Anyone working in mental health?

[ParanormalChickenGeek]

Hi..... I doubt anyone remembers me here and so far I haven't seen any user names I recognise from back in the day! I started using RYL as a teen about 11-12 years ago (I'm 25 now), back when it was actually called Ruin Your Life! I struggled with self harm, anxiety and depression and found that this forum was so helpful in my darkest days. Since then, I have occasionally logged on and read posts, but have felt too out of the loop to post!

Long story short, as I grew up and had boyfriends, had jobs, I got tired of being asked about fresh cuts on my body and panicking about being judged and what I would say. This served as motivation to give up self harm at around 18 years old. Despite that, I still to this day think of it as an option when I'm extremely stressed and in rare occasions have resorted back to it.
Probably due to my own personal experiences plus an interest in psychology, I decided to study mental health at university and am now a qualified mental health nurse (have been for a few years now).

What I'm curious to know is, are there any other people here that are mental health workers? How does it affect your own mental state? Do you self disclose? Are your employers understanding?
My curiosity mainly comes from the fact that only my family, partner, and one or two old school friends know about my 'issues', it's actually something I feel deeply ashamed of, right or wrong, and I wouldn't dream of telling my employers, colleagues or patients for that matter, in fear of being judged as incapable or not fit for the job etc. I ALWAYS wear cardigans to cover my scarred arms and would never admit to having self harmed.... Though on a few hot days with my sleeves slightly rolled up, I have been asked twice by patients

Anyway.... I would love to know what others in my position think/do! Please say there is someone else out there like me!

[CaiteeBug]

Hey! I don't remember you, but I love your screen name! I am a Paranormal Investigator :)

[Liar.]

I work in mental health :) im working in a mental health ward of a rest home at the moment, and we are not allowed to wear anything over our uniforms, hence how most of my co workers have seen some of my scars.
There are always the few who ask about it but i usually just brush them off or tell them and watch their faces as they try to figure out if im kidding or not.
Im also doing a year long course at uni, its in mental health support work, to get into it i had to have some sort of experience with mental health. Be it my own or someone i was close to, so my tutor and my class knows SOME of my history.
It can be quite hard sometimes, a often second guess whether i should be in this field when i still have issues of my own to work out. But in general i *think* im doing an okay job? My boss and coworkers have not treated me apart from the rest of the employees because of what they know about my mh history.
Hope this helps.

[ParanormalChickenGeek]

CaiteeBug - thank you :) and wow that sounds like an awesome job!!

Liar. - thanks for your reply, it's nice to know that someone else is in a similar situation. I actually get told that a lot of people go into mental health work with prior personal experience, but I have yet to meet a nurse who has, or even admits it.
Luckily here in the UK, most MH nurses do not wear uniform so I can get away with covering my arms, though it is torture in the summer, especially when colleagues are like, 'aren't you hot in that?'.
That's brilliant that you are doing a mental health support work qualification, I think it's always an asset to have someone working in mental health with their own previous experience, though it is a fine line and for some I expect it can be more damaging to themselves and to the patients.
Luckily I have not found that to be the case for me, I can completely split off work from my personal life and never find myself 'triggered' by my patients self harm or suicide attempts etc (I work on an adolescent in-patient unit), it's like I'm a completely different person at work..... And then I go home and back to feeling depressed!
I know a few mental health support workers who suffer from mental health issues and they have been able to disclose this to their managers without any issue and actually get lots of support, but I just feel it's different for nurses, I feel judged more as a nurse, especially being a charge nurse (clinical nurse specialist for those of you outside of the UK that aren't familiar with the term 'charge nurse').

