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How crisis care gave me hope
Posted Thursday 15 November 2012
Sitting in darkness in the early hours of the morning, I know that I am losing control. Monstrous shapes lunge out of the shadows, eerie cries pierce the air. Slowly my will is being sucked out of me. The fear of going back down the road of in-patient care stops me from asking for help. But being alone invites the marauding demons to enter at night. They soar through the air with their webbed feet and flapping wings, whispering past me and catching my hair with their claws.
Deep down I know that I don’t want to fight any more. I spiral into hopelessness. I begin thinking about ways to end my life. It seems the only way to escape the demons that have broken through my mind into the real world. I tell myself that the next time they swoop down and catch my hair I will take my own life.
In previous years, the arrival of screaming demon birds would herald an admission to hospital. But there are no beds to speak of, so for the first time I am receiving community-based crisis care and for me, it has been a lifeline.
I saw my psychiatrist on Monday and he prescribed some extra medication along with input from the crisis team. My first instinct was to resist any intervention, especially sizing up a cocktail of drugs that would easily knock out a giant. I know from experience that whilst medication might dampen down the flames of mental pain, it also stubs out my creativity. I need a certain amount of raw feeling and intensity to be able to write. But I know something has got to give. Reassured that this is a temporary setback, I agreed to give the medication a try and to let the crisis team into my home.
Later that evening I was visited by two members of the team. I felt relieved that they were informal and also that their task is to keep me out of hospital, not trick me into going in. Part of me began to contemplate that maybe I might get through this bad patch unscathed. I took my medication on Monday night and woke up the next morning with a furry throat and a head which was swimming. My muscles felt stiff and I wondered how on earth I was going to take my guide dog to the vets at midday. Yet I realised that although I was feeling groggy, I did not feel tormented. I had slept for almost eight hours with no demon birds intruding into my world. Eight hours of solid peace.
Another visit from the crisis team confirmed that this intervention is intended to be short-term. We discussed putting in place a practical safety plan so that when I am besieged by unwanted thoughts or waves of suicidal despair, I will know exactly what to do. Talking to the two members of the team yesterday, I realised how much I love my dog, and how she has kept me going over the last four years. She helps me to live for the present and this is what I had begun to lose hold of.
I have just had a third visit from the crisis team and I recorded the safety plan on my digital recorder so that it’s instantly accessible in an emergency. Recording the plan helped me to put things in perspective and to confirm why I want to stay alive. I tried to capture that feeling to remind myself that, had I committed suicide on Sunday, I would never have experienced this feeling of hope today. When I think back over the last few days, I can see how close I was to falling off the edge of the world. I no longer feel that sense of hopelessness.
I wholeheartedly support Mind’s crisis care campaign as I know that crisis care has helped me to keep hold of everything that is dear to me. It is extremely sad that crisis care varies considerably depending on where a person lives. Crisis care is about life and death, and everyone deserves an equal chance to stay safe.
Claire
You can also follow Claire on Twitter @Clairetrude
If you are in crisis and need help, find out what you can do and how to get the support you need.
7 Comments
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'I was visited by two members of the team. I felt relieved that they were informal and also that their task is to keep me out of hospital, not trick me into going in.'
Sometimes I think I'm on another planet when I read stuff like this. My experiences as a survivor, advocate and supporter in an informal sense of others, is as far away from this as can be imagined. Heavyhanded use of detention and drugs and no opportunity to work through one's feelings. Frightened people held on wards where needles are flying. Left traumatised by the system and refusing to co-operate with any one in it.
Where on earth are these nice, reassuring and respectful 'teams' and why can't everyone access them?
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Hi Dymphna,
The experiences you describe are all too familiar and I have had many myself in the past. I am so fortunate that I have a psychiatrist who actually asks me what medication I want to take rather than backing me into a corner and using force or threats. It's purely luck that I now have a psychiatrist who has taken time to get to know me and allows me to take control over things that matter e.g. medicationIt's very sad that this approach isn't universal and that the old-school way of heavy-handed medicating and Sectioning is still prevalent. I am painfully aware that if my psychiatrist leaves I may find myself in this position again and it's a frightening thought.
I now live in a fairly rural area but when I lived in London I experienced exactly the same as you describe. The contrast in mental health services couldn't be greater and this is so wrong.
I would love to see a universally humane approach to people in mental health crisis, and although it's taken me 20 or so years to feel happy with my care I cannot relax until everyone is treated in the same way.
I echo what you say and think that everyone should be able to access a good standard of crisis care when they need it. The current system is unacceptable and there shouldn't be discrepancies depending on where a person lives.
