"Mental health practitioner"

It has took me time to pluck up courage to write this, even now I still find this really hard and triggering.

After waiting many, many months I finally got to see a mental health practitioner at my GP Surgery. My past experience of mental health services for my family members has been shocking to say the least, now it’s my turn to sit at this side of the fence and know how it feels. I let my guard down, I dared to have hope, hope that my feeling like I lived in a permanent nightmare could change, that my primary tool I use to keep going, that being that if it’s too much I can commit suicide, could be replaced by sorting else. At last someone for me to talk too.

The meeting, you the practitioner, you were easy to talk too, attentive, but you didn’t dig deeper to try to understand what was beneath my veneer of happiness, I smiled seemed ok, yet this is mental health, please don’t assume anything, this after all was only our first meeting. you told me I needed pleasure and joy in my life, yet I have ongoing depression so it’s not that easy, as a loss of joy in doing things is a symptom of depression.

You suggested activities I couldn’t possibly do in a million years. Here we go again I am in a way blamed for the way I feel because I can’t do activities, yet you want me to leave my relative home alone to do theses activities, with the possibility they may be dead when I return, as they have serious health issues and can’t be left alone.

You didn’t assess my state of mind, jokey as I was, my legs were covered in bruises from self harm, I was so anxious I had to ground myself by using pain. I walk away feeling there is no hope for me now and sink into despair, understandably I relapse into a depressive episode which takes weeks to escape. I’ve experienced life now from the other side of the fence, getting my hopes up and left feeling there is no hope.