O i also wanted to answer your question about crisis and good experiences. I did have one recent good experience. The reason why I wrote this post. I went into an emergency room and I was completely dissociative. I was terrified, shaking. And usually when I walk into ERs like that it's a fail. They do things to torture me, just because I "piss" them off. This last time however I had my therapist with me, who advocated for me and I think that's what it looks like. Obviously when you are very sick you can't advocate for yourself. You probably need a family member or friend to do it for you. If you're not fortunate enough to have an ACT team, then you should have at least one person designated to help you out. They should be in the know of what is going on in your life and should have a strong voice.

Last time I went to that same hospital for medical reasons I started to dissociate just from being in a hospital. My ACT team was MIA, because my therapist was on vacation and we had a horrible case manager on my case, who has since left the program. I was very ill and my mom ended up standing up for me. I even had my family doctor as my doctor, but he wasn't around enough to really know what was going on. I am diagnosed with narcolepsy and I was so out of it that I couldn't tell them so, so everytime I had a cataplexy attack they thought at first I was having a seizure, then concluded I was faking it. When you have cataplexy attacks you are completely aware of what's going on around you. You just loose muscle tone. And the one of the medical assistance say "She was doing this last night in the ER, they said it was all fake, you know she has some psychiatric diagnosis". If my jaw could have dropped it would have. But in order to bring me out of my "fake seizure" they gave me sternum rubs. Which I could feel. But I couldn't wake up. All because they refused to check my file to see what it could be and just assumed I was an attention seeker.

My mom FREAKED. I have never seen her that upset. She's so docile and levelheaded. But don't mess with her kids apparently. She called my family doctor, made him come in. Called my team, called the head of the department and hospital. Contacted NAMI. She would have taken it to the governor if she had to. And for the rest of my stay all three days, I got class A treatment. I really don't feel that hospital will ever treat me like that again, and has taken a new perspective on mental health entirely.

All because I had an advocate. So that is my suggestion. Because funding for training isn't getting any better.