BPD Patients Are Being Let Down By Services

Mental health services in the U.K are failing patients. Southern Health and Sussex Partnership both had to apologise for failing patients on multiple occasions, leading to deaths of both patients and members of the public.
It is a vicious circle if you need mental health help. You tell the service that you feel suicidal but they dismiss it and tell you to 'have a bath' or 'light some candles.' THIS DOES NOT HELP. I don't even have a bath!!!
They don't believe you when you say you are suicidal, then you attempt it and they are sorry but not sorry enough and they send you home, back to danger, back to being unsafe, scared, alone and depressed.
It feels like you have to be half dead to get help. It has got the stage where you have to harm yourself to get the help!
Don't even get me started on Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) stigma in mental health services, The amount of professionals I've seen who, the second they walk in the door I can see in their eyes they are already writing me off, as an attention seeker, drama queen. They don't take me seriously.
According to the NICE guidelines for BPD (that don't sound very nice!) patients with BPD don't benefit from hospital admissions as their condition cannot be resolved with medication and they need to learn to live in the community. That is all well and good but when you are suicidal you can't even get out of bed, let alone live or function in the community and the majority of people with BPD suffer from depressive episodes. Apparently (according to an old psychiatrist I saw in one of my admissions) "People with BPD like the attention and like being in hospital."
Yes, I love it! I love being shut away from my family and friends, having to ask for my tweezers or plug my phone in to charge at the nursing station. I love being sat on a hospital bed looking outside and wishing I was hanging from one of the trees.
Apparently we also get attached to members of staff, but quite frankly we can get attached to anyone very quickly and very intensely as it is a symptom of the disorder.
BPD often comes with other mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, eating disorders and OCD, so if we are not hospitalised for our BPD we could be hospitalised for a different condition. Also, the medication we take is often for the depression or the anxiety, not the BPD itself.
Due to the high impulses of BPD sufferers we are at risk of dying from impulsive self-harm or accidental death. And we often abuse alcohol and substances which puts us even more at risk.
To conclude this rant I would like to express that BPD is a serious mental illness and at least 70 per cent of people with BPD will attempt suicide in their lifetime and between 8 and 10 per cent of people with BPD with complete suicide which is more than 50 times the rate of suicide in the general population.
to point out that
So yeah, don't take us seriously, we are just attention seekers!

Common Myths About The Mentally Disordered

• They're all killers
• They're all rapists
• They're rapists and killers
• They're paedophiles
• They are murderers
• It's contagious
• They were abused as a child
• They're dangerous
• Schizophrenics are killers
• Depressives are having a bad day
• Anorexics are looking for attention
• Self-harm is a trend
• Those with OCD all wash their hands too much
• Suicide is the coward's way out

The truth is: 'Depression isn't an act. Self harm isn't a trend. Anorexia isn't a phase. Homosexuality isn't a choice and suicide isn't cowardly.'

Self Harm

Self Harm is a precarious topic. No-one knows exactly why one self harms, for there are many reasons.
The most common are:

• Relief of stress
• Self punishment
• To gain a feeling of control
• To show externally the pain they feel internally

I self harmed for all the above reasons. I thought it was a good way of coping. It wasn't hurting anyone else, it didn't cause serious damage and it worked. However it scarred, I have scars. Am I proud of them? No.

Am I proud to have gotten through what I did? Yes.

Every scar has a story and a reason. The bad day, the break up, the day I hated myself, was stressed, depressed, felt alone, angry.

Please try not to self harm: it only resorts in long term harm and permanent scars. You don't want to be reminded of your bad times every time you look down at your arms.

Don't start cutting other areas of your body as a way of concealing the fact you are self harming. Just because no-one can see it, you are still doing it. Just because you feel pain, doesn't mean you deserve to. You are stronger, better and more beautiful than the demons of self harm. You are not alone, ever.

Tips for stopping self harming:

• Instead of cutting use an elastic band to ping against your arm, this causes pain but does no long term damage
• Hold ice cubes on your skin to create pain but no permanent damage
• Listen to a sad or happy song, get your feelings out by singing or dancing
• Write a diary or blog
• Talk to someone