Tag: volunteer

Three hundred and sixty five days

Watching me decay

One year ago today I started working on the youth wellbeing service, initially to support the volunteers when they delivered workshops and helping with training while someone else did the main day to day running of the service. One the first day he threw me in at the deep end and got me to rewrite one of the workshops, despite not bringing my armbands I managed to avoid drowning and quickly decided I wanted more than just the odd hours supporting the volunteers partly because I liked the extra money but also because I was starting to want more than the things I was doing.

I guess I was lucky to have a manager that was happy to give me more responsibility and delegate more work to me plus he didn’t have the time to do the amount of work the youth service needed on top of running another service 3 days a week. I loved the things I did as a volunteer but I was starting to get bored and after years of stagnating I didn’t want to get stuck again so the more I was given the more I took.

This arrangement was meant to last a couple of months then until Christmas then April. On the 26th of April I had my interview for the service lead position and on April the 27th I was told I’d got the job.

Today I jumped ship and went to work in one of the other offices with a different team, since starting this job I’ve found it hard to be alone in the office all day so I tend to pop up in other places from time to time, I celebrated in a work appropriate was with a boiled sweet which my current manager laughed at me for when I sent her a text telling her (feeling the love) but I might go wild tonight and have something stronger, maybe a bag of haribo 😜

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It’s personal

I’m clearly no stranger to sharing my life both online and offline, if I was this blog wouldn’t exist and you wouldn’t be reading this now but offline I’m starting to get tired of sharing my story and talking to people about my history and mental health. I’ve spoken to so many people in different settings from pop up cafes to fundraisers, funding bids for work and over 1000 young people through volunteering on the youth service I now run and although logically I know it’s not true it does feel as though there must be a shortage of people who haven’t heard my story by now.

Today I’m running training with my new volunteers on writing their personal story and although no one is forcing me to I don’t feel like I can avoid telling it again it doesn’t seem fair to ask them to share theirs and me not share mine, I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of weeks and Im still not entirely sure why I’m so against telling it now I think it’s partly that I’m tired of hearing it and then the fear of being judged and the shame of not really having achieved much in my life. I really do enjoy my job and it’s not that I think it doesn’t count but I’m in my 30’s and just getting started in career where most of the people around me are younger than me and more qualified. I don’t feel like an inspiration or someone to look up to, hearing other people’s educational backgrounds and qualifications reminds me of what I don’t have and what I’m not clever enough to ever achieve, maybe this is internalised to an extent but I also know the reality of my experiences in education.

When you’re known for one thing or people see you a certain way it can be hard to break that view no matter how much you change or try to move on you’ll still be seen the same way, I’ve talked about my past so many times as a volunteer and although not in great detail there’s a high chance that I’ll be meeting people in my new role that have heard my story, I don’t hide having mental health problems and it’s not like I even could if I wanted to I’ve made sure of that it’s something I’ll never be able to fully hide but even though it’s my own fault I wish I had a choice.

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Working 9 (30) – 5 (30)

A photo of me at work wearing pink glasses and a black top with my chin resting on my hand looking stressed

I took part in a photo project on Facebook for people with chronic illness a few months ago and balance was one of the prompts that stood out for me, people talk about a work life balance and having a life outside of work but another type of work life balance for me is the balance between how I’m seen as a member of staff and a person with mental health problems.

My mental health isn’t a secret it couldn’t be if I wanted it to be not just because of this blog or the very obvious signs all over my body including my hands (big regret) but also because I came into the organisation as a service user which is something I make no secret of but at times it’s hard to know how others see me. This may be my own internalised anxieties or not feeling good enough but I find it hard to know whether at times of stress I’m see as a stressed or frustrated member of staff like any other or if I’m seen as a person with a mental health problem overeating as a result of their mental health.

