Slow dive.
The doctor's visit is something I have changed my mind about. I'm sure it sounds ungrateful of me to say that I don't really value a consultant psychiatrist coming to my home, to advise us on the best way to proceed.
But that is largely because...
He has only one thing to say:
Take your meds!
He can say it fast
Or slow
Get angry even
But no...
Service user isn't going to take them...
I decided to ask some questions last week.
I wanted to know what kind of care plan is in place.
If they wanted to know anything about us as a family
If there were any support groups for families.
How about CBT?
And what happens if 'the service user' doesn't take the meds?
There was me thinking that these questions were important....
The doctor sat opposite me with the nurse at the kitchen table
And the air became as thick as treacle.
Support group!!!
No.
What the doctor wanted to know from me was, how was I going to get the service user to take his meds.
Nevertheless, my attempt did reveal some useful information.
I now know that the mental health team who come out from the hospital, are secondary care.
GPs are primary care.
Secondary care sort out the drugs, get the right kind for the service user, and then hand responsibility for the service user's prescriptions to primary care, who tend to continue writing out those prescriptions for years....
Now when this started I was quite pro-drug.
After all it makes sense.
SSIs as a kind of life-raft to sooth the underlying depression.
I remember feeling the floor falling into nothingness when I realized service user wasn't going to take any drugs.
I got angry.
I became literally hopeless.
I couldn't see any way for him to improve without help...
So I know how the mental health team must feel.
Except my sanity has improved somewhat.
I began to see annoying autonomy as better than sheepish, sad compliance.
Of course I'd want him to make a rational choice, but then, if he was making rational choices none of this situation would be happening would it! And in the light of this, I really think the secondary team could be a bit more positive when service users refuse the benevolent sweeties (for this is rather how the doctor describes them) rather than giving off an air of gloom and annoyance. Their visit left me depressed...
So anyway, I discovered that service users get about four visits from the secondary team, and then, if they do not comply with the proffered help, secondary services go away...
This makes me wonder what is supposed to happen next?
As service user isn't likely to begin taking any drugs anytime soon, I'm going to find out next week.
One question I asked of the mental health team was, what about CBT?
I asked this because people who don't take the medication obviously need something...and CBT is supposed to be effective link...
The doctor pointed out how Josh doesn't say much, and a talk therapy would need him to talk. Besides which, there is a longer than 6 months waiting list.
Service user does talk.
No - not to the doctor!
Meanwhile how to evaluate the importance of drugs and what we could do otherwise? What do I do to help a person who is so obsessed with self recrimination that he has no brain power left over to think about the present. He is certain that he knows what his problem is, and as a lot of it is a changing web of health concerns and I'm not a doctor, all I can say is 'we will take this to the GP' when the GP is sorted out.
Have I told you about how easy it is to get my son to see a GP?
When he was having his panic attack and we were weighing up the consequences of bringing him home the ambulance team said, 'he can see any GP as a guest'.
Well not where I live.
Registering to see a GP takes two weeks, involves a form consisting of four pages.
They need to see photo id as well.
And before he can see the GP he has to see a nurse practitioner first.
A month to get him a GP.
A whole moon around the earth.
Even though the slew of neurological conditions he believes himself to be suffering from cannot be tested he doesn't look ill, and his reaction to his imminent death is to talk about what he should have done (but no examples or practical ideas) and he talks without emotion, so mental illness fits the bill.
Nevertheless, a part of the problem narrative is the mental health of his aunt...
Does this point to an organic cause?
His aunt who:
Went away to India.
Then went away to study.
Began phoning her mom talking animatedly about kind of nothing..
Quit her course
Took to walking miles and miles and miles and living out of dustbins
Cleaned the garden with bleach and filled the fridge with pinapples
Taken in for a psychiatric assessment.
Stabilized
Meds and a job..
Job ended (shop closed).
Stopped taking the meds.
Stopped everything.
Had tissue paper in her ears a lot (hearing voices?)
Took to her bed...
Treated as if she was ill because her dad was scared of her rages.
And it gets worse.
So I understand why he says he thinks his brain has gone wrong.
I need to find out if we can buy a nMRI scan of his brain. That is just about the only way I can think of to prove to him that continued stress and falling into a belief that your whole life is a sham will send the best of us spinning out into mental health problems. The things that happen to you, do have an affect - and when you don't pay attention to the wound - it can fester.
Or perhaps the scan would show something wrong.
How can I know.
Which brings me back to me and my mental health.
I didn't get enough sleep last night so I'm not very happy at the moment.
I feel like I've done the wrong thing by cancelling his hospital appointment in London - but everything will have to be transferred to here, he can't travel
I feel I've done the wrong thing by writing to his landlord, because of course he has a tenancy agreement - until December - that is £ 500 per month...so for goodness sake, of course I should try to stop that!
I can't work out if I should make him breakfast, dinner, tea...
We had a few days where he wouldn't eat because he said that as he was dying, what's the point.
So my brain is a hamster in a wheel.
His anxiety is contagious.
He talks as if he has something to say, then I hear the same type of statement over and over.
"I shouldn't have come back"
"What should you have done"
"It's more complex than that"
His movements are anxious, and it makes me want to close down and switch off.
Right now he is pacing back and forth
The floor boards creaking above my head
I'll tell you something that helps me.
