Here we can all be heard for a little while. Part 2

Waves_and_Smiles

Hello Lexbubbles! Welcome, you will always have a safe place here.

I am sorry that it has been so hard for you to access help, sadly it is becoming more common with the budget cuts. Have you tried MIND? They can sometimes help when other services can't or won't.

You are welcome to pop on here at Christmas! It is just myself and WaSp for the holiday season so I am always in and out all day, we do celebrate but there is a lot of sitting at our computers, too. We can have a little party in the the fort!

Pyxis

Lexbubbles, hello! Welcome to the thread!
Sorry you're in a bad place at the moment. We'll help all we can.

It's WaS's birthday! WaS, Waves and Smiles, started this thread and its predecessors, (3?, 4?), about a year and a half ago, and has helped all of us and loads more peops!





WaS, Who you callin' a silly sausage?

Waves_and_Smiles

Hahahahaha! Love it, Pyxis!

I am currently eating way too many sweeties that a dear friend bought for me, I have cake to go yet. I am probably going to take to my bed with a tummy ache like a 5 year old later.

lexbubbles

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

Hello Lexbubbles! Welcome, you will always have a safe place here.

I am sorry that it has been so hard for you to access help, sadly it is becoming more common with the budget cuts. Have you tried MIND? They can sometimes help when other services can't or won't.

You are welcome to pop on here at Christmas! It is just myself and WaSp for the holiday season so I am always in and out all day, we do celebrate but there is a lot of sitting at our computers, too. We can have a little party in the the fort!

AFAIK, MIND only operate in England and Wales, and I live in Scotland.

SAMH operate in Scotland but their "where to go" section just tells you to call either Samaritans (been there. no thank you), Breathing Space (primarily for people with depression which is not me and also I don't like talking on the phone really anyway) or NHS24 which...

I've phoned NHS24 hen in a sort-of crisis zone before and been told to just call my GP (as if same-day appointments are even a thing, or as if Dr. Miller lovely as he is has any MH training) because it was during normal hours, or to wait until the evening and call back. Really must remember to schedule my breakdowns for after 6pm to make it more convenient to everyone in future :eyeroll:

Last had a psych 2 years who discharged me after I raised concerns about my care (prescribing meds that should never be prescribed to someone with my symptoms and disorders and not doing timely follow-up, blocking access to talk therapy because she thought my psychosis was epilepsy (no, really, that was her theory. It took 18 months to get a referral to a neurologist to shoot that particular "theory" down), various other dodgy things. She doesn't work there anymore afaik)

Of course now the discharge is showing on my file so new psychs don't think I need treatment and nobody believes me when I say that she pulled this s**t deliberately. Well, no, my GP does but actual MH services people don't. Cos when you're crazy everything you do and say is because you're crazy am I right guys*.

I expect I will be on here most of the day at Christmas. It's a shame, because I'm a really Christmassy person. I'm going to put my tree up tomorrow anyway because it's the first day of Advent and old habits die hard.

Used to spend it with my best friend but then she got into a LTR and I wasn't invited anymore. C'est la vie, or something.

/ramblemoan

(Sorry I'm just really bitter because services are not equipped to deal with someone who has various personality disorders and delusions and psychoses and mood disorders all wrapped up in one package and I'm just... so tired)

*never more true than when you do a stint in the psych ward, lemme tell ya.

Pyxis

Blub blub blub blub

Just finished watching "It's a Wonderful Life".

Blub blub blub blub






Lexbubbles, editing this as just read your post. You are so in the right place!

Waves_and_Smiles

I totally understand how tired you must feel lexbubbles, it is exhausting having mental health problems nevermind trying to battle to get help, too. I also understand about everything you say is because you are crazy, I remember a doctor telling me that I was too mentally ill to make decisions for myself and my medical symptoms were psychosomatic. It turned out I had an autoimmune disorder and they were very much real. I have also had some wonderful mental health professionals helping me, they are out there but as you say it's getting access to them that's the hard part.

You never have to apologise for talking about how you feel here, you can say whatever makes things a little easier. No wonder you feel bitter and frustrated. Complex mental health issues do tend to confound professionals, I have 9 diagnoses (I think, I lose count) and have spent various periods being shuffled between agencies who have told me that they can't deal with me because there is just too much to treat that could trigger another condition. I do have a very good psychiatrist now and was lucky enough to have a wonderful one in the past who made very detailed notes about my conditions that professionals have followed since. It was pure luck though that I happened to be referred to him and it really shouldn't be down to luck.

I do really feel for you and think you are very strong to still be hanging on and functioning despite the walls that have been thrown up in front of you.

lexbubbles

Thank you, Waves.

I have an autoimmune disease as well (in the form of rheumatoid) which was diagnosed when I was 5, then when I was... 15? Ish? A decade's worth of medical notes went "missing". There was a, um, less-than-professional GP who has been struck off now, but who messed about with myself and my family's medical care. Primarily because she didn't like the fact my dad's trans.

She actually gave me prozac when I was 14 and told me not to tell my family (snuck it to me out the back door of the surgery and everything) and started trying to make 'arrangements' for her neighbour up the road to 'take care of me' it was sick. Anyway.

