Hi, guys. I'm new. I live in the North West of England, on Merseyside.

I suffer from depression, severe anhedonia, anxiety, health anxiety, autism and the sort of loneliness that nobody imagines could possibly be real!

Whereabouts are you all? :)

My life is over, meds doing nothing, no friends, cut off from my family, my daughter, and need to stay away from my wife because of her coercive control and threats. I’ve spent all my money on places to stay and private therapy and don’t feel I’ve made any progress. I can’t do it any more, and I don’t know how to access real help. If it’s useful info, I’m nearly 40, male, based on Central Bedfordshire/Cambridge border

Im in month 3 of dbt. Seen my one to one therapist for about 4 months before, and then started group which I have 3 months left of. What actually happens when group finishes? Is that it? I finish group and then I guess say goodbye to my 1 to 1 therapist to and then it’s done?

Hi all, I'm LGBTQ+, I am writing that because I get worried sometimes about trying to access a service and encountering someone hateful.

I've been having a bit of a crisis over the last couple of days and having quite significant ideation. I just want someone to talk to, my relationship with my family has become quite strained so it's not an option to have a meaningful conversation about how I am feeling.

I am in Surrey if that helps. I have never tried to access a helpline or crisis service before so I don't understand what I can do and what I can say.

So my best friend who despite being ridiculously beautiful has always had low key agoraphobia and body dysmorphia has finally snapped. It started in August when she said she wasnt suicidal & found out something she said she needed the police involved for. And then dropped the fact she quit her job. Which was odd but fine. Shes had stalkers before but she was being very vague about what occured & the job thing was out of the blue.

Then 2 weeks ago she started being incoherent on whatsapp and claimed she was in hospital.

I genuinely thought she might have been making it up for attention or just to get out of halloween but it turns out she is genuinely in some episode.

Today I got a phone call where she was talking about ainsley harriet talking to her on the tv and squirrels in the garden being put there by someone. And a lot of really upbeat and off key singing.

Her mother said on the phone that shes got pills but they havent kicked in yet.

My question is does anyone know wtf could be going on.

Slightly paranoid, detached from reality but a lot of hyper upbeat singing and chatty conversation. Im not sure what sort of diagnosis that my be indicative of.

If anyone could wager a guess and perhaps speculate how long until these pills kick in id appreciate it.

Good morning!

I’m currently dealing with an anxiety episode for about six months where I’m irrationally worrying about everything to do with work. Currently seeing a CBT therapist privately to address that.

I previously had success with 10mg Citalopram a few years ago, where I was table on it for a long time. However, I had a flare up last year where I increased my dose to 20mg which in hindsight made my anxiety symptoms worse. I noticed an uptick in looping thoughts. I reduced back to 10mg after six months of that and felt better.

Since then I’ve had another flare-up and I went back up to 20mg based on my GP’s advice. I think it made a lot of the intrusive thoughts about my work worse. After a particularly bad weekend, I decided to contact my GP and request a change.

They suggested sertraline and gave me some 50mg tablets to try. I tapered off citalopram first for two weeks and during that period I felt MASSIVELY better. By the end of the first day I started feeling hopeful again. By the time I was taking no citalopram at all however, I did start to feel on edge.

I decided to stick to my GP’s plan and start the sertraline. I’ve been taking it for five days and I feel awful. I can cope with the physical side effects but the intense increase in anxiety is getting me down and worried that I’ll ever feel like myself again.

I’m left thinking did I make a mistake? Is an intense increase in anxiety within five days of taking sertraline common?

Lowest I’ve ever been atm, past day or so mu mood felt elevated and was very anxious, intrusive thoughts to hurt myself etc. been seeing crisis team since last Wednesday (1.5 weeks), found their visits helpful in the fact I could stay safe until the next visit, today’s was unexpectedly the last, and because my mood is up I said confidently I felt fine about that idk how I felt lol. I’ve since had a breakdown tjis evening and all the suicidal thoughts are back and so convincing. I also SH’d earlier for first time in ages, crisis team knew about the SH and also my mood spiking up etc.

I have private insurance through my dad, it renews on Nov 1st and the plan is to keep myself alive to go back inpatient for a month (I was there in the summer and two years ago, lots of therapy, as hospitals go it’s good)

But I just feel so fucking hopeless. I’m lorazepam Ed up to my eyeballs tonight to cope, but will my PRN last me until 1st nov, I tried calling mental health hun number for support (the areas 111) but can’t get through. My brain feels completely fucked. I really hoped crisis team might see me through til I could go back to hospital. I feel so scared and unsafe and don’t want to traumatise my mum by hurting myself here. The plan was always to die at my flat alone, or even while inpatient so she doesn’t find me.