1/ listening to NIN
2/ Using a reframe tool link...
But that is largely because...
He has only one thing to say:
Take your meds!
He can say it fast
Or slow
Get angry even
But no...
Service user isn't going to take them...
I decided to ask some questions last week.
I wanted to know what kind of care plan is in place.
If they wanted to know anything about us as a family
If there were any support groups for families.
How about CBT?
And what happens if 'the service user' doesn't take the meds?
There was me thinking that these questions were important....
The doctor sat opposite me with the nurse at the kitchen table
And the air became as thick as treacle.
Support group!!!
No.
What the doctor wanted to know from me was, how was I going to get the service user to take his meds.
Nevertheless, my attempt did reveal some useful information.
I now know that the mental health team who come out from the hospital, are secondary care.
GPs are primary care.
Secondary care sort out the drugs, get the right kind for the service user, and then hand responsibility for the service user's prescriptions to primary care, who tend to continue writing out those prescriptions for years....
Now when this started I was quite pro-drug.
After all it makes sense.
SSIs as a kind of life-raft to sooth the underlying depression.
I remember feeling the floor falling into nothingness when I realized service user wasn't going to take any drugs.
I got angry.
I became literally hopeless.
I couldn't see any way for him to improve without help...
So I know how the mental health team must feel.
Except my sanity has improved somewhat.
I began to see annoying autonomy as better than sheepish, sad compliance.
Of course I'd want him to make a rational choice, but then, if he was making rational choices none of this situation would be happening would it! And in the light of this, I really think the secondary team could be a bit more positive when service users refuse the benevolent sweeties (for this is rather how the doctor describes them) rather than giving off an air of gloom and annoyance. Their visit left me depressed...
So anyway, I discovered that service users get about four visits from the secondary team, and then, if they do not comply with the proffered help, secondary services go away...
This makes me wonder what is supposed to happen next?
As service user isn't likely to begin taking any drugs anytime soon, I'm going to find out next week.
One question I asked of the mental health team was, what about CBT?
I asked this because people who don't take the medication obviously need something...and CBT is supposed to be effective link...
The doctor pointed out how Josh doesn't say much, and a talk therapy would need him to talk. Besides which, there is a longer than 6 months waiting list.
Service user does talk.
No - not to the doctor!
Meanwhile how to evaluate the importance of drugs and what we could do otherwise? What do I do to help a person who is so obsessed with self recrimination that he has no brain power left over to think about the present. He is certain that he knows what his problem is, and as a lot of it is a changing web of health concerns and I'm not a doctor, all I can say is 'we will take this to the GP' when the GP is sorted out.
Have I told you about how easy it is to get my son to see a GP?
When he was having his panic attack and we were weighing up the consequences of bringing him home the ambulance team said, 'he can see any GP as a guest'.
Well not where I live.
Registering to see a GP takes two weeks, involves a form consisting of four pages.
They need to see photo id as well.
And before he can see the GP he has to see a nurse practitioner first.
A month to get him a GP.
A whole moon around the earth.
Even though the slew of neurological conditions he believes himself to be suffering from cannot be tested he doesn't look ill, and his reaction to his imminent death is to talk about what he should have done (but no examples or practical ideas) and he talks without emotion, so mental illness fits the bill.
Nevertheless, a part of the problem narrative is the mental health of his aunt...
Does this point to an organic cause?
His aunt who:
Went away to India.
Then went away to study.
Began phoning her mom talking animatedly about kind of nothing..
Quit her course
Took to walking miles and miles and miles and living out of dustbins
Cleaned the garden with bleach and filled the fridge with pinapples
Taken in for a psychiatric assessment.
Stabilized
Meds and a job..
Job ended (shop closed).
Stopped taking the meds.
Stopped everything.
Had tissue paper in her ears a lot (hearing voices?)
Took to her bed...
Treated as if she was ill because her dad was scared of her rages.
And it gets worse.
So I understand why he says he thinks his brain has gone wrong.
I need to find out if we can buy a nMRI scan of his brain. That is just about the only way I can think of to prove to him that continued stress and falling into a belief that your whole life is a sham will send the best of us spinning out into mental health problems. The things that happen to you, do have an affect - and when you don't pay attention to the wound - it can fester.
Or perhaps the scan would show something wrong.
How can I know.
Which brings me back to me and my mental health.
I didn't get enough sleep last night so I'm not very happy at the moment.
I feel like I've done the wrong thing by cancelling his hospital appointment in London - but everything will have to be transferred to here, he can't travel
I feel I've done the wrong thing by writing to his landlord, because of course he has a tenancy agreement - until December - that is £ 500 per month...so for goodness sake, of course I should try to stop that!
I can't work out if I should make him breakfast, dinner, tea...
We had a few days where he wouldn't eat because he said that as he was dying, what's the point.
So my brain is a hamster in a wheel.
His anxiety is contagious.
He talks as if he has something to say, then I hear the same type of statement over and over.
"I shouldn't have come back"
"What should you have done"
"It's more complex than that"
His movements are anxious, and it makes me want to close down and switch off.
Right now he is pacing back and forth
The floor boards creaking above my head
I'll tell you something that helps me.
1/ listening to NIN
2/ Using a reframe tool link...
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