Thread by @tamar_whyte

1.THREAD ON #DISCHARGE FROM #MentalHealth SERVICES: I’ve never been discharged from chronic #PhysicalHealth services when living with a condition. I’ve just been discharged from my local MH service, after receiving them for 20+ years with 3+ diagnoses. Where is #ParityOfCare?>

2. #MentalHealth services get rid of you for ridiculous reasons. ‘Articulate’ & ‘good insight into condition’ is wielded against patients who have lived with their condition for decades, have an intimate understanding of their health. @stephenfry is articulate & he is bipolar

3. ‘Articulate’ & ‘good insight into condition’ also applies to #epilepsy patients, but you don’t see #neurologist kicking them out of clinic. That doesn’t impact on a #MoodDisorder where being so low means struggling to get out of bed, >

4. leave your room, or feel exhausted from #masking your #MentalCondition when you are rarely outside, like anyone with chronic physical pain learns to. Medical notes from #MentalHealthServices include an obsession with how we look & interpreting it. Most people do not fit the >

5. stereotypes & #MentalHealth staff should know this. Bright #HairColour & clothes gets interpreted as presentable & a good mood. What if the only clothes in your wardrobe are bright no matter what you have grabbed from there or the laundry? >

6. The list of bizarre reasons why a person shouldn’t be ill in their opinion, despite patients explaining how these are the exhausting masking techniques used & the toll they take, feeds into the #discrimination of what ‘well’ looks like. >

7. The level of #disability; its impact on day to day life & functioning - isn’t taken into consideration. Maybe it isn’t believed. I have a litany of physical health indicators to back up the level of mental health I’ve been describing. The very tenuous conclusions based on >

8. their interpretations of symptoms I’ve explained to them, despite their own observation of ‘good insight into my own condition’, are baffling. They show the same levels of incompetence of the #RuberyHospital where #TomMain wrote his seminal paper on #MentalHealth staff >

9. #medicalising patients just to shut them up so they didn’t need to bother with them. Booting out is not even keeping up that pretence. The service is literally on the old grounds of the mothballed #RuberyHospital. The service has learnt nothing from research that despite >

10. being conducted in the 1950s still strongly impacts on research, theory, disciplines, services & their design. #LongbridgeCMHT was the worst I’ve been under since 2005, but like an #epilepsy service, I still need one. As an activist I speak out a LOT about #equality >

11. of care & the #saneism we experience. I’m in one of my worst #depressive states which has lasted yrs, barely leaving my room & ignoring communication. Responding = energy/conversation. #Vulnerability is a great time to take advantage of getting rid of a thorn in your side >

12. Not interacting with social media for so long makes posts fairly dead now, & #Musk has ensured that unless you pay, his #algorithm will bury you. I’m not up to getting back into #OnlineActivism yet - hopefully redeploying my energies again back in a few months. >

13. After my actual real, offline friends get proper Tamar love ❤️‍🩹❤️🥰 again and online communication too - priorities first huh - these are people here for you in your times of need! Looking forward to sharing #MadStudies & being part of the #MadCommunity again. Take care x

@threadreaderapp please unroll