Dignity and Respect – Being Treated Like a Human Being (World Mental Health Day)

October the 10th was World Mental Health Day and this year’s theme was dignity. I originally thought this didn’t apply to my situation because I am, mostly, dignified whilst being ill and treated with dignity, or so I thought. I started this post by looking up the definition which I found to be as follows:
Dignity – The state or quality of being worthy of honour or respect.
As soon as I read that, I realised that I was wrong – while I may behave in a dignified manner, I’ve certainly not always been treated in a dignified way and have often not felt worthy of honour or respect because of the way I’ve been behaved towards.

Dignity is something that is often overlooked when treating people with mental health problems and we are often not given the respect we deserve. Sadly, this behaviour is often directed towards us by the very people who we have sought help from, who are trained to deal with our conditions and who we are reliant upon to offer or refer us for treatment. Is it any wonder then that it takes most people such a long time to even go to their GP when they suspect they may be mentally ill? Stigma is still rife within our society and while it is improving and openly stigmatic behaviour is starting to reduce, there is still a really long way to go and unfortunately, nowhere is this more necessary than within the medical community.

My experience of seeking treatment has been very varied and it’s often a very lengthy process. Even when I’ve gone to my GP about physical problems, I’m often disbelieved or it’s assumed that my symptoms are psychosomatic or even made up – all because I have a mental illness. I’m regularly talked down to, patronised and treated with condescension and this has very much put me off doctors and seeking help unless I really have to because I simply don’t have the energy to fight for someone, who should be understanding and sympathetic, to even believe me. Couple with this, the responses I’ve had from doctors when attempting to get a diagnosis or treatment for my mental illnesses and we’ve got one hell of a problem.

A month before I turned 16, circumstances in my life led to me feeling incredibly sad and low and unable to cope anymore, pretty much over night. Mental illness was not something that had featured in my life up until that point – none of my relatives or friends were ill to my knowledge and my only experience was that of over-hyped and dramatized portrayals in the media of violent offenders and people muttering to themselves and rocking whilst strapped into straight-jackets in padded cells. So when I started feeling low and it didn’t go away, I didn’t know what to do. I thought people would think I was silly and that I should just be able to cheer myself up because nothing terrible had happened, no one had died, I hadn’t been attacked, things were just going wrong at home. Eventually, after 2 months of never feeling better, I finally plucked up the courage to go to the doctors. I thought I was going to get sectioned or medicated but I didn’t know what else to do and the thoughts I was having were starting to scare me. I explained to my GP what was wrong and that this wasn’t normal for me. After 10 minutes she told me that it was “January Blues” and “every teenager in the country is feeling like this at the moment”. I said to her at the time that there would be a lot of suicides if that were the case but I was sent home and she did nothing. Two months later I went back, I’d started self-harming and was feeling suicidal every day, she took one look at me and referred me to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service because I was very ill and needed help. The first doctor I met there was great, he treated me like a person and was very respectful and understanding about how bad I was feeling and that something needed to be done about it. I wasn’t so lucky with any of the other staff I met there. I was allocated a nurse who I saw once a week who spoke to me like a child and contradicted me every time I said I was feeling worse. I was put on medication more than once and never monitored properly and then told off and admonished when I took myself off it because it was making me suicidal and I felt unsafe. I felt like a naughty child, not a 16-year-old who clearly knew their own mind and felt in danger.

Fast forward to 18 months ago and dignity was thrown out the window by my new GP who decided that telling me to “try harder” whilst dealing with crippling side effects from medications that were later described by a psychiatrist as “virtually poisoning you”, was the best way forward. I practically had to beg her to even refer me to a psychiatrist despite having a history of medication-resistant depression because she felt that I didn’t need one and she was doing a “perfectly good job of treating me herself”. Eventually she conceded and I was able to see a psychiatrist. This has been a good and bad experience. I’ve been lied to, fobbed off, ignored, disbelieved and dismissed. At points I’ve been spoken to like the knowledgeable, well-educated adult that I am who is well aware of the limitations of the NHS and who has studied, worked in and experienced as a patient, the mental health services in this country. But that has been rare. Instead of treating me with dignity and respect, most decisions about my treatment are made without me, often without my knowledge and my very character is often questioned when it’s assumed that my conditions simply can’t be as bad as I’m describing. I highly doubt cancer patients are treated like this when vomiting because of chemo or dealing with hair loss – are they told by doctors to just “try harder” or “stop focusing on the negative thoughts”? I think not! So why am I? Why am I dismissed and treated with so little respect?

