Mental health team

[Wilburis]

Hi

Ive just spoken to the on duty mental health team, as Im getting worse by the day. I couldnt leave the house to collect my kids, I had such a panic attack and my heart was racing at 135bpm.

She asked me if I feel like hurting myself and I told her I do think about it but dont think I would because of my kids.

Have I got myself into trouble my saying this? Will they take me kids off me?

What would they do if I said I do intend to harm myself?

xx

[Kuatir]

No, you are not in any trouble. They won't take your kids off you. In fact your statement makes you sound like a great parent who puts their kids first even while living with mental illness.

I'm not sure what the response it to saying that you do intend to harm yourself, but if you ever do you should find somebody to talk to.

[SLA]

They ask that quite simply to gauge the severity of where you are at.

I said exactly the same thing as you once when I was going through a really rough patch.

Its a standard question, and they won't cart you off based on your response to it.

They fully appreciate that you are not well, and the response you gave is probably standard for most people too.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yes, it's a standard question for a crisis team. They deal with some very unwell people and they need to know if you are likely to harm yourself or others because they may have to invoke the sectioning process for your own safety.

That's not you though. That's all it's for though. It's more if you are talking to Social Services that you need to be more careful in how things are worded in case they don't quite understand, you know how they sometimes get a bit animated until someone with some common sense steps in like a doctor!

When I had my CBT the therapist had me answering those questions at every session. She explained it was all standard and ensure they could pick out any patients who were really struggling who needed something more intensive to prevent self harm. What they did was ask several questions to understand firstly if you have such thoughts and the rest were to understand your motivation e.g. have you researched ways to do it, on a scale of 1-10 how likely are you to do it, what makes you want to stay alive, etc. The latter was a freeform box so you could put all reasons in e.g. family.

All those tell them the true picture. I went to about 12-14 CBT sessions and on EVERY one of those forms put I had thoughts that life wasn't worth living. My additional answers meant, like you, that these were just intrusive thoughts or depressed thinking and that I had no real intention to follow up on them.