Struggling

the top box on mine is "if you cant think" because thats how I describe my situation when Im in crisis.

There are 5 sections to work through each with pathways. 

meeting basic needs, changing environmental factors, grounding techniques, safe activities and reaching out contacts

by the time you get to reach out you know exactly what the problem is that you need help with.

it was a culmination of several things. Mostly my mental health had deteriarated which was affecting my relationships and work.

I understood over the course of 14 years that my job prospects mental health and relationships were to a certain degree being sabotaged by domineering people.

I realised that a lot of issues were compounded around relationships and workplaces, which largely orbited around NT dominant teams. Noticably these teams were dependent of on my skillset and work, but not treating me like a human being. I noticed I was being blatantly excluded and discriminated against and this was being ignored by managers.I decided to become self employed. 

This was one turning point. The other thing is not being reliant on medications, as there is a looping fear that if you dont accept advice albeit medical or financial then career you will fail. I would say the opposite was true for me, so far as medications I have noticed people listing those to which I was prescribed so this seems pretty generic based on symptoms. 

What I realised though was that I was not depressed or particularly shy or introverted I was actually being kicked around a lot by people in the World and this was becoming normalised. Those dark feelings of low or undewater or walking through treacle, may be depression, but they are also a symptom of severe anxiety coupled with extreme fatigue over a prolonged period. Its very difficult to separate feelings when they become this singular numbing pain. 

If you start by cutting things out of life that you dont need. Prioritising your own needs not those you may have been preconditioned to believe by others that will be a start. This will require some introspection and will be an ongoing process,

10 years before my diagnosis I started doing CBT around the time I realised this (what they have been doing), that was about ten years ago. You may see and hear things that you don't want to, so you need to build up ways of being resilient, such as wearing headphones and developing calmness strategies for being in public.

The biggest dissapointment to me is how people have behaved towards me. This is what you will need to get over when you are fully aware. How disappointing most people are in reality. 

Youre welcome to message me if you want any more details.

Yeah I like this idea would love to see a example what would you title the first box at the top

Any tips on how you did to yourself?

I remember a community mental health worker came to my house once and advised me not to say I could hear voices. I realised now the loneliness and isolation, and years of neglect and abuse in relationships and the workplace had caused me to become depressed. Now I know some of these things were my autism, it was only posible to see this over a much longer period. But I would say the big things I sorted out myself and didn;t wait for the right meds or gp to turn up. 

Wow Monkeyclogs , that looks so helpful and thorough! I like the idea of a coding flow chart to work out your needs.
I might save this in case I ever need it.

my specialist subject! I wont go into details of my 30 years of experiences because it could fill a book.

These are my top tips for dealing with mental health team:

1) request an advocate at appointments. An independent advocate has to be provided to anyone that requests one. They can be your equivalent to taking a friend along and help you get what you need from the appointment.

2) write down what it is you are bringing to the interaction. you can either refer to this during the interaction or if you're really struggling to communicate just hand it over.

3) ask that information they give you be written down so that you can process it more easily after the appointment. Again. they have to do this for anyone requesting.

4) Talk to the samaritans first to get your thoughts in order before you attempt to talk to nhs practitioners. they also have an email service though response time is longer.

5) request a care plan be produced. (though bear in mind the NHS template is poor and you can get more helpful templates on Etsy). Include an advanced statement (there's advice for this on mind website). This may be easier to do with your GP practice than CMHT.

Mine has lots of coding language, "if, then, but" and flow charts. I tend to put contact mh team as the last resort and I take the flow chart that I've by this point already followed with me so they don't gas light me with stupid suggestions like "distract yourself"

6) ask for signposting to local charities and organisations that support people with your needs in non clinical settings.Things like art projects or community gardens. 

I'm really sorry that you're struggling to get the support you need right now. I hope at least one of these tips helps a little.

Sounds about right for community mental health teams. It's an all too common experience for people. It's not right at all. The best help I have had is from charities that work with autistic people. Also the Shout text service is good. 

I hope things get easier for you.

Metaphors are a nightmare…. Similes are ok. Especially metaphors from people you don’t know and are providing a service 

I had my 25 yo daughter in the room soon after it happened to 1) talk me down 2) make me behave like a responsible adult under the circumstances (I needed to show her that I could get my sh1t together and deal with it)  

Have to say that being messed in my head going into a situation and then getting more messed up by it is a challenge.

I guess that for me having been in the situation where I've "lost it" with other people I could empathise a bit with the other person but still stand up for myself too.

And I always think its me, i need to learn how to handle these situations moving forward I like the way you handled it, I let all the issues build up as I just suppress everything but I need to make sure I handle it at the time

Yes a community mental health team 

I’ve gone through PALS now which have really been my lifeline, this is the community mental health team I have to complain about

I had some issues with individual mental health practitioners - made me worried about their mental health!

I e-mailed the service explaining my version of what had happened and asked for the service manager to phone me and then worked from there 

I told the about my concern for the clinician as I would have expected them, if they weren't feeling so stressed, to have been able to make the adjustments necessary for understanding and communicating with me as an autistic person and not making it a "personal" issue.

Got offered an appointment with the person who trains them in working with autistic people and so far so good...

In professional situations like this people should be speaking in a literal professional language anyway , you should not be left to attempt to “figure it out” that’s not the point of business and services 

This sounds awful, and if this ever happened to me I couldn't ever call them again, which is terrible when they are meant to be a service when you need help!
I don't understand how people can get into things like that and not have any compassion or caring? 5 hours is ridiculous, especially as hold music makes me jumpy. I'm sorry you have not been able to get the help you need, it's really shameful! 

Another phone call I had was i was in distress and rang in for support and had to wait 5 hours for a phone call to be told to go and distract yourself, I asked why did you make me wait 5 hours to be told to distract myself they replied and said if your going to be abusive and I’ll put the phone down this led me to saying you shouldn’t be working in this type of job making me feel like this and now they are calling me abusive for abusing me, isn’t this narcissist behaviour and every excuse they have when I bring this up to them is that it’s because I uave autism and we don’t have the resource which is an excuse again