It’s clear that many doctors have never been mentally ill, and they’re very lucky. But for those of us that are, it’s hard enough trying to deal with the conditions we have and the things that go hand-in-hand with that like low self-esteem and self-worth without having to deal with doctors judging us, accusing us of faking it, exaggerating, or causing it ourselves. It’s so hard to pluck up the courage to even go to the GP and admit that there’s a problem that you can no longer cope with or hide, without fearing how they might react to you. In an ideal world, we would all be treated as human beings, with dignity and respect, regardless of what symptoms or conditions we have. But currently, this isn’t the case. Something has got to change. Medical professionals, especially those that don’t work in frontline mental health services, are vastly ill-equipped and under-trained to deal with mental illness and instead of seeing people like me as people who are ill, they just seem to see us as walking labels. They still seem to have hugely stigmatic beliefs about us being in control of our conditions and able to just “snap out of it” or “pull ourselves together” and we’re treated accordingly, with disdain, coldness and even aggression sometimes.

First and foremost I’m a human being. After that, I’m many many things – I’m Lucy, I’m female, I’m 24 years old, I’m kind and caring, I’m creative, I’m a great friend. I’m also mentally ill but I’m not those conditions. I’m not anxiety, I’m not depression – I have those, but I’m not them. I am a human being and that entitles me to be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of what conditions I might have. The sooner I’m viewed as a person rather than a list of symptoms, the sooner I’ll be viewed as someone who is suffering and should be treated with dignity rather than a problem that needs to fixed or made to “see sense”. I might be mentally ill but I’m not mad, I don’t lie, I don’t make things up, I’m completely rational. If I say I’m ill, if I say I’m suffering then I’m not trying to gain another label or diagnosis for fun – I don’t get points for it, they certainly don’t convert to prizes. The only reason I seek diagnosis is in the vain hope that it might lead to treatment. Being spoken to in such a dismissive way has stopped me seeking help for most of my conditions and has had a major impact on my self-esteem because it makes me feel less of a person to have a doctor questioning me and treating me with so little respect.

Finally, while I’ve focused on the medical profession within this post, they are certainly not the only people that have not treated me with the dignity and respect I deserve. As you’ll have read in previous blog posts, I’ve been treated disrespectfully by a whole host of people throughout my time as an ill person and this has got to change. You can be that change. Next time you’re talking to someone who’s mentally ill, really listen to what they’re saying, don’t try to fix it, dismiss it, or make them see the positive – just listen. Then think about how you would want someone to respond if you’d just said all of that and were feeling that way. Chances are, you’d just want to be acknowledged, to be accepted and to feel heard. Most of all, you’d want to be treated with Dignity and Respect – you’d want to be Treated Like a Human Being. Be that change today!

N.B – A huge thanks goes to Steve “Squidoodle” Turner for his amazing Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbon Colouring Page which I coloured in green for Mental Health Awareness. If you’d like to get a copy to colour yourself, he’s generously offered it as a free download on his Facebook Page which can be found here. Enjoy and help raise awareness!

Crisis – Drowning and Trying Not to Sink Any Lower

Trigger Warning: This is not a cheery post and talks about feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness. Please don’t read on if you feel that this may upset you or cause you any form of mental distress. This blog is here to raise awareness, improve understanding and communicate difficult themes of mental illness that I experience, it is not here to cause any distress so please read with caution and look after yourself!

Crises are things that many of us go through at some point in our lives. Whether it be a mid-life crisis, a confidence crisis, a devastating loss, a sudden change in circumstance, they can all be crises to us that threaten to overwhelm, take control and force us to submit to the idea that we cannot and will not cope with whatever it is that we’ve just been dealt. I am very much going through this right now.

Despite being virtually housebound for 16 long months, I have mostly been able to keep plodding on, to keep my head just above water and to keep hoping and believing that I can and will get through this and get better. Sadly, this is a very fragile state for me and involves a lot of hard work and effort to keep the negative thoughts at bay and to keep moving forwards as best I can. I have to work at it every single day otherwise the drowning feeling quickly seeps in and takes over and I have to fish myself out again, always a little more damaged by the darkness that’s snuck into my head. Each time it gets a little harder for me to find the light, to find hope again, to believe that this may be temporary and I may be lucky enough to get my life back again.