Again this may be internalised anxiety and probably a generous dose of feeling like I don’t deserve help or that I shouldn’t ask for help and should be capable and prove myself (probably mostly the last part) but because I feel like I should be able to cope and I’m afraid of being seen as incapable I find it really hard to say I’m struggling at work. I know I keep going on about how scary it is that people having expectations for me to live up to but Friday afternoons seem to be the time my brain likes to have a breakdown and I even got left off work early for being mental today, being overtired and alone all day meant I spent more time crying at my desk than actually working.

My mental health and volunteer experiences help me support my volunteers but I worry that I’m seen as less professional especially because of my self harm and the fact that I don’t cover my scars or that people will think I’m not capable; as it is I’ve been judged by professionals when I’ve attended consultations or panels as a person with lived experience or service user rep, metaphorically patted on the head or had things I’ve been dealing with for years explained to me with a patronising smile and yes some of these people may do it to everyone but when you’re trying to prove yourself or been seen as more than just a token or a tick box to satisfy a requirement it’s that bit more frustrating. I keep being told that everyone experiences anxiety at the start of a new job and it’s normal to have doubts but again this is where the difference lies because I always feel I’m waiting for people to see through me and tell me this was all a mistake.

This blog is a bit all over the place but what (I think) I’m trying to say is that the balance between work and life is more complex for me than just work and outside work.

This existential crisis was brought to you by caffeine and chocolate.

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Fake it till you make it

Tonight* my brain is spiralling down into doom and failure convincing me that I’m a fraud just waiting to be caught out and that I’ve someone convinced people into believing I’m something I’m not, that people will soon realise this and see right through me and that giving me a job, responsibility and letting me run a service is a mistake. I’ve had the talk about imposter syndrome with someone before, someone I respect who to most people would never appear to feel this way I even bought myself a print of the picture used in this blog to try and convince myself that actually I’m not the imposter I think I am.

The feelings of responsibility and expectation are once again terrifying me, for a long time I’ve believed that if I never try I can’t fail and I can’t screw things up but I’m restless and wasn’t feeling stretched anymore by the things I’ve been doing. I’ve spent a large amount of this evening crying as my thoughts continue to spiral and snowball collecting more and more until it becomes and avalanche (sorry for the naff metaphor) anxiety has been creeping in recently and I’m trying to tell myself that it’s normal to feel some anxiety about a new job.

It doesn’t really matter what people say because my brain won’t listen, I know I’m not the only one that feels this way and I also know that I did well in my interview but facts and emotions don’t mix and the fear is strong. I wanted this job so much and I still do but the loss of security and increased responsibility and the worry of everything going wrong is very much on my mind (and in my dreams).

Today I have my induction with two other new members of staff and I’m hoping that I’ll just be treated like any other member of staff and not have to hear everyone say I know everything and that I’ve been here forever because this is still new to me and there’s a lot I’m going to have to learn.

*I started writing this last night

Image credit to People I Loved screenshoot from Blurt Foundation on instagram

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This indecision’s bugging me

One day I’m going to be sued for my constant use of song lyrics

 

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2015 Georgiesaurus speaking about being a Youth Wellbeing volunteer

Recently things have been relatively OK I’m not saying it’s all wonderful but mentally I’ve been reasonably stable; I’ve had my first medication increase of Lamotragine and it’s hard to know whether it’s helping or not as this is probably the first time I’ve not been in crisis or extremely depressed when changing or adjusting medication, to add to this today I got a letter from the mental health team offering me an appointment in March with the recovery and support team presumably following on from the referral the psychiatrist I saw in December made. Yesterday I saw a friend I haven’t seen in a while and was telling her that I’d stopped going to the group I’d been attending due to it being a toxic and unsupportive environment that made me feel worse not better so with the recent mental stability getting the letter about the mental health appointment has just added another decision the think about, if I’m offered more treatment will it make things worse? Do I want it? Is it suitable or would I be better off considering something else I’ve been looking into?.

