How my mental health story can help others

RIVA Lawlor, who previously struggled with borderline personality disorder, has become an advocate for mental health issues following years of turmoil linked to her condition.

The 52-year-old has been living in a Peter McVerry property since before last Christmas, which she said has been a godsend.

Homelessness during Covid as a result of soaring rent costs had previously threatened her recovery. However, Riva battled on, working to rebuild her life from emergency accommodation in Blackpool.

Her efforts have now paid off, with Riva saying she has never felt as secure in her entire life.

She is now on a mission to spread awareness about the lack of facilities and resources to help patients who find themselves in her situation.

Riva described how presenting to hospital emergency medicine departments after mental health episodes left her suffering with suicide ideation. She associated her feelings with borderline personality disorder, a condition she had been diagnosed with in 1988 at aged 17, which can result in the brain’s misinterpretation of threats and the relay of fault messages.

She said the understaffed and under-resourced nature of emergency medicine departments is only adding to the trauma of people with mental health issues.

Speaking of her experience in hospital she said: “You could be a couple of days. They may not admit you. It would depend on how bad I was. My medication was regulated but my life wasn’t getting any better. I knew I had to take control of my own mental health. It took years for me to regulate my emotions.

“Each time I presented to hospital, I was suicidal and had no hope. I was lucky I had a GP who was very good to me and always made time for my mental health”.

She said a separate emergency medicine department for patients struggling with mental health issues could reduce the trauma for a number of patients.

“It’s impossible accessing hospital care when you have mental health issues. If you are lucky, you are not in the waiting room. In those situations you are taken to the ward. If not, you are sitting there [with other people]. You can only imagine how that feels for someone who is extremely paranoid. To be left among the general public is totally wrong.

“Mental health is something we really fall down in in this country. This is evident more now since Covid because people who never had mental health issues are presenting so we have a backlog that we’ve never had before.”

Riva recalled presenting to a hospital shortly before the pandemic broke out. This had followed years of hardship that included 12 months in the female homeless refuge Edel House in 2013.

“The last time this happened I was sent to hospital. I was on a trolley for a day and a half. Eventually, I had an episode. I reacted to a nurse and hit out verbally. I was in A&E and was very distraught. This shouldn’t happen. People with mental health issues should be allowed the privacy and dignity to be sick.”

She said the resulting guilt after a mental health episode was often overwhelming.

“It was the guilt afterwards that I found really difficult, so difficult that I decided it would never happen again. That’s what made me decide I would speak out and tell people what it was like to suffer from borderline personality disorder, what it’s like to split.”

Waiting on a hospital trolley is an experience Riva will never forget.

“Being on a trolley was horrific. My brain was racing. There was a man near me dying so I was trying to be as calm as possible. It makes it ten times harder to be with people who I would describe as actually sick. My disability was hidden. If you looked at me on the streets there is no way you would believe the level I suffer. It’s only Covid has shown how damaging mental health issues can be.”

She described the current health system as understaffed and under-resourced. “The Irish mental health system has got an awful lot better in the last 20 or 30 years but there are still very few facilities for people with mental health issues. Because we don’t have the facilities to hospitalise people, people die”.

Riva, who now devotes much of her time to volunteering at the Haven community café in Cork city, stressed that this is not the fault of frontline workers.

“Frontline workers are doing everything they can, but we don’t have enough. They don’t have the numbers. Our government has left us down in all aspects of healthcare, but especially in mental health care.”

Riva is growing stronger with each day.

“Because of the Peter McVerry Trust, I have a number for when I am struggling with mental health issues and need to access support. They have given me a beautiful home and I am now the most happy and secure that I’ve ever been”. The mental health advocate said she made lifelong friends while in emergency accommodation.

“The time I was living [in emergency accommodation] in Blackpool was around the same period that the war broke out in Ukraine. I met many inspiring women fleeing war who are still my friends to this day”.

To find out more about the Peter McVerry Trust, visit www.pmvtrust.ie.

HSE Response

A HSE spokesperson said: “While we aren’t able to comment on individual cases, we acknowledge this person’s experience and regret they felt this way while trying to access care and support”.

All patients presenting to an ED undergo key steps as part of the emergency care pathway, the spokesperson explained.

“Liaison mental health services (LMHS) provide a specialist service for people attending EDs in a crisis and are available to all age groups. LMHS also provide supports to patients who are inpatients in acute hospitals, as well as their treating clinicians. They also manage ED presentations which occur in areas overlapping mental and physical healthcare.

“The National Clinical Programme aims to ensure that all patients who present to the ED following self-harm or with suicidal ideation will receive a prompt biopsychosocial assessment, their next of kin will receive support and advice on suicide prevention, the patient will be linked with the next appropriate care, and both the patient and their general practitioner will receive a written plan of care.

“Furthermore, the HSE has funded in 2022 an additional six Suicide Crisis Assessment Nurses (SCAN) posts. They provide an early intervention to patients who may otherwise be referred to emergency departments, or placed on a waiting list for a community mental health team.”