During this tricky time, of Corona virus it is imperative for those who live with mental health illnesses to either have a good support network of friends and family or have a good team behind them in the form of Mental Health Services. This whole epidemic is creating more lonliness through forced isolation and inability to do the things that make you feel good whether that be walking in parks or going to the cinema or meeting a friend actually in person. Seeing people. The inability to do a lot of these things is going to bring a lot of people with mental health difficulties down.
I am very fortunate to have an amazing group of friends who are just at the end of the phone call and when we come out of isolation will be there with me to eat nice food and going out walking with. But I think I am also to have a group of professionsals who have made some changes to how they work in order to make sure the service users are okay. I am a service user and I feel like I can call them when and if I need them Monday to Friday. This is a very weird time for everyone, a lot of us are stuck in this grey area of not knowing. But having all these people there for me is just excellent. My friends are there, checking in making sure I’m doing okay and the psychologists, psychiatrists and the like are making themselves available. I’m not sure why, we had a quite harsh group therapy session last week whereby the group therapists had to deal with some, not some quite a lot of discontent from the group of how they dealt with a recent situation. And it got me thinking that no, they did not do their best then but how incredibly tricky it must now be for them to build that trust up again after they, how do you put it fucked up. I’m not going to lie, they could have dealt with the situation way better, and then perhaps there wouldn’t be as much animosity from the other service users.
But yes, like I said. How do they build up the trust when they are now not seeing people? When all contact from the group therapists is gone – we as service users are now only having individual therapy via phone calls which is mostly practicalities in this present time. How do we stop you from self-destruction? How do we get you to use therapy? How do we get you to trust us?
Face to face therapy brings about certain things that you just don’t get by phone, you can’t see body language. And body language is critical in therapy. When calling people by phone you can’t see that, you don’t necessarily know if the person is avoiding the phone call when they don’t pick up or whether they need more help and support because they in crisis? It must feel like you can’t do your job properly, you have to rely on a new set of skills and resources that you may not have.
As you all know, my therapist is pregnant. She told me the week before last and then on Friday we had a phone call. But we haven’t seen each other since she told me and I don’t know how to feel about it. Of course I ‘m happy for her but I have so many unanswered questions. That phone call was strange for me. There I was, sat at work, not really sure if I could get into anything. But maybe it helped me a little having the phone call. I have to decide if there is anyone more suited for me in the team – who would I like to have once L goes. And I managed to say to her that I think I need somebody more direct, maybe if I was there sitting in front of her I wouldn’t be able to say that. To me it seems rude. L told me that she could try to b more direct with me over the coming months but I’m not so sure given the current climate. I was anxious and numb as soon as I started the phonecall. I felt unable to let go and let her in when I was on the phone. I stuttered lots and I lost my words. I’m nervous for what the next few months are going to bring from phone therapy. Whether I am going to be able to use it. Whether this will be my final 5 months of therapy like this. It’s all a bit too much to think of right now but I will try and try and try.
Try to not get lonely in the isolation period. Try to use services. Try to speak with my friends. Try. Try. Try.
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