Had enough of the uter useless support and care from New Zealand mental health services!

How much more bearing of my soul, pleading for help and misery does one have to go through in mental health service for someone to actually give a darn about you? It feels as they are just giving you the excuse to draw the line, cross over and never step back. From counseling to crises teams to gp's it all seems they are just there to do a job and fill a role rather than being the person that is needed in such a role - some one that gives a darn. I gave up on people a long time ago and this whole experience just re solidifies that fact.

You spill out every thing to these people relying on there guidance and so called expertise and all you get back is just someone doing a 40 hour week to get a pay check. It is not the people you need in these positions, but hey isn't that life! I could have invested my time else were rather than being forgotten and being made to feel just another step away from reaching any sort of place. I don know how much more energy i have anymore really what is the point of it all!!

My vent....wooooh. Anyway back to holding my breath.

Hugs dear

Because they are not interested in you as a person, nore are they interested in helping you, we are just clients to them. there is no money to be made in people getting better, only money to be made from keeping you in the system, thats why they would rather just tell you to take your meds and join the que those very same meds which are designed to keep you sick, to keep you as a client. maybe once apon a time people entered the industry with the right intent, to help people but eventually they all become hardend to the job. so short answer they wont help you, the psychiatric industry is exactly that, a money making industry they really dont care and the mental health system in nz is in a piss poor state and in desperate need of demolition and than a rebuild. I plan to expose them for what they really are, the spot light will be shined apon them in away where they wont beable to avoid it.

What are these people really doing to me?... for over a year with no result by people that don't care or just really have no clue. Just having a system for the sake of having a system that actually does nothing other than being there, a name, a thing to fill the void. To be listened to with closed ears, muzzled by meds and then shown an exit....... is that it or am i just become paranoid, delusional, psychotic. When you are not helped or cared about by the very people/system that is suppose to do that "Show you a way through" What else are you suppose to come to a conclusion about! The system, the meds must be failing me/us!

http://www.voxxi.com/antidepressants-health-risks-depression/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/antidepressants-long-term-depression_b_1077185.html

Do not think this is just NZ...Queensland public pysch service was frightful... Prisoners were better treated! In my humble opinion. I can relate to being filled with pills, staff who were so puerile, they got their jollies by bullying patients and the purple carpet....ye gods and little fishes, not that the Macademia House could be anything else...

Im so pleased Ive discovered these posts and realise Im not alone with experiencing the internal discomfort caused through interactions with the MH services in NZ. Its a service from the 0800 crisis number -ED -doctors, nurses, DAO, psychiatrist where I was made to feel worse for my actions. Would never call it therapeutic intervention. I only needed the correct support person on my side, I feel its turned into a battlefield and they are my enemy.

I too have had very little success with mental health services I recently had an appointment which left me feeling misunderstood and with very little hope for the future. I wrote the nurse I saw the following email.....

Hi Norah,

I've been thinking about writing to you for awhile but the circulating thoughts of should I or shouldn't I have only now finally landed with i should.

I'm not a stranger to appointments like our last; I had appointments with Marinoto as a teenager, appointments for psychiatric assessments with a psychiatrist when I was 20, and in the same year 10 months of appointments with a clinical psychologist in Christchurch. The conclusion that I have come to from these varied appointments is that I never come away feeling like I have really gotten across my point of view. I always come away feeling misunderstood and like I'm being over dramatic and need to harden up and do some exercise.

I do realise that I need to accept the fact that I am not an expert when it comes to the treatment of mental illness. But, I am the closest to what to comes to an expert on myself and I feel that the conclusions that were reached after our last appointment were not accurate. In so far as, "Rachael just has a lot of stress in her life" or "Rachael's anxiety is more prevalent than her depression". I do have a fair amount going on in my life but no more than anyone else has; I live with constant guilt and self loathing because I don't seem to have the capacity cope with life in the way that others do. My total lack of motivation, constant fatigue affects not only how I take care of myself but also my children. I don't want to be the kind of mother who only spends her time managing her children, I want to enjoy them. I feel that my anxiety stems from this; the overwhelming desire to be the mother and person I want to be and the staggering deficit between that and what I really am. The feeling that there is a physical barrier stopping me from doing the things I need to do to get where I want to be is what makes me anxious and those feelings are a part of my depression.

I understand that keeping busy, doing things I enjoy, and exercise are some of the ways that I can get myself well. But, I don't know who I am or what I enjoy. I'm exhausted by the constant internal battle and circulating thoughts in my head that plague me all day, everyday. It feels like there is some physical barrier preventing me from getting out and exercising; I know it's good for me and I know I'll feel proud once I've done it but I still can't fathom actually doing it. The battle to get myself out the door, get to the venue, stay at the venue until the end is overwhelming.


