Wednesday, 29 September 2010

The roughest life

Service users have a pretty tough life. But there's a little noted type
of service user who has the worst life: the service avoider.

This was my definition for a few years till I got stupid last year and
tried to access services. I thought I was the only one but there are
many people who actively avoid mental healthcare services. There are at
least 100,000 people who refuse secondary mental healthcare. This group
is little studied though they may suffer the worst of what mental
illness has to put a person through.

The hardest times were going through psychosis alone. I'd come off
incapacity benefit and managed to hold down a part time job. I took a
brief course of sodium venlaflaxine when I started the job and moved
house because the accommodation I was in was temporary housing. I wonder
if these were the factors that triggered the psychosis. I was smoking
tiny amounts of skunk at the time so it wasn't that (dose is very
important and doctors don't understand this applies to cannabis too).

Had I sought help from the NHS two things would have happened. They
would have wanted me on medication and they would have probably
sectioned me for psychosis and risk of harm to self. The risk was very
real. These are the scars I carry for life.
http://imaginendless.blogspot.com/2010/06/hardest-photos-ive-had-to-edit-in-while.html

for a short period of my life last year I didn't want to die and thought
it would make sense to use NHS mental healthcare. Thankfully that moment
of weakness has passed.

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We It comes in part from an appreciation that no one can truly sign their own work. Everything is many influences coming together to the one moment where a work exists. The other is a begrudging acceptance that my work was never my own. There is another consciousness or non-corporeal entity that helps and harms me in everything I do. I am not I because of this force or entity. I am "we"