Starting a conversation around recovery from mental health issues + never giving up on dreams

entalinafleur

Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a great time this summer. The pandemic was great for me, RIP to the people who died.
I would like to start a discussion about recovery from mental health issues and never giving up on your dreams. We all have to feel alive otherwise what's the point of living? Anybody frustrated with medicine? Is anybody experiencing financial restrictions? 
Lets be open about our experiences here. 

janer1967

Hi and welcome to the community Feel free to join in or ask any questions 

Tori_Scope

Welcome to the community @entalinafleur How are you doing today?

Thanks for joining the community, and for wanting to open up a discussion on such an important topic. I've moved your post into our mental health issues category, and renamed your post so that it's more obvious to other users what you'd like to talk about. 

Do you have an experience of recovering from mental ill health that you'd like to share to start us off? 

entalinafleur

Yes I have over 10 years of lived experience under the London mental health system. I have a false diagnosis and was forced strong medicine that I never needed.

Cher_Alumni

Hi @entalinafleur

I'm sorry to hear about your experiences with the mental health system.  When you say you have a 'false diagnosis', what do you mean?  Also, in relation to being forced medication - was this something you complained about at the time? If not, would lodging a complaint be something you'd wish to pursue now?  Health and social care complaints generally need to be done within a 12 month period so that's something to bear in mind.  

If you could give us a few more details about what happened, that would help us better help you but to reiterate I'm so sorry your care wasn't up to par.  

For anyone reading who has had a similar experience - there are different ways you can complain about NHS mental health treatment.  MIND have excellent advice on steps to follow on this How to start a health or social care complaint webpage.  

leeCal

Hi @entalinafleur and welcome to the community, best wishes ?

Katharine_Alumni

Just wanted to pop in and say thank you for starting this conversation. I am a trainer for First Aid for Mental Health courses and think it is so important for these discussions to be had and am encouraged by my own experience to increase awareness. I am sorry to hear that these experiences have been yours and I hope that you are now in a position to receive the care and support you hoped for.