In addition to the above, I feel that I am destroying the people around me. My mood swings are awful and I feel the need to escape and be by myself all the time, no matter how much I get it is never enough and added to this is the intense guilt I feel for needing it, the pressure I put on those around me to get it and how that must make them feel. My partner Reuben is great and I know I could never hope to find anyone better but I still convince him that he should be doing more to show me he appreciates and loves me. I manipulate him in to believing he is thoughtless when really I am just ungrateful and so unhappy with myself that I look for external stimulus to make me feel better but it will never be enough.

I was first prescribed anti-depressants at the age of 16 and was re-prescribed them at 20. Since then I have been on them without a break. After our last appointment, I felt hopeless. I felt like I was looking at a life that would never be free of this kind of medication which comes with its own set of side effects like weight gain etc which also add to my low state of mood, which in turn leaves me with out the will power to do anything about it even though I desperately would love to be a smaller size. Looking at things like CBT and sensory modulation sound great but it's still going to be a constant battle to follow through. I feel like the thought itself is totally exhausting and I'm not sure I have the strength. I so wanted to explore the option of ECT because I felt like it might get me to a place where I could do all those other things that help you to stay well. My medication is not doing that at this stage. I have little faith that it ever will if the last 10 years are anything to go by. Being told that I'm not severe is not only belittling my experience but leaves me with little hope for the future because I cannot imagine being much worse. I know that there are limits to funding etc but it's a scary thought to think of how bad someone has to be to get the help they need.


I'm at a point where I feel trapped in my own life; it feels like there is no where I can turn and I hate being this person and I'm exhausted from the struggle. I think back to days past where I've experimented with drugs and feel tempted to try again because I would so love to be in a state where I'm happy and comfortable in my own skin but I know that if I went down that road those feelings wouldn't last and I'd be bigger burden than I already am. I don't know whether the people around me are better off with or without me but I hate that the way I am now is hurtful, stressful and potentially damaging to those around me and I would never want to subject them to the pain of suicide so I feel very stuck.

I feel like I'm walking a tightrope and I don't know when or where I'll fall but I know that I hate it up here.

Is there something that we can do?

^^^^^^^^^
The above email was met with "thanks for your email and we'll see you in a month". It's terrible that someone has to be at the edge of the cliff before they'll be taken seriously! Imagine how much money and how many resources could be saved if intervention, therapy, coping mechanisms etc were given readily when symptoms first started manifesting themselves? Waiting until someone is so severe and in a place so dark must be so much more costly to try and rehabilitate. How many lives could've been saved if people were given the help they needed from the start?! With the mental health system the way it is there really isn't any wonder that we have one of the highest suicide rates in the world!

Honestly I had a similar experience of feeling completely let down by Porirua Community Mental Health in Wellington.

I was disgusted at how crap they are. I would be asking for help, which by the way, is the hardest part, when I was severely depressed. They would just fob me off. Say stuff like "you are as low as you are going to get, it couldn't get any worse". And when I would reply with, "look, no, it is getting worse by the day". They would say stuff like "just keep chipping at it" and "use the CBT techniques you have learnt it therapy".

Then I went so downhill I wanted to commit suicide. And they are all like 'oops', she was serious. I ended up having to call 111 on myself for goodness sake!

I was kicked out of the Psychiatric Ward before it was appropriate and sent to respite, when I was not ready, just because they needed by room for someone more urgent. I made a complaint about all this. CMH(community mental health) said they acknowledged my complaint and would do better in future. And then, what do you know, let me down again. I was begging for their help, as I had not been able to sleep for 3 days, at all and they would not help. I ended up having to call 111 again! And CMH wanted to send me back home!

So yeah...I kind of got failed big time by mental health.

I got good care initially with the Taylor Centre in Auckland with the psychiatrist, as it was the first time I got a firm diagnosis in 16 years as to what was going on. The crisis team was pretty responsive initially phone calls in the morning, visits in the evening, but care was inconsistant at a time when consistancy is of paramount importance. When I came back home to Whangarei after spending time in Auckland Hospital it all fell apart, no key worker as promised and no regular psychology treatment until sometime in January and this was back in September.

I couldn't access the PHO care here up North because I already had a referral with the DHB, consequently I've had to go private for my cares, not like we can really afford, but I can't afford not to. However it could be worse, I could be back in the UK trying to deal with this. They couldn't even give me a relevant diagnosis!

sometimes, .....frequently..... I really dont know think they really understand what its like.. and.. guess, with each person being such an individual, the molds really are broken in lots of ways... I think what does work for one, wont for another etc. but, I know its a very hard place to be in. so very frustrating, maddening, saddening. one day at a time. looking to try to find good things I think is good to try to do.