Sectioned..... or not

Sectioned... or not...

I have recently been lucky enough to be asked to be involved in helping to plan a “Family and Carers Listening Event” which reminded me just how important it is for medical professionals to listen to carers. This is something that sadly simply does not happen enough.

My daughter was on a waiting list (18 months!) to be seen as a “non-urgent” out-patient at our local eating disorders unit. Whilst waiting she had occasional appointments with the community mental health team. I always went with her to appointments so my face was known by the team.

A new psychiatrist saw my daughter and was so concerned (hooray – at last!) by how unwell she was that he organised a Mental Health Act (sectioning) team to turn up unannounced at our home. Fortunately both I and my daughter were in – does raise the question as to what to they do if you are not – sit on the doorstep and wait??

The team walked into our home – I do recall being introduced to the three members at all – merely the fact that they wanted to see my daughter. Considering they were “invading” our home unannounced and uninvited I found their attitude at worst offensive and at best sheer bad manners. Despite having attended all appointments with my daughter I was told (quite rudely) that I was not to be present in the same room whilst they talked to my daughter and that if I didn’t comply then my daughter would be removed, (forcibly if necessary) from our home. My husband (her step-Dad) and son soon returned home to offer support. We ended up sitting on the stairs (the layout of our house is such that it might have be construed intruding on the proceedings if we even went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea). It felt incredibly bizarre, surreal – it is so difficult to put into words – that a team of mental health professionals were talking to my daughter and had been sent round as it felt that she was unstable enough to not understand the danger she was in and yet her own family were being excluded. Anorexics are known to lie – to be deceitful, to be manipulative in order to “protect” the anorexia – and yet despite this we were not consulted. This was a few years ago and I still struggle to make sense of this.

My daughter wasn’t sectioned and promptly we were left to deal with her care – with no consultation with us by the team as to how we were coping or to find out the reality of the situation. Basically – back to you family. Did I want my precious daughter to be sectioned – No, of course not – and yet we (me, husband and son) couldn’t help feeling disappointed and let down. We desperately – and I mean desperately – wanted and needed some help and yet again we weren’t going to get any – it was back to us caring, cajoling, worrying again.

The next day my daughter had an appointment with the Community Mental Health Team – as always I went along. I have been anorexic – I know the tricks – I know about hiding weights in your clothing, I know about lying about what has and hasn’t been eaten, I know about extra layers of clothing, heavy jewellery, drinking pints of water to falsify weight etc. I knew my daughter was using some (maybe all) of these “tricks” – she had at the very least been drinking a lot. I wanted to simply pass this information onto to the team so that they could assess her properly. I know about patient confidentiality – I know that I cannot be told things about my daughter that she does not wish me to know – I also know that, as a carer, I have a right to be listened to. I was denied this. I was told that due to patient confidentiality the team would not speak to me. I was so angry I had to leave the building, I am not one for violence but I really did not trust myself not to hit anyone or to “trash” the waiting area. I could not and still do not understand how less than 24 hours earlier my daughter had been deemed ill enough to warrant a Mental Health Act team on the doorstep but for me, her mother, not to be spoken to – to find out how things really were.

My daughter was “assessed” at her appointment and deemed to be ok – she wasn’t... and we ended up going through the same process again and again....

All they needed to was to LISTEN to her family who only wanted to help her.....

Ann