I have been seeing them once a week for 8 years now. I am becoming very fatigued with the whole thing. For starters they come to your house and I don’t like having strangers in the house. I am not being paranoid when I say they make observations about your house and write them down.
They also put pressure on me to be some sort of social butterfly and make it clear they are not happy with how I live my life.
I am happy and content with my life now. I know my limitations and I am fine with them. It just feels like I am always failing to meet up to their expectations and tbh that failure makes me feel worse.
I feel inconsiderate and ungrateful saying all this. But I just want a long break from the services.
Does any of this make sense. I don’t consider myself to be delusional at the moment.
OK I have been with mental health services for approaching 3 years. Was on Clopixol injection for 2 years. Basically identical to the Depixol injection you are on. I’ve stopped getting the injection and switched to Seroquel which I have been taking for 7 months now. The Seroquel has been giving me side effects and the dose and way I take it have had to be adjusted, but I am OK.
It is totally normal to feel annoyed by dealing with the mental health services. It has annoyed me a lot dealing with them. Just recently they were going to completely discharge me from their services, however due to side effects with the Seroquel I don’t want to be discharged. Still I will probably only have a psychiatrist appointment once every 3 months and that will be my only contact with the services.
I see you want to stop the Depixol injection. I hated getting the Clopixol injection. I had resentment over it, was very worried about getting tardive dyskinesia and the sexual dysfunction it caused bothered me. On the Seroquel tablets I don’t have resentment, I am not worried about tardive dyskinesia, and even though it still causes sexual dysfunction, that does not bother me, because I am in control of taking the medication myself and not being forced to get an injection.
I want to stay with mental health services, because I have to deal with side effects and I am worried about any other side effects occurring in the future. When I went off the Clopixol injection and started the Seroquel there was no difference and I didn’t get any bad effects from stopping the Clopixol.
Yes it is totally normal to feel upset and disturbed by having to deal with the mental health services. I have been dealing with it for a long time as well. I am only going to have minimal contact with them now and just for the reason of managing side effects if they occur.
I too am growing tired of my local mental health services. I noticed as a mentally ill youth, I had lots of support and kind people trying to help me as best as they can.
Now I’m an adult it seems like none of them truly care, and have little sympathy for what I am going through.
I can understand how it feels to feel uncomfortable with strangers in your house. One time after a particularly bad meltdown the cops had to come inside my apartment to make sure I was okay.
Now take into consideration I have an immense fear of police. So much so it borders on a phobia. I am extremely paranoid of them, so them standing in my house was one of the hardest things I’ve gone through in quite some time.
I’m sorry your privacy is getting invaded. Maybe try and see if they can visit less often. Good luck
I’m a little annoyed at my team too. They really want me to go on Clozapine because I’ve been on six other medications with little to some effect. I manage alright these days and don’t want the added stress that comes with this medication, like side effects, bloodwork, etc.
They also try and get me to go to groups all the time. My social worker wants me to get used to being around people in public so he’s offered to go for short walks with me around the neighborhood and talk about how I feel when I have a reaction. I think that’s a little too ambitious considering the last time this happened I ended up in hospital.
That happened to me after the crisis team visited once. Background I’d gone to AE with my wife who was getting over a lumpectomy ,disabled, and on a scooter. After it got to near midnight,6 hours later, and no sign of seeing a pdoc or mental health nurse and my wife feeling physically bad we decided to go home.
Anyway next day two people from the crisis team came round and you could see them sussing the room out , and looking back and forth at my wife and I disapprovingly because of the age difference.
Next thing I know I get a letter telling me never to bother them again. Ignorant twats deserved a good kick in the head !
My mental health trust then were really crappy with me, and people wonder why I post so negatively about my care .
Another classic example I went to the mental heath centre to say I was struggling to cope with my wife with dementia and getting really stressed out. The curt,offhand response “Go and see a private counsellor” . When I then had a meltdown at the lack of understanding the abusive ■■■■■ had a go at me for getting hysterical. I left in tears.
EDIT: Reading this thread inspires me to find a psychiatrist elsewhere. I am really not getting anything out of my community mental health clinic. I am in a ‘day’ program for ‘young adults’ when it really just feels like I am in a day care for adults. I don’t get a long with anyone in there and the clinic doesn’t really offer much of anything else in terms of usefulness,
I used to be in the American military so I qualify for Veteran healthcare and they just make you see a doctor once a year and supply you with several refills to last you throughout the year!
I understand the problem you’re having. But they really just want to help you. Did you tell them that you are happy and content? Maybe if you tell them they are setting the bar too high for you, they will compromise and adjust their expectations of you and set more realistic goals for your treatment. It might be worth a try.
A little part of the problem when we are mentally ill is that workers will go by what they see. If they look at us they see a relatively healthy 56 year old (I’m not sure how old you are @anon20613941) or a healthy 38 year old man who looks kind of normal and they judge by appearances and they can picture us sitting in a restaurant or working out a gym or walking down the street in a sunny day. It’s impossible for them to fully know what’s going on in our heads and why it stops us from doing those things.
its not very professional at all