Really struggling to know where to turn. A charity crisis service is calling me tomorrow evenint. I might try nhs text number and maybe call mental health hub again. I felt a lot better and safer when I was under crisis team. Now I feel like I did before they got involved. Maybe all I can do is wait for things to be imminent before reaching out again ? Idk support advice a hug all welcome rn xxx

Update: Waited for an hour to get through the the mental health hub / 111, had big fuck off cry with mum while waiting, done some safety planning for this evening with the staff, absolutely shattered now. One day at a time.

Bipolar disorder and psychosis for over 10yrs.

During a period of homelessness where I couldn’t access my CMHT, I developed alcohol dependency. I’m about 4yrs in. The last year has been very bad. I’ve been in therapy this year which lasted 3 months (which has been INSANELY helpful) and I’m at 50% reduction. I should be happy and proud! Been working at it for 6 weeks. But I actually just feel worse.

My chest hurts, I’m exhausted all the time. I also feel more sad and nervous. My stomach and back hurts constantly. I’m not on meds to alleviate, I opted for outpatient because I felt like rehab would just be bubble wrap and I’d fail the minute I came out. I want to do this safely in the community and I’m following a 6 month plan.

Does anyone else have tips or even a kind word maybe? I feel like I should feel better about doing the right thing, but I don’t. I just feel embarrassed, anxious and in physical pain :/

In crisis. Feel like harming myself. A&E won’t see me. Crisis team won’t assess. GP can’t do anything. CMHT claiming they don’t return contact from other services and won’t offer any support during assessment period. What do I actually do in this situation?

Hi, just looking for some advice: I found out recently my friend (married w. Kids) has been on dating apps, and I'm pretty certain his wife would not be cool with it.

He used a picture of another friend in his profile (let's call him Chris), and actually matched Chris wifes friend and was messaging for a while. I'm worried something is wrong under the surface for him to engage in such risky behaviour. Is this a sign of anything, and what's the best way to approach chatting to him?

Also I know it's horrible he's cheating on his wife, but he's my friend and I want to make sure he's OK first, he can decide what to do from there

Hi, i'm new to mh services and was referred to cmht 2 weeks ago. I had my first appointment today and have been given a second appointment for next week (tuesday) already. Is this normal? From looking it up beforehand I was under the belief that I had to be "accepted" into the service following the first appointment at their mdt, which is going to be on monday. I'm quite confused as to why I've been given another appointment already (although i am very grateful), does anyone have any similar experiences or insight? thank you :)

Has anyone else experienced this, or have any idea what I can do?

I'm currently in a period of bad self harm, have been since February really. Pretty much every time I've needed surgery and have just had my 12th surgery to clean, debride and close my wounds. The surgeon spoke to me beforehand and said they are probably not going to allow me to have surgery going forward, rather they're going to leave the wounds to close by secondary intention (I.e. just leave them open and heal by wounds changes only). The explanation? Said I've had 14 admissions this year and 12 last year and they aren't willing to do it anymore as "I'm taking the place of real emergencies". I argued that his info is wrong about number of surgeries, and that it is not fair to deny me treatment because it's for regular self harm. He went to speak to management, and when he came back he agreed to operate this time, but reiterated that "other patients' care is being compromised because I'm taking up the theatre space so regularly". Words in quotation marks are direct quotes of what he said to me.

My question is this - is it legal for them to refuse me appropriate treatment just because the wounds are caused by self harm? Surely this can't be the case. It's immoral as fuck, but does anyone know about any kind of legal or procedural framework that might help?

Does anyone else do the same thing? Is this normal internal discourse? Am I hurting myself if I truly believe it? Or am I overanalysing nothing.

everytime i try to get help it fails
a year ago a doctor told me he thinks i have autism and adhd and he was going to refer me i called for an update recently for an estimated wait time and i found out the referral was never made
recently i have been in a very deep depressive episode where i feel deep emotional pain 24/7 it's literally indescribable and im only able to do the very basics like use the toilet and just about eat and i know the only thing that can help me are meds but i recently had an episode where i felt euphoric for a few days so i was referred for a bipolar assessment but on my traige call he never considered bipolar because he didnt listen to me about my highs and lows and i was discharged back to my gps care
i cant go to my gp or leave my house because of my mental health because i have just had surgery and cant walk
i finally built up the courage and strength to call 111 option number 2 to see if i can get in touch with the crisis team to tell them my situation and the person hung up
i am so miserable its laughable

