I feel failed by the mental health services in the UK?
I live in England and have been seeing psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists and the like since I was 12 and I am now 18. For many years I’ve struggled with clinical depression and anxiety and have been medicated for the past six years on various kinds of anti depressants and antipsychotics.
Recently I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, though my psychiatric doctor called it Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, which in my understanding is not actually a diagnostic term that is recognised by the DSM or the NHS. This perplexed me as to how he could use this term.
Aside from that, I’ve had four sessions with a psychologist who decided she wouldn’t use any diagnosis in referral to me and decided that she didn’t want to diagnose me, however my psychiatric doctor already has! So I’m receiving mixed messages from both, and it’s confusing as hell.
But not only that, it is my understanding that I should be offered at least a year of psychotherapy and possible Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Dialectic Behavioural Therapy, but instead, yesterday the psychologist decided she was ending her sessions with me.
Now I feel abandonned and helpless. I have a history of mental instability including multiple hospitalisations due to suicide attempts and severe self harming behaviour. From November to July this year I was hospitalised THREE times, each of those times told I may not recover.
I feel like I’ve been failed. I struggle with every day life and my symptoms are worsening despite taking Venlafaxine and Quetiapine. This is one of the many times I’ve reach out for help and haven’t received any. I feel like giving up. Life can be unbearable living with these conditions and I don’t know how much more I can take.
Please help.
Posted in Psychotherapist London
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October 14th, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder is just another name for Borderline Personality Disorder. It’s two names for the same thing, much like bipolar can also be referred to as manic depression. Manic depression isn’t the term which is used any more but it’s a term people understand.
Psychologists tend to do the assessing and psychiatrists tend to just work with diagnosis and medication. Psychologists aren’t technically meant to diagnose but if they have strong suspicion, then they will discuss it with the psychiatrist and between them work out of the diagnosis can be applied. It’s not just as simple as ticking a few boxes against symptoms, there’s a lot more to diagnostics than that.
It sounds to me like there has been a breakdown of communication between the two. I think what your psychologist is getting at is that it doesn’t matter to her what your diagnosis is. She doesn’t care what label or name you’ve been given. She just cares about how it affects you and how you are coping and will deal with the set of symptoms rather than the diagnosis.
BPD is, effectively, never a good diagnosis to have. There is a lot of stigma surrounding BPD but it is both my personal and professional opinion that the system’s approach to BPD is all wrong. Believe me when I say I completely understand why you feel failed by the system. The mental health system in the UK is a shocking abomination and quite frankly they’re doing more harm than good.
The best treatment for BPD is, they say, DBT. It has a high success rate. The fact that your psychologist has refused to refer you perhaps suggests to me that she is not in full agreement with your diagnosis or does not feel you would benefit from DBT or even CBT.
Don’t feel abandoned. Fight your corner. Go back to your GP and outline what has happened. Tell him/her that you’ve received this diagnosis but are being refused treatment and you don’t know why. Your GP will get on the case and get back to you. It might be that you need to go back to the psychiatrist and ask for clarification.
Feel free to email me if you need further help xx
EDIT: Regarding OK’s comment that I am not a trained therapist, that is correct, I am not and not once have I ever even hinted that I might be. I don’t know what OK is driving at but I do not like her tone - and not for the first time either.
October 14th, 2011 at 7:02 pm
The mental health system worldwide, in the medical model is basically the same. It has failed a lot of people, especially people who really need help. The only thing the medications have helped temporarily are bi polar and schizophrenia, but they have not healed anything , and there are many lies about the capabilities of the medications . What people hear about them are from drug companies whos sole purpose is to sell drugs.
Your doctor who said emotionally unstable personality disorder, was , it sounds, trying to save you the bias and prejudice that comes from the label of borderline personality disorder. Many therapists will dump a patient with that diagnosis. For the most part they have nothing that helps with that or ‘works well’ so I take issue with munkee on that issue.
The best know therapies for that are outside the medical model . You have run the gamet of what they have to offer, and that should tell you and many others to wake up and stop thinking they have anything healing to offer you.
Be realistic and find what works for you to heal.
Munkee 2 is not a trained therapist.
EDIT: I have seen Munkee2 put that she is a trained mental health practioner, implying a lot , and not clarifying exactly what she has done or what she is trained in.
It is also against the rules to tell people to contact them or otherwise socialize with them at this site.
There are plenty of yahoo services for socialization or finding the right therapists for you.
I have also seen some rude comments and psychotic issues Munkee2 is dealing with. She has some personal experiences that may be beneficial, but to imply that she is a therapist is outrageous.
To say that DBT or CBT has a high success rate for borderline is also outrageous.
So it really doesn’t matter whether someone this deceptive ‘likes’ my tone or not.