goatlatteContributor
Where to go for mental health help when you keep getting handballed?
At wit's end seeking mental health support.
I'm rural, and have been seeking help for four years right now, and either end up with people who are bad at what they do, who try and "gaslight" my problems away (they think it's how I think about my problems, not that I actually have problems, so I should just change how I think, which... isn't an approach I find viable or relevant to me). Otherwise, they handball me onwards, stating that I need serious psychiatric help they can't provide and that I need to be escalated: but there is nowhere to escalate me to, because the local hospital underwent an amalgamation with a large regional centre (Ballarat) and as a result don't bother following the Statewide Mental Health Triage Scale anymore (stories floating around here in rural Victoria are really not good: people who are way worse than me are not being seen until they end up in police custody instead of being dealt with when they seek help a week or two earlier, over and over, in violation of the hospital's own policies, but nobody cares).
The very, very few people who seem to listen generally have no idea what to do and tend to be a bit patronising (ie the SANE peer support worker I spoke to for a little bit). They'll listen to me for an hour or two, then throw me a few links to online psychology portals, saying maybe I can find someone to talk to there, not understanding that I have done this before. More than once.
I don't even know where to go anymore. I am completely out of options at this point, and I am utterly exhausted. Everyone keeps telling me the only people who should be helping me right now are the hospital's mental health service, but they aren't following their own triage guidelines and have implied unless I start talking about hurting myself or anyone else, that I should just ring lifeline, and I am just so very tired of doing this.
I was seeing a social worker through the "Step Thru Care" program as a "temporary" measure who does listen, but they have nowhere to send me and don't know what to do either? Just a case of "you are beyond me, let me google where I might send you... oh, there's nowhere, oops" yeah, no. Please no. We've been through this!
Do I make a scene? I have a former partner with BPD who said that helped her get attention, but it seems immature? But I have nowhere else. I keep getting referred from person to person, service to service and everyone tells me to contact area mental health at the hospital, not understanding they have had all their resources stripped and cannot deal with even the most pressing cases let alone someone like me (who isn't a threat to themselves or others).
It's almost four years now. It's just so hard and I have no ideas left, neither does anyone I talk to. I'm sick of being kicked around and patronised.
Just completely at my limit. Who do I talk to? Where do I go for help? I don't want to do this anymore?
Basically what I'm asking: has anyone else had any experience being thrown around, and if you managed to actually get through to someone, what did it take? How did you do it? Where?
Important to note: I don't want to say what my diagnoses are, but I will say I do not have a cluster B diagnosis (I have pulled my psych records to try and figure out why I kept getting handed off, that ain't it). The main reason is that most psychologists and therapists are trained in the cheapest and quickest to deliver modality of therapy, which has significant flaws and doesn't work at all for specific populations.