Life doesn’t come with a manual, I’m still trying to find out who I can complain to but for now I have to try and work things out myself and try and decide what the right thing to do in certain circumstances or what decisions to make when opportunities come along. One of the problems is that opportunities don’t always come along at the right time and that’s without the complication of not knowing when the right time is. For 7 months I’ve been working and earning on top of my benefits (all legit please don’t report me for benefit fraud) and it’s been the best, most intense, stressful, exhausting and rewarding 7 months, it certainly hasn’t all be smooth sailing with days where I was going solo bobbing up and down desperately trying to stay afloat and times when I was drowning and having 4:30 Friday meltdowns which involved texting my manager and almost quitting.

But 7 months in the grand scheme of things isn’t that long and in a perfect world I’d have more time to prepare and put myself in the best position to take on more not just skills wise but mentally too and feel as stable and secure as I can and ready to take the next step in moving off benefits another struggle here is my chronic illness I cannot manage full time and even if I was in perfect mental health I couldn’t physically cope on full time hours. I feel that so much of my self worth recently has been tied up in this job I’m told a lot how good it is that I’m working and being payed but as much as I’m enjoying having more money it’s more the feeling of being an equal on the same level as staff and things that come with it such as socials or attending the staff away day.

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2017 Georgiesaurus running a Youth information stand for Time to Talk Day

Sometimes I think I do too good a job at treating my mental health as something separate that I’m almost lulled into a false sense of security that comes with stability when realistically I still have to fight the urge to tell my manager everything I’ve done each day if he’s not in, let him know I’ve uploaded it onto the shared drive and where so he knows I’ve been working, of course I know that not only does he trust me to work alone but he doesn’t want to know every email I’ve sent or every webpage I’ve read for the workshop I’m writing. I’ve had a few relationship anxieties too despite MBT helping me with this it’s hard to explain to someone without mental health issues that people I’ve been close to or very attached to weren’t just people I worked with and that although they have moved on it’s still at times a struggle for me.

Although I’m handling it better I’m still not a fan of change and if anyone knows where I can hand in my resignation of adulthood please let me know until then I’ll be building a pillow fort.

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New year same old Dino

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An illustration of a man with a purple background with the words I can’t believe it’s a year since I didn’t become a better person.

Today the perks of being a dinosaur turns one, my little blog is growing up fast *wipes a tear from my eye* it’s also the first blog post of the new year, I don’t really go in for the whole new year new me thing, sure 2018 will bring new experiences and changes just as every day, week, month does no matter where in the year it is and 2017 also brought some big changes with being discharged from all mental health services for the first time in about 8 years, important people no longer in my life, leaving behind toxic environments that were detrimental to my mental health and not staying because it was the only option of support and probably the biggest of all was having my training recognized as not just good but worthy of actual money and being paid for and getting a job closely followed a second one.

None of these things have been without challenges and people who know me well will know I’ve had times where I’ve felt overwhelmed by the changes, I’m now pulling back a bit and slowing things down I’m recognizing that is all new and that I don’t need to try so hard to prove myself. This blog was another new thing for 2017 and it’s still going and people read it which is still a surprise to me, I find writing helpful often during the writing process of creating a blog post it starts to unravel things in my brain a bit and the connections seem to form better even though people say I’m articulate I still find writing easier than speaking though talking and opening up is less of a struggle than it was, I certainly never thought at the beginning of 2017 that I’d not only get on well with someone I’ve only been working with for 6 months but also disclosing things about really difficult points in my life.

When I was writing training at work I wrote long notes almost scripts to go with the slides, when it came to delivering the training I didn’t use the notes as much as I’d anticipated and on some days not at all however writing those detailed notes really helped to get all the information together in my brain from whatever dark and dusty corner it was hiding in and blogging is like that for me. I’m quite a hands on person and enjoy the interaction with volunteers and service users I tend to write these posts on my phone then email it to myself and upload it from my laptop although my hands would prefer it if I used speech to text my brain finds the physical action of writing (or typing better).