[red_princess]

Ah I so relate to this post! I am currently working in social work and have the same sort of thoughts. I used to self harm alot and struggled with my MH... thankfully i am doing ok now, but, like you, my past definitely led to my career choice.
I haven't disclosed any of my past to employers/uni etc, so it's only some of friends/partner that know about it all. I think i would feel really vulnerable and exposed if I did disclose as I wouln't want it to change how people saw me- silly as I know we preach honesty with patients/service users- its a strange one really! It sometimes hits home when i've been supportive teenage girls who are self harming or had similar issues to me- don't get me wrong, I always keep it professional, but it does take me back sometimes!
Anyway sorry for the ramble, just wanted to say I know how you feel and think you have done brilliantly getting to where you have gotten too :)

[earthbound_misfit]

I dont understand, if you were cutting yourself badly enough to have lots of scars now, how the hell did you manage to just trot on through uni and get a career? I was on this site back when it was Ruin Your Life too, think I was Lady Sukkubus then. I stopped self-harming for similar reasons but my cuts were never that deep so scarring is minimal. However I didn't magically get better I got ignored by the NHS and went through various traumas as they ignored me when I asked for help. I'm in private therapy now, after being unwell throughout my 20s.
So how can you have self harmed so severely if you dont actually seem ill/it doesn't effect you? Find it a bit much I waas judged on not having deep scars but clearly I'm more scarred inside, so why was I not helped? How can you cut yourself so bad yet be fine to live normally? Its people like that get all the help whilst us really struggling get ignored.

[red_princess]

earthbound_misfit- I can't speak for anyone else on the thread, but I don't think you are being fair in your comments! I know for me, I SI'd for about 5 years, and have alot of scars on my arms, some deep yes, however my struggle with my MH is personal to me, and although yes I have got a job helping others, that doesn't mean I have't struggled and it hasn't effected me.
I am sorry that you haven't had the help that you have wanted, but i don't think its fair to say that just because someone has managed to overcome their struggles, they 'magically got better' - who are we to judge anyone else's life or struggles?
The mental health system in the NHS is far from perfect, and i can't answer why you weren't given the help you needed, I hope you are getting the help that you need now.

Sorry, I'll get off my soap box, but I just felt you were attacking the other posters for their struggles, in your opinion, not being serious enough, and I don't think it's fair for anyone to make judgements on anyone else's life.
I more than happy to apologise if I have gotten the wrong end of the stick with what you meant!

[Pomegranate]

I just wanted to comment and say that Dash I don't think what you posted was out of order at all. I agree with everything you and the poster above you wrote. I tried to reply earlier but couldn't articulate what I wanted to say properly. You've both said it perfectly though as far as I'm concerned. Congratulations on what you've all achieved and come through. It's inspirational

[ParanormalChickenGeek]

Earthbound_misfit - your comment is incredibly rude and judgemental. How you can judge that I'm 'not ill' and it 'doesn't affect' me!? I think this thread is quite clear on how certain things DO still affect me, despite my achievements!
I'm sorry, you sound very bitter about receiving little help from the NHS but personally attacking me isn't going to help you recover any quicker either.
I see no reason for me to justify myself or my journey to you, but to put you straight I didn't 'magically' get better, I still suffer from depression and as I stated I still very rarely SH- the only difference being that I do a professional job now, and I completely separate this side of me from the work I do. I too have had little help throughout my life - I had one course of CBT and support from a GP and that is it. I'm now looking at paying for a private therapist despite paying £200 NI a month!! I didn't 'trot on through' to uni and a career, I slugged my guts out to get here and it wasn't an easy journey!

Thank you Pomegranate, Dash and red_princess for your supportive posts

[earthbound_misfit]

it just doesnt make sense to me that someone can feel so bad/be so messed up they harm themselves badly enough to leave obvious scars, yet get better enough to go through uni and get a career by 25.

I feel like such a failure and want to die and there is no help. I lucky to see a private therapist recently cos someone else is paying... couldnt pay myself as on ESA. I've repeatedly tried to work and even got a plce on a nursing course that was withdrawn at least in part cos of my mental health history.

I fought to get better too, but you cant 'mind over matter' when you're not even aware of a lot of things... eg. things happening to me growing up I thought were normal, I needed someone else (therapist) to help me see. Also I never had anyone before say it's ok to cry and help me through the terror, I just got 'pull yourself together' which is how it comes across telling me to help myself. What do u think I did for my teenage years when I was too frightened to tell anyone? How do you think I am even alive now? A friend called me "the most pro-active depressed person I know".

