who offer their experience / knowledge without saying 'you should...' and guiding from an 'expert' position. Again, I have learnt from this, and again, I am sorry - it was never my intention to post any expert 'advice', but to share some of the links and info in response to other posters.

• I remain pleased that this thread has been acknowledged as useful in terms of the links for many people, both on and off board, and hope that people will continue to find them useful - I know I will, there's lots I've learnt on here via the book recommendations and links which I look forward to learning more about.

Finally, I'm sure there will be further picking apart of this post, or picking apart of me leaving the thread. BUT I hope that this post will be seen as an apology and an acknowledgement that I'm not perfect - no one is - but that I've learnt from this experience.

Thanks all.