Update

[Content warning: suicide]

So I moved my blog here yesterday, and doing that meant I read it, and that triggered a lot of thoughts/memories and the anger that goes with it, especially since nothing has really changed. I still don't have appropriate care -- the only care I have is a cleaner for two hours a week (which my current social worker didn't even know I had, never mind that they were paying for it). I'm still being failed by the services that are meant to be helping, because they still won't adapt properly and still won't get the right people to help (it shouldn't feel like asking for the world to ask to see people who understand autism, but apparently it is). They barely communicate with me at all now -- despite deciding that they'll only read and reply to my emails on a Wednesday, they still don't reply. It's made Wednesdays fucking awful because either they'll email with whatever they want to say or they won't email at all. They don't reply to what I've actually written, so either way I get mad with them.

The main things that have changed are that I stopped feeling actively suicidal, and I tried again to get sent to prison. I'm still passively suicidal, thinking everyone would be better off without me and it'd be a lot easier if I just died, but I'm not actively trying to kill myself now. And I obviously failed to get sent to prison, but I got another criminal record and I'm on probation, which I can't do so I'll be back in court at some point. Probation wouldn't listen that I couldn't do it and that it's causing unbearable stress. I asked them to take it back to court (as it says you can do in the community order) but they wouldn't. They told me to appeal, but nobody told me that there's a three week time limit to appeal until I got a letter from my solicitor three weeks after I'd been in court, so it was too late. I'd already emailed them to say that probation had told me that I needed to appeal, but I got no response. So it's more problems with more services/companies because they don't understand autism (probation has no autism training or knowledge) or just don't communicate/reply (the solicitors were great in person but terrible at communicating by email and I can't speak on the phone).

So a comment I made in the last blog about trying to get things written while I could was because of trying to get sent to prison and not having internet access there. But I still haven't written, because it's difficult, because I'm already struggling without purposefully going over things that have happened to write about them. I still want to do it, I need to do it, but I don't know how to do it without it having a huge negative impact on me, because I just get upset and angry. It's traumatic to think about all the times I've been failed by people who were meant to help, and it's still happening, and there's no help to deal with things as they happen or afterwards. Even advocacy "couldn't identify what they could help me with", and said it "wasn't their job" to help me go through emails to find the information for complaints to make sure they were accurate and so that I didn't have to deal with doing that on my own. I tried to find a solicitor to help but just went round in circles with them passing me on to someone else until I was passed back to someone who'd already told me they couldn't help.

It's a nightmare that I can't see a way out of other than prison or death -- or someone actually fucking helping, but that seems unlikely given the past few years. I don't know if prison will help but I need a break from the overwhelm of life, and some distance from my house/environment so I'm not surrounded by everything and can hopefully think. My brain doesn't work properly anymore.

Oh and the cat charity has agreed to take Emily back, we're just waiting for a space. They were going to take her last month but they had an emergency and cancelled. I'm gutted at parting with her but she needs someone who can look after her properly. She's got more medical issues and I physically can't get medication into her, so she's suffering because she's with me.

Waiting

 

Things I'm still waiting for or questions that haven't been answered.

In no particular order, just as I think of things, I'll be adding to it. There's a lot, and I can't remember how long I've been asking for most of it.

A new CTR (care and treatment review).

The last time I was sectioned (March/April 2024), I was discharged before I had a CTR. I said I still wanted a CTR at home, they said I could still have a CTR at home, then they cancelled my CTR after I was discharged.

They've since told me that I need to be on the DSR (dynamic support register) to get a CTR (which is untrue), and that an urgent CTR would be an LAEP (local area emergency protocol), when they know that I'm asking for an actual CTR that I'm involved in.

Four handwritten A4 pages of previous CTR actions that haven't been done, from four different CTRs since 2020.

A printed copy of the final CTR report from July 2023.

Respite care.

I had six weeks a year pre-agreed at a care home, but it's never available and they haven't found anywhere else for me to go. Now they're saying that I need a new care assessment to get any care.

Adapted social care assessment.

I've been asking for a new, adapted care assessment (clear, written questions) for getting on for two years now. They've been telling me that I need a new care assessment since around March(?) this year, told me they would look into adapting it and I haven't heard anything about an adapted assessment since, they just keep offering me an appointment to do the assessment in person, knowing that they can't do it that way.

S117 meeting.

