Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[Former-Member]

Checking in  @Smc .

[Smc]

Thanks @Former-Member... been kind of quiet due to it being "more of the same", and in some ways, I'm tired of repeating myself.

There's been more SH and psychosis-type incidents with Older Daughter. Less so over the past week, thankfully. Struggling with feeling like Younger Daughter's heading in a direction I don't like- more on a social level than a MH level, but places that I've either been in myself, or seen other people head into, and they're dead end streets. We're hoping that the home schooling we're down for this year will give us a chance to redirect things, but I'm seeing it may be an uphill battle.

 We're still waiting on getting an adult autism assessment for Older Daughter, and still waiting to talk with the local MHT regarding the submission I made to Mental Health Complaints. Have found out along the way that the MHT is working with a diagnosis of BPD for Older Daughter, which I'm pretty sure hadn't been on the list last I knew. I'm somewhat sceptical... I looked up the website that one of their staff suggested to me, and was surprised that there was more that lined up than I expected, but to confuse matters further, a bit of further investigation found articles about austistic females being incorrectly diagnosed with BPD due to a significant crossover in observed behaviours/symptoms. Yeep... keeps getting soooo complicated! There's enough early childhood pointers that my suspicions still lean more towards autism, but we shall see.

And along the way, I'm thinking that I might at some stage want to start a new thread and abandon this one. The early diagnosis of DID has become "very improbable", but feeling as if you're "someone else" is actually one of they presentations shared by BPD and Autism. Sort of delaying doing so until we've (hopefully) got a more reliable diagnosis one way or another.

[Former-Member]

How are you @Smc 

[Shaz51]

hello @Smc , how are you my friend xx

[Smc]

 @Former-Member @Shaz51 ( and @Faith-and-Hope, saw you there. 🙂 )

I'm so-so... lots happening one way or another, but a lot of it feels like "history repeating".

Older Daughter has continued her up and down pattern, no SH lately because she wants to get herself to a stage where she could do an apprenticeship. We're not really too certain when that would be. We think she underestimates the absolute necessity of being able to consistently turn up for a full day's work, regardless of what else has been happening. (Barring occasional illness etc.) And in the middle of a series of "apparently nothing wrong" trips to the emergency ward for pains and other symptoms, she ended up with a real medical situation. A cyst on her back that had gotten inflamed to the point where it needed draining.

Two hassles with that- there's always the danger of a real medical situation being overlooked in the middle of all the psychosomatic ones... and I sort of got told by her, not asked, to stay with her overnight while she recovered from general anaesthetic, and to change the dressing on the wound the next day. By which I mean she assumed I could and would. As such, I want to help her, but it was pushing the limits of my "could" as I'm pretty burnt out. The dressing change did overstep my limits a bit, so I've gently but firmly said I'm not doing any subsequent changes.

And there was a "probably nothing" ambulance trip the night I stayed there too. I tried to talk her out of it, so did the paramedics, to no avail. So that was a broken and stressful night. I opted not to go to the hospital with her as I needed sleep if I was the person looking out for her post surgery... and I didn't say so, but the last thing I wanted was to give extra validation to the hospital presentation.

And Younger Son moved out to the big city earlier this week. We helped out and Hubby drove the moving van. Big job, plus we'll miss him....

And the day we were moving him I got a call from the aged care home saying my Dad had had a hypo episode the previous night. The staff there found him unwell during one of their routine overnight checks, and called an ambulance. They stabilised him there with the help of a Cherry Ripe and some orange juice plus medical care, and the paramedics gave them heads up that the emergency dept. there was full, so taking him in would mean he'd be on a stretcher in the corridor. They made the wise call to stay a little longer until he was definitely stabilised, then leave him in the care of the aged care home staff, who checked him every half hour for the rest of the night. In the middle of all the aged care "bad news" stories, I am so often grateful that Mum and Dad ended up in a good place. We could have lost him that night. It'll happen eventually, possibly sooner rather than later, but I'm relieved that it's "not yet".

So trying to focus on a bit of self care in the middle of it all. Spending time in the garden, my late-planted tomatoes and zucchinis are giving me little treasures every day or so, and that will probably turn into open floodgates sometime soon! And also getting some winter vegs started, and some flowers for happy thoughts.

[Faith-and-Hope]

❤️ @Smc ..... listening 

Virtual cuppa and hugs aplenty

[Smc]

Appreciated @Faith-and-Hope. Have felt a bit "through the mill" lately.

Have been quietly checking in on how others are going too. You've had a bit happening too.

[Faith-and-Hope]

Yeah, pretty much "through the mill" here too @Smc, but it also feels like an inching forward. I am trying not to overthink it and just get carried along with the tide because it seems to be going in the right direction.  Soooo tired though.  I can relate to how you're feeling, albeit the circumstances are very different.

💜 Hugs n hugs for what you're going through.

[Former-Member]

Checking in @Smc 

[Smc]

Ta @Former-Member.

So-so here. Older Daugther had a hospital trip a couple of nights ago which we heard about yesterday, probable SA, but a bit confusing on that point. She's back at the hospital today due to nausea/drowsiness which are probably expected after-effects, but it needs to be checked in case it indicates organ damage.

And Younger Daughter's still struggling too. We're meant to be home schooling her, but she's very unmotivated, and we're very tired. Slept badly last night, brain overbusy, which I largely directed into praying about the stuff it was overbusy about. Not sure whether the overbusy brain was stress, too much coffee during the day, or both. (The extra coffee was because we caught up with a friend we haven't seen in ages... in itself not a bad thing.)