Poll Has The Mental Health System Ever Failed You?

[billie]

Wow, this is alarming. 95% super high. Luckily we have good support systems suchas this.

 

[Deleted member 25333]

It fails me every time. I've become more and more reticent over the years when it comes to seeking help and looking for support. In the end I just regret saying any word at all. I feel like the more details I give the more I'm setting myself up to be taken advantage of and to be blackmailed..

My experience with any kind of help-instances is that they mainly just want to know what happened out of curiosity. I come to them to ask for help with my depression and PTSD and eventually they will follow through what THEY think should be taken care of. For example, my bad skin. Or that I don't go outside at all. Or they tell me to look for a place to live by myself. With me they always end up talking and discussing EVERYTHING but the things I came for in the first place.

Recently I had a talk with the police because I want something to be done about my abusive brother who triggers my PTSD and I ended up opening up a lot more than I had intended and after almost all was said they were just like "We will talk to your brother about why he can't do the trigger" And I'm internally screaming like "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO." If my brother ever finds out what happened to me that would be like handing him over a weapon because he would have 100% certainty and knowledge about how to destroy me. The system just makes everything worse for me.

 

[Lou82]

Yes they have failed me! I was wrongly diagnosed, then diagnosed, my local health team blamed me for why treatment wasn't working, then told me I was cured when I was still having problems quite clearly, then discharged me. Was referred to another service where the women bullied me and called me a child. I felt my local mental health service was full of idiots with no clue or experience of my condition and they way they spoke to me was disgusting at times. It took me going to my MP and a lot of fighting to get an assessment done that confirmed I still had PTSD, and the specialist put in his report multiple errors where made! This has had a massive impact on my life, I have been practically housebound for 8 years, and just got worse and worse because I never had the right treatment from the start! I am receiving the right help from the place that done the report but the funding of this has been brought up by commissioners from the NHS and all there worried about is money not the patient! So really am not sure how long I will be receiving this help for!

 

[Ruby5]

A few years ago before I was diagnosed, a bunch of triggering things happened in tandem. I couldn't stop crying for weeks then I started hallucinating really disturbing images. I had good insurance, but none of the psychiatrists I contacted returned my call. I packed my bags and took the bus to a mental health facility that "guaranteed" to never turn a person away. They turned me away because I had insurance. I sat outside the facility crying for awhile, got back on the bus to go home. I planned my suicide, wrote a note and arranged my affairs. On my way to kill myself I pass the ER. I decided to stop in and see if they would refer me to help. I sat in a hallway in the hospital for 9 hours crying. The nurse practitioner that eventually "saw" me (talked to me while I sat in the hallway) told me I was having trouble adjusting to moving and gave me 3 ativan pills. He said he would give me an ER referral to a psychiatrist, and absolutely swore I would get a phone call from someone the next day. He promised me over and over, I was "discharged" (left the hallway) and went home. No one ever called

 

[Deleted member 29920]

Yes, very much failed so far, I don't feel they (NHS) have taken me seriously most of the time. I'm not even sure if they are now - seven years on.

 

[PaintedTurtle]

I was misdiagnosed with depression and anxiety for 20 years. Even after they knew I'd witnessed murders. The system is scary. I finally got lucky and won the Therapist lotto (found someone who knew what to h*** they were doing) and I am finally feeling like I might actually get a grip on this in the future. If your therapist doesn't do EMDR, go somewhere else.

 

[Rey324]

Yes.

Background very traumatic childhood.

2001 - I applied for Social security. Granted disability and approved for SSDI and Medicare. Back then I was thinking ok now I can get better. I was hopeful

2001-2009 - I could only afford to see a pdoc because the copays(50%) to the therapist were too high.

2010 - 2016 - I enter into therapy for the 1st time because the co-pays were more affordable at 20%. 6 yrs still struggling to find a competent therapist who understands trauma and takes medicare. That is like finding a needle in a hay stack. Medicare does very little for mental health. Not many providers, high copays, no residential care, IOP/PHP we still have to pay the copays and can not afford that with less than 12K a yr. Medicare fails people with mental illness.