"Unprofessional and uninformed"

Over the past two months I've been to the ED room on a regular basis due to coming off psychiatric medication resulting in significant side effects. I wanted to see if I could manage without, but it turns out that was a terrible decision I made even though I informed my psychiatrist.

I have been hit with a whirlwind of instability, suicidal thoughts and self harm. In addition to this, no one really understands, people can be very harsh, they are rude, they mistreat you because you mistreat yourself, they don't believe you, they don't want to understand and have hardly any empathy or compassion for the emotional anguish and do not treat genuine symptoms of pain or nausea because I presume the attitude is that as this is self inflicted, I should deal with it. That's what comes across.

So I've been to the GRI, admitted to both medical and surgical wards for the self harm spiral that happened to me. I've had two emergency detentions. It's been truly traumatising for me. Having borderline personality disorder is extremely painful to live with. It's agonising. The stigma of it is one of the main triggers for a crisis (for myself and for other people I've met with the disorder). 

I am now back to the original dose of quetiapine I was on that kept me stable and healthy for six months solid. That is a miracle for someone like me. I look forward to that again. Now I know not to come off it like that ever again. But now I have this awful trauma associated with hospital and mistreatment during a really hard time when I was so alone and scared.

I truly understand the pressure on the system and the staff but my life should be as important as someone who has physical issues (I'm physically disabled so I do have these but if I say I'm in pain it's always overlooked). 

I'm getting in touch with various organisations to help me and use other helplines more instead of NHS 24. 

I'm very hurt and damaged by what I've done to myself but also how it was dealt with by so called professionals in healthcare. 

I really hope this is my last story on what happened to me as a patient who experienced a two month window of crisis and being turned away or treated as a burden. It's exhausting. 

The outcome that I would like from this story that I am submitting is an acknowledgement with issues in the system, and also for there to be some mandatory course on mental health for emergency room staff to have to take, to provide helpful and equal treatment to patients. 

P.S. I'd like to highlight what I overheard two staff members say after I overheard a distressed patient freaking out about who then, rightly so, requested the doctor's name. The patient had stormed off and I overheard the two staff dismissing this person, suggesting that they were under the influence of drugs, and they made a jokes and derogatory comments about previous patients who had made the same request.

There's a lack of professionalism and it's horrible hearing that these people are talking about patients like that when they leave. Staff were being disparaging towards drug users. The stigma has got to go. I hate seeing injustice.