So for 2018 I hope to write more, get better at and feel more confident in promoting the blog and sharing it, I want to work on turning myself into a brand and personal development and utilizing my social media better. So happy first birthday blog and thank you to those who’ve been reading since the start and those who’ve joined along the way I hope there are even more people reading this time next year.

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The most wonderful time of the year?

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A rather appropriate Christmas card I saw last year

I don’t like Christmas, call me Scrooge or the grinch but i really don’t enjoy it. Christmas can be a really difficult time for so many people there’s a big emphasis on joy and happiness, being around family and friends but the happy family isn’t a reality for many, my family diminished over the years with elderly members moving into nursing homes and dying and now I have no contact with my immediate family though the family Christmases I did have often were rarely happy ones.

My mental health tends to deteriorate around this time of year the run up to Christmas really makes me stressed and anxious despite knowing rationally that the day itself will most likely be fine and that I’m actually going to spend it with two people (and two cats) that I’m choosing to be with. One of the struggles I have with Christmas is that most of the things I do to support myself aren’t an option, I’m off work for two weeks, there’s a big reduction in public transport so as a non driver I’m limited on how much I can get out, health services are reduced as are most other things like council services and housing association (not that my housings are any use when they are in) it feels like the world shuts down and the prospect of over a week with nothing to do doesn’t feel me with joy but anxiety.

I need routine and structure to stay relatively sane (emphasis on relatively) though this structure is mainly external as left to my own devises I tend to spend too much time in bed or watching YouTube but the idea of days with nothing to do and falling back into bad sleep patterns reminds me of when that was all my life consisted of endless days of nothing stretching out ahead of me with little point in knowing what day it was when they were all the same, where I’d stay up half the night and sleep half the day (this was mainly a way of reducing the amount of time I had to spend around my mother) although how ever much I need routine I’m not missing getting in at 8:30 to prepare for volunteer training.

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My attempts at festivity fairy lights wrapped around my crutches and stick

Christmas is also shortly followed by new year and the thought of change and reflection, I’ve been reflecting a lot recently especially on relationships as I mentioned in my last post, I’m tired of missing people especially people who don’t miss me who made promises they didn’t mean I don’t want to miss them anymore. In January I’ll be once again going through medication changes in an attempt to finally get off antipsychotic medication something I’ve been wanting for a while.

Disability, chronic illness and mental health problems don’t go away for the holidays it just means different challenges and things that can affect pain or fatigue and trying to manage pacing while still enjoying the day.

To anyone struggling this Christmas, with isolation, pain or mental illness you’re not alone this dinosaur sends love and solidarity. If you need support during the Christmas period the Samaritans are always there and comedian Sarah Millican will once again be doing #joinin on twitter for the 7th year running, have as good a Christmas as you can a big Christmas RAWR from The Perks of Being a Dinosaur.

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Rocket Science

If you can’t here expecting a review of a lush  bathbomb then sorry to disappoint you this is a rant about mental health services, maybe try Lulu or Jen

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A blue rocket shaped bath bomb made by Lush cosmetics

I am not a frequent flyer, I don’t have air miles I haven’t been on a plane in years and the last time I went abroad was to Edinburgh by train. Despite this I and other in a similar are labelled frequent flyers or regular attenders (this is meant to be the better term) because we find ourselves in situations where our mental health has got to a point when we need support and intervention often requiring medical attention as a result of harming ourselves.

Self harm isn’t something people do for fun or because they enjoy being in a&e it’s because emotions become overwhelming (and this is a very simplified explanation of a complex issue) and as I’ve written before the treatment once you’re at a&e is often not pleasant or equal to the treatment of people going in for accidental injuries with long waits in loud and busy waiting areas and psych liaison who at most may give you a leaflet and discharge you at 4am with no way of getting home.

It’ll be no surprise that this latest rant is inspired by a crisis concordat meeting this morning, two hours of frustration at having to bite my tongue in frustration at the language used and throwaway comments about people with personality disorders and the triggering content in the suicide prevention information listing the age groups and sex of people who ended their life and details of methods chosen again separated by sex.