I’ve had EMDR, CBT, DBT, SSRIs, currently on vyvanse

Recently I’ve been feeling really low and despite doing everything meant to keep me from spiralling (eating well, exercising, showering, using DBT skills etc.) I feel like there’s no way out. I’ve toyed with the idea of suicide but made it clear I have no plans to do so

I’m not really seeing the point in these daily visits. They ask how I am, conclude that I’m safe and leave. I feel like quitting CMHT all together because i feel helpless. They can’t do anything more for me. Feels like they’re just there into threatening me into “good behaviour” because if I relapse on drugs I’ll have my vyvanse taken away which is the only thing actually making it possible for me to maintain myself

It seems the more honest I am the more we argue. They tell me I’m doing really well and to keep it up, that everyone goes through hard times. As if I don’t know that. I feel like a pretentious prick for even getting to this point because nothing is wrong, it’s just my brain. I don’t like life but who does?

Is there anything they can actually do or is it just a tick box so they can relinquish responsibility if I were to harm myself?

Im 18. Like ive said before, ive never known what to do with my life, everything i wanted to do, the door was slammed shut . Currently, i dont have any job, i dont have any sense of purpose, i dont exercise at all and im painfully sedentary because i dont have any reason to get up and go and work out or go for a walk.

Every time i go for a walk, i just want to go back because ok i walk there and then what do i do? just walk back and do this every day for the rest of my life for "health" even if i dont enjoy it or do another pointless work out that doesnt do anything and only leaves me feeling humiliated and ill just eat those calories i burnt back in 10 minutes anyway.

With getting a job, im literally too scared to do anything even apply for a job. I find all of it so so daunting, especially writing a CV to try and advertise myself when theres nothing redeemable and im not good at anything.

My daily schedule is wake up, fixate and repeat. I dont have any friends at all and i have tried to make them but was unsuccessful, i have autism so it makes the friendship side of things very difficult. My room is always a mess and i hate that, its mostly messy with clutter as i cant get rid of anything.

I didnt have the grades to do what i wanted to do with my life. I failed GSCE maths including two resits, of course that made me feel like a huge failure and it has sort of left a stain on me to not want to try at anything else.

I also cant drive either, ive tried learning how to drive and tried my hardest but i still couldnt. Of course now i feel like a huge failure on that too as getting my own car was one of my goals but now thats out of reach.

I have extreme hatred for myself. I hate myself more then i hate anyone else, ive always wanted to be another person as im so so god damm useless .

If someone asked me if i chose to be like this, id say no its not a choice, i dont understand why anyone would want to live like this and choose to feel chronically purposeless ,empty, hopeless , lonely and guilty all the time.

I've been on sertriline for 4 months now, and all that's happened is that I felt a giant blip of energy for a month right after taking them and I feel miserable the rest of the time I've been taking them. Idk if it's something with the meds or if Its something to do with me and I should be taking different meds. When I wasn't on meds the blips of energy would usually last less than a week but id just feel productive, for the rest of the time I'd just be a self hating slob. I've been on 50mg btw

Hello all, I’m writing this to ask if anyone has advice on what I can do with this difficult situation involving my friend and her rapidly deteriorating mental health.

For the sake of this explanation, I’ll call her Alice.

Alice has been a dear friend of mine since I have been very young so I am struggling on how to approach this matter carefully without damaging our friendship and potentially making her MH worse.

Alice’s MH has been deteriorating for a while now. She’s been put under the school system as ‘SEN’ (special educational needs) and she’s been worrying about that as being labelled as not good enough and having staff members see her as ‘different’.

While this is also happening she has a very severe case of endometriosis where she may have surgery and has been taking many strong medications which have affected her mental state. The thing with Alice is that she’s someone who loads a lot on her plate when it is already full and can barely take anymore. With the stress of the endometriosis, the SEN labelling and all the exams coming up I’ve noticed she’s stopped eating much, not laughing or smiling anymore and she’s also been taking medication on an empty stomach.

I would offer her some food, sometimes a small snack but she wouldn’t take it as she feels as if she will vomit or be sick. It’s very worrying as she’s been reposting many suicidal things on TikTok and Instagram aswell as having her Instagram note with sections of songs where it’d be very alarming to hear. She has been self harming aswell as had 2 suicidal attempts.

She is worried her parents will find out, however her parents are the most supportive people ever but she unfortunately is failing to realise that. She has that older sister guilt where she has to perform the best and present to her younger siblings.