So what sparked this crisis off? I’ve been waiting for the last month to hear from the support worker I’m supposed to have been allocated after my last psychiatrist appointment where I was finally diagnosed. I have been incredibly anxious about this phonecall and every time my phone has rung my heart has skipped a beat and my breath has caught in my chest while I check the caller ID and see if it could be them. But I haven’t heard anything. I’ve been feeling increasingly apprehensive about whether I’ll like the person, whether we’ll get on, whether the treatment will be set at my pace or whether I’ll be forced to do things I feel unable to do and pushed too hard or not be believed if I say that I cannot do what they’re requesting. I’ve worried about whether it will make me worse by pushing me too far too fast, whether it will indeed help and if it doesn’t, what, if anything, might help instead. All of these thoughts have been racing through my head every day for the last month and it’s exhausting. My head feels full, like it’s wedged full with cotton wool which makes concentrating on even the most basic of tasks increasingly difficult. It’s why my reviews are so sporadic, because some days I’m completely unable to get ideas down on paper or even pick a colour or a page to colour. Other reviewers complete around 5 reviews a week, I’m lucky if I manage half that despite not working, not having children and being a total disaster of a housewife because I find the task monumental and every single step takes longer than it should or would if I were well. I try to ignore this and just keep plodding on at my own pace but it’s hard not to compare myself to others and wonder how I’ll ever cope with a real job again if I’m struggling so much with doing this. Don’t get me wrong, I love reviewing and I’m unbelievably grateful that I’m being given the opportunity to write them for publishers who kindly donate copies of their books, but I find it very hard to keep on top of it and to not get overwhelmed. But, I refuse to give up – I refuse to surrender another part of my life to my condition. I have to challenge myself, to keep pushing my boundaries and to keep standing up to the anxiety or it will take over every part of my life and my personality. So I keep going, I keep fighting the demons, I keep telling myself that I can do it, that I am achieving something, that I am, in a small way, helping others with my reviews and that I’m not totally useless like I regularly slip into thinking.

Anyway, on top of all of these daily thoughts and worries about the support worker which are already added to my general every day worries and anxieties, I received a letter on Friday which was what triggered this crisis. I’ve been asked to attend yet another assessment, with another member of staff I’ve never met (this time a nurse) at a day centre I’ve not attended since I was 18. I don’t know what this assessment is for, or why I’ve been asked to attend. I’ve been sent a standardised letter which totally panicked me because the wording states that they’re assessing me “to determine the best course of treatment for you at this time” and that it will last an hour to “enable you to discuss your current difficulties and whether we can help you at this time”. I’ve already been given a treatment plan and was under the impression that the next step was a support worker being allocated to me and contacting me to arrange a home visit. None of this has happened and I have no idea what this assessment is for. I’ve phoned this week to ask my psychiatrist what’s going on and what it’s for but I’m yet to receive a response so I’ve now spent 6 days (and counting) feeling incredibly anxious to the point where my insomnia has worsened and I’m now unable to sleep before 4am instead of my usual 2am and yesterday I didn’t sleep until almost 5.30am. This then means that I’m even less able to deal with the anxiety and I’ve already had at least 4 panic attacks this week because of it.

Not only has my anxiety worsened significantly, I’m now able to do even less than I usually can because my baseline anxiety level is so high that it takes very little to push me into levels where I can’t control it or cope and have a panic attack so I’m now leaving the flat even less than usual and I’m now even more trapped in my own home and my own head. This has really scared me because normally a letter would shake me up for that day, maybe the next as well but I’m now at nearly a week later and I’m still not calming down. It’s got me questioning major parts of my life (hence the crisis) and I’m now wondering if I’ll ever get better, what might help, will anything help, what do I do if I stay at this level of functioning for a number of years without improvement? I have goals and dreams and plans for my life. None of these are especially big or outlandish. I don’t want to travel the world, if I can never go on an aeroplane again then so be it. I don’t want to bungee jump, skydive or put on a concert for 1000s of people. All I want is to be able to leave the house when I want to. I want to be able to work. To socialise. To get married. Most of all? I want to stop feeling scared. I’m fearful of so many things, it has taken over my whole life and I now overthink everything. I want to be able to get dressed and not worry about what people will think of what I’m wearing. I want to be able to work without the fear that I will fail or let people down. I want to be able to say no to people without the fear that I will be rejected and end up alone. I want to feel confident in my own skin, to feel safe, and to know that the choices I make are ok and accepted and that I don’t need to worry all the time. I want to stop feeling afraid.

