Indebted to Wren for this article + others on . Reflects my experience so much.
‘I think it is likely I will die by suicide one day + my inquest will simply record that I refused to engage with MH services therefore nothing could have been done to help me.’
I recently had a paper published by the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, about my experiences of harm in mental health services; how this caused me to self-discharge; and my life now as a "service-avoider". It's available here:
One thing I think clinicians don’t consider WAY too often is that notes/health records are NOT gospel. They are not consistently true, factual and objective. In fact, they are often full of errors, assumptions and lies.
E.g. I just looked at note from a recent appt that was >
v quick + procedural, I wasn’t expecting much of a note at all.
To my surprise there were several sentences, half of which were untrue. Apparently several things were offered or explained that 100% were not even mentioned.
Sad considering I thought they were nice. >
I’m sure it’s just a copy+paste job, with little regard for the possible impact.
I feel utterly horrendous thinking about people who die under services who have their notes trawled through in the investigation process, who aren’t there to be able to call out bs and tell the truth
Therapists: anger is normal and healthy. It’s important not to hold it all in.
Patients: I am angry at the mental health system for neglecting and abusing me
The mental health system: INAPPROPRIATE ANGER, SO BPD, V DIFFICULT PATIENT
Just a lil shoutout to the people doing absolutely nothing halloweeny, maybe curled up in bed on your own feeling like shit, this is a reminder that there are a shit ton of people in a similar boat but those aren’t the people who will be posting on socials. Love ya. xxx
@yorkshiressoul
In one of my peer support worker jobs I offered everyone I worked with to see a draft version of the notes I have written after our session. So they could comment, ask for additions or removals etc, check my accuracy, and see I’ve gone into only a necessary level of detail. >
Is there anything adult MH services hate more than a critical thinking, knowledgeable, assertive, communicative, resourceful, emotionally intelligent woman?
It boils my piss that that people eligible for primary care Talking Therapies services (IAPT) can access therapies like EMDR and couples therapy whereas people who are too high risk/complex/unwell are left to broken CMHT’s where the vast majority of pts have no access to >
Why the fuck are A&E’s set up so that you have to scream your personal details and health concerns to a receptionist where all the other patients can hear you
It’s really Something that if you stop using health services because you’ve had such poor experiences that you feel you will be more harmed than helped by them, you then struggle to access health and disability related benefits because there’s little evidence of your difficulties
You were the winner to the whole of Twitter but wish you all the best
@Michaelawain1
, and so so pleased to hear about your panic attacks and anxiety reducing on You’re Fired. You’re fabulous with an extra valuable bow on top x
#TheApprentice
Standing with all of
#madtwitter
mourning for Rachel
@TraumaPhDandMe
, who did what we are told to and ‘reached out’ time and time and time and time and time again. The world *should* stop turning. 🤍😔
Gentle reminder to BE NICE to retail workers this season (and always), we are working our arses off spending 10 hour shifts on our feet the whole time, under pressure to meet sales targets, and being paid less than the living wage. Don’t be a dick. Many thanks x
This isn’t a shock to women who’ve been in inpatient MH units, but when we ‘complain’ we are labelled with BPD, told we’ll always find something to complain about because we never feel our needs are being met* + told the staff member’s records don’t corroborate your story (shock)
Hands up if you’re a ‘known to mental health services’ girly but whenever you speak to anyone at all in CMHT/HTT/ward it’s like a first date ‘do you have siblings’ ‘what are your hobbies’ ‘do you live alone or with people’ ‘are you working or studying or ‘ ‘do you have friends’
What I would LOVE is if mental health wards could stop putting their time into their social media presence and marketing and instead focused on things like having conversations longer than 60 secs with pts, taking pts out on their s17 approved escorted leave before they’ve >
Fun fact for CAMHS everywhere,
Did You Know! that there are approx 46193681 other potential explanations for a young person’s recurring severe distress APART FROM ‘emerging EUPD’?
@yorkshiressoul
Only once they approved would I ‘confirm’ the note on the system. I saw how people developed more trust in me for this.
I WISH all health staff did something like this. I know it takes some extra time but it has so many positive effects
@Esmith10000
Haha! Sometimes you can tell when they’ve accidentally written about a different patient or made a typo but other times it’s very clear shit’s just made up. Eg I offered x and y
Just applied for a job. This is massive for me. I know many other people apply for 50 a week, but just submitting 1 has taken me months. And I am proud. 😊
People can whatever the fuck they like about people in psych wards. You’ll meet some of the strongest people you will ever meet inside these 4 walls, people who life has thrown punch after punch after punch at and who are still standing. You’d be mad not to go mad.