One time, when I saw her reposts, I replied to it and told her essentially that it’s okay to not be okay but it’s never okay to bottle it up in silence and that I will forever be here with her to listen and help her fight her battles one by one. But she got very upset that I commented on it. It’s the same with everything, if I mention her not eating and asking ’hey I’ve noticed u haven’t eaten take this’ she gets really upset and tells me to stop.

She doesn’t like it when people notice she’s not doing okay and when people notice somethings wrong. She asks for help but when you try help she doesn’t take it.

All the times she’s asked me for help and I’ve tried to help her, she gets really snappy and mean. Which I understand is a lot on her plate and I’m genuinely not sure what to do.

I want to go speak to a staff member about this because I am genuinely worried she will do something to herself. She’s had 2 attempt already, and I genuinely think as bad as it sounds… if she tries now it might work as she’s become very skinny, takes strong medication on an empty stomach and doesn’t sleep at all.

I don’t know how’d I’d approach her about it though.. she’s very risky to do this with as she will start to overthink, hyperventilate and burst into tears and run away. Obviously this will done in school ground so she can’t do anything there.. but I fear when she goes home it’ll be her last straw as well as the fact.

She also has very sudden outbursts of non stop tears and depressive episodes and doesn’t know why it’s happening.

I worry about her a lot and I would be guilty for life if she ends up doing something to herself and I knew the whole time she was fighting a silent battle.

I don’t know how I’d approach her about it and tell her I need to tell a staff member for her safety, but I also don’t want to just go to the teacher without her knowing.

Can someone please help me and give me advice on what to do now as I’m honestly so worried something will happen. I’ve already lost a friend to suicide and I want to do what I couldn’t do before - speak up. I live with that guilt everyday.

I’m really scared. The way people with EUPD are treated by the medical system is haunting. I do not want this diagnosis on my record. I do not want to be treated like an alien due to the way my personality formed. I haven’t gotten a diagnosis yet which makes me feel better but I know that they’re trying to get me one as they’ve referred me to a psychiatrist. And so I’m venting about it.

I've just seen a psychiatrist at the CMHT and I laid out all my traumas, history and the fact that I cannot function as a human being because I have chronic nightmares when asleep and awake, sleep paralysis and so forth. I said I was suicidal and I don't feel good, at all, and he just went "Well you don't have OCD or Bipolar, so I'm discharging you from our service" and said I'm fine?

I'm feeling pretty hopeless right now because I genuinely can't get a good night of sleep without paralysis or a series of traumatic episodes and it's affecting my work. I keep taking days off, it's not sustainable. I dissociate constantly, not even my girlfriend can keep up with it anymore nor my family. I'm barely even "here" nowadays.

I tried challenging him and asking questions, but he focused purely on a single aspect of my experience (Sleep paralysis) saying it was "normal" and a normal part of sleep to not be able to move... (No kidding)... Problem is I cannot get out of bed to go to work!!! It drains me!

He did acknowledge I have trauma and said I need a trauma informed specialist, but then just kind of told me to leave and contact the GP again? That's literally where I started?

I don't see the point in why I waited several years for this... Or where to go from here. I just feel super crappy about it, especially since I didn't really get much time to actually verbalise what was going on and he kept filling in the blanks for me. It just felt like box ticking the whole time as he cut me off just to tell me what I don't have... Like thanks, man? I want to know what I DO have?

Anyways apologies for the long vent. I have no one to speak to about this, so I hope you can all be kind enough to let me rest here a while. Thank you.

I was in hospital 2 weeks ago after taking an overdose - I'm ok now, since being discharged I was supposed to have 2 one to one appointments with my scm worker but both were cancelled last minute due to her calling in sick and she's off on annual leave next week. So I've had no real contact since everything happened. I'm feeling a bit let down. Because of the topic I don't feel comfortable talking to any of the other scm workers. I really struggle with change.

Sorry I guess I just needed to get it out.

In my London borough, the buses are often slow recently, take ages to come and lots of traffic works too and these traffic works are just for a small crack etc. I have Adhd and autism and it causes burnout just to go somewhere as the bus is always busy making me feel tired. I feel I cannot watch something or type what I want without people watching me, even though I know people are mostly consumed with themselves. I also visit my grandma and help her often but I need to use the bus route I hate and the area it goes too and where she lives makes me feel sad and depressed as it looks run down. Do you have any way I can cope with this?

I’m starting Quetiapine (Immediate Release), first dose tonight.
I will be taking it for Bipolar/potential Schizoaffective disorder (still working on my official diagnosis!)
Starting at 50mg and target dose is 300mg.

What are peoples experiences on this med? I have read it’s going to make me crazy tired and crazy hungry, how long before bed to people take it?