This week has caused me to feel totally lost. I feel like I’ve barely made any progress since getting ill 16 months ago. I try my hardest every day and I challenge myself regularly. I’ll achieve something one day and then not be able to do that thing again for another month or even 6. At this rate of progress I still won’t be able to work in a decade and that’s hard to stomach when you’re only 24 and you have your whole life ahead of you. I want to be able to fulfil my modest dreams, to achieve the things I hope for. I want to know that somehow, someday, I will get better. That I will get my life back and grab it with both hands so that I can change the lives of others with conditions like mine. I’m desperate to make a difference, a bigger difference than I can possibly make sat behind a computer screen and trapped inside my flat. I have no idea how to get better, or what will work. I was so convinced that medication would work and I’d be back at work within 2 weeks. I thought I’d be able to drag myself away from the irrational fears and force myself into no longer being scared but that has not been the case. I’m rapidly losing hope and I feel like I’m pretty much out of options. I’m not religious, I don’t have faith, I don’t have the comfort of believing in a higher being that has a plan for me that I just have to wait out until it improves. I don’t have anything to rely on or to comfort me in these dark hours to prove that I will get better and that it’s just a matter of time. So I have to keep working, all day, every day, on trying to keep my head above water and when I can’t do that, like I can’t currently, I have to just try to prevent myself from drowning and falling further down under the water. My hope is that this anxiety will calm down again over the next few days and I’ll be able to build myself back up with the help of those closest to me who I know still believe in my ability to improve and get myself better. One thing I have in spades is determination so if anyone can do it, then I can, but right now that feels so untrue and so impossible because I can no longer think of a solution or method to improve and without that it feels like all hope is gone because I have nothing left to hope with. I have heaps to hope for but that just feels like torture, like showing a hungry child photo upon photo of plates of delicious food without giving them any way of having it. The hunger is easier to deal with and ignore if you don’t think about the thing that you want most – food. So I’m trying to ignore all of the things I’m missing out on, the things I’m desperate to do, the simple things that everyone around me takes for granted but that would make my day if I could just do them without fear anymore. I’ll keep on colouring and reviewing and keeping myself busy in the hope that it will keep my mind occupied at least some of the time and keep me distracted from the constant stream of “what if?” and “how the hell?” questions running through my head. Hopefully this crisis will pass as quickly as it’s hit me but for the moment I’m drowning and trying desperately not to sink any lower.

You Wait 15 months for One Diagnosis and then Three and a Half Come Along at Once.

Yesterday, my boyfriend and I went to see my new psychiatrist after not being seen by one since September because mine left and I never got put onto anyone else’s books. We were told we were attending to finally discuss diagnosis and I went hoping that would happen and I’d finally get a straight answer about treatment. Luckily, this psychiatrist is very thorough and seems to actually care. I met him once when I was 18 and liked him then as he was honest enough to tell me that because I’ve tried the main effective medications for my conditions with very negative effects to my health, I have medication-resistant depression and there was little to no point in trying those types of meds again in the future (sadly this information didn’t get back to my GP so when I originally became anxious I had to try taking these types of meds again before she’d try me on any new groups). The appointment was incredibly challenging. As usual, we were seen late and it turned out that slot had been triple-booked (I despair at the organisational skills of these places sometimes). I spent the entire assessment on the edge of a panic attack and cried twice because it was so overwhelming despite having taken diazepam in order to even get out of my flat to attend. I managed to get my points across though and have a tentative set of diagnoses that will be confirmed by letter within a fortnight. As a psychology graduate, I already had a fair idea that I’d be diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder as I fit all of the diagnostic criteria and have just about every symptom listed in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual – used for diagnosing psychiatric conditions). What I wasn’t expecting was to be diagnosed with Social Anxiety and Panic as well. I always thought Social Anxiety was extreme shyness and an inability to be around people or to socialise. It turns out, it’s not that simple and that actually I fit very neatly into that box thanks to my fear of judgement from others and excessive worry about failing to meet others’ expectations or letting them down in some way (more posts in the future about this I’m sure).