I fought, but for me my mental health problems carried on, because without therapy how can someone get over that stuff? Thats what I dont understand... all the people who seem to have *obvious* MH problems, whether that's through severe SI or whatever, then they get better and carry on and can be a poster child for "it gets better". And somehow those of us who try just as hard, well we're not good enough and still suffer, yet our problems somehow aren't seen as severe. It doesn't make sense to me that someone can have more severe symptoms but get better quicker.

I wanted to be the one being a nurse and syaing the problems are in the past, but the nightmares and flashbacks pop in, the dissociation that I learnt as the only way to deal with the pain when services wouldnt help interferes so much too. So why didn't the OP have the same problem, why didn't she learn to dissociate automatically, when the crisis team ignored her? How did she bounce back from that without getting intrusive memories of those times in future?

Dont make out I still suffer cos I'm 'not trying', it's all I can do to keep going right now.

[earthbound_misfit]

ps. I didnt meant to hurt you I am not me at the moment, its frightening. The pain is so much I thought I ws getting better. Im suicidal as I write trying to hold on, there is so much I dont understand. Thats it you see, I want to understand. I dont understand how someone can separate their personal and professional life in these circumstances - if you're feeling on egde/bad then how do you concentrate enough on the job, what if something happens where someone's angry with you and you cry? (I can keep a fake smile plastered on but not stop the tears coming, and dissociation). I haven't even been able to hold down a job when my home rested on it. I'm frightened. I want to understand so I can do it too.

[ParanormalChickenGeek]

Earthbound_misfit I'm really sorry that you feel this way and that you feel that you haven't had adequate support for your problems, but I feel really attacked by you and I don't feel comfortable with you questioning in a fairly aggressive manner why I'm able to do my job and how I can be "fine" now and get myself through university.
I'm happy to talk a bit more in depth about how I got through it all if that would help you, but I am just not happy with being spoken to in this way and it's actually quite upsetting to me that you are directing your frustration at me in this way.

[tiptoes]

Earthbound misfit, I'm sorry you are having a hard time but maybe a thread of your own might be a better place to discuss it?

There are no hard and fast rules about what a person can cope with or achieve when having issues with mental illness and education. I've been through university with friends that had mental illnesses as well as myself and the degrees to which we struggled with our mental illnesses and our courses were personal to each of us.

ParanormalChickenGeek, sorry that you are feeling attacked. I'm not in the mental health worker but I understand the pressures of trying to cover us mental health issues and trying to work. Kudos to you for coping as well as you seem to, wishing you every success in your chosen career.

[random.swirls]

Parts of this thread have made me feel very uncomfortable.

I work in mental health and have been educated to masters level at every point I have struggled and have had varying degrees of help. I don't have bad scars but was in and out of hospital throughout my masters. At no point has it been helpful for me to compare myself with others because we are all individual battling with our own problems and attacking others helps no one.

To answer the question I work in mental health as. Peer support worker I work in a range of settings and I'm very open about my mental health and everyone I meet is generally very receptive. I do find it odd though because some of my closest friends have no clue.

[ParanormalChickenGeek]

Random.swirls - I'm sorry if this thread makes you feel uncomfortable, this certainly wasn't my intention when creating it and I certainly didn't think I'd be met with such hostility and questioning either maybe it's best to just delete the thread....
However, I'm glad to hear from another person working in mental health and your perspective on disclosing to employers, so thanks for your reply!

[Serendipity.]

I don't think you should delete your thread, it is more than okay to ask for support, or to talk to people who understand, and I'm sure there are many of us here who do relate.

I don't work in mental health but I have been working in care (and hopefully will again; interview on Friday!) and have volunteered in mental health settings. I have really obvious scars and have enough on my medical records that I just don't feel I can lie, so always disclose to employers. I wish I didn't have to but it just isn't worth losing my job over if it comes out. It always worries me though! I cover up whenever I can. With voluntary work, of any kind, but particularly if I'm going to be working with people with MH issues, I always always wear long sleeves. With work, I wear a cardigan and roll my sleeves up for personal care. Which has been fine, but people noticing does make me feel really uncomfortable.

