Lived Experience Forum

[RabbitHeart]

Hello all,

I’m new to these forums and thought I would try it out. Feel free to share your own experiences, thoughts and feelings to this post. The following is my own experiences and personal observations.

I have been involved in the Australian mental health care system since I was a young teenager and have suffered due to mental health/illness my entire life.

I’ve found navigating the system to be very difficult. I feel that it is very easy to “fall through the cracks”. I don’t believe that Australia or the Government is catering to mental health and illness to the extent that it should be. 

Finding effective and reliable support through mental health services such as Headspace and Orygen was a difficult experience for me in my youth and I spent many years in the system without much to show for it. The array of psychologists and psychiatrists I worked with in my time was exhausting, repetitive, ineffective and unreliable.

In my experience, suffering with long-term and complex/severe diagnoses and mental illness/disability, you will not be catered to with the required support or specialist care needed (well, I wasn’t). Instead, you will find yourself going around in circles, repeating the same process with different psychologists but not getting any further in your mental health journey. 

Finding knowledgeable and reliable General Practitioners to assist you in your journey is also an issue I have struggled with and I believe is becoming harder.

Accumulating trauma through therapy or from a therapist is real and I find that many health professionals are unaware of this concept. Re-traumatisation is a significant concern and many therapist that claim that they are “trauma-informed”, are not. 

I believe the bar needs to be set higher for health professionals, psychologists and psychiatrists regarding the assessment and treatment of those with mental health/illness, especially regarding complex mental health issues such as P-TSD, C-PTSD, trauma and some of the more complex diagnoses that require specialised care. 

Finding support as an adult can be increasingly difficult, especially when services are made inaccessible due to financial constraints and increased demand. I also find that many General Practitioners are not knowledgeable to the standard that they should be about a range of mental health issues and diagnoses. 

Being left to navigate the field of privately-billed psychologists and psychiatrists is a frustrating one, especially if someone is financially challenged. It is a process that takes a lot of time, effort, energy and money, and if things don’t work out (don’t connect with the psychologist, etc), you lose your money, faith in the system, and leave feeling vulnerable, helpless and defeated. 

I believe care needs to be taken to support those that were diagnosed and struggling before COVID-19 became our reality, as the influx of people needing mental health support has boomed since. Those that were struggling prior to the COVID-19 surge may find that they are now drowning amongst the sea of people seeking support and feeling worse than ever. 

Services provided to youth such as Headspace and Orygen have been a big letdown in my experience and there was no transition process when being discharged (discharged due to an age limited eligibility). Being left without support after having been connected with youth mental health services and being unsuccessful in acquiring the appropriate mental health help for years after, has been damaging and I can only imagine the amount of people suffering a similar fate to my own. My quality of life has been severely negatively affected by not only my mental illnesses but by the journey of seeking support and the lack of finding suitable treatment.

TL;DR: Failed by many including the system, suffering because of it with exhausted options.

Thank you for reading~

Sincerely, 

RabbitHeart 

🐇

[Po3itive]

Thanks for the share -  you have waded through so much terrain. Wonderful you see this as an ongoing journey... we're all here travelling with you @RabbitHeart!

[Snowie]

Hi @RabbitHeart 

Firstly welcome to the Sane forums. I hope you find it a supportive place to be.

I'm sorry that you have had such experiences within the mental health system. I think that the whole system is so much under demand and suffering greatly because of this.

It is hard to find people within the system that can help you and that you can trust. There are so many constraints, such as expenses and availability.

It certainly can be a struggle at times and there are many more on here that are going through those struggles themselves.

I hope you feel at home on here.

Snowie xoxo

[Historylover]

Hello @RabbitHeart. You, me and so many others are walking the same path with the same frustrations and expenses. Cracks in the system abound. No-one is taking account of the failings and the cost is immeasurable in so many ways. I'm just replying to let you know that you are not alone.

[RabbitHeart]

Thank you for your response @Po3itive. I appreciate it 💕

[RabbitHeart]

Hi @Snowie,

Thank you for the welcome 💕

No need to apologise to me. I understand the whole system is so much under demand and suffering because of it, however, this needs to be resolved and it seems that nothing is being done to be significant enough, or happening fast enough, in terms of resolution. 
There will be no break in the suffering of many due to mental illness, so the system needs to increase support as well as the quality of available support, or things will get worse, and they’re already very bad.

Mental illness so desperately needs to be a top priority for Australia and its Government and health professionals, because despite what they may say, it isn’t.

I believe the youth and those emerging into adulthood or navigating adulthood before middle-age are suffering and facing challenges that are unique to the generations involved. They are being let down in terms of being able to become a healthy, functioning and contributing member of society if they are facing health issues, mental illness and or disability. It is sad when youth and emerging adults trying to navigate their way in this world are burdened by circumstances they can’t control or change, then find difficulty getting support for them.

It’s hard to suffer the effects of mental illness and trying to survive without support when one should be emerging into their true selves, finding their way in life and experiencing what society holds as standard. 

It’s heartbreaking that so many are feeling the same or suffering a similar fate, no matter what age or life stage they are in, and that little is being done to effectively support us. Prevention needs to become a bigger priority to those that have the power to help.

No one deserves to live suffering at the hands of mental illness and its repercussions. 

The struggle is closer to being constant, compared to being occasional. 

Thank you for sharing and for your kind words 💕

[RabbitHeart]

Cracks in the system abound. No-one is taking account of the failings and the cost is immeasurable in so many ways.

---

@Historylover Your words hold every ounce of truth and reality.

Thank you for your reply and to be considerate in letting me know that I am not alone. However, the pain from this concern also comes from knowing that I am not alone in this and that so many of us are suffering in the same way. 
It validates the point even more so, that help is long overdue. 
Things have never gotten to this point, it’s so disheartening that they have and I can only hope that the world shifts in our favour. 

Thank you for your time and sharing your thoughts 💕

[Historylover]

You're very welcome, @RabbitHeart. I only wish the difficulties were not so, and that we could find a way around them or through them. Alas, we just have to console each other with our words, knowing that we are not alone—but we should be in a functioning system, as you say.