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One of the problems Claire is that experiences like yours above are often the ones displayed on sites like this as if they are the norm and bad experiences are just a few. So many of the uninitiated will think everything's okay but the sad reality is that threats of and use of detention and heavy druggings are by far the norm.
I volunteer with survivors of sexual abuse, and have been in self help groups for the same, and I don't think I've come across one woman yet who had any help to work through their problems in psychiatry. It has been left to low paid staff or unpaid volunteers in organisations like Rape Crisis to pick up the pieces. In fact many have developed a form of post traumatic stress disorder as a result of being traumatised by psychiatry itself.
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Hi both,
Thanks for this discussion, you're are both absolutely right - on the one hand we do want to highlight the positive experiences people have because it allows us to demonstrate that good care does exist for some people but, as Claire says, this is very sporadic and that is absolutely not good enough. On the other hand, Dymphna, I take your point that we have to be careful about good experiences being viewed as the status quo, which is not at all the case.
Through this campaign, our blog posts have represented an overwhelming need for improvement and we have been clear that experiences such as Claire's are disappointingly few and far between. Have you had a chance to look at the other blogs on this topic? If you click on the crisis care filter category to the right, you should see them.
Coming up, as the campaign launches towards the end of the month, we will be doing even more to highlight the many problems in crisis care today and calling for change. We'll be drawing attention to issues such as excessive waiting times, poor care, lack of choice, low staffing levels and severely underfunded services.
In the meantime, thank you both for your experiences and interest in this important campaign - we know there is a great deal of work to be done far and wide for better crisis care services to be available everywhere.
Best wishes, Becca at Mind.
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I see where you're coming from Dymphna and I do recognise that my experience does not reflect the standard of crisis care across the country. As Becca points out, there have been some personal accounts on this website of poor care and increased sufferering for those in crisis. Hopefully the imminent campaign which Mind is launching will raise awareness and improve the standards of care and attitudes towards people in crisis. Having been on the receiving end of sub-standard care in the past I know how it can go wrong and how serious it can be when it does go wrong. Having said that, it is important to recount positive experiences when they do occur as it provides a benchmark for other services.
One thing I'm aware of is that although I was helped this time and it served to prevent a major crisis, the sad fact is there are hardly any acute beds in my local mental health unit. Had I not received such speedy input at just the right time, things would have escalated and the outcome would have been very different. This time my personal experience has been positive but I'm so conscious of the bigger picture in crisis care, and it's quite honestly shocking.
I fully support Mind's campaign especially as I have been at both ends of the spectrum regarding crisis care.
Thank you for your comments - discussing these issues is the first step towards changing things for the better.Claire
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Sometimes it seems like these good experiences have been cherrypicked. I do wonder at the benefit of them: someone writes they've had a bad time and how they were helped by marvellous staff and people reply how 'brave' the writer is. I don't see where that leaves a lot of people who will have had experiences that seem from a parallel universe.
I'm not belittling someone by saying 'brave' - just questioning what the point of it is. Blogging anonymously about one's experiences to an equally anonymous audience - hmm. I know 'cos I've done it myself, writing about my bad (understatement) time at the hands of psychiatry and the sexual, physical and emotional abuse which preceded it. Not courageous of me at all.
In some ways I think the pre-internet days were more powerful: campaigning out on the street as the survivor groups did, demonstrations and petitions, supporting others with crisis lines and helping them pay fuel bills. Talks face to face at day centres and at conferences. Now we're tame and passive, pecking away at the computer. Coming out in the open is a true test of how far things have changed.
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Hi Dymphna,
Thanks for your response. Personally I see blogging as a way of opening up discussions and debates, getting people thinking and helping people become aware. As blogs are more often than not personal and informal accounts/reactions, there is plenty of varied material from different perspectives. I volunteer for Mind and I agree with you that personal face-to-face contact is extremely important for recovery. But the Internet complements this in many ways by providing a link for people who are unable to go out and meet people. Writing is a good form of expression and although you don't see your audience, you are still reaching out to people who reach back.
Everyone reacts differently to things they read and everyone's opinion is equally valid.
All I can say is that I have had more negative experiences than positive, but on this occasion I chose to write about a positive experience because it shows how prompt treatment can help someone who is struggling.
Mine is one of many accounts of crisis care on the Mind website, and it is simply a personal story.
As you say, there may be no point in writing personal stories but I'm open minded and hope that this form of free expression will strike a chord with someone.
It's not a replacement for one-to-one contact but it does offer an additional way to communicate and connect with others.Claire
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