I think it's brilliant that you've come so far and become a MH nurse. You deserve to be proud of yourself for that!

earthbound misfit, it seems like you're very angry about not receiving the support you need, and I can understand that. I am in that situation too, and it is difficult. But I don't think that your situation really has much to do with anyone else's. We're all different, and we all experience our problems differently. To use your own example; someone getting angry with me wouldn't bother me a great deal, because most of the time (with the people I have been working with; people with advanced dementia) their aggression really doesn't have much to do with me. Even in other situations, I don't really take it personally. But I can appreciate that for other people, their MH issues may make that impossible. I struggle in other ways, that have made work difficult and impossible at times. I've had time out of work and education. I feel fortunate that I am currently able to work. The fact that other people can't really has very little to do with my struggle.

[Epicene]

I have/do work in mental health (though this has been interrupted by illness at various points). I don't want to create more controversy in what is a valuable thread, but I do have a couple of questions for you Paranormal. You don't have to answer them here, it just might be something to reflect on.

Firstly, I am slightly concerned about the fact that you work as a mental health nurse and yet you still feel so much shame about your self-harm. I'm wondering why that is. I would hope that any nursing course would encourage open-mindedness and understanding, and even more so for mental health nursing. It feels worrying that after three years of training, someone is judging their own self-harm so harshly. Obviously it's not a behaviour to be normalised or 'condoned', I just think it's a shame and that the course you were on is probably doing something wrong.

The other question is the fact that you do sometimes need to call in sick on bad days. It is illegal to withhold information on any current condition that impairs people from doing their job effectively and safely. If the absences are reasonably frequent, it may be something you have to raise even if it feels difficult. But, the benefit of this is that you will probably be offered more specific support. As long as you can do your job, there is no reason why a history of significant MH issues (or ongoing milder issues) should be a barrier to work.

Personally I've always been honest about my mental health (maybe more so than actually necessary), but I've found it much easier that way. I typically would be more open with colleagues than clients, but it very much depends on the role. Something like a peer supporter or involvement officer may actually require disclosure, whereas nursing is more about providing others with care. When I've been a support worker I've always kept my scars hidden and even attempted to hide low body weight when anorexic, but simply out of consideration for the potential that a client may get triggered.

Hope that answers some of your questions and hasn't caused offense in any way! You've definitely done something right to get to where you are today, and your story is amazing.

[ParanormalChickenGeek]

Epicene - to answer your questions; I am ashamed of my own self harm but let me make it quite clear that I do not reflect this on to my patients. The way I feel about myself is very personal and I am not critical at all of anyone else with the same issues and have in fact helped many clients to overcome self harm and encouraged them to not feel any shame and hide who they are. I feel that you have incorrectly judged me here and to suggest that the course I took has 'done something wrong' is quite offensive as if there is one thing I pride myself on, it's being an empathic nurse.
As I've stated previously- my issues do not impact on my ability to do my job, bar one or two sick days around every 3-4 months. As far as I'm aware I'm not doing anything 'illegal' as you suggested.

[Epicene]

I did not mean to imply that you personally have been trained badly, or that you are doing anything illegal (like I said, it depends on frequency and severity and I had no idea where your situation fits with that). You were curious about experience or motivation behind telling employers, and the things I raised were just those that, in my opinion, are important things to reflect on.

I think your experience is very likely to make you an empathic and understanding nurse, and don't dispute that you wouldn't judge others harshly for self-harming. Rather, I just think that training programmes in any area of healthcare have a responsibility to encourage reflexive practice. You pride yourself on being better at empathising with clients because of your own past, but my reference to your course was that I think it should have allowed you to hone those skills rather than being left with a lot of anxiety about your scars etc.

[random.swirls]

At no point did I mean you should delete the thread just that I think the thread should go back on track.

I think it's hard to know how open to be but I do think the tide is turning. I've just come out of hospital and saw my manager today who has been brilliant through my admission. It sounds like your thinking about disclosing and I guess it's worthwhile thinking about what you would achieve by doing so.

I was going to say something else but my mind has gone!