by
cherish » Wed Feb 27, 2013 8:19 pm
Hi
Thank you very much.
I phoned my GP if he would refer me urgently to a psychiatrist (about a week ago I think)
I had the appointment today and the psych has assessed me as high risk of completing suicide (and listed the factors why, which was interesting). As nothing has worked so far he is talking about the 'recovery model' to see if that will work. He thinks the Crisis Team, with all the different people involved, won't work for me and I need a consistent approach instead.
What was helpful was that he concluded that I wanted to die. (It sounds odd that it's helpful, but I know it's true and I felt understood.) Very often, mental health staff talk about 'not really wanting to die but not knowing how to live', or some other reason for attempting suicide. Even on the training course we were told that generally people want to live, they just don't want the life they've got and that's what suicide is generally about.
He said he cannot say he's optimistic, but he's not 'un-optimistic' if I can 'dodge a number of landmines in the next few weeks because there are lots of landmines ahead'.
He understood about dissociation and the detachment I have from the world - and the detachment from my previous self. I don't know how they can help with that because that's a big part of what makes me suicidal and that's a long-term thing that generally requires therapy I think.
To be honest, although it was good that he was honest and 'got' the fact that I do want to die, I feel that suicide is inevitable given my history of attempts and the fact that I cannot live with the trauma in my head and the dissociation. They said they would not be able to allow psychological therapy at the moment because they won't allow people to access it whilst they are 'in crisis' because a person will encounter distressing things in therapy.
Joy xxx