Hospital without Private Insurance

@Lise07 Hello I am not sure if we have talked before or not so forgive me if we have and i have forgotten. I have been in public short and long stay wards more times than i can count and I have had 2 private admissions to different hospitals. I have also been twice to a respite care type place. I have also interacted with CATT and public outpatient serivces many times. so i will try and break it down a bit into sections on each, this is based on my experiences and other may have other opinions.

Public mental health wards:

public wards both long and short stay arent very nice places they have their purpose but sadly due to funding cuts and staffing issues that pague the mental health field they are not 5 star quality. most of the people who end up admitted are very unwell or coming of heavy drugs and this creates a chaotic environment. in regards to SH issues they are frankly unlikely to admitt you unless you are about to walk out of the building and try to end your life right that second. again sad but when you consider funding issues it begins to make sense. they are also not super helpful for self harm because they take all of your things away and essentially leave you sitting alone in a room the nurses dont have a lot of time and they dont really talk to you much and you are sort of just left there with your thoughts. also there are actually many ways to SH on a ward if you are desperate. the doctors dont always see you every day but usually at least every other day. mostly i would say public wards are only really helpful if you are needing to detox or if you are very psychotic and cant function outside of them anyway. they aslo often dont have any group therapy programs it is mostly just meds meds and meds.

Private hospitals:

private hospitals are much more orderly and do have a lot of group therapy programs which can be helpful for SH related issues. some of them do take your phones some dont it depends on the hospital. lenght of stay is usually around 3 weeks because that happens to be when most insurance companies stop paying in full and they would have to start footing the bill so they tend to tailor their programs around a 3 week cycle. nurses have more time to talk to you and it is less scary and chaotic as most people arent very unwell (in terms of how public defines unwell) there is normally gorups through the day and free time in the evenings. there is much more to do so you dont have the same lavels of intense boredom that you do in public. that said if you get a crappy doctor it can make the admission not so positive. overall if you are looking for a time out kind of option private would be a good option BUT if you dont have private health you can pay upfront but that is likely going to cost upward of $21,000 for the 3 weeks. (it is roughly $1000 per day)

Public respite places:

there are some of these programs but you usually have to be involved with a community public mental health team to be elligeble. these can be short or long stay and are varied in the types of programs they run but they are more flexible as the one i went to both times allowed you to go to your psych appointments and uni or work if you had it. they usually are group home type settings and are kind of strange to be in but you get used to it i suppose.

all of these can have wait times attached and can be hard to get into if you are wanting to pay for private yourself the payment is upfornt and non refundable in most cases. I hope this was helpful if you have any questions about what i wrote or think i could answer any other questions just tag me but i am busy lately so may not reply straight away.

@Eden1919 @Teej @CheerBear @Doglover

Thanks for your support. I spoke to another of the nurses on the phone on Saturday and told her I was feeling quite a bit better. She was a little suspicious I think (fair enough, I'm usually confused by my own moods) and said someone would call the next day. I missed that call and another this morning. I tried calling back but you get put on hold and I don't have the energy to deal with it.

Yesterday I basically couldn't stop SI and spent the day on the couch playing mindless phone games to distract myself. Today I'm back at work and feeling...pretty numb, I guess. I'm functioning though and right now it seems like if I can keep the momentum I'll be OK.

Oh and @Eden1919 specifically - thanks for the detailed descriptions. I don't think we've talked directly but I've seen you around. It's nice to meet you 🙂

@Lise07 it is good you are feeling fuctional at least hopefully things will pick up a bit but try and take it easy so your dont burn out. may i ask what your diagnosis is? or if you have one? you dont have to say but there are some diagnoses that often accompany SH that are not treated particularly well by mental health professionals so you often have to find particualr services that are more understanding.....

@Teej system in victoria is difficult. If you are rural places are rare. Mental health care plans are helpful but there are out of pocket costs.

There are places metro but limited.

@Eden1919I've been diagnosed with OCD and BPD, with an added sprinkle of depression. The BPD diagnosis is pretty new to me (a few months) but I've already noticed a difference in responses between "I have depression and am having intense self-harming and suicidal thoughts" and "I have BPD and (am having the same)". The first tended to get an "oh that's very serious we need to do something about that" whilst the second has got a few "oh well yeah that happens". To add to the confusion I have intrusive thoughts of harm pretty much constantly anyway from OCD, but if my mood plumments they switch from 'annoying' to 'appealing'.

After the initial visit and call the CATT people did in fact call me a few more times and visit this morning. This time when they asked what I wanted to do I said I'd be fine to handle it with the psychologist and psychiatrist. I found it pretty stressful waiting for them and it made me all jumpy. It did help knowing they are there though and would follow up.

@Lise07 I have BPD and OCD as well as Schizoaffective disorder (bipolar type) so i get my sprinkling of depression form there . I just want to say I am sorry you have been diagnosed with BPD because having that lable is such a barrier to getting help and it really shouldnt be. there is a perception that people with BPD are manipulative and attention seeking that is strongly held by the medical field and although not true at all it still means the fight to get help is that much harder. people get frustrated quickly because they cant "get rid of" the SH urges like they can with other people and so they then just say that you must be doing it for attention. I know a few other people with BPD and all the poeple I have met myself included have not done any of this for attention most of the people I know are simply suffering terribly and exhausted as a result and so SH seems like a better option than to continue the way things are. I also believe people with BPD in particular feel their emotions A LOT more strongly than most people so in some ways i imagine it similar to sensory overload in people with autism only people with BPD may have more "normal" communication styles if that make any sense. but it is mostly like never getting to calm down and you are constantly running fast but you never stop to walk for a bit.

As far as treatment options I would strongly reccomend DBT especially if you are having issues with realtionships but it is also super good for helping you communicate your feelings to others in a way that doesnt scare them so much (I always forget people dont live with this stuff going around in their heads 24/7). DBT is kind of expensive unless you can find a public group but cheaper than a private hospital but it is also a long commitment. and it ususally requires someone specially trained.

Update: my psychologist has returned from holiday and still thinks it's a good idea. The psychiatrist agrees with him. I was a little surprised by this, but that's probably because I tend to think I'm being dramatic.

So now I just have to wait until my insurance kicks in - basically the same situation as @Doglover a few months ago. I'm well burnt-out, but I've always been good at holding out until some point in the future.

Oh, and @Eden1919 I wanted to say I really appreciate your response; it made me feel very seen and heard. I think your comparison with sensory overload is pretty spot-on. I actually wondered for a while if I had ASD because I would get overloaded. My head sometimes feels like an overheating processor. I "discovered" the ice/cold water on the face trick before learning about it because sometimes it felt like the obvious thing to do.

@Lise07 I m glad it was helpful . Yes the overheating thing is something I feel too like you are on fire from inside your body I had been doing to cold water thing for a long time as well and I often find when I am super upset I have to be somewhere cold or I genuinely can’t calm down. I am always looking for cold places and like my room cold. It is strange. And yes I think many people with mental health issues have sensory issues but because that is such a big part of autism I think it often gets to be ignored in other people which is frustrating at times. I guess they say everyone is on the spectrum to some degree perhaps the two are like cousins. I also wonder if it gets more complicated because autism is so different in girls/women and I know bpd is in much higher rates in females than males but a lot of the ‘female’ autism traits can be similar to bpd experiences so it makes me wonder often but of course I am not a doctor so I don’t really know.