I haven't had one since before I left hospital in January 2021. As far as I'm aware, s117 aftercare is meant to be reviewed every year. If they've ever reviewed it, they've done it without involving me and without telling me.

Adapted s117 aftercare assessment.

They say they've adapted it all they can. They haven't. They didn't even tell me I needed it til about 18 months after I was entitled to s117 aftercare, because I apparently "wasn't ready to engage" at the time (I didn't know about it).

I've lost track of all the questions I've asked that I haven't had answers to, because most of the time I don't get replies to my emails. (And then they wonder why I keep emailing...) It's things like:

• do I still have my direct payments for carers?

• can I be switched to the virtual wallet/can you give me information about it so I can know whether it's suitable?

• are you looking for respite care? (though I know the answer is no)

• what happened to the clear information that transforming care and LPFT social care were putting together for me?

• why aren't you helping/where is the help?

• are you adapting the care assessment?

• do I have a new psychiatrist/care coordinator? (been discharged now, never got new ones)

• how does prescription delivery work?

(I can't think properly at the moment, I just wanted to put something down in case I don't get a chance again for some time.)

 

[Moved from another blog. The date/time are from the original post.] 

Lies

Things I've been told, or that have been said about me, that are untrue. And, where appropriate, what actually happened, to the best of my knowledge.

This is in no particular order. I'll be adding to it when I think of things, and editing for clarity, to add details or to make any corrections (I have memory issues, I remember things wrong/get things confused sometimes -- conveniently for services who can then claim I'm unreliable while they keep trying to rewrite what happened). I'll try to log any edits.

I thought I'd be able to think of loads of things but I'm struggling to think. It's frustrating.

[Content warning: self harm, suicide, hospitals, police, mental health services, traumatic experiences]

I need to be on the DSR (dynamic support register) to have a CTR (care and treatment review).

MHLDA (mental health, learning disability and autism) team, May(?) 2024.

Being autistic doesn't make me vulnerable so I don't need an appropriate adult (in custody).

Lincs Police, November 2019.

I walked into traffic on a dual carriageway.

HM courts (section 2 appeal), November 2020.

Never happened. The only thing I can think of is I walked towards the bypass, but stopped before I got there. I couldn't speak to explain, I was trying to get arrested not kill myself. My family were there and they thought I was going to walk into the road on the bypass, that's why I stopped before I got there.

I put myself in danger on a road.

Lincs Police, September 2020.

Didn't happen. I was walking on the path and was crossing or about to cross a road in front of offices/flats when the police stopped me and sectioned me after leaving PCDU (psychiatric clinical decisions unit). The road wasn't the danger.

Antisocial behaviour (lying on the ground) outside the hospital, and I'd been assessed as medically fit to leave.

Hospital staff/security and Lincs Police, November 2021.

I was still affected by an overdose. Hospital staff had failed in my care and told me I was in the way, they didn't have time for this, etc, as I was on the floor in the corridor trying to get some actual care after being left in a side room and not assessed because I couldn't do what they wanted. I only got a blood test because I was on the floor in the corridor. I wasn't assessed at all. I couldn't cope and needed to lie down, and they'd sat me in a wheelchair, so I went outside and laid down. The police picked me up and left me outside my house. I was in and out of consciousness. I couldn't see properly and couldn't get in the door. My neighbours found me an hour later, I got more care from them than anyone else that day.

I took an overdose of [multiple medications].

Hospital staff, October 2020, June 2024 (and likely more dates).

Assumptions/wrongly recording what I actually took, making it sound like I took far more than I did.

I refused to engage/refused support.

So many people, too many times to remember.

Often they wouldn't adapt, or their idea of help wasn't helpful.

I threatened to start a fire (in hospital while sectioned).

Psychiatrist and nurse, November 2020.

I said I didn't want to start a fire. I meant it literally. I'd thought of it and ruled it out straight away. I get why they misunderstood at the time, but not after I explained repeatedly that it wasn't what I said or what I meant. I was highly distressed and couldn't cope in the hospital, and I thought I'd have to break the law to get sent to prison instead. And their reaction (taking most of my stuff out of my room to "make it safe", which they said the next day was done in error) caused more distress.

They've adapted the s117 aftercare assessment as much as they can.

MHLDA team/LPFT (Lincolnshire partnership foundation trust) social care, 2024.

They haven't. They haven't replied to anything I wrote in/about it since July 2023.

They cancelled my next psychiatrist appointment so that they could make another appointment with reasonable adjustments.

CMHT (community mental health team), 2022(?).

They never made another appointment. They thought I didn't want one. I asked for a new psychiatrist (I struggle with strong accents) and never got one before I was discharged by CMHT in April 2024.

I would get stabilisation therapy.

Transforming care, 2022(?).

Then they said appointments were destabilising and they'd continue to support me by email (there was no support by email).

They'll be there for as long as I'll see them.

Transforming care, 2021.

Then they changed everything in February 2022. The person I was seeing left, they changed to a short-medium term service. They blew apart everything I thought I knew about my care and then wondered why I couldn't cope with all the changes.

I'm well enough to be discharged.

Crisis team, May(?) 2024.

They never assessed me so couldn't know that.

----

(Added 16/11/24, afternoon)

Helping me includes helping my cat.

Transforming care, 2021/22.

MHLDA team/social care have since told me that they have no responsibility to help my cat/help me with looking after my cat.

Managing my direct payments myself would make me an employer.

LPFT social care, 2022(?).

I'd use care companies/self employed people, not directly employ people myself.

I demanded an English AMHP (approved mental health professional) at my MHAA (mental health act assessment).

AMHP/MHA assessors, October 2023.

I asked for written questions as a reasonable adjustment, which they refused and said they'd get an English AMHP instead, making out that I was being racist when I have a processing difficulty with strong accents (which includes English accents).

 

[Moved from another blog. The date/time are from the original post. I can't add all the tags because there's a limit of 20.]

Some emails to services

[Content warning: suicide, trauma, self harm]

[I get it that they won't like my attitude. I can't say I'm proud of it myself. I thought I'd said things a bit differently, but I know I was (and still am) highly distressed. I don't know why they don't understand that, or that I wouldn't be so distressed if I was getting care and/or getting replies/any hint that they're actually receiving and reading my emails and that they give a fuck.]


26 October 2023, 23:07

To: s75 social care, MHLDA team

CC: transforming care

Subject: Re: Hello

I'm still waiting for my last care assessment report, a month later, despite having been SECTIONED and still being told nothing about what's happening with my care, when I was asked to stay voluntarily in hospital while you arranged my care at home. a) I can't stay where it's TORTURE and b) you haven't arranged my care in nearly three years, you're not going to sort it in a hospital stay. You didn't do anything in the nearly three weeks I was in hospital/told I was sectioned. You were meant to be looking for respite care and you did nothing. You DO NOT NEED MY CONSENT TO LOOK FOR RESPITE CARE, YOU ALREADY HAD IT, YOU WERE MEANT TO BE LOOKING FOR IT.

I'll be back at the ICB in [redacted] to get answers if you keep ignoring me. I should've taken a tent with me.

I'm waiting for:

- my last social care assessment with my edits added

- adapted social care assessment questions

- a printed copy of the last CTR

- someone who can adapt the s117 assessment and not put it in an electronic form

- a printed copy of the PACT assessment letter

- a copy of the last mental health liaison report

- answers about what's happening with my CTR/CTR review, virtual wallet, independent review of my care, respite care that's suitable for when I want to go, how to appeal the ICB's decision to deny out of area autism help, carers at home, trauma therapy (I have more trauma now thanks to being sectioned in inappropriate hospitals again), someone who understands autism to help me figure out and understand my needs, a central point of contact that WAS a CTR action, new psychiatrist and care coordinator and social worker. I've probably missed things because there's so much I've had no response to.

I contacted [care company 1] and [care company 2] . [Care company 1] have no availability and [care company 2] haven't replied (I hope all their staff don't talk about their clients behind their back like the two at [psych ward] did). I haven't heard back from the place that looks for respite care since they asked for my social worker's contact details.

[No reply]

---

27 October 2023, 00:39

To: MHLDA team, s75 social care, transforming care, Lincs ICB feedback

(No subject)

I don't know how I'm supposed to live with all of this in my head, and you won't help me. 

I don't have medication to make myself sleep every night, so I'm tormented by what you have and haven't done, and now there's more of it.

I can't live like this. I don't want to. You section me for asking for help, expect me to stay where it's torture to wait for you to organise care that you haven't for years, then just leave me to struggle without help until I die. 

I will never understand your idea of help. It's not help. That's why so many people are dying.

[No reply]

---

27 October 2023, 06:02

To: MHLDA team, s75 social care, transforming care, Lincs ICB feedback

(No subject)

I either can't sleep or I'm dreaming about being in psych hospitals where I'm worse than I was in reality. And I don't know it's not real until I wake up, so I've just been trying to kill myself and being injected in a dream. And then Emily's meowing at me. I'm getting less sleep than I was in hospital and being tortured by/in my dreams. You've made things even worse.

[No reply]

---

31 October 2023, 00:50

To: MHLDA team, s75 social care

(No subject)

A week after discharge and still you've done nothing. Why am I still surprised by your failures in my care? 

You can't/won't even do basic things like send me a copy of my last care assessment that I was never sent and that I've asked for repeatedly in the last five(?) weeks. You were meant to send it to the [redacted] hospital too. You just don't care.

I'll be on your doorstep again to wait for the care that you're meant to be arranging and can't be bothered to.

I'd have been tortured in hospital for another week while you still did nothing. My care needs moving away from you so I can actually get care before I die.

[No reply]

---

1 November 2023, 04:51

To: MHLDA team

Subject: Re: CTR

Do I start marking the days you don't reply in [redacted self harm]? I don't know what to do when you just ignore me. Not a thing from anyone since my discharge, when you're meant to be arranging care. You don't care about me, you don't care if I live or die, you've made that very clear. How can you just not reply?? It's blatant discrimination!

WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH MY CARE? WHO IS DOING WHAT AND WHEN WILL I HEAR ANYTHING???

You disgust me. I've been out of hospital for over a week and still nothing. How is this care?? Weeks and still no previous care assessment, no adapted questions for my care assessment, still nobody to do the s117 assessment. Where is everyone?? What are you doing? When will you tell me anything???

[No reply]

---

1 November 2023, 18:13

To: MHLDA team, transforming care

(No subject)

I can't take much more. I can't fight for nonexistent help. Where's any help on discharge? You've done nothing. You can't even be bothered to reply to my emails. PACT say they're not getting involved in anything outside of structured clinical management, so where's the help for PTSD caused by you torturing me again? Where's the trauma therapy, for trauma caused by you? You don't care, you just want me to die quietly. It's not happening, it'll be on your doorstep and as loud as I can make it.

I'm tired of struggling and nobody caring.

[No reply]

---

3 November 2023, 08:43

To: s75 social care, MHLDA team

CC: transforming care

Subject: Re: Hello

No reply to anything. You knew what would happen. I'm coming to you to get answers. You're a disgrace. all of you. I've just been in hospital because of you rfailures [sic] in my care, tortured again because of you, and you're still failing to do anything. You won't even reply.

You can ignore me in person. I'm contacting the media. This is discrimination and dangerous ignorance.

[No reply]

---

3 November 2023, 09:49

To: MHLDA team, s75 social care

CC: transforming care

Subject: Respite care

Have you found respite care for me to go to when I need it? Because I'm likely to need it now. I can't take anymore and you're doing nothing. You can't or won't reply to emails, haven't answered a single question or sent any of the documents I need.

I'm coming to get them. I hope someone's there. Do I go to [LPFT location] or [ICB offices]? Social care is at [LPFT location] is it? Transforming care too? So much for help, haven't heard a thing. Not one person can be bothered to contact me, reply or do anything to help with my care. 

I can't remember what transforming care said, nobody wrote anything down from ward rounds, knowing that I can't remember things and it's even worse when it's highly stressful. And not one person at the last ward round said what my needs were at ward round. Cameras on for you, off for me, so it was a bunch of blank screens and people talking to me outside the room and I couldn't speak or walk into the room because they didnt seem to know I'd struggle to speak despite having written it down beforehand. Why does nothing get noted? I had to start again with everything, just for a weekend in a different hospital.

[No reply]

---

3 November 2023, 10:07

To: MHLDA team

(No subject)

I need a CTR. I can't take this. I need that independent review of my care too. Have you started yet?

[Reply on 6 November about being in touch to arrange a CTR.]

---

9 November 2023, 13:30

To: MHLDA team

CC: s75 social care, transforming care

Subject: Re: 

That's it?

I've heard nothing about my care since I discharged myself -- I'd heard nothing about my care before then, that's why I was sectioned: going to wait for respite care, that still nobody has done anything about. There's literally a company that will find respite care for me, but nobody has replied to them and they need a reply from you before they can help.

I've received none of the documents I've asked for, despite going to [LPFT location] last Friday with a list of documents and questions I'm still waiting for/for answers about. The list was made mostly from emails I've already sent that nobody has bothered to reply to.

You're either incredibly incompetent or intentionally denying access to care and adaptations.

Who leaves somebody with no care, yet again, after torturing them in hospital under section again? Two and a half weeks and nothing. PACT will not get involved in my care. I don't remember what transforming care said they could do, it was at ward round, nothing was written down for me. 

I'm about to give up again. If none of you care whether I live or die, why should I care?

You're not even paying my cleaner again. So much for managed direct payments. They can't even manage to pay one invoice a week.

[No reply]

---

14 November 2023, 16:53

To: s75 social care, MHLDA team

CC: transforming care

Subject: Re: Hello

Still no response from anyone and I've received none of the things I requested in this email [26 October 2023} and repeated in the handwritten notes I wrote and took to [LPFT location] on Friday 3 November (which included a formal letter to request a new psychiatrist dated 3 November, since nobody has responded to multiple requests by email to change my psychiatrist).

You can tell that to the CTR panel. 

I hope I won't have to wait til after my CTR to get the documents and answers I need? 

[No reply. I'm still waiting for all but one of the documents. The CTR was a disaster that I'll write about separately.]

---

14 November 2023, 19:38

To: MHLDA team, s75 social care

Subject: Respite care

Have you found respite care yet?

Have you replied to the company that can find respite care for you that need to speak to you before they can look for anything? 

It's beyond a joke now. I need to know where I can go for respite care. And if you need more information, you need to send me the documents I need and you and respite places need to adapt.

Your failures in my care are still going to kill me at this rate. I can't deal with all the unnecessary CTR emails already, and you ignored things from last time so you're still making the same wrong assumptions.

Where's the support coming from to prepare for the CTR? Respite care is one thing you can organise to help. Where am I going and when? Or are you still all discriminating?

[No reply]

---

20 November 2023, 19:19

To: s75 social care, MHLDA team

CC: transforming care

Subject: Re: Hello

Please urgent answer the questions/send me the documents I requested in the email below sent nearly a month ago, which were also in the handwritten notes I brought to [LPFT location] on 3 November trying to get answers/the documents I need.

It's way beyond a joke. It's discrimination. None of you have bothered to contact me since I was in hospital. My care and my life mean nothing to you.

[No reply]

---

20 November 2023, 22:41

To: transforming care, MHLDA team, s75 social care

(No subject)

Where has everyone been for the last four weeks?? How do you leave someone who's just come out of hospital, after I've been made worse in hospital, with no care? Nothing? Where are you? Where's the social care? Where's the respite care? Where are transforming care? Not one of you has bothered to contact me or reply about my care apart from my CTR, which I only need because I STILL HAVE NO APPROPRIATE CARE.

I was asked to stay in hospital while my care was sorted. Four weeks later, what are you doing? Where is my care? What have you been doing for the last four weeks?? I haven't heard a thing about what anyone is doing in relation to my care. How can you just exclude me, or even worse, have done nothing in that time??

I can't live like this. I won't live much longer. I don't want to. I just have to get through Christmas somehow. Which gives you an excuse to carry on doing nothing because I shouldn't die in the next month. I don't want to ruin Christmas for everyone for the rest of their lives.

How can you be care professionals? You don't care. You've just left me with no help. After not being at the last ward round because none of you said that you didn't need your cameras off, and none of you appear to have told the doctor that I wouldn't be able to speak and would be anxious. I had, I'd written it and given it to staff, but he didn't know, and none of you said anything while I couldn't speak and was too anxious to walk into the room with a wall of blank screens and not knowing where the camera was. It was all new and nobody who actually knew me, who should know my needs in Teams meetings by now, nobody said a word. You just left. After one of you having lied to the doctor about me refusing respite care that was available and met my needs. I still haven't looked back at the emails but I know that I did not refuse respite care that was available and met my needs. I know that when I said it was too hot to leave Emily [my cat] in the house and that I looked disgusting because of a spot, I said I couldn't go to respite care YET. It didn't stay hot, I didn't stay looking disgusting, and I'm not aware of ANY respite care that was both available and met my needs. And if it was the autism specialist place [redacted] as the doctor said, THEY TURNED ME DOWN. I wouldn't have gone to the ICB to wait for respite care if there had been respite care that was available and met my needs! You just twist everything and twist the knife when you do.

I don't know why I'm bothering. You don't reply, you probably don't read my emails, you don't care. Last ditch attempt to get some kind of support. PACT isn't it.

[No reply. I've made so many "last" attempts to get help I can understand why they don't believe me; I've become a liar because I'm still alive and still asking for help from people who don't even bother to reply.]

 

[Moved from another blog. The date/time are from the original post.]

I'm confusing myself...

 ...about what to write here and what to write in my other blog.

[Content warning: suicide]

I wanted this to be to share my experiences of being failed, but I also didn't/don't want to fill my other blog with my ramblings about being suicidal. As far as I'm concerned, being suicidal is entirely connected to the failures in my care: lack of appropriate help/support; being made worse by failures to adapt properly, atrocious communication, professionals with little to no training or understanding of autism (it's not a mental health problem so why am I told to see mental health services??), completely inappropriate hospital admissions in torturous psych wards. Because I shouldn't have deteriorated to this with the right help/support at the right time. So anything about being suicidal probably belongs here. Unless it's old/unconnected to failures in my care, because I have been suicidal before. Why do I think this is different and not just me being suicidal? Because of the reactions that services trigger. They actively make things worse, and I really don't understand why they do that when they're meant to help and could help at times but just... haven't. They cause more stress rather than helping to reduce stress. And they expect things from me that I just can't do/deal with. 

It's nearly three years that I've been entitled to s117 aftercare after a section 3, and for almost half of that I didn't even know there was an assessment I was meant to have had but I apparently told someone I "wasn't ready to engage" (I knew nothing about it), and the other half has been trying to get them to adapt the questions so I can do the assessment. Three years. They've had over five years since I asked for help this time. All that time they could have been doing stuff to help (for some of it they did try), but they've mostly wasted it on making me worse.

I'm exhausted and I don't want to keep struggling all the time just to do the basics. I can't do everything, but I can't not do things either, so I keep hurting myself to do things (because of my physical disabilities), or beating myself up mentally when I haven't done things. There's so much to do. I can't see how I can ever do it. I don't know what I want anymore, I'm completely overwhelmed and drowning and I just need it to stop. I can't see any answers that don't bring more (or different) problems. I can't just walk away and leave my cat, I wouldn't be able to live with myself anyway, and I wouldn't know where to go either. It's not where I am that's the problem (though it has problems, but so would anywhere else). It's me not being able to function and needing help but not getting the right help and not knowing how to cope with help either. I'm disintegrating. And the people who are meant to help are nowhere. Their idea of help is sending the police round to do a welfare check that just checks whether I'm alive, who tell me there's help when I wouldn't be like this if there was help, and blame me for refusing help when I tell them what they're suggesting isn't help. Autism isn't a mental health problem. Autistic burnout isn't a mental health problem. I need people who actually understand, not more gaslighting.

I'm dependent on taking tablets to help me sleep every night now. I can't face going over stuff in my head and not being able to sleep and getting more stressed and distressed. (Yes I know writing this at night maybe isn't helpful, but I don't seem to get round to it during the day.) I couldn't get up to my cat last night the third time she meowed during the night because I was too tired, possibly due to the tablets. They're not sleeping tablets, it's diazepam and cocodamol. Together they seem to make me drowsy enough to get to sleep easily. I was taking them occasionally to help but now it's every night, and that bothers me. I'd like to just be able to sleep and not worry about what shit's going to be going through my head tonight to keep me awake and rigid with tension.

I'm getting tired now because of the tablets.

 

[Moved from another blog. The date/time are from the original post.] 

Not sure this is going to work

[CW: suicide, overdose]

Not writing blogs from emails anyway. There are so many of them, and there's so much of my distress in them (I don't know how services can read them and do nothing to help; simple answer is they probably don't read them), I don't want to read it all. There are things that I've forgotten that I can be reminded about from emails. There are emails I wrote after I'd tried to kill myself. I don't want to go over it all, yet a lot of it goes on in my head anyway. I was trying to avoid having to write stuff from scratch, knowing I've probably written it before, and with limited time and difficulty getting started, and my memory isn't great anymore so I don't have clarity for everything that's happened. I don't want to get things wrong/misremember and be accused of lying, even after I'm dead.

There's also a lot that I haven't written. Like I don't think I've ever written the story of most of my sections, what actually led to them (lack of sleep was a factor in most of them). All the stuff I've written in emails will be there for some people to see. Anything I haven't written about will die with me. But then I'm back to not knowing what to write/where to start, and I can't be sure what I haven't written about. I've had years to write stuff and I'm down to my last fortnight-ish. I can't prioritise, I don't know what are the most important parts to write about. I just don't want my experiences and my reality to be drowned out and attempted to be rewritten by professionals who want me to be seen in a certain way to justify their (in)actions, and who often weren't even there. I was there for all of it. I'm biased too, I know that, but I don't have a reputation or career to protect. My reputation went when I was in the news after I tried to get myself sent to prison, thinking I might be able to cope there and have some kind of life. My dignity went at some point in the overdoses and sections, I couldn't say exactly when. My decisions were based on trying to do things that I thought might help, at times when I needed help/support that I wasn't (and I'm still not) getting. And justice sensitivity. I don't know how to live with everything that's happened. And I'm tired of struggling.

It's sad that I'm looking forward to being dead. I'm not looking forward to the dying part though; that's the part I struggle with, that's why I'm still alive. I was meant to die too many times to remember over the last two and a half years. And every time I didn't die, I had experiences that made me have to struggle more. Noisy hospitals; indifferent, ignorant or deliberately nasty professionals; lack of understanding of autism. (I'm getting too tired to think.) It hasn't all been bad but the negatives have far outweighed the rest. 

I wish I could swap places with someone who's dying who wants to live, because it feels so unfair that other people die and they'd probably do anything to live, and I'm not grateful for life, I don't see the point in carrying on. I didn't feel like this before. I've felt suicidal before but it's always been when I'm struggling to cope. And there's no help. No appropriate and stable/predictable help anyway. Just people saying they'll help and then not, or making things worse.

I'm just rambling now. That's not what this blog was meant for. I've got another blog for that.

 

 [Moved from another blog. The date/time are from the original post.] 

PACT emails after assessment

(PACT is the personality and complex trauma service, who were suggested to me in January 2021 but I avoided because of autistic people often being misdiagnosed with personality disorder and the trauma that causes. CMHT were about to dump me, not that they were doing anything but discriminate anyway, so I didn't see any other option to try to survive.)

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16th August 2023

Dear Sarah-Jane,  

Thank you for your email. I am sorry for the length of time it has taken for us to have collaborative discussions with our CMHT colleagues and think carefully with all professionals in our teams about how we may be able to help.  

We have concluded together, that as you have continued to advocate for yourself, that an out of area treatment by a specialist autism service is most likely to be helpful for you. We have made a referral to the out of area treatment panel and will all be strongly advocating for a suitable provider to be identified. If you have any idea of a provider you would like to work with we would be glad to know and can help to make a case for this being funded for you.  

We are extremely grateful that you engaged with [the psychiatrist] and while I acknowledge that you feel this was not a good use of time, it has been helpful in helping us evidence that no local services are best equipped to meet your needs at the moment.  

I cannot make any promises for the outcome of the panel but can assure you that we will do all we can to help them understand why LPFT are not best placed right now, although we continue to hope that you could trust us, in LPFT to support you, in a mental health crisis or with any other mental health difficulties, but know that currently you need support with your autism.  

(Emphasis in bold is mine.)

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21st September 2023

Dear Sarah Jane,

We have met with the Out of Area Treatment panel and whilst they are still very happy to fund a specialist advocate for you, and we hope you can identify someone who you think is helpful and can get along with, they do continue to feel that your needs would be best met in LPFT.

(I'm not including the whole email. It's clear enough that the people who've actually met me and assessed me think I need autism support, which doesn't exist here, but Lincs ICB still disagree and say LPFT can meet my needs while LPFT say they can't meet my needs. I waited over two months from the PACT assessment for them to say I need autism help, and the ICB to refuse out of area autism help for the second time (they refused it in 2019, which is when this all started; it all could've been avoided if they'd got the right help from the right people at the right time).

 

[Moved from another blog. The date/time are from the original post.]