For me, I lived around 30 years with something I didn't even have a name for. It was called several things over the years, poor anger management and depression to name but two. It was also suggested I may be suffering bi-polar disorder and once, an anti-social PD. Around my mid 40's, I began to drift away from people and isolate myself. My life then calmed down enough so that I was able to totally re-invent myself. 14 months ago, I was told I had borderline personality disorder and the pieces suddenly feel into place. Now to the treatment side of things.
To begin with, it was therapy. Couldn't afford private, so went down the Mental Health Care Plan route. That gave me 10 sessions with a psychologist who (although I realised he was treating me for BPD) wouldn't tell me what he believed was wrong with me. I also saw a private psychiatrist who wouldn't tell me either, yet he told my GP. I had to practically force my GP to tell me I had BPD. I already knew, but didn't want to appear to be one of those self diagnosing types. My GP was pretty much useless now and kept shoving all responsibility back onto the private psychiatrist who clearly didn't know how to deal with a creature like me. It simply wasn't his field, plus his practice is an hour and a half from my home which made it an expensive proposition. In effect, I wasn't being treated properly by anyone. If my psychologist had only told me what he was treating me for, I might have worked harder to apply myself, but as it was, it was a complete waste of 10 Government funded sessions.
Following the diagnosis, I've had (through my workplace) three free sessions with another private psychologist and so far we've clicked. She says she's not ever going to give up on me no matter how resistive to treatment I am. As soon as the new year kicks off, I can get another 10 Government funded sessions back, so I'll use them with her and hope I get something out of it. She's been effective so far, but paying for a private service like that without private health care cover is out of my league.
I'm also now on the public psych service's books. This has proven totally useless. They will not address my situation in a crisis, except to tell me to listen to mindfulness "aps" on my tablet, do deep breathing exercises or "try" to get the bad thoughts out of my head! Yeah, good luck with that!! I saw their psychiatrist, a very young person from another country (one that produces great tea) and has a poor grasp of English. In fact, the entire psych services has a large proportion of people from the same country and older people find them extremely difficult to understand, therefore making treatment ineffective. The one I saw was only there to take a brief history instead of having to wade through my file which is getting thicker each time I contact them. She thought a particular drug might help my disassociation on top of my regular mood stabiliser. As her instructions were difficult to follow because of the language barrier, I'm only taking it PRN to help me sleep.
I also have a couple of very young (to me at least) social workers from the public psych sector who come out to see me every two week. If I have a problem, I write it down so I can remember to tell them my concerns. I tend to clam up when faced with a stressful situation like visits by psych services. These people are young enough to be my grand-kids and have no life experiences, yet they're trying to tell me how I should live?? They told me to call a number they gave me if I was in a crisis, but I haven't bothered. I know other "clients" who, upon having rung the same psych service, have been told to hang up and call Life-line!! I'd expect the same as any crisis of mine would be deemed to be a "cry for pity" by a manipulative borderline. The same two "kids" are coming out to see me next Monday and I've already got lots of things written down to put to them including the fact that so far, nobody has drawn up a crisis plan. I aim to ask them why not.
Sorry about the long post, but hopefully I've got things into perspective.
Incidentally, I also work in the field of mental health and am a strong advocate for my patients (yes, "patients" as I work in an acute setting) and one of the things I hear repeated over and over is that the psych team members giving them care in both a hospital setting and in the community are far too young to recognise their needs. Something to think about for us older people!
