Support outside NHS

[doricgirl80]

I was just wondering if people have found good ongoing support outside the NHS for severe MH issues?

I've been in and out of the system for over 20 years but in the past year I've been really unwell and had two admissions but also overall the support has been awful. Bar a few people it's been mainly judgmental, patronising and utterly lacking. The attitude seemed to be I'm just a bit crap at being an adult (in spite of the responsible job, mortgage, marriage, kid and 15 years of relative mh stability).

I cannot put me or my husband through this again and I just wondered if anyone has had much success with alternatives? We're not loaded but very lucky we could pay a bit and I do have an awesome GP.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

I've used mental health matters which has lots of different areas of support
And new pathways ( on zoom ) which is

more trauma focussed

These are free

Ongoing private therapist registered with BACP. I don't pay a lot, we had to go remote due to Covid but that has worked out cheaper. The long term nature of a relationship like this has been what I needed, I would have disengaged from experiences like you have described. She has literally sat with me while my entire life has been on self destruct. I can't really easily put into words the value of having her in my life. I hope you find a path that works for you.

I see a private psychiatrist regularly. It's expensive but it's essential for me. He is generally available via email during working hours (and often outside then too). I rarely contact him but just knowing that he's there makes a huge difference. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be available on the NHS and I wouldn't have the same continuity of care or level of access.

I have a lot of anxiety and depression and trust issues from csa so the NHS model of short courses of therapy then have to be re-referred and another short course with a different therapist just wasn't helping me.

It took me more than the standard 12 sessions to be able to open up at all.

I've been seeing a private therapist for 2 years now and it's led to a much longer term stability and noticeable improvement but it took me the first year just to get past the abandonment fears that the NHS treatment left me with and learn to trust him.

I would definitely recommend having private therapy if you can stretch to it.