Services

This is going to be difficult to write… this is when things started to feel like they were getting out of control and people’s supposedly good intentions made a bad situation worse.

My health visitor contacted my GP surgery after visiting me when I had disclosed the baby boy possessed experience. In fairness she had a professional duty and probably felt out of her depth hearing these experiences.

Later that evening baby boy was asleep upstairs when there was a knock on the door. A lady was stood there holding a professional looking bag. She introduced herself as a doctor from the surgery and explained how my health visitor had been in contact. I wouldn’t let her in initially. I was thinking what the hell do you want and what are you planning to do. I was scared. I pleaded with her at the door that she didn’t need to come and everything was ok. She clearly wasn’t going to leave so I reluctantly let her in.

The visit did not last long. She asked how I was and I broke down. I said I didn’t want medication and shortly after the visit ended. She didn’t say anything more and I was left thinking that was it. It was merely a check in visit. How wrong was I…

The next day I had visited my mum in the morning and was getting ready to leave. My phone rang and someone introduced themselves as someone from the perinatal mental health team. I panicked. What was going on? Why were they calling me? Where did they get my name and number from? I explained to them I didn’t need their services and I hadn’t agreed to any referral being made to them. I said I couldn’t talk with them then and there as I was in the car leaving my mums house. She was adamant to continue the conversation and get me on medication. We finally agreed she would call later at a better time.

Back at home, baby boy needs to have a nap and is cranky. He is crying and I’m trying to rock him to sleep when the lady rings again. Talk about bad timing. She attempted to have a conversation with me whilst baby boy screamed in the background. I could barely hear what she was saying but she thought it was an ok time to keep the conversation going. I continued to tell her I was fine but she said I was not well and could she and a colleague come out to see me. I said no. I then had to explain that she would have to call me again in a bit as I needed to get baby boy to sleep. I couldn’t have a proper conversation with baby boy screaming the house down.

Finally baby boy was asleep and she rang me again. This time was a good time to ring but a bad time of what was to come. I find out that GP had referred me to them. We spoke about their concerns that I was psychotic. I was determined to come across as sane and stable and explained that the experiences were a result of sleep deprivation and traumatic experiences, and I was not psychotic. I struggled to find the right word to describe the thoughts but what I wanted to say is that they were ego dystonic and so no concern was required. Eventually we agreed they were probably intrusive thoughts and that I was depressed. Again I firmly said I would not take medication.

Then she mentioned …. social services… my heart stopped. What on earth was going on here?! I demanded to know who referred me and she said the health visitor. I pleaded and pleaded with the lady to tell them to stop the referral and un-refer me. She explained she couldn’t but she would talk to them. I was devastated. The stigma of social services was at the forefront of my mind. Worse, what would my husband think of all this… I had been keeping so much from him and I couldn’t face letting him know that I had myself in this mess. I feared he would be angry with me. It was my mess and I needed to sort it out without him knowing. This was a big mistake and being deceitful was always going to end badly.