People presume that if you are getting "help" for mental health it is the right help...so why aren't you getting better
I first saw any mental health professional when I was 14...I saw a mental health worker and I remember talking to her about being bullied at school and struggling with issues around being adopted....I originally got referred there because my parents and school had concerns about me skipping meals and making myself sick and some mild self harm. Apparently this mental health worker told my parents that I had issues about my sister being pregnant which wasn't the case at all...and I was discharged with no help after 6 or so sessions. I continued to restrict, binge and purge throughout school then college then university and I didn't see anyone during that time for help....in fact if anyone confronted me about my eating habits or weight loss I would be defensive and deny it was a problem, I was happy with it as long as I was losing weight....it was all that mattered to me as I was so down on myself it was kind of my escapism from how bad I felt about myself. I told myself because I was working and studying I was fine...even though physically most of the time I wasn't, my fingers were always cold and blue, and I was permanently tired, at uni I would sleep in between lectures. I got a job away working with horses living away from home( I know I have told this part of the story before but I feel it ties in with the getting help perspective.)....the short story is the job didn't work out and that's when my bulimia at its worst started....daily restricting and daily bingeing and purging whilst trying to do a physical job and physically and mentally I couldn't cope so I moved back home to my parents where I hid my eating disorder for a few months until my mum caught me purging one day. I went to my drs and spoke to the nurse where I admitted I was struggling with bulimia and I remember her telling me half the battle of getting better was admitting you have a problem...if only that had been true....that was 17 years ago. Back then mental health nurses were at the drs surgery. I saw a nurse who just told me I was like a car and needed petrol...rationally I knew that...I didn't get any specific eating disorder help and I wasn't self harming then. I have since found out mental health nurses don't get trained in eating disorders unless they specialise or at least then they didn't so I stopped seeing her. I later saw a Male mental health nurse who just told me I needed a better work life balance and why did I look crapper than he did as he had 2 jobs. I told him I was working nights in a factory and had an eating disorder and I had social anxiety so rarely socialised....so obviously it wasn't going to be as simple as get a balanced life so I stopped seeing him. At one point I saw a counciling psychologist who I just talked with but didn't even mention my eating disorder. In 2004 I had a stressful job working as a support worker with adults with learning disabilities, mental health problems and challenging behaviour and that's when my own mental health got really bad.i was self harming regularly by then and got signed off work. I admitted I was also depressed and got put on prozac (which is known to cause suicidal thoughts in young adults...which it did and my gp told me to up the dose) I then impulsively took 3 overdoses in one weekend but crisis team just sent me home. By then I had been referred to a new eating disorder service that had been set up and I got assessed by them but didn't meet the criteria for help from them...I wasn't a low weight even though I was restricting and bingeing and purging daily...I had lost alot of weight but wasn't an anorexic weight. So apart from seeing a psychiatrist every 3 months where I was asked if I saw or heard things that weren't there and what was my eating and sleep like and sent home I got no mental health help. I went to an eating disorder support group in hull and they recommended I got my physical health checked because of my hereditary heart condition i have and the risk bulimia poses on the heart...it causes an acquired version of the arrhythmia that we have a hereditary version of which can cause sudden adult death syndrome...people of normal weight bulimia can die suddenly due to this. So in 2007 I had a pacemaker fitted because my heart consultant said I was at risk of dying and at that point I wasn't suicidal from being young I said I deserved to be dead by 28 but I wasnt that old then and I wanted to live....just without my eating disorder. In 2009 my dad complained to someone in mental health that locally no one was helping me with my eating disorder (my diagnosis then from psychiatry and my gp was bulimia and depression). So I was referred to the Yorkshire centre for eating disorders in Leeds at Seacroft hospital where I saw an outpatient nurse who I got on well with. I filled out food diaries with her and had to record weekly what I ate and any eating disorder behaviour. ..vomiting, laxatives or over exercising. She said I was too severe for outpatient so recommended I went inpatient for an 8 week symptom interruption programme. I was scared because I thought it was going to be strict so I couldn't purge like bathrooms locked etc and support to stop you but I agreed to go in as I wanted to get better. I thought I would get therapy for my underlying issues whilst I was there but I got no therapy. I literally got bed and food and told you had to