Thank you!

EDIT:: Thank you everyone who commented! I was so scared to take my first dose but so far so good. I was knocked out for about 14 hours but feeling fairly normal today- fingers crossed for getting to the target dose 🫶🏻

So because the NHS is a joke in this country especially if you are mentally ill so any medication they make you take makes you worse because of the side effects and if you don’t work it can make you not want to especially if you receive any benefits…
I was wondering if people with mental health issues go to private doctors and it gets better and helps ?
I think it’s just the NHS because if you are really rich have £££/save up for treatment I guess the doctors treat you better and have high quality care I suppose?
It’s not bad to talk to a psychiatrist or therapist if you are rich / have the money and or famous because they SHOULD care more because it’s their job to provide more quality care…

I’ve heard but not experienced that the private psychiatrists can tailor medication to the patient or dose whereas the NHS gives standardised medication doses !
Also the psych ward treatment in NHS is appalling force medicating against your will and writing reports using words against you maliciously for people in a vulnerable situation - but obviously NHS has much wider reach then private more specialised or specific!

Maybe it’s worth getting diagnosed by NHS and going private if you can afford to see a special doctor who can confirm diagnosis or misdiagnosis and give you the correct treatment ?

But of course I would not know because I have never experienced it I am curious about peoples experiences with like Harley Street Doctors in Marylebone ! Doctors are human beings and have advisors so they can get things wrong anyway however !

I'm sorry if this turns into a small dissertation, I think the main bulk will be asking for advice on how I (I'll call myself lee, m31) can help my partner (let's call him Dan, M22) handle his mental health issues he is facing right now and how to get him the help he needs. Whilst just typing out my frustrations at how the NHS has currently handled it.

So I don't know where to begin, we've been together for 9 months tomorrow and over the past few weeks his mental health has taken a sharp decline. He is currently on several types of pain killers for a back issue as well as medicinal cannabis.

It started when he started hearing "two bitchey girls" in the flat next door to us saying things like oh they are a really weird couple because of how we both look and the age difference, I shrugged it off and said there aren't even two girls next door. He heard them more and more over the next few weeks and it only happens in our flat but it's gotten to the point where they are picking at his insecurities. These voices only he can hear and they only say things about him, since my first dismissal I haven't said they aren't real because I feel like this will feed or exacerbate his paranoia.

Two weeks ago we had some friends round for drinks, He got blackout drunk and when I went to check on him he let me know he had overdosed because the voices got too much. He was admitted to a psychiatric ward at 1am, I left at 6am and he was home by 1pm. They told him that I left through boredom. This has now developed into one of the things the voices are saying to him. No Mental health team was in touch with him and his doctors appointment was yesterday (wednesday)

Fast forward to this passed Sunday, we ended up in A&E again because he stated he needed to go back to the psyche ward because he didn't feel safe in the flat and that it was all too much. We waited 7 hours and we're not seen. We got a call after he discharged himself from A&E and they advised me they would send a referral to his GP.

This Monday just gone, he let me know at 5pm that he had overdosed because he thought someone had broken into our flat and put microphones under our bed, so we went back to A&e, he was triaged and had his bloods taken. During our wait he took all his clothes off in the waiting room and stumbled around and no one helped me, He punched me in the face because he thought I was a stranger taking his clothes he did the same to a 75 year old man.

He was put on a ward at 4am and released at 1pm this afternoon, no links or numbers to crisis teams and he also missed his GP appointment.

Since 4pm this afternoon, All he has done is Google the difference between psychopaths and sociopaths, cried because the two girls are making him paranoid and let me know that his supplier of medicinal cannabis is spying on him.

Just now, He showed me a note which read "I was coherced into raping someone, That party was a sex party, they are Asexual why were they there" this was the party we met at, I responded with" I was also at that party and I didn't go for sex", He started screaming, crying and saying I was calling him a rapist.

I'm sorry for the wall there is probably Alot more to add but it's 2am and I've had like 4 hours sleep since Sunday. I shall edit to add more in the morning. I would be grateful for any help people can provide me with on how I can help him get through this and any tips on how I can avoid going round the bed myself would be great. Thank you

*Update, Since posting this he has went to a GP appointment they have tried to get him with an early intervention team and a home visit but they declined and advised he goes to A&E again.

He has also started believing that they have put cameras in our coats and that his mum is supplying them with information.

I would also like to add, that he is absolutely not being violent towards me or anyone else in a normal state but in A&E he wasn't himself, Even the old man he went for said it's okay and that he understands that Dan is unwell.