I can’t imagine having a mind that can feel emotional pain without it turning into suicidality? Without it feeling so deeply painful that dying actually seems like the better option, as opposed to living through it? Wild
Yknow who deserves as much respect + admiration as people who fully recover and go on to tell stories of transformation?
People who fight day in day out for years, lose everything in effort to regain health, and still struggle. Because it’s not as simple as just choosing not to.
IAPT but where in the name of fuck is the justice, equity, or common sense? Why does being more unwell mean you get less help so so often? Why do NICE guidelines go out the fucking window?
I wish long-term support wasn’t seen as the ultimate devil. I wish it was acknowledged that we are all interdependent and independence in the sense of not being under services does not equal success. I wish we lived in an equitable society where all people could access long-term>
I cannot cannot cannot comprehend that for some people, after a busy day, just sleeping for 8 hours (or even less) at night is enough to give them sufficient energy to do it all again the next day? Sounds fake
There’s a real problem with the assumption that a successful intervention in mental health should lead to the person accessing NHS services less. Like some people will need support for a long time and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean the people who worked with them were unsuccessful.
I’ve learnt SO much on here from mental health twitter. In general the rhetoric is ‘social media = bad for MH’ but honestly I’ve found friends here, found out about opportunities, unintentionally ‘networked’, AND I can just scream about random shit. What’s not to love.
People: have such awful experiences with statutory health services that they withdraw, because coping alone is actually easier/less harmful
DWP: you’re not having any treatment for x or y or engaging with x or y services therefore we don’t believe that you have a problem
I will never stop talking about how public health messaging is consistently ‘reach out for help’ but people who do that consistently encounter clinicians with *this* level of understanding and knowledge about both MH/illness + MH services
GP called 4 hours before my scheduled appt. Absolutely no understanding of mental health. Had never heard of EMDR. No interest in how my menstrual cycle is impacting my mood. Really pissy when I said no to antidepressants because I only have problems 1 week of the month. (1/2)
How the flip are you supposed to respond when a psych asks, ‘how are you?’ I need you to break it down for me, is this small talk or am I supposed to break down 5 seconds in to the appt?
psychological therapies, and if they’re lucky see someone once a month or once every few months for nothing more than robotic ‘monitoring’ - are you eating, are you sleeping, any thoughts to harm yourself or others. I’m obv happy for people able to access amazing stuff through >
@KwajoHousing
HOW is he saying with pride that he started undoing the support given to deprived areas? How is he openly talking about supporting deprived areas with disgust? People like this are our potential PMs? Get me out of here!!
Patients get blamed for being non-compliant with meds but I’ve emailed my CMHT twice and called and left 2 voicemails twice in the past 2 weeks to discuss problematic side effects of medication and I haven’t heard back.
As someone born and raised in London but of South Asian heritage, culture and my identity has always been a capital c Complicated thing for me. It’s not all sunshine and roses but that’s a bit deep so for now I’ll just say, someone said it’s
#SouthAsianHeritageMonth
🥰
Interesting that psychiatry is okay with saying people have disordered *personalities*, but at the same time they say people shouldn’t stay in MH services for too long because otherwise their MH problems become their whole *identity* 🤔
It’s okay to care deeply about mental health and supporting those with mental illness but also to sometimes feel like you just want to talk about something else for once
It really does evoke Feelings in me to hear about pay rises and strikes etc in various sectors, knowing that me and my peer worker colleagues, who have been supporting people with acute mental illness in the depths of suicidality and psychosis, have been on 20k for years
YA GIRL IS DISCHARGED! 💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽
Thank you so much to all the absolute angels here on
#MadTwitter
who got me through the last 3 months, it was totally unexpected but made such a difference. (Individual thanks coming soon.) ❤️❤️❤️
As a current inpatient (dif hosp) I’m rly sorry to break it to all horrified readers that *nothing* has changed on a national level. It’s a postcode lottery. Recently my ward has often had 5 staff, half bank, to 22 patients. How many of us need to die before they improve?
BBC News: 'Unbelievable' failings in Claire Greaves hospital death.
The parents of a woman who took her own life at a mental health hospital say failings in her care were "unbelievable". Claire Greaves, 25, was a patient at Cygnet Hospital, Coventry.
Public health messaging: ask for help, suicide is preventable
Mental health services: she threatened suicide but it was clearly just a Statement and manipulative and to punish us for setting a Boundary with her (denying her the care she thinks she needs)
@septimusajprime
‘I had to give myself a test, I had to go all in to see if I was really feeling Indiyah. Relationships have to have tests yknow what I mean. But obviously it showed me Indiyah is the one I definitely want.’
