Recently, I've had two not very nice tweets from two random people having a go at me for the way I speak about staff. I had one girl say she couldn't understand why I'd be nasty to the people trying to help me and another called me a 'dick,' a 'gimp' and unprofessional for moaning that I had two escorts on my leave.
Now, I'm going to clear up all the confusion.
Firstly, the patients and ONLY the patients of this ward I'm on, have the right to disagree with my opinion on staff as it is only them who can see things from anywhere remotely near my perspective. Otherwise, it's just like you calling your Dad an arse hole and me defending him. I don't know your Dad or your relationship with him so I'm neither entitled to an opinion nor entitled to express any opinion on the matter.
As a patient, the relationship with staff is a tricky one; we have to find the right balance of feeling supported whilst also keeping it professional and appropriate. There are staff here who when you cry, they'll hug you, move the hair from your face and stay with you 'til it passes. There are also staff here who will tell you that you deserved your 'trauma.'
Recently, we've had a lot of changes made both to staffing and from staff. Our Ward Manger has left, her stand-in was moved to another ward, a Nurse was moved, a fun-loving NA and a valued NA were also moved. And then they brought in a hell of a lot of rules that make us patients feel disregarded, disrespected and unheard. The changes that WE ask for are either ignored and given a low priority so that all of the things staff are bringing in are without our opinion or approval. It's leaving many of us feeling forgotten, abandoned and given up on - a key risk factor for BPD sufferers.
Finally, say you want to go out for the night drinking and your parents tell you that you can't or your boss advises not to as you have work the next morning, how would you feel towards them? Well this is like that but ten fold. For reasons only properly known to and understood by that individual person, we want to hurt or sometimes kill ourselves and these staff are stopping us. In our worst moments we can't comprehend why they would make us suffer - because in our eyes (sometimes) living is suffering. At our best, we're grateful to them. So I'm sorry if I don't type every single tweet, blog post or Facebook status at my best but this is the nature of BPD and ultimately, of people. We do not always feel the way we might feel in one moment. Right now, I'm grateful to all of the paramedics, Doctors, nurses, Police Officers, Psychiatrists, Psychologists, psychiatric nurses and Crisis teams who have literally saved my life on countless occasions, I say my thank you's when I mean them, and that's not 100% of the time. But I'm sure when your parents or boss stop you from going out you'll write an angry status, call them a few names and later thank them for enabling you to go to work the next day and earn a wage to pay for your holiday. We don't and can't always appreciate others decisions on our lives when there's disagree with our own. And this isn't BPD. This is humanity.
End of argument, any more hateful tweets will be reported.
