"Frustrating Experience"

I called a mental health emergency line in a highly distressed state because I have been reaching out for support to a wide range of different services over the last 18 months as my OCD has become very severe to the point of almost losing my job, losing $84,000 in savings, avoiding all relationships, friendship or otherwise and being largely bed bound and agoraphobic for most of that time. Basically the life of a recluse.

I live with OCD and Co-morbid ADHD which is a notoriously challenging combination of conditions to treat when they occur together because the treatments for either condition can aggravate the other, unless carefully balanced and monitored, which unfortunately didn’t happen for me until this current excellent private psychiatrist I have had since only July of this year.

When I had called the emergency line on this occasion, I had experienced a mental breakdown in which I had hit my head as self harm again because I was experiencing a spike of intrusive thoughts telling me I could be a shallow selfish monster and a bad person who doesn’t care about other people and may deserve to be harmed as punishment.

I explained to the clinician that I have a very good private psychiatrist at the moment who is doing a really good specialised job caring for my complex mental health presentations, but that I am at breaking point as OCD is the doubting disease which causes my insight into my own condition to fluctuate wildly and that I cannot afford a psychologist anymore, because the lack of specialised integrative support for both of my conditions has severely worn down my finances over time, so I was enquiring about psychology type services suitable for OCD that I could access.

The clinician said Men’s Line and I politely told her that I have contacted Men’s Line, Lifeline, Beyond Blue, Suicide Call Back Service and Here For You on quite a number of occasions, and whilst these are decent crisis services- the clinicians are not trained to support someone with complex OCD which requires specialised understanding.

I believe the Call Line Worker then said something about how I could register with the local community mental health team, but I’d have to give up my private psychiatrist. I said I will not give up my treatment with a psychiatrist I trust, who respects me and who is providing me with high quality specialised effective care.

The worker also didn’t seem (by my perception anyway) to respect the fact that another objection I had to entering the community mental health system was that I used to date a member of the administration team for that service and that it coincided with an OCD trigger for me that I don’t feel comfortable exposing myself to.

They then seemed to keep trying to direct me back to my private psychiatrist despite me saying that, that’s not fair on her, as her clinic is not a crisis centre (the private clinic directs patients to the emergency line or if in a mental health crisis) and also that I cannot afford to book extra psychiatrist appointments at the moment because money is tight.

It felt like the worker then proceeded to give me an ultimatum of either I go to my private psychiatrist and dump all the responsibility for everything on to her (which I again kept protesting isn’t fair on my Dr) or give up my good psychiatrist and join the public system which refuses to treat adult ADHD, a major condition I also have.

I left the call feeling disappointed and unheard. I feel like the advice to possibly ditch my private psychiatrist was unsafe, not in my best interests and that the emergency line being the state triage service had completely failed to uphold their duty of care to me as a complex patient tonight by encouraging me away from my current specialised professional support and by only recommending me generic services that I have tried countless times with limited success in lieu of thoughtful and ethical evidence based treatments proportionate to the seriousness of what I am experiencing.

I feel like I have suffered iatrogenic harm from the way my mental health treatment has been managed and now have daily bursts of anger and hatred towards myself from feeling powerless, passed around and invalidated by a system that is meant to care for, as well as support individuals in mental health crises. 

As October is both ADHD awareness month and OCD awareness month, I wanted to take the time to share my story and raise awareness with the state triage service as to how serious a mental health condition OCD can be and that it  isn’t just about being neat and tidy. 

In my case I have intrusive thoughts about the idea that I could be a morally repugnant person-these are very disturbing, relentless and compel me to constantly carry out compulsions to ruminate over the past to find the correct answers, to seek reassurance from other people that I’m not a bad person, to work out what is wrong with me and continually confess my guilt.