Excluded from accessing support services

[CrazyChick]

Hi,

What services have you been excluded from because of your mental health? Have you been forced away from something that would assist your recovery, being told to get well first?

Do you think that services should have to make some adaptions to better include people with mental health challenges? Maybe some services such as those targetted at helping people with disabilities have a greater responsibility? And what if no other services are available?

Are decisions being made appropriately to protect and support people with mental health, other service users and staff? Or are they quick to exclude because it is an easier option?

I have experienced exclusion so many times because of my mental health. In the community, from employment, from psychology services, from support groups... I don't understand why? I am not violent, offensive or upsetting anyone. I have mental health issues which I manage with a lot of hard work, and whatever support I am able to access. I have done so many plans to inform people of how best to support me, but they are just ignored. Then I get told again that my issues are not normal and that I need to get help. It seems impossible, a never ending spiral of being excluded from the things that could have helped me recover. 

[wellwellwellnez]

I can really relate. The communication breakdown spirals that are cause by geneal mental health illiteracy is, in a word, maddening. I've experienced a wide range of, to put it diplomatically, well-meaning gas-lights (of course I need to ask the question, well meaning to who?).

I don't know any way around it. When your needs are special sometimes the people trying to help you need help. Holding people's hands through the process of holding yours is so contradictory that it's massively inefficient and often down-right painful to do. But I don't know any other way.

I learned the othe day that my condition tends to create a task-based appoach to relationships. My first reflection was, "Yeah I do that". My second reflection was, "You mean other people don't do that? You mean there's such a thing as a non-task based relationship? People can relate like riding a bike or breathing? Has it really been that long since I've felt that way around people? Have I ever, even?"

Third reflection, I think that's why the well-adjusted "fail the task" so often. They're not trying the way we try, they've learned to do it another way, and that's the way they know. There's an urge to instantly share the pain so that they would be able to empathise. Of course, everyone's pain is different so that doesn't work (Don't try it. Just trust me on that).

There's a better way to empathy. Education. And, Education, education, education. And, that goes for everyone. I'm also a fan of education, education, education, education. But, that's just me.

[chibam]

@CrazyChick  The short answer is that, the most important "service" I've been excluded from is matchmaking.

Though whether I've been excluded based upon "mental heath" is a complicated question. It'd be more fair to say that I've been excluded based on values, ideology and confusion/disconnection regarding what others want from me.

My therapist told me that no woman would want me unless I had more money; but the underlying message was also that she had absolutely no intention of helping me find my soulmate until my financial status met her standards of acceptability. This was a deeply conflicting message for me, as I would never want to be set up with a woman who was obsessed with money. So even if I met my therapist's standards, it would've only lead to an undesirable outcome, anyway.

The social circle I was caught up in was just as bad. No assistance in being set up with my future wife unless I did the things that they wanted me to do. After years of acting as thier lap-dog, there was never any help. I scarcely even got to meet new women.

Employment was much the same. No help unless you do all the favors that your "friends" want you to do. You do all the favors. Nothing happens.

I absolutely think that we need a massive remodelling to the mental health service to increase it's matchmaking capabilities. 99% of the anguish in my life is that I'm all alone. Trapped in an environment that doesn't reflect how I want to life, and that doesn't genuinely want me.

The powers that be claim they want to help? Well first and foremost is getting me into a relationship with a kindred spirit, so that I have someone I can relate to, that I can talk to, that I can collaborate with, that gives value to my life, that serves as tangable evidance that good things actually exist in the universe.

Without love, none of the trivial frustrations of my life can ever be manipulated in such a way that it will make a meaningful differance to my plight. Matchmaking is, by far, the one and only service I truly need or have any use for at the moment. And thus far, it's been completely inaccesable to me. Largely because the mental health system doesn't provide it.

---

@wellwellwellnez wrote:

There's a better way to empathy. Education. And, Education, education, education. And, that goes for everyone. I'm also a fan of education, education, education, education. But, that's just me.

---

Respectfully, I've always found that education is overrated, when it comes to shaping human interaction. Because the best that education can provide is a theoretical understanding, not a deep connection.

For example, I know that my dad loves Bogart movies. I've been well 'educated' as to his preferances in that regard. So I know that, if I buy him a copy of "The African Queen" for his birthday, it will go over well.

But I don't share his gushing love for those sorts of films. I've seen them, I know what their about, but they just didn't "connect" with me the way they've clearly connected with him. So, although I might be able to buy him a movie that I know he'll love, I'll never be able to enter into a lengthy, enthusiastic discussion about those movies, because I just don't get the deeper appeal of those movies the same way that he does.

So much of human relations comes down to who you are deep inside. I think we all want to be surrounded by people who just get it; who just see things the way we see them, and aspire for the same ends we aspire for. The sort of relationships where the need for communication is superficial, because we're all thinking the same thing.

Education can never bridge those sorts of gaps. Your either my kind of person or your not. You can't be trained to be one of my mob. It must come from within.

But, in this day and age, I think that truth is very poorly recognized, and that a large portion of the population seem to believe that anybody can be "trained" to slot in to any sort of role; even intimate relationships with distinct individuals.

In my experiance, it just doesn't work that way.

