Need advice on serious issues with mental health service here in UK.

[sweetheart]

Hello all,

I am on Staying, but some events occurred over the holidays that have left me concerned. My h has BPD and Paranoid Schizophrenia. He is medication compliant and well linked in with Community Mental Health Services here in the UK. His care nosedived at the same time as his mental health deteriorated last summer. His P of six years left at the same time as we moved house and his social worker also left around this time. He has been catastrophically unwell spending large quantities of time sleeping rough last year as he was so thought disordered and paranoid. Anyway eventually he ended up in hospital this July and since he came out our lives have been relatively ok given the limitations of his illness we were doing alright.

He was assaulted by a stranger while out one week end in October, the police were involved and I was asked to be his Appropriate Adult at the police station ( I was away for the weekend at family ) where he was taken for his own safety after the assault. It was clear to me he was unwell, paranoid, frightened with suicidal ideation prior to being interviewed. They never caught the person who attacked him but it all held up on CCTV and he was let go with no further action taken. The police expressed their concern about his vulnerability to me at the time and questioned his capacity to make informed judgements when around groups of strangers. I said that his mental health team have been made aware of these issues.

Since the assault his mental state has started to destabilise, he is brittle, paranoid, feels unsafe, is hypervigilant, irritable and easily triggered. His BPD then comes into play and he begins to blame, project any and all of his negativity and unease toward me. This is not unusual when he is unwell, neither is phoning the crisis mental health team and ranting about the terrible things I am doing to him. I accept this is the nature of the beast and believed with confidence that his mental health team did too.

So just before Christmas he has a scheduled home  visit from P and SW who are concerned about what h is saying re risk to others and feeling unsafe. They refer him to an Intensive Support Team whilst waiting for a local hospital bed to become available. Well the waiting and the daily visits to our home by unknown nurses send my h into freefall - and of course the paranoia is targeted at me, I have caused all this. He is constantly phoning them saying I am controlling and persecuting him and that there is nothing wrong with him. They allow him to decline a bed offer which is not local to us despite him experiencing auditory hallucinations and thoughts of delusional intensity about harm from strangers.

Next thing I know a nurse visits yesterday and after the visit h is holding a dictaphone. I ask him if it helped any talking to the nurse this morning. He says the nurse, whom he knows, says he doesn't think there is anything wrong with him and is concerned that on the basis of what my h is saying to services he might b at risk of abuse from me. They suggested getting Patient Protection Services involved to safeguard him from the things he is telling them I am doing.

I know most of this must be true because my h wouldn't have ever heard of PPS and he was paranoid around me beyond belief after the visit. He barricaded himself in the bedroom for the night. I expected many things from the service but not collusion.

So my dilemma is what should I do ?

It raises many concerns for us as a family because it means that if they are choosing to collude with his beliefs then we are all at risk as are members of the public from seriously risky behaviour when dysregulated and unwell.

If I am to stay with my h (and I may not because of the increased risks, we have a s6) how do we ensure that his mental health needs are being met, here in the UK we have rights as a family to adequate provision of care, but if the services go down this route everything looks really bleak.

Initially I was really angry at the suggestion of safeguarding services, but after I had calmed down I realised I have nothing to hide, because I'm not doing the things my h is saying.

I would very much appreciate any advice on how to navigate this because I know for sure this won't end here.

[ForeverDad]

He says the nurse, whom he knows, says he doesn't think there is anything wrong with him and is concerned that on the basis of what my h is saying to services he might b at risk of abuse from me. They suggested getting Patient Protection Services involved to safeguard him from the things he is telling them I am doing.

I know most of this must be true because my h wouldn't have ever heard of PPS and he was paranoid around me beyond belief after the visit. He barricaded himself in the bedroom for the night. I expected many things from the service but not collusion.

So my dilemma is what should I do ?

It sounds like the nurse is new to the case, took his statements at face value and didn't consider the established history.  I feel this should be corrected, perhaps at a higher level?  The longer this perception is allowed to take root, the harder it will be to get the professionals back on track.

Initially I was really angry at the suggestion of safeguarding services, but after I had calmed down I realised I have nothing to hide, because I'm not doing the things my h is saying.

I would very much appreciate any advice on how to navigate this because I know for sure this won't end here.

When I was in the middle of my separation conflict, that's what a therapist told me, that if I hadn't done anything then I wouldn't go to jail.  I wasn't angry about my situation, I was downright terrified.  Since my then-stbEx didn't have an established mental health history, the T's assurance didn't make me feel any better.

For your own self-protection you may need to consider separating your life from his since his mushrooming paranoia could put you at risk and your child or at least be very expensive to counteract legally and emotionally.  It may actually be healthier for your son to see his father on a limited basis, that is, just on his better days.

If Staying works, that's fine.  But if it doesn't, as in a square peg versus a round hole, accept that a square peg won't fit in a round hole... .  It would be prudent to explore the Leaving option and structure your life now - legally, financially and otherwise - so that there are as few complications as possible whether you Stay or whether you Go.

[sweetheart]

Thank you ForeverDad,

The sad irony is the nurse that did visit does know the mental health history and my h dx. What now terrifies me is even knowing all that, knowing why he was visiting my h he still believed what my h was saying even with no contextual references to back it up.

My biggest fear now is if this takes hold as some kind of reinterpreting of his mental illness, my first thought was to my son and the fear that there could be implications here. I feel physically sick writing this, it never occurred to me that they might set any store by what he was saying given that he can hear me talking and I don't have to open my mouth.

What's so sad it is the lack of proactive care and treatment for my husband at his most unwell that has gotten us to this place. My son had six years of a good enough father before we moved even with his dx we had a reasonably normal life.

Our life is lurching from chaos to disaster and all I wanted was good mental health care for my h because I know this makes a difference. Now this seems like wishful thinking. What a mess.