Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[Smc]

Thanks all.

She's got an admission. Local MHS don't do therapeutic admissions, just short term crisis management stays. We left her a bit before 10:00.
We politely but very bluntly pointed out that we nearly lost her today due to serious systemic problems. Along with some other blunt points. There will be a review assessment tomorrow that we'll hopefully get to. So we need to get some sleep and try not to upset our virus-recovery process too much.
Emotions... are kind of flat. Which may be a small mercy, unless they come back to bite hard later. It's odd though when you walk into the emergency waiting room and realise you're looking a bit wistfully at the people who've got a straightforward physical injury that they should be fully recovered from within a week. Psychiatric injuries are slower and more complex to maybe-heal.

[Former-Member]

@Smc

Running in adrenaline, being emotionally exhausted, I don't know how self care in an acute setting plays out, I hadn't 'got' self care at that point, but I now also understand that an involuntary patient needs someone to look out and advocate for them and ensure that they understand why treatments are being given and that risk v benefit is clearly explained.

[Determined]

@Smc 

Thinking of you and pray today's review leads to something more positive. 

[Smc]

Thanks again all.

She's in until Thursday as a voluntary patient. Today's meeting was fairly positive @Determined. Us making a strong point last night that we felt she wasn't safe at home was a big contributor to her admission.

On a lot of points, we're in reasonable agreement with the MHS psychiatrist, but we really want better guidelines in place for when Older Daughter should be considered "in danger",  and a more consistent approach from the MHS team in general. Among other things, but they're the two biggies for keeping her safe.
There are some problems which are basic infrastructure failings that we won't be able to do much about. There's not enough funding for MH in general, so the local clinic hasn't really got the option of therapeutic or even "safe house" admissions. They're at capacity with crisis admissions, and that undermines their ability act as a safety net.

Also, now that our viewpoint as parents is "in the loop", some of our suspicions about possible missed avenues in diagnosis have enough credibility that they're going to investgate them.

Am still very concerned about how close to critical things got yesterday. Will be watching how it all pans out to see if things improve.

@Former-Member, self care is a hard call at the moment. Because we're still a bit under the weather, we can't exactly take ourselves off for a refreshing day out. It would be more tiring than it was worth. Will have to work out how we can be gentle on ourselves in the middle of all this. (I did buy frozen fish fillets for a very easy dinner tonight- little thing but it helps.)

Re. advocacy and explanations, the psychiatrist was pleasanty impressed with how I explained a few concepts to our daughter during the review meeting. Which leads into another thing we're pointing out- that it seems she sometimes doesn't "get' the reasons behind various therapies, and she may need to be talked through their purposes and benefits, more so than has been happening.

[Former-Member]

@Smc  I think in crisis all we can do is make things as easy as possible for ourselves - our emotions weigh so heavily, let alone if one is starting on a baseline of being under the weather as you are. 

Clear communication helps and I am really glad you are feeling that you are being heard.  MH funding an issue everywhere and I do not envy the pdocs having to weigh up which patients take precedence for admission.

[Determined]

Good that the meeting was positive @Smc

Thinking of you and family . 

[Former-Member]

@Smc

[Smc]

Hi Peoples...

Feeling edgy. It's confronting knowing that Older Daughter is going home tomorrow, barring anything drastic, and we've got no way of guaranteeing her safety. 😞

She's pretty unhappy in the clinic, and it's the hard toss up that the longer she stays, the more it's likely to drive her state of mind downward. But there's been two SH with SI incidents within the last couple of months. Rock and a hard place.

We were doing Christmas gift hunting today, and I've found her the hardest to buy for, both because she's got particular and somewhat uncommon interests, and because every now and then I'd get a little niggle of dread that she won't make it that far. I don't quite know whether that's "catastrophising", or a realistic concern in the current circumstances.

[Smc]

Just had a phonecall from her. She's in a somewhat better state of mind at the moment. Will be hoping that persisits at least into tomorrow's review.

[Former-Member]

No @Smc it is not catastrophising; the heartbreaking reality is that our loved ones do live with very serious conditions.  Praying that she responds to treatment, sending very gentle thoughts your way.