Story Even mental health professionals have given up on me

[brokenbutterflies]

I've been involved with mental health services since I was a young teenager, now, almost a decade on, mental health professionals don't know how to help me.

Over the years I've tried dozens of medications, therapies, been in psych wards, and been in hospitals more times I can count for SH or attempts. My most recent attempt was last month and usually the psychiatrists that evaluate me will give me the same speech. The whole "you're too young to give up, things will get better", you know the drill. This time was different.

The woman said something along the lines of "I could admit you back to the psych ward again, but I don't think that would help. The other option is to send you back home for another psych eval, I don't think that will help either. At this point, I don't know what will help someone with your combination of illnesses. The outlook isn't good, you're in a high risk group for further attempts and accidental death, which will be likely if you continue as you have been. So what do you want me to do?"

I just said, send me home. And she said "you won't be safe though" and I said I know I won't, then she said "okay. I'll discharge you". That was basically it.

In some ways. it was refreshing having someone actually confirm what I've been noticing over the last year. My previously weekly appointments are getting further and further apart, my main mental health coordinators keep needing extra meetings to discuss how to help me (and after months of waiting, they're still having "more meetings"), I was discharged from the psych ward even though they knew I wasn't any better because they said they don't think they can help me there. It feels like my whole team have reached a dead end but nobody has been brave enough to actually say it. And I finally had that confirmation. But at the same time, despite me knowing this deep down, and wanting to end my life for years, knowing that the team of people who are supposed to save me don't know how to has just exacerbated the hopelessness I already felt. I didn't realise I was clinging onto any more hope until she said those words that have been replaying in my head for weeks. But I must've been, because I left the hospital feeling more deflated and empty than I had felt going in.

I used to fantasise about suddenly winning the lottery, turning my life around, having a future, but it's like a pin has been put in those ideas because now I know there is no way out. I don't even know why I'm really writing this, I guess just to vent to people that'll understand it and to just get it out of my brain. I'm not really expecting any replies to this because I don't know if there is anything left to say.

 

[Enoughnow]

I'm the same I'm gonna kill myself tonight bit first I'm gonna write a letter making sure they know its there fault

 

[FuneralCry]

I would personally see it as being better for people to being realistic rather than saying that 'things will improve' when they have no evidence that life will actually get better. To me toxic positivity is harmful and false hope just leads to more suffering. I'm sorry that it has come to this point for you. Life is just so cruel and unfair and I know that it is hard to carry on when everything feels so hopeless. I can imagine that it must be devastating being in that situation. I hope that in whatever happens, you find relief from what you are going through.

 

[brokenbutterflies]

I'm the same I'm gonna kill myself tonight bit first I'm gonna write a letter making sure they know its there fault

honestly I'm doing the same, and putting the name of the mental health professionals that have been shitty to me

I would personally see it as being better for people to being realistic rather than saying that 'things will improve' when they have no evidence that life will actually get better. To me toxic positivity is harmful and false hope just leads to more suffering. I'm sorry that it has come to this point for you. Life is just so cruel and unfair and I know that it is hard to carry on when everything feels so hopeless. I can imagine that it must be devastating being in that situation. I hope that in whatever happens, you find relief from what you are going through.

I agree, like I'm glad she was honest because I'm sick of hearing the generic "it'll get better" is, but at the same time it's more that it sucks knowing that literally nobody can help me. Thank you for your comment.

 

[jupiterwinds]

I was in and out of therapy and on and off psych meds for the better part of 30 years (since I was a kid). I got to the point where they either said that kind of thing or were just so dismissive and invalidating I decided to stop trying. I'm sorry. Some of us have treatment-resistant mental illnesses. Some of us see reality more than others. For me, I'm also chronically ill and was misdiagnosed for so long and it makes me unable to tolerate most meds. The system is broken, honestly, and helps very few people I've found. You're not alone, if that means anything, and it's okay if it doesn't.

 

[symphony]

Damn. Thank you for sharing your story.

I resonate with that a lot, and see myself in what you've written. Although I haven't been in treatment as long (only a few years) and nobody's said it quite so explicitly. But I've gotten bounced around from provider to provider, everyone referring me to someone else because they don't feel they can treat me. Therapists and psychiatrists have started to suggest trying the same handful of things over again and a few have briefly commented they don't know what more to do for me or described my remaining options as "pretty bottom of the barrel".

Those sorts of things are a huge hit to my sense of hope. It confirms my belief that I'm a lost cause and there really is no help left for me. But at the same time, it is kind of relieving, isn't it? It seems a lot of times mental health professionals are in the business of selling hope, even false hope, when they can't genuinely sell solutions.

 

[freedompass]

I agree with @FuneralCry on this, it would be so refreshing to hear something real from these guys. There's this thing called the Recovery Model OP which you're no doubt aware of, makes me sick. For once just acknowledge that with many severe mental health conditions the word 'recovery' is just a random noise. All we are doing is surviving another day, please be fucking real! Round the corner lurks another episode, sometimes there's no trigger even but it happens anyway and meds are powerless against it. Accept that the most you professionals can do in these circumstances is palliative care! In their frustration they are more likely to turn round and blame the victim for 'not wanting to get better'.

 

[Mtnwildflowers]

Wishing you the best in the same boat. Told I have to accept I won't get better and accept my illness just as it is