I’ve already typed quite a bit today when I should have been working on other things, but I feel that a small update about J’s care is important here. Forgive me if I’m repeating myself at all.
Whilst she was being re-sectioned (3?) the locum (temporary) consultant revealed that they did not believe her when she said that she hears voices and hallucinates spiders. Had we known this months ago we would have asked for a second opinion, this explained why the replacement anti-psychotic was never increased (J had begged and begged for it to be increased, but this fucker was just treading water with us). This locum also put in place what was an old idea, that of the sending of J away to a unit in Birmingham which specialised in treating people with personality disorders. The treatment would last between one and half, and two years. J owns a house (which I stay in mostly when I look after her cat). She would lose benefits which help towards the mortgage and would eventually lose the house. When I’ve visited her on wards, or read patient histories at the drop-in at which I worked, there is always someone on the ward who is currently homeless or is about to be. In fact in some ways the problems is similar for those who go into prison and lose control of accommodation “on the outside”. The system is so segmented that jaded doctors don’t seem to see any larger picture, because they can simply refer a patient to an in/outreach team or a social worker. J and I are very aware that there is a shortage of beds and that every few weeks the consultants meet with bed management and there’s a type of struggle to set discharge dates for patients. Feeling more suicidal than ever, not helped by the re-sectioning J had taken to ligaturing (this is when a person tries to strangle themselves), this naturally went against her, and it doesn’t help when the common view of self-harm or suicidal behaviour is that it is a symptom of PD, and certainly not a type of coping strategy. A date was rushed forward to have a meeting about sending her away. Her CPN (the only professional in the community who knew J, now that yet another consultant had left the team) couldn’t attend on that day, and it was said that he would be threatened with a disciplinary procedure (!?). Three of the nursing staff who know J well were not present in the week running up to the meeting, although a sympathetic matron was there on the day. The consultant who had taken over from the locum had barely chatted with J. So we had to assume that these decisions would be based on an assessment and her file notes. As I’ve said before, the file notes are peppered with inaccuracies reported by the Crisis Team, who frankly seem to make facts up (every few years J requests her to see her notes, and they read like bad Chinese whispers with assumptions and interpretations always prevailing over the actual facts or situation). Even after complaints are made, the strength of the testimony of these people is still taken over the patient or family evidence. What chance had J, if the previous consultant thought she had been making up all of the distress regarding in-head voices and hallucinations? A junior doctor kept pressing that her suicidal thoughts were “ambivalent”. This is back to that old gem, whereby J is apparently not serious about trying to kill herself and all actions up to now have been “impulsive”. The utter invalidation is unreal sometimes. Remember, she can’t walk away from this, these people control whether or not she receives care, and the type of liberties she is allowed. In saying all this, my fight with them up to now was getting them to keep her safe. She says “I want to kill myself, I’m not sure I can keep myself safe. I want to walk out of here and into the road” (I paraphrase), whilst sectioning her the other doctor said “You’ve forced our hand”. This reminds me of the puffing and sighing I’ve seen from the Crisis Team.
Prior to the meeting about the compulsory treatment and referral out of county, J’s named nurse and an occupational therapist had already made some breakthroughs in working through her depression self-esteem and OCD, and a rape counsellor had finally been assigned to her. After all these years, none of the doctors seem to think that rapes by two different men would be relevant in terms of J’s history, preferring always to focus on childhood and family - for christsake, half of this shit might even be PTSD. Maybe they thought she was making them up. Cos patients do that, right? For attention?
Anyhow, in summary, her ward care was getting somewhere, perhaps.
-…
Actually I’m getting too wound up to continue typing. It never stops. The bigotry never ends.
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