Losing It: Our Mental Health Emergency

[purpleme12]

Anyone watching?
Shocking the stories so far
This girl started saying she doesn't want to go on at 6 years old! How can someone so young think like that?

What a tough watch - heart goes out to any family going through this or similar; and fingers crossed the CAMHS service improves across the board in the very near future.

Couldn't help but despair to see Tanya and Olivia constantly had their smart phones in hand, even while lying on the hospital beds, with their poor mum's just sitting next to them. I get it, they are teenagers, but all I could see was a source of (some of?) their pain and a huge catalyst in why so many young people are in this frame of mind.

Tanya seemed to know a lot about mental health issues through information she had consumed (Netflix documentaries and shows, friends who have various MH issues) and at the end of episode 2 stated she "knew" she had MH condition(s) even though clinicians had yet to diagnose her with any. I felt sad that at 13 she knew so much, but also suspicious that she was keen to have a MH label. A question I haven't been able to answer however is whether this would be to make her feel less "ordinary", or if it would make her feel like she fit in with her peers more?

I've just started watching this week's and I'm just so shocked that children as young as 6 have problems. I can't believe that

And then the young girl said that people have a self harm Instagram/channel whatever she said?! She said it's a trend???

Tanya was an interesting one alright. Mental health is obviously something she is fascinated by, and I felt like I wanted someone to steer her away from self-diagnosing and towards keeping it as an intellectual interest, maybe something she could pursue a career in later on.

I wonder if it would help to draw clearer lines between mental illness (the sudden onset psychosis), being neurodiverse (undiagnosed autism making it very hard to cope) and being emotionally distressed. I realise that there's a lot of overlap, and it's not about establishing a hierarchy of suffering, but the point is that the treatment needs to be tailored to the underlying causes, not just the symptoms. Just calling them all mental health problems is like treating a heart attack with cancer drugs.

If community care was funded and run in a way where people had the level and kind of care and support they needed it would avoid inappropriate/avoidable crises, emergencies and admissions due to people being left to deteriorate until they reach the threshold for MHA detention (then cue the bed scramble). It's more expensive to deal with someone who's become seriously ill.

Lack of resourcing means teams can only deal with those in dire straits which in turn means people deteriorate unnecessarily before receiving help... By which time they've suffered avoidably, will have longer and more difficult recoveries, and have much less favourable prognoses.

Yes, some people will always end up seriously ill like with anything but there are far too many people left without treatment until they become seriously ill.

Not all of it is about funding, some of the ways things are done are crap and unhelpful, though.

This was such a hard program to watch, as soon as I saw that little girl that was diagnosed with asd I knew it was autism. It’s like holding a mirror up to my own 8 year old daughter. The anxiety, the stress, the meltdowns we are dealing with it all and have been fight for years to get a diagnosis. She masks at school and although they see some traits and have told me that they think she has autism we can’t collect enough evidence to actually get to the point of her being assessed. I’m terrified that what I watched is what I’ll be dealing with in a few years. The fight is exhausting, I’m so tired and so stressed and worried for her. It just shouldn’t be so hard for people to get the support they need.

So sad but so interesting to watch! I was really surprised the girl in the first episode had not been considered for ASD earlier than when she was eventually diagnosed given how long her parents had been fighting for help. The young girl with the anorexia in the second episode was so eloquent when talking about her illness and her mum was so strong, mental illness is awful but especially in ones so young! But I think the second episode really highlighted the part social media plays in mental health and how some teens will do anything to fit in. I really hope social media has died off a little by the time my DD is old enough to be aware of it!

Oh my god this is so wrong I can't believe that social care person (?) just said people self harm to fit in cos other other people do it!!

I'm in two minds whether to watch this as a mental health nurse.

I'm often sad that my very lovely career doesn't get much air time, it's hard after all to film very vulnerable people or capture the breadth of work we do, but then when it's on I'm scared to watch.

I'm so passionate about my work, we have some amazing people out there working, and I see such amazing stuff all the time but it's hard to see that out there for everyone.

The reality is worse I'm sure than the show.

@purpleme12 this is a very common attitude. My specialty is women with personality disorder so self harm is very prevalent in my world.

I get told regularly that I'm "mad" for wanting to work with that group.

@turquoisekiss @bibliomania
I agree about Tanya

@doublebarrellednurse the thing is I can understand self harm I can understand how it is a coping mechanism and I get it.
I don't get what it was saying in the programme about it being a trend and people doing it to fit in! I'm shocked at that to be honest. And I kind of feel like it trivialises it. I did self harm and I wasn't a teenager when I did it and I never did it for anything like the reasons the programme was saying. It makes me almost angry

Anyway it was interesting that camhs were going to send Olivia home and her mum asked for a mental health assessment from the doctors and they said she should be sectioned. So that shows that camhs were wrong then. Really it could have been really dangerous her going home
It must have been so hard for her mum. I really felt for her mum.
It seemed to do Olive some good going in there though

Very scary. My little girl's dad and all his family pretty much have lots of mental health problems and I worry. I just hope to god it doesn't happen

It was (I think) a 13 year old who said self harm was a trend though Purple.

