19 OF THE BIGGEST DON’T’S IN A MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

When I first created I’m NOT Disordered in 2013, I did so with the idea that it would be a brilliant way to document my mental health recovery journey and to off-load my thoughts, feelings, and everything that was going on in the psychiatric hospital I was an inpatient of. So it wasn’t until the audience numbers began to grow that I started to realise my blog could be a great platform of opportunity to share advice I might have gained along my journey. Advice on lessons which I had learnt the hard way and I hoped that in sharing them, readers could escape going through those same difficult and challenging experiences. I thought that having the ability to provide advice that might actually help others as a result of the hardships I had gone through, would make all of those horrible moments somewhat worthwhile. So, I present to you now, one of the largest advice posts in the nine-year history of I’m NOT Disordered…  

1. No matter how strong a resemblance or similarity, never consider any two people involved in a mental health crisis to be the same

 

2. Saying you’ve “heard it all before” doesn’t make things any less strange or scary for someone who definitely hasn’t experienced all of this before

 

3. Judging someone for the coping skills that something out of their control has led them to having to use, won’t teach them to use better, more safe skills

TAKE NOTE: WHAT NOT TO SAY IN MENTAL HEALTH

Making sure that we're remembered, yeah
'Cause we all matter too
If the truth has been forbidden
Then we're breaking all the rules

So come on, come on
Come on, come on,
Let's get the TV and the radio
To play our tune again
It's 'bout time we got some airplay of our version of events
There's no need to be afraid
I will sing with you my friend

Emeli Sande:  Read All About It (pt III)

Here’s another blog post full of advice that stems from experience rather than academic qualifications… Having been under mental health services for almost eleven years, I think that rather than wear the anniversary as a badge of pride or see it as an achievement, I’d rather use it to help others avoid being under services for that long. Part of that means also attempting to help the service providers in ensuring that they don’t repeat some of the things they said – which I now see as mistakes – to me, to others.
If you read this post and at any point think ‘there’s no way anyone would say that!’ every single comment has been said to me by a professional of some sort; Police, Paramedics, Doctors, Nurses, mental health staff… Admittedly a lot of these comments were made over the entire eleven-year period and most services have drastically improved in that time, but that doesn’t take away from the fact these comments were wrong and that people should know not to make them.
So, here are some of the worst things that have been said to me around mental health:

THE TOP MENTAL HEALTH FAUX PAS

faux pas

[ˌfō ˈpä]

NOUN

an embarrassing or tactless act or remark in a social situation.

Someone asked me about the title of one of my recent blog posts (WHY “LOOK HOW FAR YOU’VE COME” & “DON’T LET HIM WIN” ARE BECOMING MY NEW PET PEEVES) because they’re two phrases that this person uses with me and I think that they were worried that I’ve been finding them unhelpful and just not telling them. I explained that I understand people – because it isn’t just this person who frequently uses these phrases – always mean well when they say these things and that they’re trying to help but mental health can be a minefield and sometimes, when you hear the same thing over and over again it will, of course, become a pet peeve, change it’s meaning and change its impact.

So, for the record, here’s – what I think are – the top mental health faux pas:



“Self-harm isn’t the answer”

I’m sorry but I don’t recall ever claiming that it was! I had a discussion recently about the other inpatients when I was in the long-term, specialist Hospital and how they had each encouraged one another to self-harm. To the point where one person had snuck in a blade and they had passed it around one another knowing full well what each person would be doing with it. I explained that even though I sometimes find self-harm ‘helpful’ in some way, I would NEVER promote it or encourage others to try to use it as a coping mechanism. One thing I’ve known since I first cut myself - but it’s something I’m only just really learning - is that self-harm can be an addiction. A cycle. When my anti-psychotic medication was reduced and the auditory hallucinations came back, I began self-harming again in response to them and because of that, self-harm has – once again – become my first port of call when I’m struggling. When things happen that are upsetting, rather than attempting to use my Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) coping skills, I’m resorting to self-harm and of course I don’t want to be constantly in and out of hospital, covered in scars and bandages, so I’ve wracked my brain trying to think of what really got me out of the cycle last time. And it was being admitted to a psychiatric hospital. But I was determined that it isn’t going to take something like that to help me; I can do it myself! I hate the feeling of being out of control so I lassoed all of the energy I have left and I’m very proud – and relieved – to say, that it’s been seven days since I last self-harmed; which is the longest period for the last five months! 

THE ULTIMATE ADVICE POST | 50 TOP TIPS ON MENTAL HEALTH FOR SERVICE USERS, PROFESSIONALS, FRIENDS & FAMILY

Yes, you read that right; fifty! I’ve enjoyed writing posts around tips, advice, do’s and don’ts so I thought the ultimate one would be to put 50 of them in one big post!

Please don’t take this post as condescending and think that just because I’m in recovery I think it makes me an expert on mental health. I don’t, think that; I just hope that my experiences can provide others with the advice that might spare them from going through some of the same hardships. I also don’t want people to think that these tips don’t recognize the strength it takes to do some of them; anyone who knows me – and my blog – will know how important I think it is to acknowledge a person’s bravery and courage in mental health.

THE TEN BIGGEST INSULTS IN MENTAL HEALTH

In my previous post, I talked about acceptance in connection with hallucinations and something I said has inspired this post: ‘…people reading this who have never hallucinated might not understand…’ It’s quite a common belief in mental health service users; that those on the ‘outside’ looking in will never understand what they are going through. I think that in fairness, those on the ‘inside’ might never understand what it is like for the people looking in. I’m not going to lie, it’s taken me a long time to be able to see it from both sides because I was so caught up in what was happening to me that when it/I was misunderstood, I’d get angry and defensive. Natural though, right? Like, anyone would be like that if they felt insulted… no matter what the situation.

I really hope that this post does a couple of things: I hope that it doesn’t just tell ‘outsiders’ what not to say but that it also tells them why they might be met with a certain reaction when they do say these things; because I don’t believe they always mean to be offensive. I also hope that it offers some assurance to the ‘insiders’ that they aren’t the only ones these things are being said to, and that they aren’t the only ones to feel insulted by them.

1.      “Shake it off”

THE DO'S AND DON'TS FOR MENTAL HEALTH AT CHRISTMAS

I really wanted to write a post on how to support someone who struggles with their mental health around Christmastime but since I’m not one of those people, I don’t think I’d be the best person to give advice!

I’ve always been a Christmassy person and whilst bad things have happened at Christmas – one year I was in a Psychiatric Hospital, another we lost our family cat… I haven’t let them shape future ones. I get people asking me all the time how I ‘got better’ and how I can just ‘move on’ from the abuse and these other bad moments and I just think that I don’t have the choice! I mean, how could I give someone or something the power to ruin such a joyful time of the year? And some people will say that they aren’t ‘allowing’ it to be that way and that if they had a choice then they wouldn’t ‘choose to be sad on Christmas.’ But I don’t think it’s about choice; I think it’s about acceptance. Accepting these things have happened to you, accepting they’re in the past, and accepting that you have a future without them.