Mental Health – My Best Friend
Please note this is an anonymous guest post submission – both parties have consented to me publishing it to try and raise awareness of the failing mental health system.
My best friend is funny, loyal, kind, silly, clever. My best friend also wants to die. And no one seems to care.
I mean, I care, her fiancée cares, our friends care. But no one who can do anything cares.
The so-called crisis team have their wait lists and tick boxes and ‘no you aren’t that much of a risk’. They don’t care. They can’t get her name right. They make her take phone calls that send her anxiety through the roof. Even when she does see them they make her feel even worse so she hurts herself more. They make her go backwards and forwards to GPs and A&E and psych teams. They agree she should be sectioned. Hell, even she wants that. She has just enough fight left in her to walk into the hospital. For someone else to take over the fight.
She did go. Sat in A&E for hours. We even had a little last meal then packed her off with a new blanket. But they sent her home. That was before Christmas… over 5 months ago. There is no safety net. It’s scary. She’s on a tightrope trying to balance life and death. And there’s no fucking safety net.
It’s awful to think how many people are let down like this. How many lives were lost as they are ‘not that bad’. She was asked, “Will you be safe when you leave”. She said “No.” She’s not safe. She knows it. We know it. And there is no net to catch her when she falls. And they are practically pushing her out the door/off the tightrope.
No one can help. Instead, it’s me, my partner and her fiancée. None of us are in great health – but we’ve tag-teamed watching her, being with her, checking in on her. I send hourly texts requesting a small signal she is alive. I’ve rushed over to help put on plasters. I’ve insisted on her coming for dinner. Making her change into clean clothes. Rescued her from the side of the road when it all got too much.
Now I’m not saying I’ve enjoyed it or want to do any of this. But if that’s what it takes, I’ll do it all again and more. I’ll fight for her. Even if it feels like fighting against her. If my “squeak if you are alive” texts piss her off, if nagging to take her meds angers her, if making her sit with me at work is boring. If she hates me, maybe it will take some of the hate away from hating herself.
I care. And I will fight even if the professionals don’t care or will not fight for her. If she doesn’t and can’t fight. I will. I will fight for my best friend. I’ll catch her when she falls. I care.
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It’s so sad that there is not a lot of help out there. Thank goodness for best friends and people who actually have empathy and care. A lot of people out there just dont care about anyone but themselves unfortunately and that’s really sad.
Thank you for sharing that post. It’s sobering, worrying and terribly disappointing that we are failing people in this way.
As someone who suffers from anxiety and depression, as well as having several family members who also go through times where they feel that the only way to cope/get help is to either drink themselves into oblivion or overdosing on medication, I find this heart-breaking.
One family member suffers from such social anxiety, they are virtually housebound, yet it took all of us fighting on their behalf in order to get any type of help, financially or via the Mental Health Team. I often wonder how people cope when they are alone? My guess is that they don’t.
It’s so sad to see this happening – and to see the health of the helpers suffer too, as a result of picking up the pieces because the system is broken.
These things should not happen, my son is having major problems as well as myself.
You pluck up the courage to ask for help and this takes a lot to do and all you hear is I will put you on a waiting list that never moves.
Lately they decided to change my anti- depressants put me on something that I shouldn’t have been put on and my Glaucoma came back. I am now having to get that treated.
More needs to be done for this.
The whole NHS system is in crisis, they are trying to stick a small plaster, over a hemhorrhage. They do a quick fix but never solve the root of the issue. My daughter was finally diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, after so many previous diagnosis including bipolar, schizophrenia and they just kept giving her more and more drugs, higher and higher dosage, eventually her heart stopped. The heart specialist at John Radcliffe hospital could not believe the amount of drugs in her system and said it was no wonder her heart gave up with the strength of chemical cocktail in her blood. I have learnt with my own mental & physical health issues that I cannot expect any help, and sort it out myself, but unfortunately when in mental health crisis you are unable to do that, that is why we are seeing such a rise in people reaching crisis as the care system cannot support them in the early stages to stop them reaching crisis point.
Until mental health is considered as important as physical health we will not move forward. And that involves waiting about too I’m sorry to say. Hope your friend gets the help soon
This is a very sad story and one that shouldn’t have to be told, but I know this is how things are today. I have a friend in a similar situation and he eventually got therapy but there is no continuity of care, he doesn’t see the same person each time, so has to start his story all over again. He was in A & E one night, after self harming, and was told that it was gone midnight and the crisis team was not available.