I Can't Possibly Have This

[digger]

I know I sometimes don't hide well enough that I think she isn't doing her job properly.

She isn't doing her job properly.

 

[Neverthesame]

Oh and now I'm worried the residential place will contact the CC and she'll think I'm using them to chase her

So?

From what I understand about this. It seems to me that is exactly what needs to be happening. If the CC decides that being caught taking the piss, is anything other than her own fault. If she doesn't like you afterwards, that's just too damn bad. This person knew that their job will require them to deal with people suffering mental health issues. This person needs to light a fire under their butt and start doing their damn job. You don't owe them anything.

 

[Sandstone]

But I am dependent on her and her organisation. There is nowhere else to go. So I need to keep her amenable

 

[Neverthesame]

Sure, but in order for a relationship to be amenable. There needs to be mutual benefit to both parties. Currently she is being paid to sit around twiddling her thumbs neglecting her job, while you are not receiving the help you need. That doesn't sound very amenable to me. Besides she's already not helping you. What is there to lose? Seriously.

You deserve help. As for why you are being made to feel this way, is beyond me.

 

[Hope4Now]

I've only ever had one true flashback.

What do you count as a true flashback?

So maybe the Care Co-ordinator is blocking this by being passive because she doesn't believe I have anything wrong with me. Like the time I reported behaving dangerously the day before and a Care Co-ordinator told me "Well, you're talking perfectly coherently now". or when the Crisis Team visitor told me they were busy with people who were really sick.

What @FridayJones said.

Yes. This. So this. This is the reason I didn't get help for 50 years. I was too good at being fine.

I'm glad you're taking the initiative. I'm convinced that this has to happen. That we have to be pains in the asses and tick people off and push for what we think we need even though parts of us are screaming inside "I'm FINE! This is all my FAULT! I have to get it together..." etc. There is something wrong. You are in distress. You want help. You deserve help. (THAT you have to buy into). But sometimes we have to be really, really noisy about getting help.

I wish you the best as you muck your way through this to get to the program. You can do it. Somewhere along the line you will connect with someone who will actually help you. Don't give up!

 

[Purplemunchkin]

The trouble is have no-one to ask. There is just silence, which as you have said leaves space for me to make assumptions. I nearly asked T last week, but I have done so much complaining about so many people, and I feel for her. She has to be loyal to the organisation she works in. She did once g as far as saying could she say anything the Crisis Team to make me feel able to contact them if I was in Crisis, but after my husband had gone into detail she agreed I wouldn't be able to.

You have to ask as many people as you can; all the people you are worried about hassling and nagging. They will realise that someone is failing to contact you and that is why you have to keep getting in touch. Make sure they can't forget about you because you are always in contact.

Excellent job for contacting the residential centre yourself - it shows that you can't be bullied out of doing what's best for you because someone can't be bothered.

Honestly, if you are ever (hopefully not) in crisis again, skip calling the crisis team and go straight to A&E. They will come to you there anyway.

I called them once because hubby was bashing his head into the wall repeatedly. Their response was that as he had been released from the psychiatric unit more than two weeks ago it wasn't their problem and I should just call the police to come and deal with him.

 

[Sandstone]

What do you count as a true flashback?

Being there again, being five instead of fifty. It happened when I was in hospital, triggered by the bed being in the same relative position in the room as my childhood bedroom. Once was plenty.

Currently she is being paid to sit around twiddling her thumbs neglecting her job

or maybe she has a double workload. And they ARE sicker than me. Or she has been reconfigured again. Or, I've just seen the local drug/alcohol unit has shut down with no notice, so maybe she's picking up bits of that. Or maybe she is just fed up with me running away from stuff

You deserve help. (THAT you have to buy into).

I think believing I deserve it may be part of the result of treatment. I can believe that others deserve it - not me.

skip calling the crisis team and go straight to A&E.

The first time I called them in crisis they said go your GP, I did and she called the Crisis Team. I went home

When i got admitted through A&E I spent three of the worst days of my l life on a loud, busy general ward while they looked for a bed anywhere in the country. All of that in the hospital where I used to work.

When I once took someone suicidal and delusional to A&E, we waited for five hours, much of the time sharing a relatives room with a family waiting to find out if their loved one survived an accident. They never found anyone to do the psych assessment, so we left eventually. It was my departments job to report the A&E waiting time breach the next day.

The NHS is poorly

 

[Hope4Now]

Being there again, being five instead of fifty. It happened when I was in hospital, triggered by the bed being in the same relative position in the room as my childhood bedroom. Once was plenty.

For whatever it's worth, I have flashbacks pretty constantly (multiple times a day) and of all different sorts. I have only had one or two flashbacks in which I was completely not present. Usually I am aware that something odd is happening. I have body flashbacks. Emotional flashbacks. Intrusive images in my mind. Fear/panic out of nowhere. Desire to harm myself out of nowhere. These are all re-experiencing symptoms.