Sometimes I look at the people sitting around the same table as me and wonder how they can be so oblivious to the blatantly obvious, do they really not see the link between the high numbers of people in Richmond who come into contact with the street triage team and the above average number of people detained under section 136 of the mental health act and the complete lack of crisis services in the borough? Are they actually surprised that people who are distressed or in crisis don’t want to travel an hour or more to an area they may not know to get support? And may not have the means to do so? It really isn’t rocket science or a difficult connection to make, I don’t exactly consider myself the sharpest tool in the box yet I can see it so why can’t they?

Aside from Mind since I’ve been a part of the crisis concordat (around 2 years now) and the outcome based commissioning program (coming up for 8 months) only one person has actually asked me about my experiences of a&e and the treatment I receive it still seems like a radical idea to most of the people involved to actually listen to someone who’s been in the very situation they’re talking about. Despite feeling like i’m banging my head against a wall (thanks Steph) and frequently coming away wondering if being there serves any purpose I still keep going if only to play my own version of crisis bingo.

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5 years time 

I’ve recently had a couple of meetings looking at my personal and professional development, it’s been refreshing to work with someone who’s never met me before who just sees me for what I am now not what I was 5 years ago, 3 years ago, 6 months ago, sometimes it’s helpful to see how far you’ve come but sometimes it can be hard to move away from that image of me from the past especially as I talk about my lived experiences of mental health problems and how I was in the past in my job.

I’ve never really considered myself to be ambitious partly because I’ve always assumed I’ll fail, something that has been repeatedly instilled in me over the years and left me feeling that ivt’s best not to set goals because if I have no goals I can’t fail. The bar is set so low that it’s almost on the ground there’s no where to fall nothing to achieve or succeed at, no one to see me fail which also means I don’t talk about any ambitions I do have and keep things to myself partly out of fear of failure but also the fear that people will think it’s ridiculous that I even consider having goals in life especially any that may be related to employment or education. 

Being in a position where people expect things of me is scary it’s not something I normally let happen and has at times increased the anxiety and the panic within me yet on the other hand I’ve been pushing for more responsibility feeling restless and wanting more, it’s not that I’m bored but for once I don’t want to settle and I want to move forward and do more, move to a bigger pond and try and find a place in it.

I never want to go back to the nothingness and the isolation but along with the push for more responsibility and more experience is the push to change people’s view of me I may have worked hard to get to the point I’m at now and while it’s still not where I want to be I want people to see me for what I am and what I do now without the comparison to how I used to be.

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All Roads Lead to A&E

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“If you’re struggling you can go to a&e”

“If you really need support go to a&e”

“There’s always a&e if you’re in crisis”

Have you ever sat in a busy a&e waiting area? I have, 35 times between January 2015 and now. It’s not much fun, long waits, uncomfortable seats and lots of sick people. Now think about sitting in that environment when you’re in extreme emotional distress, maybe feeling suicidal or wanting to harm yourself, it’s not a very nice environment at the best of times let alone when you’re in crisis.

Someone at a mental health crisis planning meeting recently said that everyone under a mental health service should have a detailed crisis plan drawn up in collaboration with them, their mental health team and carers/ family/ partner where appropriate; this seems like a sensible suggest except there are no crisis services. Mental health isn’t 9 – 5 people are more likely to be in crisis outside those hours when there are less things to do or people to see and when they’re more likely to be alone.

As I’ve said before I’m a regular at a&e a “frequent flyer” or “frequent attender” but I’ve never been pre crisis or because I want to hurt myself it’s always been afterwards. I’m used to it now I know the drill busy Drs and nurses on 12 hour shifts earning far too little don’t have the time, energy and often experience to sit down and talk about what’s wrong they often see stitching my arms up as an inconvenience when there are people who aren’t there because of self inflicted injuries. Sometimes I see the psych liaison which is more waiting usually on the “observation ward” a holding pen in a&e where people are dumped to avoid breaching the 4 hour rule, because there’s no a&e in my borough the psych team aren’t from my area or the services that operate in it, I’ve been discharged by the psych team in the early hours of the morning with no way of getting home and told to wait in reception until the buses start running, when I told them I was suicidal I was given a leaflet (it went in the bin as soon as I left).

When I was under a mental health team they’d let them know but now a letter gets sent to my GP and that’s it, no follow up, no further support, no one pretends I won’t be back again, my self harm has been described as chronic and not a concern because it’s been going on so long despite having permanent damage to my arms and recently a cut that took over a year to heal. I don’t see a&e as a place of support it’s not the appropriate place for people with mental health problems yet all over the country it’s the only option for so many people, the police and ambulance service are as frustrated by it as I am, although the police have some powers to take people to the minimal crisis services that exist the ambulance service has no option but to take people in crisis to a&e whether they want to go or not.

It may sound defeatist to say I’d only go to a&e after I self harm because I don’t see the point in going beforehand but the experiences I’ve had in a&e don’t feel supportive and often leave me feeling worse. At the last mental health crisis service meeting I attended a paramedic spoke about her frustration at not being able to take someone in distress to a more appropriate place than a&e, despite there being two crisis cafes and a crisis and recovery house covered by the mental health trust my borough comes under (though not actually located in my borough) only the police can actually take someone there the paramedics only option is to take someone to a&e whether they want to go or not.

A&e should be the last option not the only option it should only be considered after all other options have been exhausted or if someone needs medical attention it shouldn’t be a place people in distress are routinely sent to.

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Coping admirably

The back of one of my pink smart crutches with a sticker saying coping admirably

*clears out the tumbleweed*

Long time no blog, I’ve had a few semi written posts on the go but most of them seemed to get stuck half way.

There are lots of changes going on around me and in general this year has been full of them, I’m not normally a fan of change and prefer to keep a tight grip on familiarity instead yet it seems to keep happening despite my complaints. I don’t like uncertainty yet I’m bored; as ever my brain is a contradiction, I often feel as though I’m stagnating seeing people move on around me people I was in the same position as a couple of years ago have bypassed me it’s no coincidence that as I write this young people across the U.K. will be getting exam results and finding out where their future path lies thinking about my own education and career tends to leave me teetering on the edge of an existential crisis.
I’ve develop a habit of doing all the things I feel like I need to make up for lost time and lost years to catch up with all those ahead of me. Since joining Mind there have been many staffing changes and several younger members of staff have joined, people younger than me which as well as the problems with attachments to people who have left has brought some resentment and shame at being a volunteer managed by people younger than me; there are volunteers older than me but most of them have had lives already and at 32 I’m only just at the start of any kind of career.
One thing I’ve been trying hard to do is be honest and open more, in some respects I guess I’ve had to as I no longer have one person I can go to and no mental health support has probably forced me to do this. One thing they don’t tell you in therapy is how long things take to have an effect I finished the main MBT treatment in 2013 and sometimes it feels like my brain is only starting to process it, I’ve said since it finished that the ways it helped me aren’t so obvious as the main issues I have such as self harm haven’t gone away but expressing my feelings and telling people how I feel about them is something that although still a work in progress is probably the biggest change and recently I’ve surprised myself with these changes by telling people that I feel I’m trying to make up for lost time and compensate for the years of not doing anything.
The downside to doing all the things is I’m currently lacking direction, life doesn’t come with a map it’s more like a badly programmed sat nav that has you going all the way across the country for a pint of milk instead of 5 minutes up the road and right now I feel like I’m sitting trying to find the right direction but I’m not sure exactly where I’m going and I’m not sure the address is right but I sort of know where it is just not exactly. What I know is I want to work in mental health in a way I can use my lives experience, I know I enjoy working directly with people (oh how 16 year old me would have laughed at that) I also enjoy delivering training but I don’t know whether I want to work with adults or young people or what sort of project or service I’d like to work on. Sometimes I think life was easier when I was catatonically depressed, if anyone knows how I can resign from adulting please let me know until then I’ll be building myself a pillow fort.

Coping admirably sticker from hand over your fairy cakes

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Money money money

A paper collage of an open mouth screaming

I know I’ve talked about cost before and I do understand the pressures placed on the NHS however this isn’t just about the actual finances but the attitudes towards money being spent on mental health care. Last year when the mental health trust that covers my area was considering putting in a crisis café I went to a consultation which was for service users, mental health professionals, third sector workers and generally anyone that might be interested or might consider bidding on to run the service.

Someone else attending the event worked out how much it would cost per person per night to attend a crisis café based on the figures from the model that the trust were basing it on and asked whether this was good value for money. This frustrated me for so many reasons one of them being why are we looking whether someone’s life is a cost effective use of funds and another was that the alternative to me is self harm and a&e.

It costs the NHS money to treat me – stitches and anaesthetic, dressings, bandages, Doctors and nurses time and psych liaison, if I get an ambulance to take me there because of blood loss or not feeling physically able to get there alone it costs the health service money and although I don’t know the exact figures (and I’m not sure I’d want to as it increases the guilt) but I’m sure it’s a lot more than the cost of attending a crisis café. I’ve seen people say that if you do it to yourself you shouldn’t expect the NHS to pay to fix it and while I can think of a few things I’d like to these people I also think once you start going down the route of denying people treatment if they’re responsible for the cause I think it’s a slippery slope towards finding blame for almost anything (didn’t notice your laces were undone sorry your fault, broke your leg skiing should have stayed at home).

Prevention is almost always better then cure and while I’m under no illusion that crisis cafés or any other crisis support would mean that no one went to a&e; I know it wouldn’t mean I never self harm but it would be an alternative. There’s a lot of talk at the moment especially with an election coming up about mental health and in particular the mental health of young people. I volunteer on a youth mental health project and highly encourage mental health education and advice in schools but it doesn’t help the adults or children already experiencing mental health difficulties, it looks good on paper and even a liberal cynic like me can almost believe that’s not the only motive but it’s almost as if they want to write off those already in need of help and start again.

If we want people to thrive rather than just survive there needs to be more support, more money and more collaboration between the NHS and the third sector (actually collaboration not just expecting the third sector to pick up the pieces), the crisis concordat I’m part of has been cancelled twice in a row, it only meets every three months and the last one was in October there now won’t be another one until August. People with mental health problems deserve better and deserve more, too many people are left with nothing or sent home from a&e at 3 am with no way to get home, at this rate we cannot survive let alone thrive.

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Cost and sustainability

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A blackboard with “rant of the day” printed at the top and the letters NHS with pound signs drawn in white chalk

I had a list of things I wanted to blog about so instead I’m going to write about something completely different which came up few days ago.

I’ve been trying to get more into doing activitiesoutside of volunteering which uses my lived experience of having mental health problems, last week I attended a workshop on Outcomes Based Commissioning (OBC). I’ve learnt that mental health meetings and groups loves acronyms, an alphabet soup of conditions, job roles, legislation and projects.

I’d like to tell you more about exactly what that is but honestly I’m not entirely sure myself. I can tell you that 8 organisations some statutory such as the NHS and some charity are working together to change the delivery of mental health services in the area and somewhere in all this they’re looking for contribution and input from service users, carers and people with lived experience of mental distress.

One of aims from the mental health service is to ensure sustainability and deliver cost effective treatment, I have a couple of issues with this. 1) you cannot guarantee sustainability, you can do your best the make services sustainable but don’t make false promises especially to vulnerable people, 2) cost, now unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll know that the NHS is chronically underfunded and overstretched; mental health has always been refereed to as the Cinderella service and when the going gets tough the tough gets cutting and mental health is often one of the first areas to feel these cuts.

