Mental Health Services

I agree with Dawn, how many hours do you have?

The quick overview here is while waiting for autism assessment there are precisely 0 mh services, charitable or nhs, that are willing to deal with me. All but the mental health team, including stuff like talking therapies and IAPT who are supposed to be the first port of call, assigned my sh and other issues as 'too high risk' and 'too severe' for them. And the mental health team decided it was autism related so needed autism specialist stuff which they couldn't provide so discharged me.

This would have been reasonable if it wasn't for the fact that no one provides autism specialist services without a diagnosis, and the waiting list is years long. I'm still waiting, current prospective outcome is in another 6+ months and we're already well past the 2year mark. So while people are refusing me help because my mh is too bad for them, I can't get any help at all. I was originally told to 'come back if it gets worse/unmanageable' but when it did and I did that they just did exactly the same thing again. So yeah, there is a hole in support which is all too easy to fall into where everyone agrees you need help with relatively immediate effect, just not from them.

The other main issue that's autism related is that it is everything relies on phone calls, and I can't do phone calls. I can't initiate them, and if someone phones me unexpectedly I usually end up harming afterwards. This was discussed in every single appointment, and it was ignored every single time. I actually only just managed to get an IAPT referral (not that it worked) because my GP ended up filling it in out of desperation and then refusing to accept their 'the person has to self refer via a phone call'. They then refused me because I was too high risk for them but I very nearly didn't even get to that point. The mh team would never ever listen to anything about 'please let me know a time you're going to call' and when we discuss triggers and I say one of my biggest ones is phone calls, they would immediately give me a list of numbers to ring if I was in a crisis. why. 

Some of that is of course due to what is available, there is one text based crisis line in the uk, all others are in fact just that one with a different name. We really need more, shout is getting decidedly sick of me, but I haven't hit their frequency limit yet so they can't do much about it, I'm just a very long term user because once again, many years with no help whatsoever despite everyone agreeing I need it because I'm probably possibly could be maybe autistic. 

So yeah, two big things. One, mh organisations just flat out refusing to deal with autistic people, and two, everything being reliant on phone calls. 

I agree with Dawn, how many hours do you have?

The quick overview here is while waiting for autism assessment there are precisely 0 mh services, charitable or nhs, that are willing to deal with me. All but the mental health team, including stuff like talking therapies and IAPT who are supposed to be the first port of call, assigned my sh and other issues as 'too high risk' and 'too severe' for them. And the mental health team decided it was autism related so needed autism specialist stuff which they couldn't provide so discharged me.

This would have been reasonable if it wasn't for the fact that no one provides autism specialist services without a diagnosis, and the waiting list is years long. I'm still waiting, current prospective outcome is in another 6+ months and we're already well past the 2year mark. So while people are refusing me help because my mh is too bad for them, I can't get any help at all. I was originally told to 'come back if it gets worse/unmanageable' but when it did and I did that they just did exactly the same thing again. So yeah, there is a hole in support which is all too easy to fall into where everyone agrees you need help with relatively immediate effect, just not from them.

The other main issue that's autism related is that it is everything relies on phone calls, and I can't do phone calls. I can't initiate them, and if someone phones me unexpectedly I usually end up harming afterwards. This was discussed in every single appointment, and it was ignored every single time. I actually only just managed to get an IAPT referral (not that it worked) because my GP ended up filling it in out of desperation and then refusing to accept their 'the person has to self refer via a phone call'. They then refused me because I was too high risk for them but I very nearly didn't even get to that point. The mh team would never ever listen to anything about 'please let me know a time you're going to call' and when we discuss triggers and I say one of my biggest ones is phone calls, they would immediately give me a list of numbers to ring if I was in a crisis. why. 

Some of that is of course due to what is available, there is one text based crisis line in the uk, all others are in fact just that one with a different name. We really need more, shout is getting decidedly sick of me, but I haven't hit their frequency limit yet so they can't do much about it, I'm just a very long term user because once again, many years with no help whatsoever despite everyone agreeing I need it because I'm probably possibly could be maybe autistic. 

So yeah, two big things. One, mh organisations just flat out refusing to deal with autistic people, and two, everything being reliant on phone calls. 

Good Lord!  You couldn't make it up!  You wouldn't get that from physical health departments.... You're too sick, so go away! I'm appalled and angry on your behalf.  Even if they haven't got the expertise, why are you not under their care so at least you've got someone to talk to, someone keeping an eye on you and some point of reference.

As for the phone calls - they are, of course, breaking the law there in as much as they aren't making reasonable adjustment.  

I understand they are under resourced, lack resources and expertise.  As far as that goes I am sympathetic and on their side.  But I think there is an attitude problem and an incredible failure to listen on the top of that.

You know, in society in general we are doing a really good job of breaking down attitudes about mental health and of encouraging people to come forward and seek help when they need it, but then we let every body down once they make the brave step to ask.  As far as I can see the only people who are ever helped by mental health are the easy cases; the mild anxiety etc.  Everyone else is in the too difficult to deal with pile.