That's not on my file now and I've never been able to get re-diagnosed because now all of my symptoms are psychosomatic and I'm 'delusional' thinking she deleted my notes (there are 'skeletal' notes for that decade in that there are only a handful of things on it - a trip to the GP for stomach flu, a twisted ankle - all long-term care and evidence of MH involvement is gone. The first time I saw a psychiatrist I was 5 years old, not that you'd know it from my records. Most of my nan's records are gone, as well). It looks for all the world like I was the picture of perfect health until I was 16 at which point I just spontaneously combusted.

So, mental health issues: no treatment
Rheumatoid arthritis: no treatment

People wonder why I have like zero faith in medical professionals at this point. I dunno maybe it's because I keep coming across doctors who do some seriously ethically sketchy s***t, lie to cover it up, then claim I'm making everything up because I'm crazy. Honestly if there weren't other real-life people party to various conversations through the process who could back me up I'd start to believe it myself at this point because how many bad experiences in the NHS can one person reasonably have in a quarter century?

Mostly I just get labelled 'treatment resistant' because, er, you can't treat personality disorders with drugs guys. It's not a thing. You can maybe treat some symptoms with drugs if it doesn't negatively impact something comorbid (it always does) but you can't throw SSRIs or antipsychotics at a personality disorder and expect it to go away? Of course when I point this out I'm just 'being difficult'

And really how often can you be reasonably expected to keep pushing? It's all well and good for people to say 'well you just have to keep at them and wear them down until you get what you need' but it's like... being alive is exhausting do you really think I have the energy.

(This took me ages to write because one of my lights is flickering and I can't tell if I'm hallucinating again or if it's actually flickering and it's doing my nut in because there's nobody here to confirm or deny the state of my light)

lexbubbles

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

I have 9 diagnoses (I think, I lose count)

Looks like we're both going for MH bingo. Race you to a full house! :rotfl:


(update on the light: turned it off and still flickering. Probably a hallucination. Just gonna... ignore that, then)

Waves_and_Smiles

You really have been through the mill and treated terribly, I am sorry. No, drugs won't work on personality disorders. I have MPD/DID and Borderline Personality Disorder and although antidepressants take the edge of the extreme emotions of the latter it doesn't make it go away. Again, I was lucky enough to have a lot of therapy for mine, my BDP was picked up by a psychotherapist when I was 13 who opened the doors for me to other support available. Again, it was largely luck of having someone very dedicated and caring there at the time.

Is there any kind of advocacy service available in Scotland? It feels really unfair to me that you have to keep pushing for help all of the time, you should have someone who can speak for you so that you can deal with your day to day symptoms. It has to be soul-destroying for you. Forgive me, I am just throwing out ideas here because it is awful that you are having to cope with all of this alone. I really wish I could magic up a solution, you have been treated appallingly.

I know all about not knowing if things are real, I tend to see insects and shadows a lot and can't tell if they are really there. My hallucinations are mostly auditory though, I can hear radio stations playing music. I hear the lyrics of the songs and hear the DJ speak inbetween them and usually end up checking if a radio or the tv is on. They never are, it's my brain! It's frustrating, isn't it?

Is there a prize for having the most diagnoses? I want the cuddly toy!

lexbubbles

I have BPD too! Unusual yours got diagnosed so early though - since it's one of those "shouldn't really dx until over 18" things. I self-DXd with it when I was 14 but didn't get an official to ratify it for another 5 years at which point it was like SEE? I BLOODY TOLD YOU.

Also NPD and ASPD, and depersonalisation/derealisation disorder (I get pretty bad dissociative amnesia but jury's out on whether that's heading towards full-blown DID or not because, well, no psych. There is something operating in those times, but it's not... me and I have no knowledge of it. It's been happening since I was very young and for years nobody believed me and thought I was lying to get away with 'being naughty') along with summer-variant SAD and rapid-cycling cyclothymia.

It is completely based on luck and my luck is not good.

I don't know about advocacy services. Most of them seem to be for children or people in hospital (which is another case of "no help unless you land yourself in the Unit again") but even if I managed to get one I can still only get treatment from the one clinic in the area who have already turned me down 4 or 5 times - what are the chances of them providing even halfway decent care if someone gets them to finally talk to me, you know?

I get all sorts of hallucinations. There's a... sort-of-demon thing who lives in my bathroom. Sometimes his presence results in violent intrusive throughs but mostly he's just... there. I called him Bob since he didn't seem to be going anywhere it felt right to give him a name :rotfl: (look, sometimes you just have to laugh about it)

I see threatening faces and horrible grotesque things in folds and patterns of material or wallpaint or the carpet which get more horrible the longer you look but you can't look away. This results in me coming out with such gems as "I think my curtains are trying to kill me" (in true testament to how great my one friend in this city is, his response was "I'm gonna rip them down and burn them so they don't")

But then, linked to the DPDR, I've had a persistent delusion that I'm dead/in a coma/in a simulation and am therefore not actually real for a decade or so now. It's really hard to motivate yourself to bother doing anything at all if you don't think reality exists.

Of course, my overriding concern at this point is fighting with ESA to backpay the severe disability premium I should have been receiving for the last 19 months which amounts to around £5,000 and is a total mess. Bob is currently the least of my problems :rotfl: