The Mental Health System in the UK Failed Us

It is impossible to make it on your own within the current mental health system in the UK if you suffer from serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, chronic depression or bipolar disorder. By ‘making it’ I mean to live. Live life with some decency and hope. Enjoy small pleasures in life. Smile because you catch a happy moment in life. Have friends around. Go out for music gigs or cinema. Wishing to be alive.

My father helped me: that’s why I am still here! Just not in the UK that I love deeply. I was lucky to get out and return to my home in the Netherlands.

It’s more than a broken mental health system there, it’s hell.

You don’t get help on time. Even when you go by yourself to the emergency department you might see a consultant psychiatrist 24 hours later, which is too late when you are on the brink of psychosis. I was in full blown ‘psychosis’ by the time the doctors finally showed up, and even then, I had to convince them I needed help. Urgent help. Whatever I experienced in a psychosis, I found that I needed a safe place to process it. Doctors and nurses around to help me not to get into trouble. When in psychosis, one loses control over life, and may need urgent, immediate help.

However, once you get into the system, it’s almost impossible to get out. You are stuck in a psychiatric hospital for at least a month, usually sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

It’s a prison. Due to lack of staff at NHS (the medical system in the UK) you are left to rot. No walks, no art therapy any longer, no one to support you. They used to have a gym, church service, music sessions, even karaoke. It’s all gone. There aren’t enough nurses, and those who are still there have to spend all their time on administration, writing notes, instead of caring after the patients. It used to be so different when I first arrived in 2008. They even had dog therapy and a masseuse who would give you a free head massage. They used to have a ‘green’ room where one could play a guitar or just chill. Something changed since then. Being mentally unwell has become a crime.

To get rid of you, due to lack of beds, you are forced to accept lithium, a sentence in the long term for some. It’s the cheapest drug on the market, that can lead to kidney failure. There are better meds available on the market in other countries. I don’t understand the reason as to why they impose on you such a meagre choice. It is super weird to feel that you are a shame. An unwanted element of the society. You really feel it, the hatred.

You are punished for being ill. Stigma around mental illness (or condition as I prefer to call it) is huge in England. Due to lack of staff at NHS they hire external agency workers who hate you. They chat loudly, next to your door at night, while you try to sleep and watch you, without any compassion or empathy. You just want to run out and die. I would have done it, if not for my son. He needs me.

Their bragging about accepting mental health disability at the workplace is bullshit. Every time I disclosed my disability while applying for a job, I wasn’t even invited for an interview, including at the university where I was already working for years, can you imagine??? They just prolonged my casual, zero-hour contract, instead of offering me stability and a break. It’s very tough to live when you aren’t sure you will be able to buy food the next month. And all that while I am an excellent teacher, earning everything in life based on merit. I have a PhD, two masters’ degrees, teaching qualifications, etc, etc. Students loved me, and I loved my job. But not knowing your future when you are raising a child, while being actually officially disabled (I am diagnosed with bipolar disorder), is an impossible task.

That’s why we just left the country all together, me and my son. No need to tell me ‘just go back to your country’, I left by myself, in tears.

The aftercare after the hospital is nonexistent. They don’t have enough staff. They are desperate to write you off. After they released me from the hospital on 15 mg of aripiprazole, I saw my new (they always changed) psychiatrist a month later. I am not kidding. He knew nothing about me, saying that maybe it was time that I stop my meds. I stared at him in shock, thinking he was joking, but he wasn’t. I couldn’t sleep on aripiprazole, which is essential for someone who is vulnerable to psychosis (like me). Eventually I ‘saved’ myself due to the fact that I had a stock of quetiapine in my house. I just switched to it in order to be able to sleep, and presented it as fait accompli to my GP, who prescribed me the medication without any questions.

I wish I could add something positive about the UK mental health system but I can’t.

Today they want to cut benefits of the most fragile and vulnerable group of people. They want to cut the disability payment (called PIP) that is almost impossible to get in the first place. I was on it, because my assessor was kind. She saw I wasn’t lying, I could barely stand on my feet. I wanted to die. The disability allowance helped me to feel a bit less stressed about money that I didn’t have enough in the first place. Their whole benefit system is just stupid, no excuse. It’s called universal credit, which goes down when you start working, where you end up much worse off. You won’t be able to get PIP while working. They think it’s as simple like that. That people just don’t want to work. They don’t understand that mental distress is real. They don’t get it that someone can work only part-time, or maybe not able to work at all. It’s a hard job when you are overdosed on their cheap drugs, unable to get out of bed in the morning. And this is the daily reality of the majority of British people who struggle with mental health. They are treated like rats.

We all want to work, but can’t because it’s discouraged by the whole benefit system. Not that you can actually live on it. Most of us are very poor, sometimes homeless. I told you already, my father helped me. Without him I would probably be on the street, with my child ending up in social care, and they do threaten you with taking away your child when you are not complying. When you don’t take your medication, when you raise your voice and ask for some legal rights, when you are simply trying to get better and live.

The whole system is broken and I pray for my friends in Great Britain. They need a reform, not cuts or euthanasia. Will the current government listen? Is there any hope left?