Published on 12, July, 2020
As some of you may recall my problems with my social care worker a couple of weeks back in my Done With Mental Health thread i had a phone call from him yesterday and his disdain for me was so obvious in the way he spoke to me i was quite taken aback he couldn't have been more inconsiderate if he had tried ( the urge to tell him to just F%&K OFF was on the tip of my tongue ) all because i missed a home visit and didn't tell him ( i left a note on my door but my phone had bust and i lost his number ) so now he won't come to my home i have to walk half a mile to bus stop then walk another mile and a half at the other end ( most likely hes peeved because i complained about him as well i always assumed that NHS staff were compassionate and understanding but obviously not )
why is mental health care in this country so crap
So someone that's almost certainly overworked and underpaid takes time out of their day to travel, finds out they've wasted their journey and as a result resents the person that caused them this, quite apart from being complained about, shows less than complete empathy with you.
I find that unsurprising.
You don't have to like him. You don't have to try and get him to like you. You may be able to get someone new to support you so that you don't have to work with him. In the meantime you do have to work with him.
None of this makes him a nazi. Try and avoid such hyperbolic labelling as it will influence your own thinking when interacting with him. He may be incapable of empathy but you are not. Treat it as a professional service which requires you to also engage professionally, ask the awkward questions but depersonalise it all. He's as constrained by the system as you are, except that he has to deal with it all day every day.
Mental health care in this country is crap because the people its trying to help are frequently unhelpful in receiving that help, because it's horribly underfunded, because the medical profession often lacks the simple knowledge of how to best help and because diagnosing the underlying issues to even start the process of trying to help is exceedingly hard. The only one of those you can directly and easily influence is how easy you are to help.
Just some guy said:The only one of those you can directly and easily influence is how easy you are to help.
For heaven's sake don't be an awkward patient with complex needs
I wish (and I mean this seriously!) I could go to the vet with physical problems rather than the GP. The vet doesn't limit discussions to just one issue and although he's always busy he seems kinder and more patient.
Thank you Giddy, I really hope you get some answers about what is causing the pain in your arm. By chance I spoke to someone with a similar ankle problem to mine this morning. She has been in pain for a year, now has hip problems too, and will finally see a consultant in a couple of weeks. I'm sure in many cases earlier access to specialist assessment would help to prevent unnecessary complications.