attend every meal...6 times a day which I complied with but I was being sick after most meals. ...I asked for help with that but was just told staff wouldn't be there when I went home so I had to manage it myself. If I could do that I wouldn't have needed to go in the first place ffs. I got told I had to get referred to a psychologist back home and I had a care co ordinator who was off sick so there was no liaison with my local mental health services and Leeds. So I came home as bad as I went to a year long psychology waiting list. So I thought I would focus on work as I had continued working even doing agency care shifts when on home leave from the eating disorder clinic and decided to train as a mental health nurse. ...I thought I wanted to help people in a way I hadn't been helped. So I told myself I wasnt allowed to self harm and I wasn't allowed to be sick but I binged and restricted. I did an access to nursing course and got accepted at Hull university to train as a mental health nurse. But I got bullied at college ironically for having mental health problems by people who supposedly wanted to be mental health nurses (and now are ).My sister also contacted some of our birth uncles and that stirred up emotions around being adopted so I relapsed badly with my self harm and bulimia and had to drop 2 modules of the access course and go back for a 2nd year of what would have been a one year course. By then I had been working as a bank support worker in mental health. When I went to a and e with self harm the crisis team said I was an ongoing problem and needed to see my care co ordinator who had been off sick since before my admission to seacroft. So I had to ring the community mental health team for 2 weeks and eventually got a replacement care co who finally got me referred to the local eating disorder services and psychology and an mdt meeting was set up and the eating disorder nurse was going to do cbt for eating disorders over 20 sessions and the psychotherapist was going to help with underlying issues. ....I was still aiming to do my mental health nursing. But the psychotherapist left and the eating disorder nurse who helped alot left and I was still struggling. I lost hope in ever getting better and by then I was 30 and decided that if I wasnt doing my nursing and making a difference and I was depressed with life in general I deserved to be dead. That's when i took my first of many overdoses in 2012 10 years after I had asked for help with my bulimia (often getting told I was too high functioning to need help as I worked).I got admitted to field view a crisis house for 7 days support but they couldn't deal with the severity of my self harm as my cuts were deep so I was admitted to the acute mental health ward where I continued to self harm. I told staff I had obsessive thoughts to overdose that scared me so was told to go for a walk. So I walked to town and took a massive overdose of paracetamol and aspirin and spent 5 days in Grimsby hospital. When i went back to the mental health ward I was discharged saying my mood had improved and I had successful home leave (I hadn't been home I was in hospital). I kept getting told dbt would help me, a once a week therapy for people who self harm and get suicidal because of borderline personality disorder...I hadn't been diagnosed and waited a year in which I took more overdoses and finally had to give up defeat and stop working. Eventually I started dbt but was thrown off it for self harming. A new mental health team was set up for complex cases and I got a new care co ordinator who had a smaller caseload, I thought I was going to get psychology but just had an assessment that said I had dependant and avoidant personality disorders and borderline traits my eating disorder was ignored and I got no other therapy. I got support from the recovery team though and I had a lead worker from there who i got on well with and had other staff from theret too. I was still focused on wanting to be a mental health nurse and with support started volunteer work at mind and foresight a college for adults with learning disabilities. That worker also helped me with budgeting my money as I was impulsively spending before on binge food and tablets to overdose on and I got support to go swimming and the gym and was involved in the mental health forum a group where service users had a say in how services were run. I was positive about getting some therapy and then starting my nursing part time with mental health support then was aiming to be out of services or minimal support by the 2nd year. But the mental health complex case team disbanded as it lost funding so I went into crisis and lost hope. I spent a year taking overdoses (about 60....including 64 co codamol which caused chronic kidney disease and heart failure. Local services said they had exhausted all avenues with me and they couldn't treat me....so basically it was my choice to kill myself even though I had obsessive suicidal thoughts that only went when I acted on them....one of my mental health thoughts is when my parents die I won't be able to cope on my own so then want to die but I don't while I have them as obviously I love them and I also need to stay alive for my horse Warwick who needs me. My mum looked on Google and found a therapeutic community in London for personality disorder funded by the NHS so local services didn't need to pay for it. They didn't specifically treat eating disorders but offered