To be hurt about how I was spoken to by a&e nurse

[Tellmewhy77]

She said to me don’t come to hospital. So I replied what else was I meant to do if I needed treatment for a self harm related injury. She replied “do something normal” I know the are under pressure and I’m never abusive and just sit and wait so I don’t really feel she had any right to be so horrible

Sorry, it seems you did yourself. So what’s the od’ing about, when you immediately alert people to the fact that you’ve done it?
It’s fascinating that you imagine this is the responsible thing to do.

I’m really sorry OP.
You needed compassion not judgement.
I send you a very large virtual hug.

Me

I hope you scold drunken people or people with sport injuries too.? You are simplifying the situation.

@Bargepole45 this is all whataboutery and it does not wash. That nurse doesn't get to dismiss and invalidate a patient in need of help because she's having a rough day. Hod would you feel if she accidentally gave you or your child and overdose of medication because she was stressed and having a bad day? Check your own biases. Ypu are condoning this because it's a mental health issue.

When you sign up to be a regulated professional you sign up to do your job, dealing with people's lives, in a way that meets the standards required by your regulator. This falls well below it. Imagine if OP harmed herself further because of the invalidation she experienced from the person who is supposed to care for her? Totally, totally unprofessional and unacceptable. No amount of "context" justifies it

Wow the comments on this thread are disgusting its absolutely nobody's business how many pills op took and people shouldn't be asking. There is no excuse for a nurse to speak to someone like this. Im sorry op mh services are shit. I hope you get the help you need xx

Funnily enough people in crisis who harm themselves rarely have the capacity to make responsible decisions.
I see your earlier comment was deleted.
Crying out for help is not attention seeking.

@Tellmewhy77 💐 I hope you are feeling a little bit better today.

GP - Refers person to mental health services. That's all they can do. (Except perhaps just be generally caring, have a little chat - but which GPs have time for that, or are available at short notice at crisis point or out of hours?)
Mental health team can then choose whether to take the patient on, they don't have to. The GP can't make them. Even if they take the patient onto their books, they don't actually have to offer any treatment (see "therapy" below).

Crisis Team - a potentially mythical part of services. Do they really exist? Or is it just a person answering a phone, picking from a list of reasons why this call is "not in their remit"?
Assuming they are real, and agree to attend - they assess the person briefly (after a wait of hours to days) to decide whether they should be in hospital. They decide not, and bye bye. Bizarrely, they also check the person has their number to call if they reach crisis point again, without actually having done anything to address the present crisis, or ongoing mental health needs.

Therapy - Actual useful treatment. Virtually impossible to access. People told they are "too complex/severe" for primary care IAPT services (six sesssions of CBT that doesn't scratch the surface), but mysteriously "unsuitable" or "not ill enough" for secondary care, more in-depth therapies.
May possibly be offered DBT (the remit of which appears to have been expanded) in a limited, group setting way. This should be to help them manage symptoms whilst waiting for/going through the deeper, healing therapy they need to address root causes, but in fact this is not offered. Services simply hope the DBT will make them shut up and go away enough they don't have to intervene. The person relapses.

Im so on the fence with this as a person with MH problems myself. Are you saying upon release from the MH hospital you were not given a treatment plan or crisis support numbers?

In the past I have called 111 and asked for crisis support and have always been connected, all my care is under GP/MH nurse.

What is the cause for the suicide attempts? Are you receiving any help? I can totally understand staff being frustrated if you are known to them, but they will be frustrated more at the system not giving you the help you need to keep you out of A&E.

I think if your suicide thoughts are constant, you need to self admit yourself back to the MH hospital.

What do we know for sure here? OP took herself to A&E having taken an overdose. We have no idea about the severity of the overdose so it could have been extremely minor for all we know. The nurse suggested that she didn't need to go to hospital which may have been accurate. OP asked what else she should do and the nurse replied to do 'something normal ' which could have meant to pursue the normal channels for non emergency treatment as opposed to going straight to hospital.

Even if she snapped the response, it could have been because OP is a frequent time waster for all we know. Should she snap even if this is the case? No, but we have to have some level of compassion for everyone in difficult and stressful situations. It isn't necessarily the job of medical professionals to validate people's experiences that aren't rooted in reality. Again, we literally have no idea how serious this overdose was and how OP was behaving.

Have you ever overdosed before? Have you ever done something you immediately regret? Have you ever asked for help? The first time I overdosed i immediately regretted it and reached out for help it was terrifying i didn't want to die i wanted everything to just stop. It doesn't make me an attention seeker I was really unwell just like everyone else in a&e and I expected to be treat like everyone else in there. The nurses judgemental personal opinions where not needed

I could of written this you are spot on

I don't think her reaction is ANYTHING to do with you. I see a very frustrated professional who unfortunately slipped up and directed her frustration in the wrong direction. I imagine she is frustrated that all sorts of things end up in A&E because of failing services everywhere else - MH, other things that GPS should deal with. And in that moment she took it out on you. You said she was different a few hours later when she had regained her composure.

Agree with @OneMoreForLuck and @youalright - there are so many gaps in mental health provision - and people fall through them into A&E

“I think if your suicide thoughts are constant, you need to self admit yourself back to the MH hospital”

I take it you are not talking about NHS MH hospital as that is certainly not the way that admittance works?

Why can’t you live with family ?

It’s hard when someone you know has MH issues and you go and check on them if haven’t heard from them - not knowing what to expect to find. Whether dead or alive

if family come and check on you , maybe you need to live with them so not living on own

@Tellmewhy77 I hope you are ok and get the help you need x

Yeah, what an insensitive post from someone who doesn't understand MH crisis or the support available.

When I, badly self harmed once ending up in a and e, the nurse there told me i should be ashamed of myself as I had a family, so did not need to do such a stupid thing

@SargeMarge how heartless. You should be ashamed. Reported

Most people who survive a suicide attempt and get better do end up seeing it as a huge mistake, a stupid decision, a very unfair thing to put on their family and a total waste of that time in their life. That nurse wasn’t wrong.

Almost every A&E department had a crisis team. Go to them. Before trying to kill yourself. You don’t need an injury to to go to A&E when in crisis; just go and ask for the crisis team.

@Bargepole45 you don't need to know any of that. It's all pie in the sky. People who frequently attend at A and E are NOT time wasters. An overdose of any type is a symptom of a mental health crisis. So she was very much entitled to be there

For what's its worth, OP was taken in by ambulance staff who are much better placed than you to decide if she was worthy of care in A and E

@SargeMarge I'm a mental health nurse, I have a decent understanding of suicide. What I know is that chastising someone for a suicide attempt is not an evidence based strategy to help, in fact, there is good evidence that it heightens risk. Shame isn't a great emotion to pile on for someone in crisis.