“Empty promises and lies”

Hi all! Apart from my recent “how stress helps me” post I’ve had some time off doing these posts/blogs, unfortunately that doesn’t mean I’ve had time off from my mental health struggles – unfortunately there’s little let up or “time off” from them!

For this post i want to tell you about how my experiences with mental health teams seem to consist of a LOT of lies and empty promises from crisis teams, section 136 assessments and the community mental health team (CMHT) I’ve had empty promises and blatant lies from all of them!

A few weeks ago I was detained under section 136 of the mental health act by the police and eventually taken to a so called “place of safety” where after waiting for hours on end I had a assessment from one doctor and social worker/AMHP, long story short after they assessed me and I convinced them I wasn’t a big enough risk to be further detained to hospital the classic empty promises came, I say “the classic” because I’ve heard them so many times before i no longer hold my breath on anything they say actually happening! “We will get your care coordinator to ring you first thing Monday morning, we’ll get you a urgent appointment with your psychiatrist to discuss your medication and we will send you a letter detailing all of this”

Ha! Yeah right! My care coordinator did contact me – THREE WEEKS LATER! then when i asked her about the “urgent” appointment with the psychiatrist she said it WASN’T referred as urgent and I’ll hear from them in September with a appointment at some point after that!

Oh I nearly forgot something! They also said they’d contact my therapist and tell her that her constant days off and last minute cancellations were affecting me and my trust in her! Guess what? Yeah you’ve probably guessed it by now – that wasn’t done! To this day (a month later) she’s still unaware i was even detained!

The above isn’t a one off either! Unfortunately they say it most times I’m detained and EVERY SINGLE TIME nothing of what they say actually happens – then they wonder why I’m resilient and hostile towards them when I’m detained!

The CMHT are the same as well! When I try to contact my care coordinator or duty team – get told I’ll get a call back the same day and 2 days later i MIGHT get a call and that’s only if I spend the next day phoning them 6+ times and chase them up!

Why are people in crisis made to chase up the people who are supposed to help and support us? Then they have the nerve to tell US we’re not engaging when we can’t attend appointments because of our mental health (you know the same mental health difficulties that they’re supposed to HELP us with but half the time actually make it worse with empty promises and making it seem impossible to actually get help!?)

I speak the truth on both my posts here and in Twitter, i believe that’s the reason a lot of mental health professionals follow me and then drop off like flys! However if there is a mental health professional reading this please, please read the following: before labeling a “client” as not engaging because they’re not well enough to, maybe you should ask yourself “have we been letting this person down” and “should we be supporting this person more rather than labeling them as not engaging and discharging them just because that’s the easier option!” – a bit obvious really and yet professionals seem to take discharging someone so easily! I don’t think you have any idea how that affects us!

As I said above this is my first “proper” post in a while so hopefully it makes sense – I know a few followers on Twitter will be able to relate to the empty promises.