I also got a big shock when personality disorders were mentioned. I have, at times, wondered if I had a personality disorder because many people with as many stress-related conditions as I’m racking up do have one. I’ve looked at the diagnostic criteria and got friends from my degree course to look as well and none of us think I fit the criteria so I really started to panic when the psychiatrist started to mention it because sadly, a diagnosis of a personality disorder leads to a great deal of stigmatisation, particularly within the medical community. Having worked with 10’s if not 100’s of patients with them, I’ve heard countless stories from them saying their doctors simply don’t believe them when they state that their conditions have worsened, they put all symptoms down to the personality disorder instead of looking at whether they have a second, third, or fourth diagnosis that needs to be made and they’re often labelled as manipulative hypochondriacs. Luckily, my psychiatrist agreed that these diagnoses of personality disorders are often very unhelpful and that in my case this would be true and I don’t fit into the criteria to be diagnosed with one because essentially I’m not severe enough. I was very relieved about this. He said, instead, that I can be described as having Adult Sequelae (seemingly not a diagnosis but a description hence the half in the title of this post). I’ve never heard of this at work or at Uni and when googling it, there is very little information, particularly for lay-people, just journal articles investigating links into drug addiction and alcohol abuse. However, how the psychiatrist explained it and what I’ve gleaned from the few studies that described it, is that issues from a difficult childhood or a pre-existing condition cause a second (or more) condition to develop as a result of the first. Because I had issues growing up, my ability to deal with stress has not developed and has left me very vulnerable to any future stress or adversity. I then develop physical or psychological conditions because of this lack of ability to cope and when I then learn to manage each condition but still not the underlying stress, I then develop a new symptom or condition each time I’m under severe stress or pressure again. It’s essentially like turning on a garden hose that has a hole in it. The water is the stress and the hole is a symptom/condition. I keep patching up the holes but then the hose bursts somewhere else (a new symptom/condition). I never manage to learn to turn off the water or re-route it somewhere else so I spend my life patching up the holes and learning to manage new symptoms and conditions without ever learning how to deal with stress or the issues from my childhood. This isn’t as severe as a personality disorder because seemingly, all of the other aspects of my personality are fully developed but my ability to deal with the negative events of my childhood and negative events that happen in my life today is still not formed. The psychiatrist has explained that I need to deal with the current issues of the anxiety disorders so I can get back to functioning and then work on learning how to deal with stress generally and combat the problems I’ve had since childhood. This means I’m going to be having a lot more therapy over the next few years and he did point out that while there is no reason to suggest I won’t improve, recovery is a much harder battle and one I’ve not yet won with any of my conditions as all those I’ve been diagnosed with still affect me to varying degrees despite my management of them.

Leading on from all of that, I’ve also finally had my treatment plan outlined! I’m to be allocated a support worker who will visit me at home and work on practical things to get me going out more. If/when that improves I will then be enrolled onto a group CBT programme at the local day hospital which I will attend with the support worker. After that, I may well be enrolled to attend the local recovery college where I will be taught about the conditions I have, how they work and what can be done to manage them. I’m not sure how much use that part will be given that I already have a psychology degree where I extensively studied these conditions and have not only worked for a total of 11 months with patients with these conditions but have also heavily researched them since becoming unwell myself but if I get well enough to attend then I’m certainly willing to give it a go to see what it’s all about and whether there’s anything new and useful I can pick up. After all of that, my level of functioning is meant to be a lot higher and I will then be assessed by a psychotherapist who will advise me about what long-term therapy I need to have and I’ll hopefully be referred to a highly skilled therapist from there for treatment which is likely to need to last 12-18 months.

So, I now have three and a half shiny new diagnoses and I’m still in shock about it all. I was so worried that I was going to be fobbed off again without knowing what’s wrong with me and what’s caused my life to turn upside down for the last 15 months. I’m pleased I now know officially what’s wrong with me, that I’m being offered treatment and now have a plan of what’s going to be offered and what we’re trying to tackle first, but naturally, now the worry is setting in about the pressure I’m likely to be under to improve, to constantly be getting better without being able to get used to any slight increases in functioning (there will be a lot of these in between being virtually housebound now and having a normal life where I can work and socialise). I’m worried about how I’m going to cope with a support worker when that’s the job role I was in when I became too ill to work, whether I’m going to get on with them, whether my treatment will be done at my pace or a pace set for me that I don’t get to have input into and a whole heap of other worries. The nature of Generalised Anxiety Disorder is that you worry about everything, particularly the unknown, so this is all very scary. I now have some labels that roughly describe what’s wrong with me and what I’m going through but I currently have no idea how long it may take to improve my functioning or even if the treatment plan will help. It sounds like the psychiatrist expects it to help but then he kept saying “if” so I don’t actually know what the likelihood is or what time-scale we’re looking at. I’m trying to just stay calm and take each step as it comes but such is the nature of the beast that I’m fighting that this is nigh on impossible for me to do and I’m already worrying about what if all of that doesn’t work and I’m left housebound still with another treatment option crossed off the list as not having worked. I’ll certainly be giving it my best shot and anyone that knows me offline will know how motivated and determined I am when I set my mind to something but the worries are still ever present. At least I know what conditions it is I’m fighting and have an action plan to try. Beyond that I’m just having to hope, and wait and see! Updates will follow as and when there are any. I’m still shocked and stunned that I’ve waited 15 months for one diagnosis and then three and a half came all at once.

