I’m worried about my mental health

Sometimes when someone has made changes to their lifestyle, they realise there are other things going on that are having an impact on their mental health. Things come to the surface or they realise that there are underlying problems that they’ve never really addressed or got on top of. If you’re worried about your mental health, or you feel that embarking on your weight loss journey has brought up underlying issues, then you might want to consider a psychiatric assessment.

Psychiatrists are medical doctors who specialise in the diagnosis and treatment of mental health problems. Depression, anxiety, ADHD, PTSD, OCD and so on are all psychiatric conditions that can affect people from all walks of life. In order to understand their difficulties and get the best treatment, people undergo an assessment with a psychiatrist. A psychiatric assessment can be very helpful for people to understand what is happening and the impact it’s having on their life. It’s more than just being given a label. An assessment gives you and the psychiatrist the opportunity to think about your symptoms, what’s troubling you, to go through your history and what’s happened to you and help you understand how your symptoms are impacting on your life. Part of the assessment is also thinking about treatment options and developing a plan to help you. Psychiatrists can also prescribe medication to help with mental health symptoms if necessary. Our psychiatrists have extensive experience in helping patients with obesity and issues relating to food.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, then you can arrange for a psychiatric assessment on the ‘Add-on support’ section of the Slimmr website.

Alternatively you can arrange to speak to your GP who will be able to talk to you and help come up with a plan to support you around your mental health problems. You can also self-refer to NHS talking therapies here: nhs.uk/talk

If you feel unsafe or are experiencing suicidal thoughts or thoughts of self-harm, then you can go to your local A&E any time day or night and ask to speak to the mental health team there.