The Student Room Group

mental health: what do you think?

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Reply 20
It's not funded anywhere near enough. 25% of us experience some sort of mental illness in our lifetime and it only roughly gets around 10-12% of the NHS budget. This shows the disparity between how much funding mental health trusts need and the funding they actually get.
(edited 7 years ago)
I'm going to the doctors tomorrow, the same doctor that dismissed me the first time, narrowed everything down to exam stress. Well my exams are now over...

Ugh I am panicking already, I don't want her to turn me away with pills or something. Best case scenario is to be referred to some sort of counselling :frown:
Reply 22
Strangely - and this might just be a N.Ireland thing - but there GPs don't prescribe antidepressants etc, or even alter the prescription. It was certainly the case in my home city anyway. Any mental health medication had to be decided by a psychiatrist or a CPN, the GP were only there as a place to pick up the prescription.
Reply 23
In Scotland it can be done also, according to my SO. However when I was on yet another drug back in December and January, my GP in Scotland was extremely wary of taking me off it when it was clearly doing me no good; but this could be because of my diagnosis, which is why she probably told me to wait until I saw my CPN.

Again, in N.I and Scotland, can only see a psychiatrist if referred by the doctor. I see mine in Scotland every 3/4 months for between 10-20 minutes. :rolleyes: With my diagnosis that is simply unacceptable but the health board I am situated in is desperately struggling.
Reply 24
Medication and I don't mix, it seems. :eek:

Yeah pretty much the same in the rest of the UK then. With my situation, it took a long time to come up with anything effective but thankfully I finally had it all resolved towards the end of my uni days. I have tried so many things but eventually settled on a weird combination of medications (no antidepressants!) that involve proton-pump inhibitors, painkillers and benzos. Given such a long history at the uni's medical centre, it was only a few months later that I was permitted repeat prescriptions each month and no longer any need to see the GP.

Though, when you switch practices, you have to see your new GP at least once for the first time before resuming - it's much easier when the practice mainly caters to elderly people I find, they don't make a fuss about prescriptions as much as uni medical centres do (who seem to think everyone student is a drug addict looking to score :tongue: which unfortunately is sometimes true though).


It's wonderful to hear that you have managed to figure out what is right for you though. I am a long way off that and perhaps will never reach it.
Reply 25
Most gps won't touch medication prescribed by a specialist team. I was prescribed by psychiatrist and they wouldn't do a review of it. I had to go back in to see CPN to get a simple review.

I know a lot of people of wary of meds but I'm pro medication as a mental health practitioner (who can't prescribe or benefit in any way from people being on them). Medication saves lives and it creates the stability needed to do the deep trauma work. I've personally felt the benefits of finding the right ones and they stopped me being suicidal and hurting myself
Reply 26
You lose a bit of hope when both your CPN (who is lovely to me, always honest, and doesn't sugarcoat it) and your (useless) psychiatrist both admit that therapy might make you worse. :redface:
I think GPs need to have a greater understand of mentall illness especially in teenagers and how the role of social media puts pressure on younger people.

GPs will often prescribe the most popular anti-depressants and let you go on your merry way, not really caring about your state of mind or what's triggered it and so forth. To have a questionnaire to determine whether you need anti-depressants is ridiculous. Yes, GPs don't have specialist training like Psychiatrists, but a piece of paper should not be a prognosis for depression.

Some GPs care, but because there is a huge strain on GPs, they have no time to find sympathy with patients that suffer from mental illness. They don't have time for people that are silently suffering anymore. It's just a shame.
Original post by shawn_o1
Antidepressants as a "last resort" imo, it's well known that therapies and one-to-one support is more effective


That's quite a damaging notion, to withhold from prescribing antidepressants until it's a last resort. You're just going to create many more "last resorts".

Combined therapy has been shown to be by far the most effective. So I don't know where you got that from anyway.
What do I think of mental health?

It's ruined my life.
I got a message saying that the thread is being approved but when I check the location of the post, I see it under a section called recycle bin (support area -> recycle bin) which is a post that I made here.. :frown:

By the way, can I get an approval for posting the link here?:smile:

Original post by Derickjones016
Spoiler :s-smilie: Actually, if you read that story, it's about a personal issue that he has gone through and then he has written an article to let others know about his own experience and then he has tried to spread an awareness of the issue. So why TSR doesn't like to post it? One of the links on his article says 50% of them are having college degrees and 12% of them are having post graduate degrees. Therefore, it is good to be aware of these issues somehow, besides my friend is also going through a similar case. Can I get an approval for posting that.

Much appreciated,

Derick



Original post by Deyesy
What do you mean sorry? :smile:
Original post by TheonlyMrsHolmes
I'm going to the doctors tomorrow, the same doctor that dismissed me the first time, narrowed everything down to exam stress. Well my exams are now over...

Ugh I am panicking already, I don't want her to turn me away with pills or something. Best case scenario is to be referred to some sort of counselling :frown:


Hope you got on well at the doctors today. Let me know how you got on and if you ever want to talk, I'm here :hugs:
I think that mental health professionals, teachers etc. should try their best to raise awareness of mental health problems so that people are more likely to be open and receive help more quickly rather than people not being able to seek help because of the stigma.

Also, in Wales and Scotland, all schools must have a counsellor available and I think this should be the same for schools in England to allow people better access to the support that they need.

I understand that the mental health services within the NHS are (in general) poor and I think the government should provide more money for this because mental health problems affect so many people on a daily basis.

I think it should be easier for people to access treatments and different therapies-many people are put on really long waiting lists and some people are not offered appropriate treatment because their mh problems are not seen as severe enough-personally I feel that it would help a lot more people offering therapy etc. to more people with 'mild' problems which can prevent e.g. low mood developing into depression, disordered eating developing into eating disorders rather than denying people treatment. I feel that it is better to prevent and treat 'mild' problems rather than potentially admitting someone to hospital etc. when the problem may have potentially been treated earlier.
Reply 33
A lot of uk schools do offer counselling but it's not yet mandatory. Hopefully it will give you hope to know that there is currently a large scale study into schools based counselling that will line the foundation for the mandatory school counselling programme that is being discussed in parliament.

I really hope that legislation comes to fruitation because it's so desperately needed and I hope that alongside of it they bring in regulation of the counselling profession
I personally do not think that increased funding or increased services or reduces waiting lists will solve all the problems. The system is still flawed due to the discrimination, power imbalance and reduced desire to implement real social change.

Power imbalance between professionals and service users needs to be addressed through a change of attitude in staff and also a change in the way services are designed - moving away from them being designed by managers with possibly some service user input towards real co production. Working side by side to produce services together as equals.

Also we need to look at the issues that stop people seeking help - certain ethnic groups are highly misrepresented. We also have to look at why some groups are more represented in some areas than others eg why young black men are much more likely to come into contact with services via youth offending teams. Also why are they so much more likely to be diagnosed with psychotic illnesses and detained under the mental health act.

Until we can address this and look at how we can be increasingly focuses on preventing discrimination being part of the system and how professionals can address social injustice, then I feel that increased access to services and funding will just bring more people into a flawed system. (Not saying that funding etc is not important, however I feel we need to explore these ideas too).

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