 

[Sandstone]

I have some of the other re-experiencing stuff, but not really flashbacks. I go more in the direction of
"Intense or prolonged distress after exposure to traumatic reminders."
and particularly "Marked physiologic reactivity after exposure to trauma-related stimuli"

Most recently being at the bus stop, standing by a fence with a man in a leather jacket nearby , reminded me of waiting outside a station by a fence… I got very panicky, and ever since am unwilling to catch a bus from that stop.

They seem less convincing to me though. My current T is interested in my intrusive memories of nightmares, which can be so gruesome as to stop me functioning. I just don't buy them as indicative PTSD symptoms though, I think they are simply some distress showing itself.

 

[Sandstone]

Desire to harm myself out of nowhere

I've never though of that as a flashback. I have seen it referred to as "made thoughts".

I frequently find that as I pass through a doorway I think / believe " I have no right to exist", and I am increasingly finding that I can't think of any medicines without thinking about taking large numbers of them. I even wondered if it's possible to O?D on nappy rash treatment cream.

 

[ms spock]

But I am dependent on her and her organisation. There is nowhere else to go. So I need to keep her amenable

Yes but this is complex trauma speaking as well as practical considerations. You are not shouting at her or making unreasonable demands. You are just following up the best you know how. Now I am a black and white thinking too, so I do go from one extreme to the other with these types of situations, and given what you have gone through with these incompetent and not too bright seeming people I think I really do understand what you are feeling about these people.

It is good that you realise that you are dependent on her and her organisation, so courtesy and polite behaviour are good to go with and I am observing you doing really well with this.

At the same time - gently and kindly following up in your own best interests in quite reasonable. You haven't rung up and shouted at the secretaries or threatened to kill yourself. You have in quite an adult manner made an appointment to the place that you are seeking treatment - any consumer is within their rights to do this (hate that we are consumers these days rather than citizens, but anyhow) so what you are doing is not unreasonable - it is just that it is stirring up everything so much within you and you are having all these PTSD overwhelming emotions, which I must be honest I don't deal with too well either. But they are emotions within you.

In all likelihood when that incompetent woman is contacted about you - she might say to them I have been swamped by X,Y and Z I was meant to do this ages ago and I will do it now. You just don't know what people are thinking and feeling, and most people are obsessed about themselves - so whilst I understand the fear of abandonment and reprisal it is unlikely to happen.

You can make several appointments to go there to find out what is going on there - and you can honestly say I am doing this as it will set me up for success in being here rather than using all the precious time here processing that I am in a different place from home. That is most reasonable, adult and proactive. You can ask them what can you read or do before you get there before you go there. Professionals appreciate people who value their skills and go out of their way to maximise their own chances of success.

Can you do any self soothing? I often can't so no judgement there, though I am improving.

 

[Neverthesame]

I am hearing what you are saying stenni, I really am. But here's the thing.

Having worked in a hospital, you know full well that the workload is horrendous, especially in a public sector. It's unfortunate, but that's life. It's great that you feel empathy for the over worked under paid people who struggle with the caseload along with near constant re-organising which makes that job difficult, and is the primary reason why patients slip through the cracks.

I have sympathy for people who work in the health care field, I really do. But the fact of the matter is. Sympathy is not a free pass for complacency.

Every thing I am reading since I nodded off last night, tells me you are suffering, alot. Avoidance is a part of ptsd. This is not strange or unusual. You are definitely not the first person to be apprehensive about digging into unpleasant thoughts. If this was easy to fix. None of us would be here as we would all be better now. I mean seriously, you are not the first person to be apprehensive about digging into unpleasant thoughts. (I said that twice on purpose)

I am not totally sure why you are arguing against the frequency of one specific symptom. I have had only a few flashbacks and I've been diagnosed with this for over a decade. I have ptsd, I wish I didn't. I would trade everything, Everything! To be rid of this. I would be content to live the next 40 years of my lifetime, cold, hungry, homeless, and filthy. If it meant I could sleep one night without having a nightmare, seeing the faces of dead people, while being terrified and alone.

You said you have nightmares that leave you unable to function for long periods of time? You are concerned that you will harm yourself. This is not the way healthy people live. This is quite serious. You need and deserve help.

I don't know exactly what is in nappy rash cream. I would assume zinc oxide and moisturiser. I would imagine you would become quite ill from it, probably resulting in a good bout of projectile vomiting. I doubt anyone could keep it down long enough to actually digest any of it. Not to mention the stuff probably tastes bloody awful. You'd have better luck with a jar of vegemite. (This paragraph is strictly for entertainment purposes only.)