individual psychotherapy which I was hoping would help. At my assessment for there I said I needed to stop my life threatening stuff and needed therapy to stop my self harm and eating disorders. On my first day at the therapeutic community another patient said they would hate me if I self harmed including being sick. By then i was out of control with my self harm and overdoses and bulimia so the more I did it the more the other patients hated me and I took 3 more overdoses and got admitted to the local acute ward for a short admission to stabilise with my self harm to go back to London. But I said it was making me worse so then my parents said they couldn't cope with my mental health at home anymore so I became classed as homeless on the mental health ward. I felt rejected and a lost cause. I wasn't eating for days at a time and was tying ligatures and banging my head on walls and pulled all my hair out...I wasn't allowed my own clothes and was in black mesh anti ligature clothing shorts and top and had a fleece blanket and no bedding I spent the majority of 3 months like that...only allowed clothes to go out I looked like a typical mental patient you see on a DVD photo of a mental person....thankfully I got better than that. Eventually me, my mum and my care co ordinator persuaded local services to send me out of area because the acute ward was just containing my behaviour by restraining me and taking stuff off me but wasnt giving me any therapy I was just spending my days colouring in between banging my head on walls (In hospital ligatures replaced overdoses and head banging replaced cutting as I got no therapy to help me stop). I was referred out of area to places that treated eating and personality disorders but I got sent to a personality disorder locked rehab for intensive psychology. Only the psychologist left as I got there. So I again was somewhere that just contained me I had 1 staff with me 24 hours a day and had a bare room to stop me killing myself. But no therapy. I got blackmailed with if I went 7 days without self harm I could see Warwick and if I was more safe would get better support for my eating disorder. I went about 40 days in the end with alot of support but was struggling alot with my bulimia. I then got pneumonia and septicaemia and my kidneys failed and I was in the high dependency unit and ironically was scared of dying after months of being suicidal. I started getting home leave life felt better and I was positive about discharge back home to an open rehab which had it's own flat and staff on site but alot less support. i felt socially isolated as friends lives had carried on without me for 10 months and my positivity went and I relapsed badly with my self harm and overdoses but just got told to take responsibility for myself even though the thing that helped me alot in the locked hospital was being able to talk about my problems. I also started at a local therapeutic community but mentally I wasnt in a place to deal with it and I left. Eventually I practically moved on at the rehab and I moved into my own flat with their support but I struggled alot and took more overdoses as mentally I still was getting no help and I felt more lonely and depressed and socially isolated not living on site with other service users. In the end I got more support at my flat and staff helped me set goals. I got a car, did some volunteer work at a horse rescue centre and they helped me get funding to train for and pass my stage 2 riding instructor exam so im grateful to local mental health services Navigo and their connected charity gardiner hill foundation for helping me get my own tenancy in my flat and funding my riding instructor exam and helping me set and achieve goals. Since leaving the rehab I have had support workers come daily to give me meds and helped me socially to get out regularly (on bad weeks I was too anxious or depressed to go out).They also help me food shop because I struggle with it because of my eating disorder which I'm hoping I can one day get help with.. I felt I need to do something different to move on with my life and am trying the therapeutic community again I'm hoping that in the 2 year programme I can learn to manage my anxiety about independence and learn to trust people in groups and be less emotional so I can hopefully work at least part time again as a riding instructor or even a support worker again if I can ever manage my own life.....maybe life can begin at 40. I've tried putting my own positive steps in such as joining a choir and doing gigs which I'm getting more confident with so enjoy and I have volunteer work goals and volunteer at Bransby horses charity at their events and although I don't see some friends often due to not living local we have arranged camping trips and days out throughout the year...had ace camp last weekend watching the greatest showman and off to Alton towers and doing a 12 week sponsored swim...i just need some help too.The problem with NHS services is funding normally only allows short therapies so historically services wouldn't treat complex patients especially with personality disorders as we wont get better with those short therapies. In an ideal world if money was no object individial long term therapy would be available bit is too expensive although in the long run if I had it earlier would still be working and paying tax and wouldn't have costs as much in ward admissions etc
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