Homelessness and suicide

I apologize @Bow , @Dimity . Clearly there's been a breakdown in communication somewhere, almost certainly my fault. I never meant to offend or upset anybody.

I never meant to sound descriminatory towards people with mental illnesses, @Dimity , nor to deny that there are many mentally ill people who also suffer real-world problems. I hope for a world where everybody gets all the help they need, whether it be mental treatment, real-world assistance, or a mix of both. I am not advocating to prioritize the needs of one group over the other.

I only have a few minutes right now, so this is as much of a response as I can five ATM. But I'll come back in a couple hours and maybe respond further if necessary.

My apologies @chibam @Bow at letting my annoyance overtake my main argument.

In pointing out tge intersectionality of mental health with other areas of disadvantage such as homelessness I'm advocating for each separate component of the health and welfare ecology to be adequately resourced.

I don't think the answer is to expect a critically scarce resource - mental health resources, particularly clinicians, to become generalists administering every form of community support.

I guess I overlooked the diversity of the forums community and that @chibam is speaking from his own perspective.

I won't tag Bow anymore, as they've indicated they want to be left out of this conversation.

Their last reply came in as I was typing out my previous post, so I couldn't factor it into my remarks.

But ironically, I think it basically proves my point. Bow says that if you talk to one of their therapists, they'll refer you on to the "local housing office", who will address the problem for you. So, in effect, those therapists are solving your homelessness problem for you, if indirectly.

My experiance of therapy is that therapists are nowhere near this helpful. Instead of saying to you: "Sorry, I don't fix those sorts of problems, but I'll put you on to someone who does.", they will tie you up for years doing pointless exercises, and never once clarify that no matter how much of this stuff you do for them, they will never actually address your real problem; not even by forwarding you on to someone who will actually try to help you. This is especially true if you clarify (or insinuate) that your problem is so dire that your planning to end yourself because of it. They just want to bully the suicidalness out of you, and act like the actual problem doesn't even exist.

The therapists Bow seems to be familiar with are starkly differant from the sort I've had dealings with. Bow's therapists apparently do help their patients with their real-world problems, by forwarding them on to differant types of helpers/therapists/ect. who actually deliver the help required, whenever that help is not within the bounds of what the therapist delivers personally. This is the sort of therapy that I've been advocating for.

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@Dimity wrote:

Perhaps in your world it could be argued that the worried well shouldn't be clogging up the mental health system rather than diverting resources from people needing clinically informed care.

Holistic nonjudgmental care within the community that accepts people as individuals at point of need is what I'd hope for.

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If I understand you right, then YES! This is exactly right! Get the people who need real-world help away from the people who want to mess around with their brains, and over to a new type of therapist who actually addresses the problems with these peoples' lives! As (I believe) you imply, one of the countless benefits of this would be that it would free up a lot of space in traditional therapists' calendars for patients who actually need/want to have their brains treated!

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@Dimity wrote:

I remember our state Council of Adult Education offering classes in many areas including training in workplace and social skills. Perhaps you could explore local offerings.

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This is essentially just the same thing as traditional mental health therapy: acting like the problem is in the patient's brain, and that they need to be reprogrammed (in this case, it's called 'training') to fit in with their ugly environment, rather then being relocated to a more appropriate environment.

Like, the "social skill" training you talk about. Presumably that's about teaching people how to tell all the right lies, to appease the people you encounter day-to-day and to avoid getting them off-side. I went down this road a bit with my therapist, much to my detriment.

The problem with this approach is that it's aim is to dig you ever deeper into a world you don't want to go any deeper in to.

So people might want to be mentally rennovated to fit in with their environment; some people might hold their environment in high regard. But others, like myself, hope to be transplanted into more appropriate environments, where we can be ourselves, and the duration of our lives doesn't become one endless abhorrant lie we must maintain, just to avoid outraging everybody else.

@chibam might I refer you to SANE's description of complex mental health conditions. As experienced by myself and the majority of forum members.

You continually revert to your world view of people with defective brains versus people with real problems. It may be interpreted as offensive entitled and self-indulgent. In my experience the health system stresses diagnosis treatment and self-efficacy but I seem to remember your saying once you hadn't received a diagnosis.

I've tried to educate myself on many issues but you're also dismissive of continuing education.

I feel deeply stigmatised by your remarks.

@tyme @moderator please advise if this post infringes community guidelines and I'll delete it.

I apologize once again, @Dimity . I've clearly said the wrong things, yet again. It's not my intention to offend.

You are right that my remarks are almost certainly self-indulgent. I can only speak for myself, and the ways that the system fails people like me. I don't presume to be able to understand how it works/doesn't work for others. I can only call out the issues I'm familiar with.

I don't mean to suggest that others' issues or points of view are less valid or important then my own. I merely neglect to discuss their perspectives because those are not my perspectives to claim any expertise on.

Thank you @chibam for the post above. I have been following and also have to disagree with much of what you have shared because from my experiences, the public mental health system has gone way above and beyond to give me the care that I needed at that time (over a course of about 5 years of intensive support). So much so, that I don't need them any more.

I'm in the best place I ever have been, thanks to them.

I'm sorry your experiences have not been similar, and at the same time, you are welcome to post your own experiences - this is something we encourage. We cannot say that anyone's experience isn't real or valid. We just have to be mindful that we make it clear it is our own experience and not make generalisations about any group of people as this can prevent others from seeking help.

I totally acknowledge that every system has room for improvement. Not even just systems; we ourselves have room for growth and learning - but the result depends on how willing we are.

I just hope you find what works for you whether it be the MH system or not.

All the best.

@Dimity @Bow @Till23 @Shaz51

@tymeI'm not advocating for tearing down anything that's been working for some sections of the community. If the existing system has worked for you and others, then that's great. I'm merely trying to point out that there are system-level problems that are letting a lot of other people down, and that these problems need to be addressed, because they are ruining lives, even though there may be people in other areas of the system, like yourself, who are benefitting from it.

There needs to be some sort of check to make sure that the patients are seeing the right sort of therapist, because how is the patient supposed to know? To my knowledge there is no such formal checking process going on with any consistancy at the moment. It certainly never occurred with me. We need to insure that it goes on for every patient.

As you say, my experiance is just one experiance. But how many people have had similar experiances? 5% of therapy patients? 50%? 95%? Personally, I suspect that this is a very wide-scale problem. I suspect that the numbers are above 50%. That's why it's important for us to talk about these things, so that the message can get through to the people in power, so the problems can be fixed.

You say that the system went "way above and beyond to give me the care that I needed at that time". Do you mind if I ask for a bit of clarity there? Did they forward you on to the right people who actually fixed your problems? Or were your problems of the nature that the therapists were willing to actually deal with them themselves? Or perhaps a bit of both?

And if they did need to forward you on to someone else, how long did you have to spend going through the process with them before they realized you needed to be sent elsewhere?