[CrazyChick]

@wellwellwellnez wrote:

When your needs are special sometimes the people trying to help you need help. Holding people's hands through the process of holding yours is so contradictory that it's massively inefficient and often down-right painful to do. But I don't know any other way.

I have this too, where I feel I have to teach others how to help me. But the trouble is that when I am in crisis and need help the most, I am not able to help them work out how to support me. Sometimes I think I need to carry an instruction manual about myself - explaining how I think and behave differently from others. Something may be a concerning symptom for others, but is normal for me. Or the cause of a symptom totally different from what people expect. For example if I am shivering, people assume I am cold and offer a blanket, but it is more likely that I am shaking as I am overwhelmed by loud noises, so moving to someone quieter would be helpful.

I wish people were more accepting of differences, without having to understand the reasons why you are different. If someone offered a cup of tea, and I said I'd have some water instead - would I need to explain why? But if I sit on the floor next to the chair, rather than on the chair, I need to explain why I can't sit in the chair!? If it isn't a problem why not just accept the difference? Being different does not mean that someone is dangerous,  or disruptive. Difference should be ok. But many people are scared of differences.

---

@wellwellwellnez wrote:

There's a better way to empathy. Education. And, Education, education, education. And, that goes for everyone.

---

When you do meet people who have similar lived experience and can truely empathise, it can be helpful. But not always - sometimes people will say I have had X symptom or condition or circumstance similar to yours and it wasn't a problem for me, or I managed it easily by doing Z. More important than empathy is the abilty to listen. To actually want to know what it is like to be in another person's circumstance even if it is not something you have any experience of. Too often a question is asked to make judgements. To have someone actually listen & actually feel heard is special as it is so unusual. But it shouldn't have to be. It does not need specialist degrees or training, often just someone who cares. I find that often people with less formal education value and use the skill of listening more than those with extensive education. But education can help people be more familar with a wider range of differences, and thus more accepting of differences.

[CrazyChick]

@chibam 

Although I personally don't want to access matchmaking services, I think that people should be able to set their own priorities in life and get support to reach those goals. 

I think that more health services, especially mental health services should adopt person-centred care models where it is the person who chooses their own goals and how to achieve them, rather than medical professionals making decisions on what they think people should do. You may want assistance finding a soulmate. Others could prioritise financial independence, education or other areas of their life. I think we should be able to customise the support for our own priorities. While some medical professionals see their only roles as trying to reduce symptoms at all costs as they are judging some symptoms as being undesirable. But sometimes the trearment may cause side effects more unpleasant than the symptoms. So it may be better to accept the symptom and put things in place to minimise the negative effects of that.

[wellwellwellnez]

---

---

@chibam wrote:

---

Respectfully, I've always found that education is overrated, when it comes to shaping human interaction. Because the best that education can provide is a theoretical understanding, not a deep connection.

Yeah, fair enough. I tend to place understanding above connecting when it comes to empathy, and it says more about my state of self than anything else. I'd even say the best part about understanding is that it makes connecting easier. Thanks for reminding me.

[wellwellwellnez]

---

@CrazyChick wrote:

Sometimes I think I need to carry an instruction manual about myself - explaining how I think and behave differently from others.

---

I have been wondering the same thing for myself. Well, I was thinking a sort of a leaflet format, so I could carry around multiple copies. Maybe different leaflets depending on which phase I'm in.

[chibam]

@CrazyChick  Yeah, I completely agree. The system ought to be geared around giving people the help they actually want, to achieve the ends they actually want. It seems like such a no-brainer, doesn't it? I still can't believe that that wasn't the way things worked when I was in therapy.

I'm a "call a spade a spade"-sort of guy, so ambiguous phrases like "person-centered treatment" tend to lose me a bit. I see that phrase around all the time, and I often don't understand what I'm reading.

But if that's what it means - givng people the help they actually want, instead of what someone else wants to inflict upon them - then I am all for it!

---

@wellwellwellnez wrote:

---

@CrazyChick wrote:

Sometimes I think I need to carry an instruction manual about myself - explaining how I think and behave differently from others.

---

I have been wondering the same thing for myself. Well, I was thinking a sort of a leaflet format, so I could carry around multiple copies. Maybe different leaflets depending on which phase I'm in.

---

Yeah, this would probably be an improvement for me, too. Sometimes I get so caught up in my view that things are absolutely obvious, I just don't even think that some people might be coming from a completely differant position.

That comes with a whole heap of new dillemmas, too, like trying to get in to the mindset of everybody else so that you can figure out where the point of contention is, so that you can clarify your contrary position. And plumbing those depths is a task that is not without it's emotional costs. What was it Nitchke said? "When you stare into the eyes of the monster, it is also staring in to you..."

In any event, I think it would probably be an even more valuable asset the other way around: if I could get manuals from others, detailing what they want from me.

[plasmo]

i had a guy i used to see to discuss stufff every fortnight or so. when the govt changed things thry made it too difficult for him to continue.

a couple of months later i ended up at my doc with a bunch if symptoms, in hindsight it was all anxiety. i'm still thinking of cinversations i'd br having with him, my family not interested at all about talking about my interests.