I suppose...

continuing the New Year theme, is that I read a lot of mental health related blogs which are understandably filled with frustration. I understand it. I used to be so bitter, so angry. Every referral that bounced to the wrong place, every bureaucratic wall I hit, every well meaning but unknowingly offensive comment a doctor or shrink made 'You're looking well' = He's saying I'm faaaaaaaat. 'It's normal to feel anxious' = 'My problems are insignificant and I should just cope with them better I don't deserve help. When I was in hospital I was angry at being stuck there and desperate to go home, and at home I was angry no one whisked me off to hospital to make it all better. Every miss-spelling in a letter, phone call which arrived late, time limits of therapy, medications messed up A lot of it was justified. I was fobbed off by the social worker who first assessed me at the CMHT. I did receive a nasty letter from one clinic reducing me to a hopeless 'acting out' 'treatment resistant' case whose only hope was 2 years of specialist hospitalisation. Things still go wrong now, meds get messed up, dermatologists adjust my bra without asking, but the bitterness has gone. It's annoying but not much more. I believe the change has come from having the long term support of the CPN's I have seen at the CMHT. Who haven't been so uptight in their 'empirically based' approach as the Psychologist I saw, or stuck in a DBT funk of how to treat a particular diagnosis - but who acted professionally yes but humanly too. Who could accept when I was frustrated without getting wrapped up in 'manipulating members of the team against each other' or that I felt bad without calling it 'negative self beliefs or statements' and who could listen to me being anxious without proposing a graded hierarchy of exposure. And the two RMN's who were with me during my anorexic hospitalisation and spoke to me like a person not just the disorder, who gave me a hug when I cried and laughed about stupid things like fellow young women rather than treating me as a disobedient child. Not that those approaches and techniques aren't useful in their place - but I needed to be treated like a human who had real, individual, personal experiences and to have that respected. And feeling more like a person has allowed me to start re-building a person's life. Doing things instead of hiding like the monster I felt I was. They do say the most consistent finding in evaluation of the efficacy and effectiveness of therapy is the relationship between client and therapist. The CMHT is going to be going through a shake-up diving the local teams into more diagnostically focused groups. I will probably be going somewhere else for my meetings, their might be additional support like groups and things provided, most likely I will have a new key-worker. This is the sort of thing that would have driven me crazy with anxiety and fear back at the start but I am okay with it I think. I have been with the CMHT since 2004 and in services since 1999 so yes this has taken time, but things can get better, sometimes without the magic solution, the perfect kind of treatment, the NICE guidelines or ideal medication combo, but just someone to validate, listen, support and encourage and the safety to feel you can go at your own pace. I have been self medicating with: This isn't a happy ending, there is a long way to go, but I feel I have arrived at a happy... midway. Onwards.