Today in Nobody Will Take Me Seriously Till I’m Dead …
There was never any need for me to become this unwell and, the more unwell I become, the more services – GP, mental health, social care – withdraw. I have been “reaching out” for such a long time.
What those mental health awareness campaigns don’t tell you is that “reach out”, “just ask for help” is a one-time thing. Miracle cure. Get better, or get lost.
For the first few years after I came into contact with mental health services, I believed I simply had to ask the right way or find the right door or get onto the right waiting list, & that I’d eventually get the care, treatment & support I needed to get back on my feet. Not so.
I started to notice on twitter other people struggling for years to get mental health care. I assumed perhaps services in their area were unusually bad; or they needed a better advocate; or there’d been a mistake. I felt sorry for them.
Then I became one of them.
I didn’t realise till it started being done to me that, the more time that passes, the less likely you are to receive help. That, if you’re not fixed first time or become unwell again, there’s no second chance. That, the longer you are unwell, the less of a priority you become.
That it’s not an individual problem, it’s the system design. That NHS mental health services are designed on an up-or-out basis which excludes people with long-term serious mental ill-health. That I will never get the care, treatment & support I need.
Most people don’t want to see this – they want to believe there’s a just world, that there is hope, that things do come right in the end. But no. No they don’t. Get well soon – or get lost.
Funny how things turn out, isn’t it? All the time I could’ve saved myself if I’d realised this sooner. Instead, I’ve continued to put myself through a system which serves only the professionals. If only I’d realised sooner that all I was doing was prolonging my own suffering.
I tried to fight the system, but the system won.
I don’t have an inspirational story. There’s no happy ending. And there seems to be nothing that anybody can do to either get me needed care or to hold the system to account. I have become a cautionary tale. #mentalhealth
I seem to have been left behind – shoved into a zombie zone where I am the responsibility of nobody; where my suffering is irrelevant (despite what it says in all sorts of fancy laws & policies); and my demise seen as inevitable. Everyone’s got their paperwork squared away.
The professionals can all go home & sleep soundly at night, safe in the knowledge they’ve maintained their boundaries, protected service resources & done as they’re told – or, otherwise, that there’ll be no comeback because there’s no way to hold them to account.