Would i be entitled to help from a CPN?

OP, I am in a similar situation to you. I had a great CPN whose care I was under for 4 years, but once my therapy ended I was discharged from the CMHT, I was doing ok. I was always informed if I needed help again I could access it.


I relapsed last year, triggered by several different things and my GP referred me back to the mental health team. I was also assessed by the crisis team in A&E after being sent there by my diabetic consultant.


8 months on and I am still ill and seem to becoming more suicidal than ever. My GP is good, but even they know cutbacks means it is so difficult to access the services I need. I was seen by a locum psych last year but never got a follow up appointment.


I am tired of reading about how money will be provided for mental health services, when all that seems to be happening is cutbacks after cutbacks. I feel if I still had the support of my CPN, my physical health and mental health would still be stable, perhaps enough for me to have achieved something I wanted so badly, but have now failed. I am personally at a point of knowing I am not sure how much longer I can survive in this world.

Mental health help is dire across the board.


Two years ago, I accompanied a family member and child to a meeting with one of the departments that looked after children having behavioural problems. The person could see what the problem was and said the child needed help, but whereas 20 years ago, children with lesser needs would have been referred to an assessment unit ,these are now reserved for children in immediate danger of taking their lives or endangering others, as the system can't cope.


Two years on, the child may be getting help.

The trouble is, that now unlike years in the past, mental health care is not ever going to be long term, any treatment or support given will straight away start from the stand point of "how do we work on discharge". It used to be the case that longer term support could happen or even just support for more than a few months at best, but things just don't work that way any more.


The reasoning given are that longer term support creates a system of dependency, but to be honest and IMHO I think this is just another excuse to input even further cut backs. It makes me as a service user feel very worried and very unsure of my own future and it also makes me wonder just how much they expect of "society" to pick up the tab and to do so in a healthy and positive way.


I can see this all ending up in a very unhappy and worrying future. It's almost as if it's got to be proven wrong before they stop messing up people's lives, but I fear this wont happen for another 10-20 years where the negative effects of this short term care is too big and too lethal to ignore.

bellanoisette wrote: »

I agree I called A&E and they told me we'd just discharge you and you have to wait for the access team. Are you on Twitter? Lots of interesting stuff on the traumanotPD hashtag, it's helped me feel 0.01% less alone I was diagnosed with a personality disorder but it's still an interesting debate if you haven't.

I am on Twitter but tend to stick to non-important stuff like magazines and things that may get me free tickets and etc. I rarely use it for anything else! I was/wasn't diagnosed with a PD (avoidant/dependant) but was in "crisis" and the diagnosis happened in less than 20 minutes by a psychologist who had flicked through the notes of me in my crisis (for anyone else reading; a crisis is where everything spins out of any self-management and you go crazy watching it happen or very despondent) crisis teams are supposed to help but I was not helped and this made me much worse. I was not in a good place when the "diagnosis" happened- it was then not recorded on my notes, possibly because it holds no water if an assessment was only 20 minutes with someone I'd never seen before or have seen since. I did my own reading on what PDs are and listen to people on podcasts (free if you have iTunes or an Apple device). I learned a lot, though as to the negativity and the very bad examples of PDs which is all and only what we see of those who are diagnosed; you really have to pick and choose who you listen to or you walk away feeling unable to speak to another person again.


There used to be long term support for people who needed it, but in recent years and what is being unrolled at the moment is short term "boosts" where people are left to their own devices (or to "struggle" alone in the "community") and when they are almost bad enough to warrant a hospital stay, a team will step in, for a few sessions give them a "boost" and they'll keep the patient out of hospital. This is about as long term as things are looking- the next replacement comes as people and appointments are replaced with online therapy and CBT in the place of support.


If it's any help, I think what is happening with treatment and support being so heavily cut back or services cut, is a daft idea at best and at worst neglectful to those I've seen become more and more unwell. But the changes are being set in motion already. I have in the past had longer term support and it was amazing and kept me alive, now it's being cut I'm seriously worried. I know already that anything new that will be offered will be very short term and that's if I am offered anything at all due to some sort of invisible funding purse attached to me and I've no doubt overspent on having had some help in the past already. Frustratingly I'm still struggling. Not as badly as I was back before treatment started, but enough to leave me feeling demoralised.