#(which. cbt for autistic people is not a good idea at all for multiple reasons but that's not the point) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

teeforhee · 3 years

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Fuck, I'm not sure I'll ever get over how much CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health service, it's the under-18s mental health service in Scotland) let me down as a kid.

It's like this. You're 11 and you're traumatised but you're scared of using that word, you don't know if you're allowed it, but you are traumatised. And you're so anxious you can't breathe most of the time, you can't sit down and speak to any of your friends, you can do your school work but you keep falling apart and everything feels like it's getting worse all the time. You don't fit in, you're weird and awkward but your schoolwork is good so you aren't worrying about your grades, you're not even sure why you feel this way (it's unprocessed trauma, but again, you don't feel like you're allowed that word). You're s/hing and struggling with suicidal ideation, and you're lucky enough to still trust authority figures, so you do what everyone says you should. You trust an adult. And she calls your GP, who is another adult you choose to trust, who you bare your heart to with all of these symptoms that make your feel sick to even acknowledge, and then they make you an appointment with CAMHS. You came in asking for treatment. They referred you to CAMHS. They did not explain what CAMHS was other than what the letters stood for. That's okay - it's treatment, right? They're gonna help. You can talk this through and they'll help- just gotta be careful you don't get institutionalised. You don't want that, yet.

You talk to a CAMHS worker. She's a psychologist. She says it's very likely you have autism to your mother after your first session. Your mother broaches the topic gently. You are overjoyed: there's an answer! oh fuck, this explains so much! but it's not treatment. It's a word. The psychologist puts you on a waiting list and you have 22 sessions of CBT with her, trying to unpack your trauma and trying to build up coping skills. So many of them feel like just denying the truth, so many of them feed into your magical thinking ("the one thing you can control is your thoughts, you must always control your thoughts, good things will happen when you control your thoughts and stop thinking the bad thoughts"), but it's treatment, mostly. You stop seeing her twice- once because you are trying to develop an eating disorder and having a mental health professional who wants to hear how you're doing is totally cramping your style (I wasn't actually trying to develop an ED really, I was trying to cope in ways other than s/h, in ways that felt honest to the situation and real and gave me a sense of control that "controling my thoughts" just wasn't doing). You come back for recovery. You tell her you want an eating plan. By the time she even considers an appointment with a nutritionist, you've moved past that stage in your recovery on your own. You stop seeing her again because you get into an abusive relationship who doesn't really like you having contact with people who aren't him, and he super super doesn't like you not being able to talk to him for a whole hour every week. That part isn't their fault: no one could be gotten me out of that until I decided to; believe me, everyone around me tried, and it didn't work until I wanted I to, the third time.

But I left, again, I was without support for 6 months, and when I came back it was after my father (the earliest source of my trauma) had died. They take 4 sessions compiling evidence as to what treatment i needed going forward, without telling me that was what they were doing (I was trying to build trust with an adult again after 6 months of constant reinforcing that I couldn't trust anyone but my abuser), and then an appointment with a psychiatrist and your mother and a new psychologist. They dismiss and justify the symptoms that most worry me, they have at this point turned down my request to be institutionalised multiple times (including after an aborted suicide attempt, I presume they thought that was fine because made it clear that I did want to live), and they say at the end of the meeting that they are going to give me an official diagnosis of autism and that after that CAMHS has nothing more to offer me.

They say that if after 22 sessions with a psychologist I am still struggling so much (bear in mind that probably close to half of those sessions I was concealing factors that were actively making my mental health worse and which were traumatising me) I clearly can't gain anything more from their service, and anyway, autism isn't a mental illness and CAMHS as a service can only help while waiting for/trying to get a diagnosis, or if you have a diagnosis or a disorder for which they could provide specialist treatment. My very obvious PTSD? nah, no big-T Traumas, and c-ptsd is way too hard to diagnose. I receive a hilarious letter detailing all of the evidence (I mean genuinely insightful but also fucking hilarious and I do want to note down funniest bits and post them hear at some point, stuff like "unusual speech was noted, (exclamations of 'wacky!' while describing his symptoms)") and then they refer me to a charity which, at time of writing, I have had 1 assessment phone call with, and am waiting for a call back for my next and first proper appointment.

They did not inform me when I was first referred that CAMHS is a diagnostic and specialist treatment service and if they did (this was well over two years ago now, I don't remember word-for-word what my GP told me), they did not tell me that meant that they would kick me out to a charity once they figured they couldn't label me with anything requiring specialist treatment. During our last sessions they were unyeildingly focussed on the trauma of my father dying and of the "shock" of my diagnosis (that I had been waiting for for 2 years. yes, very shocking/s) when those were not my biggest problems. My relationship with my father is complex and I won't get into it here, but suffice it to say that his death was the last step on a very, very long journey, and honestly one of the least traumatising.

I let them keep the focus there because I desperately hate talking about the actual, recent, debilitating trauma of being in lockdown with an abusive partner for 6 months. That shit hurts, I can't even say his name, but that is the thing that I need to unpack if I'm ever going to be able to go outside in the sun again.

Repeatedly ignoring the requests I made for specific treatment until past the point where I needed it anymore, not informing me how the service I was going to be working with for 2 years even worked in something so basic as "what is this for? what will happen to me if I get a diagnosis they can't give me specialised care for?", telling an 11 year old child that suicidal ideation is "not that serious", a fundamental misunderstanding of what I needed and wanted to hear ('normal' is not a helpful word. 'normal' tells me 'suck it up, everyone experiences this and they're all fine, you're normal, just think better' why are they all so adamant that I am normal? Not even considering my mental health I am an autistic bisexual gnc trans guy, we went past whatever 'normal' means a long time ago, fucking listen to me), at every single step of the way this system has left me in the same state I was before, the only improvement being through support from my friends, fucking Childline (gd fucking bless Childline volunteers, but still, I shouldn't have been getting so little support that that felt like my only option), mental health masterposts on Tumblr, chats with my (luckily) very nice guidance counselor (they're called pastoral teachers here but I know most folks reading this are American or are most familiar with the American school system) and what amounts to gritting my teeth and getting through it.

It was worth it, of course my life was worth it, of course I say the same thing every person who's attempted suicide says, I'm more grateful than words could possibly express that I survived, that I get to go home in a few minutes and feed my kitten and write and message my friends, but for fucks sake it didn't need to be this hard. And it doesn't need to be this hard. I'm not out of the woods yet, I'm still waiting on that second appointment with this charity, I'm still 3+ months behind at school, and I'm one of the lucky ones. My boyfriend has been hurt worse by CAMHS, left even more isolated than I was, even more traumatised by the way he was treated, and every single person I know who's been in this system agrees that it's deeply, deeply flawed.

I don't want people to have competitions over who's medical experiences are worse, who's country has the worst mental health system, who's been the most traumatised by their psychiatrists or lack thereof, please. Please don't make this the suffering Olympics. I'm just making this post cause I know, I know that other people have had similar experiences, whether with CAMHS or whatever their equivalent is. Mental health services need serious reform that puts patients first, listens to their needs and requests, that is well funded and well staffed by people who care about their patients wellbeing more than they care about controling other people's lives.

Austerity in the UK is a huge reason why this happened the way it did- my first psychologist left the service to go work somewhere that pays better, leaving just one newly-graduated psychologist that clearly had no idea what she was doing and didn't care to sympathise or show compassion for me.

This shit needs to change, because kids need help, and this is not good enough.

#mine #newt writes #oh boy ask to tag #tw s/h mention #tw school #suicidal ideation #tw eating stuff #tw food #tw eating #ed mention #tw suicide mention #ok to rb

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