Mental health

Hi @Strawberry1. This is a label that I was given many years ago. I went home and researched what it was?
This didn’t resonate with me at all. The problem with the mental health system is that need to give people labels.

I am married and have a stepchild. Social services came to my house because they said that I was a potential risk to the child. Two days later they removed him from the house pending investigations? That made me feel sick inside. The fact that I had spent many years working with children across the spectrum didn’t matter to them. The fact that he was happily living in my family home for two years made no difference in their eyes.

We had to attend Child Protection Meetings which involved a multi disciplinary team. I felt like my whole life was in their hands. I spent endless nights researching children’s services procedures. I made an official complaint to the local authority, but they didn’t accept that they were in the wrong. I took my complaint to Stage 2. I was so emphatic that my previous history of mental health issues did not affect my stepchild. At every single meeting, the chairperson would say the same conclusion - I needed a psychological assessment before he could return home. During that period my stepchild was with his birth father. He was not being schooled, had no healthcare provider in the area. He had to share a bed with his father because his father was subletting in a shared flat. This isn’t putting a child’s needs first! I have not been under mental health services for over 3 years, and I have not been on medication for mental illness for longer. Eventually the council relented, stating that changes in written procedures would be made, and paid me a token amount of compensation.

Some people are relieved to finally understand what they are going through and being given a label. Authority figures don’t see you as human anymore. Just someone who’s emotionally unstable who can’t predict what they might do at any given time if they feel triggered. My case is histrionic, yet any official letter of diagnosis - it’s Top of my List of Illnesses. You can show them that they are wrong by not allowing yourself to react with extreme emotion. Write down the doctors name and ask for a second opinion even if you believe it’s what you have simply because they told you.