D.I.D....

To plan... kinda sorta, not really @Determined?
We got a phonecall from her shortly after we left home saying that the hospital's MHT wanted to see her before discharge. Talked to a nurse who didn't know exactly when they'd be coming, but thought Older Daughter would probably still be discharged today. So we continued down anyway, but took our time on the trip... backroads and a couple of pleasant stops instead of straight down the freeway.
Arrived shortly after the MHT did, so sat in on their talk with Older Daughter, then they talked with us separately for a while, which meant we could be a lot more direct in what we said.
End result, Older Daughter wasn't discharged, they want to talk to her local case worker and her private psychiatrist before deciding what to do. It sounds like they're pretty concerned for her safety, and would prefer to have her admitted to a clinic. Asked what our preference would be. Am not sure with her current SI/SH mindset if she'd be accepted by a private clinic, and it's doubtful whether the local public one would take her either.
We'd like to see her somewhere safe and therapeutically beneficial. We feel like we've exhausted the options for finding something that fits those criteria. If they can find something that we can't, we'd be quite happy to go with it. Hopefully Older Daughter would too.
She's done so much cumulative damage that she's losing function in her hand. Something needs to change, but don't know how. Soooo.... not to plan, waiting to see if that's for the best.
Tomorrow's morning tea is a go-er. The hospital's ok with afternoon pickup, if she's discharged. If not, we'll need to get some more clothes to her at some very soon point in time. She wasn't expecting to be admitted, so arrived at the local hospital in her PJs, but with a change of day clothes as I'd recommended. Better than nothing, at least.

@Smc

It is a real catch 22, I do not envy the job of public hospital psychiatrists having to work out who is to be admitted with limited bed availability. There are not the programs on the wards that private hospitals have - which in some ways may or may not be appropriate for public hospitals as the patients who are admitted are generally acute, a percentage qualifying for involuntary treatment (and as such would not be accepted in the private health system). They are often manic, psychotic, suicidal or there to detox from illicit drug induced psychosis. Due to short term memory issues, patients undergoing ECT will likely not benefit from concurrent therapy, these factors combined leads to cost vs benefit questions being raised in an already stretched system *sighs.

@Smc Thinking of you and family.

Ta @Determined, @Former-Member .... saw you there too @Shaz51.
She's still in a regular ward at the hospital, but rang up about an hour ago, really struggling with the "voices". And she believes she can't fight the compulsion/urging to do harm in connection with that, so she gives in, so the next time it's even more overpowering... Yeep. The line between realitiy and nightmare is really blurry for her at the moment.
She was waiting for a psych team member to come to see her, and one of the nurses was popping in very regularly to check on her. Dunno what will come out of this.

Extra prayers for you and yours tonight 🙏

Here also @Smc

Wondering how you got on today @Smc @

thinking of you lots my friend @Smc xxxx

Helllo @Former-Member , @Determined , @outlander

No "new news" yet @Shaz51 @Former-Member @Determined.

Also have to ring my Mum. She's meant to be having a medical procedure that might deal with the ongoing infection on her leg, but my sister gave me "heads up" a couple of days ago that it might be a private admission. Mum doesn't have either the medical insurance or the liquid assets to cover that. Most of their money is still tied up in theri house. So gotta find out what's going on, and dreading having something else to sort out.

@Shaz51 @Former-Member @Determined @Faith-and-Hope ... Had better update... didn't realise how long I'd gone since last post.

Older Daughter is still in the hospital. Hubby was able to take a few changes of clothes and other essentials down for her last Friday, and then he spent the night at his parents' house before going to an interest group he's in on Saturday. She got another visit on his way home.

We were suspecting that they were keeping her in for longer than medical grounds required to keep her safe while they try to find a psych unit place. That was confirmed when we both took the train down to visit on Thursday, and were able to wait around to see one of the doctors.

She's been keeping the staff busy enough. For several days... maybe a week? they had someone with her for 24 hour watch due to concers that she would re-injure herself, and her general psychiatric instability. She's still confined to the ward, but if she wants to go to the cafe or gift shop, she can if a staff member accompanies her.

She's been having "waking nightmares" that what she calls "the shadow people" are telling her they're coming out to our house to harm us. We keep reassuring her that we're safe, and that these people don't exist outside of her own mind... I don't think she believes us. She rang one evening in tears to warn us, and again the next morning to make sure we had been safe. And last night we had a call from her in a little girl persona, scared, crying and not knowing why she was in hospital. There's way too many mental disconnects in her mind, so rather than telling her, i said that the memories were there, she needed to try to remember. The "shadow people" came up in that conversation too.

One of the nurses spoke to us, asking what she should do, and what we do... mostly we quietly ignore the child-like presentation and talk with her normally, while keeping an eye on her to make sure nothing inappropriate or harmful happens. Sometimes telling her that we need the "real her" back works, but I wasn't sure whether to do that, or let the staff see for themselves what was happening. We're less convinced over time that it's actual DID, and thinking it's a more generalised lack of mental boundaries between real and not-real.

They're still working on trying to get a MHU placement for her. Their public unit is full, so they're in negotiation with a private unit to try to get a spot. She's a bit beyond the usual risk profile for private, so it's not straightforward. Am impressed that they've managed to wrangle a bed in a medical hospital for this long. Staff at our local one have said that they aren't allowed to give beds to MI patients without a physical-medical reason. We've pointed out to the doctor there that there needs to be a fallback plan if she escalates to the point where a private clinic has to discharge her.

Other news... seems Mum's surgical admission is going to be public...whew... We've been getting a few little reminders lately of the "echo chamber" of being a MI carer, and that the general public is likely to have some fairly vague or incorrect assumptions about MI. That's partially been happening because I'm getting tired of beating around the bush about it, and am being a bit more direct about what's up. We're tired... saw our psych on Tuesday, she was saying that she thought we'd reached the end of our endurance levels sometime last year, but then somehow we kept going. That's...good.. maybe???