Lived Experience Forum

[Former-Member]

I have a question about the way suicide prevention and overall risk management is provided/enforced, and am just wondering if anyone has any insights or perspective of their own to provide to the table of this discussion. 

One of the largest reasons, if not the largest reason why I have always had a very hard time with this is that the way it is provided/enforced only deals with the immediate and, in my opinion least important part of the issue. I understand that having people die by suicide and other risk associated with mental health is a very serious issue that requires immediate plans to do everything possible to stop them from happening. 

What I don't understand, and never have understood is why part of providing to a person in this situation does not include actually dealing with the reasons and problems that contribute to why in the first place, and receiving whatever help is needed to actually change them so the person can see actual improvement and actually reduce their risk factors in the medium and long term. 

What use do safety plans, safety contracts, essentially being baby sat and stared at have when nothing is done to change the person's circumstances that cause them to require that at all? What use does speaking to a help line have when they can't provide that either? I mean no offense whatsoever, and I understand the basics of why these are provided/enforced, but not why they are the only thing and how they actually help without the above. They never have for me. 

If anything, they just make it worse because nothing is being dealt with or changed, and you are being forced to be a burden. I know that I would be able to better accept why that part is necessary if it wasn't the only part happening, and that I would understand better why people involved expect me to improve, my risk to reduce and for me to appreciate and be grateful for their effort to keep me alive, because I would actually have a reason to be. 

But as it is at current, the way I see it, all that is doing is basically cheering on my suffering and staring at me day after day whilst nothing changes, acting like that is a good thing and as if it is beneficial. Its like being in a tiny cage and put on a horrible show for people to watch and be entertained by, and like its all good when those people inevitably get ticked off when nothing actually improves and the impact of it and having to baby sit gets thrown back on me, because I am the one who made it necessary. 

I'm sorry, but that's not real prevention to me and you wouldn't ask a non-mentally ill person to appreciate and be grateful for that, surely wouldn't ask them to be grateful for being abused or neglected if that happens either. There are always reasons for and contributions towards why a person is suicidal or some other kind of risk to themselves. None of them are things anyone else would be expected to be grateful and appreciative for as people involved just watch as they go on like they don't even exist. 

I'd be more than inclined to say "Thanks for watching and guiding me and protecting me whilst I had to change my life in order to be OK and able to keep continuing on my own, thank you for providing that space and containment for me and for helping me work through and change what had to be, I am grateful. Thanks for being a part of saving my life" if that was provided. Because like I said, I would have a reason to. 

But never once have I been provided with that opportunity or real help. Why is it addressed like this, I want to understand if it is possible. 

[Appleblossom]

Totally Agree. @Former-Member 

Maybe the health people figured out it was getting to epidemic proportions, and they panicked and forgot that all the remedies and empty or full rooms with uniformed peeps might not be necessary if they could get to root causes.

Its taken me a long time to come any where near close to proper or appropriate discussions and interventions and I have been very patient and persistent with the system. How on earth they think that Emergency Rooms are the place to manage it is beyond me. 

Community Mental Health seemed like a good idea but not if meds are the only thing on offer. My opinion only.

[Former-Member]

And if there is even community MH and they don't only treat exclusive problems like the one where I live does..... I guess that makes sense, unfortunately. How dysfunctional our MH system is has always boggled me, in all the 20+ years I've been in it for. I've learned to play by their rules and how to avoid them, but that is hardly actually useful. 

[NNY]

Hi @Former-Member 

My understanding of the root reason for the public mental health system is to make sure a patient is not at risk of harming themselves nor at risk of harming others.

Once a patient proves this, then they free to go. 

In the past their have been many attempts to 'help' patients. But in the late 70's all the mental health facilities (insane/mental asylums) around the Western World were closed down. Researchers told government that insane/mental asylums were more detrimental to the mental health of the patient than a help to the mental health of the patient. ('One flew over the Cuckoo's nest' is about this.) In NSW, all the then mental health patients were given their own places to live, none of them stayed in those places and they all ended up on the street, homeless. The homeless are still their on the street, out the back of Kings Cross, all around Wooloomoolloo, St James station, Martin Place.

Is there true prevention?

SANE and all other such organizations exist to try and prevent mental illness from detrimentally affecting the patients life and to try and make a patient able to cope and live in general society. The methods to do this start on page 22 of the Understanding how best to respond to the needs of Australians living with personality disorder document written by SANE. But I don't think the methods stop mental illness, I think they are thought up and applied in order to get patients to have some kind of meaningful life in general society. 

Also, the 'cure' for mental illness is that the patient no longer fits the requirements set out in the definition of the mental health diagnosis. Therefore, once a patient crosses the metaphorical line that has been drawn in the metaphorical sand, they are diagnosed with a mental illness, once they step back over that metaphorical line, they no longer have that mental illness. It's all arbitrary.

After reading the above document, many patients get help by having it pointed out to them that they have a mental health problem. Just knowing this can be a major factor in relieving the problem.

But for many other patients, they need a lot more help. Page 72, the closing statements of the document, actually points out what you are also saying. The problem is, Australia just doesn't have the services nor the money to pay for long term help of patients. So SANE does recogise what you and many others need, but they just don't have the services yet.

[Former-Member]

Where I live doesn't even do that. If they did, I would be in a psych ward. 

[Former-Member]

Also I was just referring to suicide, self-harm and other risk to self problems, not mental illness as a whole. I doubt there will ever be a cure for mental illness, or any actually beneficial treatment for long term complex mental health either. Don't need to be told how the system works. I asked why. 

[NNY]

@Former-Member 

It sounds like you live in a small town where everybody knows you.

[Former-Member]

No I don't, actually. I live in a suburb of a non-capital city, about 4 km from a small, rapidly developing CBD. I go out of my way to make sure people do not know me for various reasons, because that's my preference. However, like I said, I have been in the mental health system (and various others, or was) for most of my nearly 25 years of life. So all of the local public mental health services know me, in fact, most of the public mental health sector full stop in my entire city do, and I have a very extensive reputation with them. 

Same goes for a lot of other govt services because I was raised by the state as a result of my biological mother and father having complex mental illness, albeit different ones than I do. They also all know me extensively because I have been out as a transsexual man since I was young. All of that leads to where I am now as far as those types of relationships are concerned, although they are ones I would much rather not have because they have created a very long list of trauma for me, and my reputation is horrible and disgusting amongst them. 

I've read that document too, great in theory, in practice, about as realistic as unicorns. 

[NNY]

@Former-Member 

"great in theory, in practice, about as realistic as unicorns"

That's how it is with all Government departments.

Maybe it is a plus for the US system that their health care is a private enterprise. They have no choice but to run it professionally and at a profit, if not, the company will just disappear.

It would be interesting if Bernie Sanders becomes the next president of the US, because he will make health care public. And then we can find out which one works best, a public health care system or a private health care system.

But back to you.

I guess you have a delema.

[Former-Member]

Yes, it is indeed. 

And yes, I do, and I always have.