What struck me was how eloquent everyone was in being able to talk about it all - I guess in a way that's what made it 'good' TV.

The mum who was a Dr herself really brought it home to me that when I blamed myself for so much of my DS's MH problems, I probably wouldn't have been able to do much differently if I'd been as qualified as her. (If that makes sense at all...)

the thing is I can understand self harm I can understand how it is a coping mechanism and I get it.
I don't get what it was saying in the programme about it being a trend and people doing it to fit in! I'm shocked at that to be honest. And I kind of feel like it trivialises it. I did self harm and I wasn't a teenager when I did it and I never did it for anything like the reasons the programme was saying. It makes me almost angry

I completely agree with you, my point is sadly that many professionals and the public often hold this opinion and it causes a huge barrier to the safety of those who self harm and have suicidal thoughts 😔 it makes me very angry. I lecture on self harm and teach police about it too so a subject close to my heart.

This poor man with schizophrenia. What is going to happen to him when his parents die?

I'm just watching on plus 1. I didn't know about this programme.

I work in mh. Really difficult for everyone involved.

The little girl at 11 - I think she has OCD for sure. I think she had intrusive thoughts and images about killing herself. OCD is awful and all too consuming..

I've just started watching episode 2, and I'm completely struck by how un-therapeutic the approach is. Seems so clinical and business-like. I guess that's a difference between medicine and psychotherapy?

This is hard To watch but I agree it doesn’t show the crisis our mental health services are in.

I was admitted to A&E having self harmed and in crisis last night for the third time this week, myself and the crisis team agreed it might be best for me to be admitted but then said there are no psychiatry beds available locally and I would have to go to a hospital over 3 hours away. I don’t feel like that is a reasonable option, I would lose the small support network I do have being so far from home so I’ve had to just go home and hope that things don’t escalate any more.

@CrazyKittenSmile what do you need? If the resources were available that is.

I was surprised the young suicidal girl had not been diagnosed sooner. It wasn,t long into the programme i was saying I bet she has asd. If a viewer found it so obviouse why not others?

Right now I feel like I need somewhere I can safely be whilst I wait for anti-depressants (started today) to take hold and to be able to access therapy, which I was referred to last night. I don’t feel safe at home whilst I’m in crisis like this. All I have to help is diazepam but I’m taking it daily and it’s not really touching the anxiety or blocking out the suicidal intrusive thoughts and self harm is all that does that. My self harm is getting worse and I’m scared of cutting too deep, whether intentionally or accidentally, but I’m struggling to engage with the mental health team’s support plan.

I feel like I need ongoing psychotherapy. I did receive therapy (CAT) about 2 years ago but the NHS service was limited to 20 sessions so it ended. It had helped but I feel like it wasn’t enough, it took me a long time to build up a trusting relationship and I completely avoided talking about my biggest trauma (past rape) because by the time I felt I was making progress towards being able to address it I’d had my allocated sessions. I am a bit of a people pleaser and found myself saying what the therapist wanted to hear not necessarilly what I felt. I can not afford private psychotherapy with a psychologist (my therapist charged £90 an hour) and I haven’t found counselling helpful at all; I can access it free through work but the approach didn’t work for me.

I guess the problem is the waiting lists to access services and then the pressure to discharge patients as soon as things start to get better, if I hadn’t been limited to 20 sessions of therapy maybe I would have been able to get to a point where I didn’t keep relapsing but instead I was just taken out of the initial crisis but not given enough help to stop me ending up back here.

I'm so sorry to hear how tough things were yesterday. How are you today?

£90 is extortionate. Around here you're looking at about £30-60 quid an hour or from £4 for a service with trainees to those on low incomes. I believe that finding the right counsellor/therapist can save lives.

I feel a bit better today although typically my anxieties get worse as the day goes on.

There are counsellors available from about £30 around here but I haven’t ever found counselling to help me despite trying several. I’m not very good at talking and I didn’t think therapy would help me having tried so many counsellors in the past, but my therapist was a psychologist with a doctorate and referred to a lot of theory and science within the sessions which I found a helpful approach. I didn’t feel there was a lot of pressure on me to talk about things, it was more unpicking how my mind worked and why. I can’t fault the NHS therapy aside from the fact it was limited to 20 sessions. Private psychotherapy with a registered psychologist is unaffordable for me, especially as I feel I would need it to be ongoing over at least a year. I have been re-referred to the service now though so will see what that brings.

I hope that the referral brings you what you need. It really does feel like as though you have limited opportunities where you are.