NHS Mental Health Services, In a Crisis.Always The Cinderella Service.

I chose the above image, because my adoptive parents were already working hard even then to persuade me , and the authorities that I was mad. In fact,I was mildly autistic, and a Trans person.

However here I want to talk about something I saw much of in my journey through the system. This was the patient who WANTED to be a patient, who would do almost anything to get attention, and who went to extreme lengths to ensure they never took responsibility for themselves.

They tended to be very ineffective at organising their lives, or paying bills or doing housework or cooking. This may actually not have been the case, but it was the case they wanted to project.

Sadly in today"s, overworked, and underfunded and understaffed NHS, mental Health Services, there are still patients doing the same.

Easy to spot in A&E, because will have taken an overdose that will not kill, but enough to ensure a trip to A&E, where they will be seen parading their drips, or talking loudly about their intention to kill themselves. This will have been repeated time and time again.I was in A&E with a broken leg, and had a very long wait on a trolley, and as I am on anticoagulants, I had three days before my surgery, so I was watching it play out in front of my, eyes, and I of course saw what I had seen before in my youth and teenage years,being re-enacted with the same lines, and the same outcomes.Recently, a friend who had spent a few hours in A&E herself, witnessed precisely the same.

The admission, the recovery from self harm, the repeated threat to their own life, and their discharge.Only to return with another injury, soon after.These same people often end up in the prison system too, as they become more desperate to gain admission to the local mental health unit, or halfway house. They commit minor crimes, and when arrested, usually either hurt themselves by head banging , or declare they will kill themselves. This behaviour in itself, is almost on an automatic setting, they cannot stop. They are seeking warmth and safety as an in patient.However they dont want all their freedoms removed, they still expect to go out from the unit, and enjoy shopping, or whatever pastime it is,but they do not want to leave.

The NHS is constantly seeing the same people again and again, but they do their job, and keep them safe. It is of course difficult, except through the eyes of a long term knowledge of a patient to know which is which.

I understand the behaviour, as for a short time, I was so alone, so completely cut off, reliant on just ￡47 a week, to live on, that I did for about three months, enter that world. I knew it, and I stopped it myself. I also as a result, understood exactly what it was. It is in itself, a breakdown of all and any confidence in oneself, and it is attention seeking.

The obvious help, is to withdraw help, and to fill their day with confidence building.An outward bound course springs to mind as an obvious thing to offer.There would be other ways to deal with it too, and Truth, which faces the patient with what they are doing, but offers a course which will change matters. Also explaining the needs of those with serious mental issues, who will not get a bed, because there are none. These days I have long become more self sufficient and found that I could manage if I had to, alone. I have entirely physical issues these days, but while I do take medication, for those physical illnesses, I have rejected any need for mental health difficulties, because like most of us, I feel sad, I feel happy, I have empathy, but I live, and I enjoy life, in the narrower band, that those of us without pots of money, can afford to enjoy!

I am sad though, that today, there are still those who waste the very much needed mental health services, and their kindness and tolerance,when to be honest, the NHS simply cannot afford to do anything but help the really ill,as there is a nationwide shortage of places, and I dont see that changing for the better, any time soon.