(Guest post by Catcher)
I have been reading most of the posts and associated comments on Mental Nurse for a few months now and thought I would have a crack at a post myself. Those of you expecting learned and referenced elegant prose with perhaps a few allusions to Russian literature thrown in better stop reading now, because what follows is a totally biased and probably opinionated take on “mental health services”. You see the thing is, it is based on my experiences and so it really can’t be anything else.
On the whole I have had a positive relationship with my psychiatrist; he is kind, thoughtful and intelligent and isn’t obsessed with making me take medication. He has guided me when I have chosen to take it and stood beside me (figuratively speaking) when I have refused. When without medication I became lost in a fog of increasing psychosis and paranoia and nearly got myself sectioned by my GP, he argued against it and instead chose to treat me as an out patient. He is a good man.
My Care Coordinator is a Social Worker and has always listened to me , she is there when I need her and fades away when I do not. She rings when she says she will and always rings me back. She is not slow to act but she is slow to judge and has on several occasions talked me back from a very bad place.
My experience of acute care when I was sectioned on the other hand has been very bad. I found the ward run on very custodial lines. There was no evidence of any type of therapy and the nursing care wavered between inept and negligent. During my time in acute care I was attacked whilst the staff looked on amonst other things and I could go on with this litany of woe. Likewise my experience of the Crisis Team was very poor. Suffice to say their input to my care had no particular benefit.
I think what I am trying to say in my own individual way is that mental health services and the way they are delivered are at best brilliant and at worst negligent. I realise this is nothing new to all of you but I thought it did need saying again. I suppose what I would like to happen now is that there follows a range of comments on what people feel mental health services should be. I read a lot of blogs and sometimes I do feel that peoples expectations of what metal health services should deliver is somewhat unrealistic. This isn’t to say I am of the “stop whining and pull your socks up” brigade but I do know that the NHS and therefore mental health services are not funded by a bottomless pit. How should care be given? What do we expect and is it “fair” to expect it?
I’m from Aussie Land, and been in mental health services for bout 2 years. I expect from them what they expect from us. To arrive to appointments, to stay commited to my therapy, to be polite, to return phonecalls, to let me know if they are ill, etc etc. I have to learn that they work office hours, they need to learn when I can and cant be called. It seems to work o.k for us (although there are def times at 5.10pm when I am super annoyed they have all gone home and left me for the weekend!!). Have been an inpatient 4 times, and has been a horrible experience every time. I hope to never go back. He He He.
As torah says, I expect from mental health care professionals the same things they expect from me. They teach me not to use black-and-white thinking; I expect them not to use black-and-white thinking. They tell me not to assume I know what is going on in someone else’s head; I expect them not to assume they know what is going on in my head. They teach me that I should try to remain open, honest, and respectful in my communication with others; I expect them to remain open, honest, and respectful in their communication with me. They tell me that I can not force someone else to change; I expect them to remember that they cannot force me to change. They have taught me that I cannot be perfect; I expect that they will not be perfect either. They have taught me that when I mess up, I need to take responsibility for that and make amends; I expect them to do the same. I expect that professionals will have integrity, not act hypocritically, in these areas, though not necessarily in other areas of their life. I do not expect that mental health care professionals will not become mentally ill themselves.
It seems like some people think that by expecting these things from mental health care professionals, people think I am expecting an awful lot, holding them to impossible standards. A.) I don’t think these are impossible standards; B) I think it is entirely appropriate to hold people to higher standards in their area of expertise (i.e. I expect historians to know more about history than the average person; as someone who is going into library conservation as a profession, I expect to be held to higher standards when it comes to taking care of my own books); C) if the professionals think these standards that I hold them to are so impossible, they need to reconsider what they are telling their patients in this regard.
There have been many times when I have been discussing things that I think need changing in mental health care and when I pose my solution, I can honestly say, “and this is something that I was taught in mental health care.” (Not that I actually learned it in mental health care, since it is very hard to learn the value of communication in a situation in which no one will communicate with me.)
And for those things that I was taught in mental health care and that I now promote as part of the solution to improving mental health care (the value of communication, not to assume I know what is going on in someone else’s mind, that no one can be perfect, etc.), I expect to be held to that same higher standard to which I hold the professionals. Yes; sometimes I fall short and mess up. It is sort of convenient that one of these lessons is that no one is perfect, and I stand by that lesson, however, that doesn’t mean I can be a blatant hypocrite and then just shrug my shoulders and say, “well, no one is perfect.” I don’t think that is acceptable for the professionals and I certainly don’t think that is acceptable for myself.
Yes; these are high standards. But I believe they are entirely defensible and appropriate. Just like it would be inappropriate for someone who is very bad at math and who is unwilling to learn math, it is inappropriate for someone who does not have the skills that mental health care professionals teach and who is unwilling to learn those skills to become a mental health care professional.
I missed a phrase in that last sentence:
Just like it would be inappropriate for someone who is very bad at math and who is unwilling to learn math TO BECOME A MATH TEACHER, it is inappropriate for someone who does not have the skills that mental health care professionals teach and who is unwilling to learn those skills to become a mental health care professional.
Catcher I am from Australia too and I have experienced what you have experienced. I was told once by a very experienced mental health nurse that there are two types of people that the mental health profession attracts: those that really actually do want to help people and care about people and those that are just pure lazy.
no, you’ve forgotten those that aren’t quite right upstairs and feel better about themselves being seriously fucked up people. Some enjoy the power kick. Some are just seriously fucked up in a paedophilic kind of way. Seriously. One’s just been sent down round here.
LMAO Socrates, yes I have met some of those too.
Socrates – NOT HELPING.
I try so hard to give professionals the benefit of the doubt, and then you go and remind me that they might not actually deserve it.
(This is an entirely amiable comment, but I realize that without inflection and facial expressions, that may be hard to tell.)
“I try so hard to give professionals the benefit of the doubt, and then you go and remind me that they might not actually deserve it.”
this is not at all an unusual feeling for me too. I’ve just finished an essay on a clinical trial of high doses of Abilify to cure ‘irritability’ in kids with Aspergers/PDD-NOS.
I was left sickened that kids can be used in this way by professionals and drug companies.