Physical Illness vs. Mental Illness – Why You Should be Outraged

Today I’m feeling anxious, I have been feeling increasingly so for the last couple of weeks because tomorrow I have an assessment with a psychologist. I was originally meant to have the assessment in December but wasn’t well enough to attend and moved it to the end of January hoping that I’d have improved by then. Sadly, it got cancelled with 3 days’ notice by the psychologist because she was striking that day. It got postponed again until after I’d finished withdrawing from my medication and hopefully improved. It’s now tomorrow. In some ways I have improved – I cope better when I have to travel in cars, I can go to the shops a little more often and stay out a little bit longer before the panic sets in, occasionally I even go out and don’t feel panicky at all. However, I feel incredibly anxious about tomorrow.

I’ve been fighting for this assessment since September and was originally deemed “unsuitable” but was never told why. I fought and explained why I should be assessed for therapy and stated that as medication clearly doesn’t work, psychological therapy was my only hope other than spontaneous recovery which we can hardly rely on happening. Eventually my psychiatrist gave in, seemingly because he could no longer justify saying no and I was sent an appointment.

They keep refusing to do my assessments by phone even though I’ve already missed one face-to-face appointment because I got so anxious that I couldn’t move and they keep telling me to “just try” and “keep pushing yourself”. I push myself every day. I have almost no support from the health services now and was really unwell for months due to withdrawal from my medication which wasn’t monitored because I still don’t have a new psychiatrist. I’ve now not been seen by a doctor since the 3^rd of September and am still yet to be allocated one – it’s been 7 months.

When you’re suspected of being diabetic doctors don’t just make you eat sugar in front of them and then pump you full of insulin when it’s clear that your body isn’t processing it and is rapidly killing itself. Why then must I keep “pushing myself” to go to appointments so that they can see “just how anxious I am”. Why am I essentially being tested? Most of what I say and do currently seems to be skewed by doctors and psychologists who just use it in whatever way they like to back up their own point. I’ve attended 3 appointments so I was well enough to get to those, why not the latest appointment? I explain that I’m so anxious about these appointments that I stop being able to sleep for a week beforehand and my IBS flares up. These appointments are making me more ill but I’m expected to attend them in order to get treatment. I have to go to assessment after assessment with healthcare professionals with different job roles and titles and so far all I’ve been offered is Group CBT sessions. I regularly go weeks at a time without being able to set foot outside my front door so how is it feasible to expect me to do this? Asking me to “just go outside” is like asking someone with a broken leg to walk on it with no plaster cast. They can want it as much as they like but as soon as they try to put weight on it the pain will be unimaginable and their leg will buckle potentially causing more damage. Wanting your bones to fuse together doesn’t mean that it happens and it’s exactly the same with my anxiety. I hope, wish and even pray every day that I will be able to go out and do all of the normal things that I took for granted but that doesn’t make me any more able to do them than walking on a broken leg.

Patients having a lump investigated are told what the possible outcomes and diagnoses may be and in time are told what treatments may be available to them. They are given a diagnosis as quickly as possible and then told about treatments, prognosis and available support. They are not kept in the dark about these things and are allowed to make decisions about what they feel would help them best and how they want to proceed. I’m afforded none of these luxuries as a mental health patient. Over a year in I’m still yet to be diagnosed, I’m still having to go to assessments and have still not received any psychological treatment. I’ve taken myself off the medication that was making me worse because I have no doctor to discuss it with or to advise my withdrawal so I did it alone. I have been in and out of the mental health system since I was 16, I have a psychology degree and until a year ago I worked in a psychiatric inpatient unit. I know my stuff when it comes to what therapies are available and whether or not they’re likely to help me. I’ve had so much CBT that I could almost certainly deliver low-level therapy with no need for further qualifications and while it’s a great therapy, it hasn’t worked for me and there’s no reason to think that would be any different for this anxiety disorder.