So what’s the problem with pointing this out or looking to save money? well mental health already comes with a nice big serving of guilt for many people, guilt for putting pressure on loved ones, guilt for not working, guilt for being unreliable and it’s hard not to feel the need to justify the cost of treatment as I wrote in my last post I’ve been told by Drs in a&e to consider how long it took to treat me compared to the time it took me to cut myself, I’ve been questioned on why I called an ambulance despite feeling faint from blood loss. I didn’t choose to have mental health problems, my actions may be my choice but having these issues is something beyond my control.

Having the cost of treatment pointed out or hearing the providers talk about services being cost effective makes people feel guilty for something they can’t help and even puts people off seeking treatment whether that’s for self harm (I know people who will suture or glue themselves) or more long term treatment like psychotherapy or counselling.

The financial situation with the health service is complex but nobody should be made to feel guilty for needing healthcare or social care or feel they don’t deserve the help they need.

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Time to Talk Day 2017

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It’s time to talk it’s time to change. Today is Time to Talk Day an annual mental health awareness day as part of the Time to Change campaign encouraging people to have conversations about mental health. Talking about my mental health isn’t exactly something I really need encouraging to do, most of the work I do with volunteering for a mental health charity involves using my lived experience whether it’s running peer support groups for adults, youth wellbeing sessions for young people or co-delivering mental health awareness training I’ve spent the past four years talking about myself.

Today I’m writing about something more personal and less general than my overall mental health, I’ve written about my diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder and one of the most difficult parts of having BPD is forming healthy relationships. Without going into the details of how and why this is such a problem early childhood experiences are usually one of the causes of BPD and shape future attachments and how we view people. Some people have described BPD as the emotional equivalent of having third degree burns, for people who know me well and know how cynical I am it’ll be no surprise to know that I hate that comparison it is true though that intense emotions and mood swings are certainly an issue and when it comes to relationships and attachment this can be a factor in the way someone with BPD views others.

For me that attachment is often transferred onto people who can’t be what I want or people I can’t have the type of relationship I want with. I guess I almost have a type and it’s always the same kind of people I get attached to, it’s something I find hard to admit to that I find embarrassing to talk about but this is Time to Talk Day so I’m going to talk about it. Inevitably people leave, they move on, find new jobs or retire it happens when the people you get attached to are mental health professionals or employers, people with their own lives and careers. That doesn’t stop it hurting, loss and endings are something I struggle a lot with. There are three people who have been there over the past few years the last five years in particular, two of them were my care coordinators/ individual therapists one left a couple of years ago and one retired in September.

The third is an employer who leaves in two weeks but she’s not just my manager she’s seen me from almost the day I started as a service user who barely spoke to anyone (oh how times change), when I started my training as a peer volunteer to now harassing anyone that will listen to let me have a few minutes to speak at events, she’s not only been a good project manager but supportive when I’ve been struggling or in crisis; on several occasions she’s stayed past her working hours to talk to me when I’ve felt unsafe of wanting to self harm. I’ve cried a few times and no doubt will a few more, it’s painful as endings often are especially when combined with mental health problems but the biggest thing I gained from 2 years of intensive treatment for BPD was being able to talk more about how I feel and today feels like a very fitting time to open up about something difficult and hopefully in time feel less shame around my feelings.

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Better late than never (an introduction i suppose)

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A Japanese style drawing of a young woman’s head and shoulders with blue and pink hair and a piercing below her bottom lip

Because I was late even for my own birth I’m starting a blog several years too late. I’m Georgie (or Georgiesaurus in some parts of the internet), i’m chronically mental with the double luck of having both mental health problems and physical disabilities, I’ve been volunteering for a mental health charity for 4 years and have been involved in service user representation.

Too much waffle for twitter and too old for tumblr yet that millennial need to post my entire existence on the internet (having people to read it is more a bonus than necessity) a blog seemed like a good place to digitally dump the contents of my brain.

Aside from being chronically boring I have a slight obsession with a certain cosmetics company known for their bath bombs and the grumpiest DR around House MD, I live in London and spend too much time watching YouTube.

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