AM
20-07-2007, 21:03
For some unknown reason I woke up this morning and decided I wanted to get to the bottom of why I was not helped by the mental health system when Louie was a tiny bub, he was colicy and screaming, Tyler was a bewildered 2 year old, Ian was off interstate trucking for 2 weeks at a time, and all of my family was in NZ, and I was literally coming apart at the seams.
I decided I would return to the doctor I had taken Louie to one Sunday morning in desperation to try to find out exactly why he would not sleep, just scream and vomit a lot of the time.
In the consultation I was obviously distressed and in tears, the doctor asked me if I was depressed, and i replied yes, to which he said do you want help, and I also said yes. He told me he would contact the community health service and get someone to contact me.
A few days later I was contacted by someone, I have no idea of her name, or where she was from, except that I vaguely remember her mentioning "L**** C*****" and that she was 'a boss'
Anyway, she proceeds to ask me quite asinine questions such as do you have a car? and when she finds I do, she talks to me about people who do not have a car, and that they struggle quite a bit. She asks if i have friends, and when i confirm I do, she blabs on about people who are new to the area and do not know anyone, and who REALLY struggle. So at each turn, she is minimising my problems, and the upshot of the conversation is that it leaves me feeling even more ashamed than ever that I cannot cope, and I am not even worthy of help from the community agencies.
So i continue to struggle on, becoming more and more freaked out by the fact that I am constantly having visions and thoughts of harming my children, and actually killing my baby. And this is many mnay times every day. I get to the stage where I am terrified that if I tell anyone i will have my kids taken away. I pluck up the courage to call Parents line, and anonymously pour out my story, and ask if it is normal to want to really harm your children (knowing it is not) I get some calming down and reassurance, but nothing beyond her telling me she is worried about me, and would i please call her back in a couple of days to let her know I am OK, which i never do, as I am too ****ed up.
I have a terrible terrible episode of suicidal urges which scares me rigid, and I try to call Lifeline multiple times, each time it is engaged. I am SO scared that I am going to really badly harm myself, and feel I have no-one to talk to about it, all of my family are in NZ, and I do not want to worry them, as they are too far away to help me. Ian is simply shutting his ears to me at this stage, so I don't ring him.
This comes to a crux when the next day I literally scream down the phone at Ian that I am ****EN SUICIDAL and i NEED HELP!!! (after weeks of telling him i am not coping)
He doesn't even then come home, he rings a friend, and she packs me and the kids up to stay with her, as i am so incredibly afraid of being alone with the kids, so scared of what I might do. I am a zombie at this stage, so far into depression that I simply do not know why I am alive, I stay with my friend for 2 weeks, i cannot bear to set foot in my house, it scares me too much, and my sister flies in from NZ to take me home to mum to get the support I so desperately need.
So today, I go back to that doctor, request my notes to find out who he referred me too, with the mission in mind of tracking that person down, and telling them my stroy, and letting them know just how badly they failed me. Only my doc never actually opened a file for ME, he simply tacked some vague notes onto Louies file
"Mother seemed depressed - admitted to it, husband not home - interstate truckdriver. Will ring community health centre see if they can help"
When I asked him who he rang, he was vague, and when they looked back though their fax log, no proper referral was ever made for me, and no proper notes were ever made at the medical centre, so it is really hard for me to follow any of this up.
I try the local mental health services and tell her of my experience, and ask if there is any record of me on her files...no go, and she comments that the way I was questioned was completely out of character for the way they work, and they would have made an appointment for me to be assessed face to face, which I was never ever offered at any time. I get the gut feeling that i was never referred to them, probably to the L**** C****** crowd instead, and ring them to ask. I get a lovely woman who listens to me and says she will ask around to see if anyone remembers anything (I am not on their data base either)
Then quite soon after, the director of nursing there wants to speak to me, and she seems quite famimiar with the kinds of questions I was asked, and starts saying things to me like "It was 18 months ago, what do you hope to achieve?" and " you don't sound well to me right now, can we give you some counselling?" which really ****s me off and i tell her i am fine thanks just ****en angry at the way I was treated, and dumped my the agencies without even a follow up call.
The vibe I got off this woman was very similar to the way I had been spoken to originally, I have suspicions that it actually may have been her, or she has some knowledge of it. I am suspicious, as she was SO quick to ring back, and want to offer me check up services, counselling services etc, and trying to deflect me from trying to find out the facts of the situation.
So, because of ****en shoddy paperwork by pretty much everyone involved, and poor skills at taking someone seriously who is completely ****ed up by PND, I went through absolute hell and back, and I cannot even tell my story to those who had a hand in it.
I would love to send my story to someone in the mental health arena, I just do not know who, and i would love to have more facts of who and when to present, but I'm at a bit of a dead end.
I did manage to get a little bit of closure, I told that doctor exactly how I had been failed, and the impact on me, but to what effect, I don't know. Perhaps he will be more careful with his patient notes in the future.
I just cannot stand the thought of other people having the same experience, and that doc seems to think it is a common enough experience to be fobbed off, he even told me of cases where he has referred severely depressed people to emergency, only to have them sent home, and one of his patients that this happened to committed suicide. When I asked him if there would be an enquiry into the chain of events leading to this womans suicide, he kind of shrugged and said only if a parent or someone demands it.
****!!!!!!!!!!!!
This country has a ****en **** mental health system. I spent 8 months in NZ getting over the trauma of all of this - obviously it is still very raw at times for me - I was supported through it SO well by a GP, Plunket, and the NZ Maternal Mental Health System.
Why the hell did I need to leave the country to get the help I needed??