In 2011 I received Cognitive Analytic Therapy which really helped me at the time and is the therapy that I believe in most to be able to treat my current difficulties. I have been asking my psychiatrist since September to refer me for CAT and have been categorically told that it IS offered by my local NHS Trust and within my area so I fought for it for 5 months. I’ve asked more than one health professional on numerous occasions whether it’s offered here and whether the therapy assessments I’m going to are assessing me for CAT or just CBT and have always been told that they are. That was until January when I phoned the day hospital and the person I spoke to immediately said that the Trust DO NOT offer CAT. I was shocked at this and nearly burst into tears. I told her that both my psychiatrist and psychologist had assured me that it was and that I was being assessed for it so she said she’d check. The psychologist then called and finally admitted that CAT is offered by the Trust but that there are no NHS funded therapists in our area and due to my condition preventing me from travelling, I would not be being assessed for it.

I’m now in a very difficult position where I’ve been lied to by the very people that I’m meant to trust. I have to open up to these people about my deepest darkest fears and tell them about all aspects of my personal life. I’m meant to trust in them to tell me the truth and to work for my best interests and to advocate for me when discussing my treatment in meetings. But they’ve lied. They’ve lied over and over again, when I’ve asked them direct questions about whether or not I’m being assessed for this therapy. It feels like I’m being conned. How am I meant to persuade myself to go to an assessment that I’m terrified of attending when it looks increasingly likely that I’m just going to be offered Group CBT or sent back to my GP. I keep asking what provisions there are for people who are housebound and I’m still yet to get an answer. I have explicitly stated that I do not want to be discharged back to my GP, the same GP who put me on medication that I should never have been given in the first place due to previous bad reactions to it and who told me to “just stick with it” and more worryingly to “try harder” and “think more positively” while I deteriorated thanks to the horrendous side effects. If I can’t attend tomorrow though I may well be discharged back to their “care” meaning I won’t get any treatment.

I know that I’m one of the unlucky ones for whom medication is not the answer, or even part of the answer. I know that I’m a nightmare patient because my conditions are treatment-resistant and complex but I wish they’d been straight with me and not lied. If CAT isn’t offered in my area and I’m not well enough to travel out of area for it then that’s fine. I don’t like it but it’s not unreasonable and I understand that particularly in this economic climate there are limitations on healthcare provision. I’ve directly asked over and over again and been assured that I was being assessed for it. I’m left wondering what would have happened if I’d been well enough to attend the original assessment? Would I have been told I was “unsuitable” for CAT despite being suitable for it when I was assessed in 2011 by a different NHS Trust? Would they have just tried to palm me off with Group CBT and then said that I was “refusing treatment” when I declined due to not being well enough to attend? Would they have ‘fessed up and said that actually they’d got me there under false pretences and that CAT isn’t offered? I’ll never know.

I am not alone in being treated in a sneaky, underhanded way. Countless patients with mental health problems are treated like this every day. It simply wouldn’t be allowed if I had a physical condition. I wouldn’t get put on medication without a diagnosis. I wouldn’t have to prove myself, my tests results would speak for themselves. You may be thinking that you can’t test for mental illness and biologically that’s currently true. I can’t have a blood test and be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder but there are countless psychometric tests that measure anxiety levels, depression scores and every other psychological condition under the sun and my score on the anxiety tests is through the roof. There is no mistaking or denying that I’m severely affected and that my quality of life is hugely diminished by this condition and the test results show that. And yet, I’m still expected to prove it by attending the appointments and for some reason, unknown to me, not being able to attend an appointment because I’m so anxious that I’m not able to move, doesn’t prove that I’m even more ill than they thought and therefore in need of urgent treatment. No, my inability to attend appointments just seems to elicit threats of being discharged back to my GP and receiving comments about not trying hard enough or putting in enough effort. This would be a disgrace if I were physically ill but it’s widely accepted when mentally ill – You Should be Outraged!

N.B I’ll post soon about whether I manage to attend tomorrow and what the outcome is.