Recovering Your Mental Health: A Self-Help Guide - Recovering Your Mental Health

What To Do If Your Psychiatric Symptoms Are Very Serious

If your psychiatric symptoms are so severe that you feel hopeless and worthless all the time, or your feelings and experiences feel overwhelming, or if any of the following apply to you, take steps right away to help yourself.

• You feel like life is not worth living anymore.
• You think a lot about dying, have thoughts of suicide, or have planned how to kill yourself.
• You are taking lots of risks that are endangering your life and/or the lives of others.
• You feel like hurting yourself, hurting others, destroying property or committing a crime.

Things you need to do
RIGHT AWAY:

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  Arrange an appointment with your doctor, or other health care provider, or with a mental health agency. If your symptoms make you a danger to yourself or someone else, insist on immediate care and treatment. A family member or friend may need to do this for you if your symptoms are too severe. If you are taking medicines and you think it would be helpful, ask for a medication check.
• Ask friends or family members to take turns staying with you until you feel better. Then talk, play cards, watch a funny video together, listen to music— do things that keep you from feeling any worse and may give you some relief.
• Do some simple things that you usually enjoy like "getting lost" in a good book, viewing a beautiful picture, playing with your pet or writing in your journal.

You will find more things you might choose to do to help yourself feel better in the section of this booklet entitled: "Additional Things You Can Do Right Away to Help Yourself Feel Better." As you learn what helps you to feel better, and as you take action to help yourself more and more quickly, you will find that you spend more and more time feeling well and less time feeling badly.

Getting Health Care

If you possibly can, see a doctor or another health care provider you like and trust. He or she can help you find out if the way you are feeling is caused by a medical illness, such as a thyroid problem or diabetes. In addition, your health care provider is often your best source of referral for other kinds of help. The sooner you get help, the sooner you will feel better.

It's always easier to go to the doctor if you take along a good friend. Your friend can help you remember what the doctor suggests, and could take notes if you want notes taken.

When you go to see your health care provider, take a complete listing of all medicines and anything else you may be doing to help yourself feel better, and a list of unusual, uncomfortable or painful physical or emotional symptoms—even if they don't seem important to you. Also describe any difficult issues in your life—both things that are going on now and things that have happened in the past—that may be affecting the way you feel. This will help the doctor give you the best possible advice on what you can do to help yourself.

Your Health Care Rights

Your doctor or health care provider is doing a service, just like the person who installs your telephone or fixes your car. The only difference is they have experience and expertise in dealing with health issues. Your doctor or other health care provider should:

• listen carefully to everything you say and answer your questions.
• be hopeful and encouraging.
• plan your treatment based on what you want and need.
• teach you how to help yourself.
• know about and be willing to try new or different ways of helping you feel better.
• be willing to talk with other health care professionals, your family members, and friends, about your problems and what can be done about them, if you want them to.

In addition to the personal rights described earlier, your health care rights also include the right to-

• decide for yourself which treatments are acceptable to you and which are not.
• a second opinion without being penalized.
• change health care providers—although this right may be limited by some health care plans.
• have the person or people of your choice be with you when you are seeing your doctor or other health care provider.