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OUTCRY
Conference Report: Rachel Studley Hi, my name is Rachel. I’m not a part of No Force, and until the run up to this conference I hadn’t been involved with any kind of campaign. I’d like to spend a little time speaking to you about my experiences of the mental health services and how I think ‘The Bill’ will affect them. Ok, a bit about me. I’m a 25 year old service user from Leicestershire. I run a mental health website (MadNOTBad) and have been in the mental health services for about 5 or 6 years. In that time I’ve been given a surprising number of diagnoses, ranging from depression, schizophrenia and anxiety to borderline personality disorder, psychotic illness, hypomania, and the current gem – schizoaffective disorder. They really don’t know what’s going on in my own head and they probably don’t know what’s going on in their own [audience laughter] I first met with the services whist at university. I was going mad, having big mood swings and was deep in paranoia. They didn’t really get that I was becoming really ill, so I saw a doctor every now and again – but got no real tangible support. After dropping out things got so much worse and my family decided that enough was enough – and dragged me back to Leicestershire kicking and screaming. It was at this point that I entered psychiatry – proper. I pinned as much hope as I had on the psychiatrist, believing that he was the expert and would fix whatever had messed up my brain. I was a good patient – I did what I was told. I tried different medications, stayed in the acute ward and tried to explain what I was feeling. I left the ward 8 months later, but by then I had many doubts about my treatment which, combined with some really traumatic events, have resulted in me avoiding much of the help that they try to give me. I’ve gone from naive trust to jaded scepticism, in only a few easy steps. Sometimes I wonder what it is that has made such a dramatic change possible. Well, my experiences on the acute ward are definitely up there at the top of the list. I’ve found that instead of support, sanctuary and compassion I received medication, custody and a lot of frustration. The wards are underresourced. The staff have spent too long in a crazy system which knocks out all of their compassion through red tape and a culture of blame. There are little, if any, therapeutic interventions and so all it offers is a ‘safe’ place to stay whilst I’m at my worst. Well …. safe except for the build up of powerlessness and frustration that rise inside of me. The lack of control I feel touches something deep inside of me, relating to me being abused, and I react by self harming and bouncing off the walls. I’ve also overdosed on the ward, in fact most of the times I’ve overdosed have been whilst I’ve been on the ward, so the safety it offers is ok on paper, but for me, in my experience, it’s just superficial. So, how do I feel the changes in the Mental Health Act will affect my mental health care? My biggest fear is the use of compulsion – it feels like the legislation is governed by perceived risk to the general public and so our interests are more of an afterthought. As long as the services are run in such a way I really can’t see them doing much good. Those in the know will avoid them as much as they can – the prospect of forced medication, being sectioned in the community and other hard-line measures are likely to break down any trust that has been built up between service provider and user. Psychiatry will take on the role of social control and therapeutic effects will be second place. I take medication, a lot of medication, but the only way the medication helps me is through my choice to take it. I’ve decided that I need it, I know why I need it and I’ve decided which drugs I am prepared to take. People often don’t even know what medication they are on, or the side effects that they produce. They are just told that they need it, and not always why. I know people who have decided to come off their medication and I believe there are other ways to manage distress. People should be allowed to explore these, and take the chance to make mistakes, that’s our basic human right! I can’t see how this will help me, as an individual, or any of you. My biggest gripe with the services is that it is so difficult to get effective help when you need it. It can feel like you’re continually body-slamming a brick wall – you get all of the bruises but the wall itself still stands still, unmoving. I’ve been turned away many times on the basis that if I’m alright enough to realise that I need help, then I’m obviously too well to really need it. It backs me into a corner so much that I end up fighting against everything, hurting myself and others (though not physically) and eventually being dragged into hospital in a much worse state. My friend Susan killed herself last year, and this really brings it home to me how serious and crazy the lack of support is. She had been in and out of hospital since she was 7 years old, and lived a life that really was full of torment and distress. For the year leading up to her death we tried to get more help for her – she even wanted admission to the acute ward because she was that desperate. Her psychiatrist said ‘no’ and took a hard-line approach with her, offering no help with her hallucinations and the things that were troubling her. Well, no help but bucket loads of medication that really didn’t do much good. Unable to get any support from them, and after many overdoses, she eventually succeeded in killing herself. This makes me so angry because she was a wonderful woman who was doing all she could to get through all the crap she’d had in her life. Her problem wasn’t that she refused to engage with the services, it was that the services refused to engage with her. Increased compulsion would have been no benefit to Susan – her problem was the lack of supportive services and not being taken seriously. The only thing it may have done is prevent her from even asking for help in the first place – the fear of losing her autonomy was a big thing for her (and for most of us, I believe). All they would have succeeded in doing is taking away the only chance that she had to survive. So, in conclusion, what I believe we need in the
mental health services is a human, empathic approach. Services
that listen, and prevent tragedies by building up mutual trust.
Services that aren’t governed by fear. For me, this is the
way forward and it’s something I very strongly believe we
should fight for. NEXT:
Part One - The 'Daft' Mental Health Bill |
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