Amy’s story – Part II
27 September 2022
Amy talks to Katie (Patient Experience Programmes Lead) about how she would use her experience to improve care for people following suicide attempts.
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This is Part II of Amy’s story. Although you are free to read in whichever order you like, we would recommend reading Part I first, available here.
*Amy’s name has been changed to protect her privacy.
Content warning: Please note, this article includes discussions of suicide and suicidal feelings. If you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised, please see the resources at the bottom of this page for available support.
Katie: So given your experience, if you were to redesign things, what does ‘good’ look like to you?
A: I feel like you don’t need to redesign it, because actually, all the things you’d like to see do exist and are good practice: Introducing yourself; explaining who you are and why you’re there; if someone’s being transferred, telling them why they’re being transferred or where they’re being transferred to. If I didn’t have access to a mobile phone, I don’t think any of my family would have been able to find me because I kept getting moved around and with no real explanation.
An obvious one is being started on medication that has really common side effects and not being told. And then being left in the corner to experience that without being able to get help. That’s a pretty big thing. But generally, most of my discomfort was around not being acknowledged as a human and people not talking to you.
I get a real sense that people are just so uncomfortable talking about mental health. And this is not just from this experience, I think it’s general in healthcare situations because they feel that, if they don’t have the answers, then they don’t know what to say to people. It’s a bit uncomfortable if you can’t fix a problem. And so, it’s easier to just ignore it and not have the conversation at all.
Katie: Well, I think it’s quite a challenge for health care professionals to be confronted by quite major suffering, and to feel like you can’t really have any impact on that especially when you are really busy.
A: But you can have impact on that. Because you can just treat somebody like a human being. When I speak to anybody about my mental health issues (whether that’s a GP, a friend, or family), I don’t expect them to be able to fix my issues. I don’t even expect them to be able to offer me a solution. Sometimes there is something quite specific I need from them if it’s a GP, but otherwise it’s just me letting you into my life a little bit.
It’s just a conversation. You don’t need to have the answers, you just need to listen and treat me like a human.”
And I think I’m probably harsher than most because my career has been in healthcare and I’m an advocate for patient experience anyway. But this was bad. Nothing fundamentally bad happened, but it was a bad experience. I left feeling quite sad actually. I’m someone that can communicate well and advocate for myself, but there are other people that certainly can’t do that. And how are those experiences for them? That must be really awful. If you have no friends or family to help either. I kept myself entertained the entire time through contact with people on my phone. Other people there had nothing, had no one, and nobody spoke to them.
I just felt sad, because it’s really basic stuff that I would expect, and you do see it often. But things like introducing yourself. I don’t know, I’m just blown away that that’s still something that doesn’t happen! I was working clinically when the ‘Hi, my name is…’ campaign was a thing. It was huge and now, years later, basic things like that aren’t happening.
Things need to change, but it’s not radical. It’s just about being a good person, I think.
Katie: And when you say ‘treating you like a human’ – what is that? Beyond introducing themselves? What did people say or do that felt kind?
A: I think it’s empathy versus sympathy, right? You can’t expect someone to necessarily have empathy for my situation. But they can have sympathy, I think. And the two particular doctors (see Part I), they were so far off the mark. It all felt fake, the entire interaction felt fake and condescending.
Once I’d gone from A&E, and I was no longer having to be moved somewhere because of a target, it was just a sense of, ‘okay, well, let’s get something done with you – just sit there be quiet and then you can leave.’ I don’t know if that was due to people not feeling comfortable enough to talk to me because it’s a difficult conversation or whether that’s just bad practice. Generally, I’m not sure.
Katie: You obviously advocate very well for yourself because you pushed quite hard to get things like the antihistamine, which actually could have been a major safety issue. What would you say to someone else that’s in a similar situation that doesn’t have your clinical background that maybe doesn’t feel as able to advocate for themselves?
A: I think when you’re in that emotional state it’s really hard to advocate for yourself. I was reading quite a bit about this recently because it’s Suicide Prevention Month. There’s that sense of people not understanding about suicide – that it’s not that I want to die, it’s that I don’t know how to live anymore without something shifting, and that feels insurmountable. And it certainly did for me that particular week.
So, I think it’s hard for people who are emotionally fragile to be able to advocate for themselves – and they shouldn’t have to. There’s something not right about the process, something falls down somewhere. Most days I can’t make simple decisions because of my mood, whether to get out of bed or brush my teeth, but I’m trusted to go and get on with it on my own with no real support.
There’s so much shame around it, but do you know what it took to stop, to get to that hospital, to shout at that glass screen in front of a room of strangers, to suffer side effects and not be able to get help…”
Katie: What would support look like to you?
A: There’s a sense that when you get to that point that something will shift.
But nothing did. Nothing changed. Whilst the psychiatrist was kind, he was so quick to discharge me. It was my fault really because I said I had a therapist and a support network. But when we think about continuity, he said he would contact my GP and that hasn’t happened. Maybe that was him or it was the GP, but that is quite serious.
There was no conversation about support, about other things I could do. If you think about a physical life-threatening illness, you often get offered loads of peer support. And there’s so much peer support out there for people after suicide but it wasn’t even a conversation.
The other difference to a physical illness is that when you survive you are congratulated. There’s nothing like that for mental ill health. There’s so much shame around it, but do you know what it took to stop, to get to that hospital, to shout at that glass screen in front of a room of strangers, to suffer side effects and not be able to get help, to be spoken over, to be taken from place to place and not know where, to feel like a hindrance when the very thing that made me attempt suicide was feeling like a burden to everyone I love. And then because I articulated my position quite clearly, they just let me go with no follow up and no conversation about support. I’m left to advocate for myself to get support – but most people don’t or can’t.
I think someone in that most vulnerable moment, they just shouldn’t have to. It should be human behaviour to be kind to someone that’s clearly going through something that makes them want to take their own life. There’s not much worse it can get right?
We’re incredibly grateful to Amy for sharing her story. If you’ve been affected by any of the issues discussed, please call or visit the following for support and resources:
You can call free on 116 123, or visit www.samaritans.org to find your nearest branch.
Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)
Call 0800 58 58 58 – 5pm to midnight every day
Call 0800 068 41 41 – 9am to midnight every day
Or text 07860 039967
Mind – Information and support for people living with mental health problems.