For my last 3 consecutive birthdays I’ve been an inpatient in hospital. It feels good (but surreal) to be free today. Cannot believe it but I made it to 19 and things are finally looking -ever so slightly - up. 🙆🏽♀️🌈🎈
#smileyselfie
DWP straight up said ‘mental health is not considered in respect of your ability to communicate or read’ 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Might as well have said ‘we don’t understand mental health and we do indeed discriminate’
If you’re someone who is lucky enough not to know the bleak reality, next time a patient tells you their godawful experience of healthcare and you tell them ‘you must make a complaint!’ as the solution, please consider this
Went through my post today which included a complaints response. Every single point excused, lied about, avoided. I tried to speak up to avoid others experiencing the same but what’s the point? Apparently it was 28 degrees in a room with an open window (1 degree outside)
It’s a real tragedy that friends, family, charities and professionals you find outside of the NHS are so so much better at supporting people through crises than NHS mental health services.
On that note...
HOW IN THE FUCK DID MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES get to this point.
Nurse talking about high risk patient with bipolar/schizophrenia dx: ‘they’re so unwell.’
Nurse talking about high risk patient with PD dx: ‘sorry but isn’t this behavioural?’
Proud of myself for doing what I rarely do and PHONING a helpline (in this case my employee assistance programme), and it was helpful, 17 applauses please 🥺
Finally feeling supported by my CMHT 🥺🙏🏽 Saw a dr today and I could actually just speak and he listened without cutting off my sentences and gave me a full hour and wanted me to be involved in the decisions
Parity of esteem 🤍
Mental health ward at hospital x - visiting hrs 4-7pm, visitor can stay for half an hour, in a communal area or the 1 meeting room.
Stoke ward at hospital x - visiting hrs 2-8pm, visitor can stay for as long as they like, at patient’s bedside.
@mabintou
@jasebyjason
It would make more sense if she did this for someone who had some sauce and brought out whatever playful unserious side of her that she misses. Charlie however… 😭😭😭
Not in a Haig way, but friends, what are your reasons to stay alive? What actually makes you want to stay on this planet? What keeps you here at times when a part of you does not want to stay anymore? Genuine question.
On statutory + mandatory training in the NHS…
Is it not Wild that all staff in community mental health services have to have passed infection control training, which tests you on what colour linen bag to use for infectious + non-infectious waste disposal in an acute setting, and
Something I’ve never heard spoken about but I think must be a common experience for people in
#PSW
#LXP
lived experience roles is the unique pressure to stay ‘well’. The anxiety about feeding into stigmas and stereotypes eg I can’t go off sick even if I’m sick because I >
‘We want to discharge you back to your GP, just calling to let you know’. So much for involving the patient in the care 👍🏽
‘Do you have anything else to tell me?’
Me: stunned silence, ‘um’
‘I take that as a no, ok thank you’
Didn’t think this needed to be said but if you work in a lived experience or peer role, it’s not okay to only be anti-stigma towards the things *you* have personally experienced and happily prejudiced and stigmatising towards different experiences
After 5 years working in peer support in the NHS and voluntary sector, I’m moving on in 1 month’s time to something new… (still a lived exp role) All sorts of feelings but I’m hopeful
Do you ever just want to say, ‘you don’t have a personality disorder, you just feel immense pain from experiencing and witnessing injustice, abuse and oppression? Because you are not a bad person so much so that you really just care, a lot?’
@RebekahPierre92
You are incredible. But fuck, your experience. The experience of so many care experienced people. Let down by people and systems and deserve so much more
#MadVigilForRachel
she was a beautiful soul. Lots of thoughts I won’t go into but 1) tell and show people you love them when they’re still fucking around 2) a person talking about it and seeking help doesn’t mean they’re not going to go through with it. Take it seriously.
Would like to put it out there that just because you’re not in hospital, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re any less ill than someone who is. Unfortunately the level of care people with mental illnesses receive does not always increase the more ill they are like a beaut line graph.
which antibiotic MRSA doesn’t respond to, but what you DON’T have to have any training on is… basic knowledge/understanding of any mental health problems, active listening skills, how to effectively respond to distress/self-harm/suicide/psychosis etc
MH services actually just need to get in the bin. It’s so wild working in the system knowing what good practice is meant to look like, knowing the ambitions and guidelines, and being treated in completely the opposite way.
I don’t mean for this to be a MH services hating account. I literally work in MH services. I am fully aware of what goes on on both sides of the fence. I tweet about my experiences. If there was more positive stuff I could say, it would be said. I fully appreciate there are >
asked 14 times, actually opening the door to the office when pts knock because they have a basic request for things like towels or water, writing accurate notes instead of copying and pasting from yesterday, running some activities with pts that are a step beyond plonking them >
Thinking of the teacher who first picked up on my poor MH. I remember her trying to give me hope that things could improve. I was unable to believe her, in the grips of severe depression as an emotionally illiterate, silenced 13 year old. I know what she was talking about now. 🌤