If I had not been lucky enough to have a caring enough and financially able enough sister to come and pull me out of that situation I seriously doubt whether I would be here today, and I do not know if my kids would be around either. I probably would have gassed us all in the car. Seriously.
I decided I would return to the doctor I had taken Louie to one Sunday morning in desperation to try to find out exactly why he would not sleep, just scream and vomit a lot of the time.
In the consultation I was obviously distressed and in tears, the doctor asked me if I was depressed, and i replied yes, to which he said do you want help, and I also said yes. He told me he would contact the community health service and get someone to contact me.
A few days later I was contacted by someone, I have no idea of her name, or where she was from, except that I vaguely remember her mentioning "L**** C*****" and that she was 'a boss'
Anyway, she proceeds to ask me quite asinine questions such as do you have a car? and when she finds I do, she talks to me about people who do not have a car, and that they struggle quite a bit. She asks if i have friends, and when i confirm I do, she blabs on about people who are new to the area and do not know anyone, and who REALLY struggle. So at each turn, she is minimising my problems, and the upshot of the conversation is that it leaves me feeling even more ashamed than ever that I cannot cope, and I am not even worthy of help from the community agencies.
So i continue to struggle on, becoming more and more freaked out by the fact that I am constantly having visions and thoughts of harming my children, and actually killing my baby. And this is many mnay times every day. I get to the stage where I am terrified that if I tell anyone i will have my kids taken away. I pluck up the courage to call Parents line, and anonymously pour out my story, and ask if it is normal to want to really harm your children (knowing it is not) I get some calming down and reassurance, but nothing beyond her telling me she is worried about me, and would i please call her back in a couple of days to let her know I am OK, which i never do, as I am too ****ed up.
I have a terrible terrible episode of suicidal urges which scares me rigid, and I try to call Lifeline multiple times, each time it is engaged. I am SO scared that I am going to really badly harm myself, and feel I have no-one to talk to about it, all of my family are in NZ, and I do not want to worry them, as they are too far away to help me. Ian is simply shutting his ears to me at this stage, so I don't ring him.
This comes to a crux when the next day I literally scream down the phone at Ian that I am ****EN SUICIDAL and i NEED HELP!!! (after weeks of telling him i am not coping)
He doesn't even then come home, he rings a friend, and she packs me and the kids up to stay with her, as i am so incredibly afraid of being alone with the kids, so scared of what I might do. I am a zombie at this stage, so far into depression that I simply do not know why I am alive, I stay with my friend for 2 weeks, i cannot bear to set foot in my house, it scares me too much, and my sister flies in from NZ to take me home to mum to get the support I so desperately need.
So today, I go back to that doctor, request my notes to find out who he referred me too, with the mission in mind of tracking that person down, and telling them my stroy, and letting them know just how badly they failed me. Only my doc never actually opened a file for ME, he simply tacked some vague notes onto Louies file
"Mother seemed depressed - admitted to it, husband not home - interstate truckdriver. Will ring community health centre see if they can help"
When I asked him who he rang, he was vague, and when they looked back though their fax log, no proper referral was ever made for me, and no proper notes were ever made at the medical centre, so it is really hard for me to follow any of this up.
I try the local mental health services and tell her of my experience, and ask if there is any record of me on her files...no go, and she comments that the way I was questioned was completely out of character for the way they work, and they would have made an appointment for me to be assessed face to face, which I was never ever offered at any time. I get the gut feeling that i was never referred to them, probably to the L**** C****** crowd instead, and ring them to ask. I get a lovely woman who listens to me and says she will ask around to see if anyone remembers anything (I am not on their data base either)
Then quite soon after, the director of nursing there wants to speak to me, and she seems quite famimiar with the kinds of questions I was asked, and starts saying things to me like "It was 18 months ago, what do you hope to achieve?" and " you don't sound well to me right now, can we give you some counselling?" which really ****s me off and i tell her i am fine thanks just ****en angry at the way I was treated, and dumped my the agencies without even a follow up call.
The vibe I got off this woman was very similar to the way I had been spoken to originally, I have suspicions that it actually may have been her, or she has some knowledge of it. I am suspicious, as she was SO quick to ring back, and want to offer me check up services, counselling services etc, and trying to deflect me from trying to find out the facts of the situation.
So, because of ****en shoddy paperwork by pretty much everyone involved, and poor skills at taking someone seriously who is completely ****ed up by PND, I went through absolute hell and back, and I cannot even tell my story to those who had a hand in it.
I would love to send my story to someone in the mental health arena, I just do not know who, and i would love to have more facts of who and when to present, but I'm at a bit of a dead end.
I did manage to get a little bit of closure, I told that doctor exactly how I had been failed, and the impact on me, but to what effect, I don't know. Perhaps he will be more careful with his patient notes in the future.
I just cannot stand the thought of other people having the same experience, and that doc seems to think it is a common enough experience to be fobbed off, he even told me of cases where he has referred severely depressed people to emergency, only to have them sent home, and one of his patients that this happened to committed suicide. When I asked him if there would be an enquiry into the chain of events leading to this womans suicide, he kind of shrugged and said only if a parent or someone demands it.
****!!!!!!!!!!!!
This country has a ****en **** mental health system. I spent 8 months in NZ getting over the trauma of all of this - obviously it is still very raw at times for me - I was supported through it SO well by a GP, Plunket, and the NZ Maternal Mental Health System.
Why the hell did I need to leave the country to get the help I needed??
If I had not been lucky enough to have a caring enough and financially able enough sister to come and pull me out of that situation I seriously doubt whether I would be here today, and I do not know if my kids would be around either. I probably would have gassed us all in the car. Seriously.