Seeking advice on how to access appropriate support

Hi meraki,

Welcome to Sane. It must be be worrying and overwhelming for you at the moment. It is the early morning and many members will not be on the forums at the moment. I am sure that once the forums get busier today you will get some wise advice and support.

Take care,

Marchhare

Forum moderator

Hi @meraki

Hello and welcome to the forums.

The govt changed the way they fund carer support services recently.

Wellways is one of the Qld providers that received funding not sure who the other is.

https://www.wellways.org/our-services/support-families-friends-and-carers

Carers Qld missed out on this funding - not sure what services they provide now

https://carersqld.com.au/support-services/mental-health/

This is a helpful resource

http://mhr4c.com.au/

The carer gateway is the new portal for carers

https://www.carergateway.gov.au/

Hope these help.

How are things going @meraki

Thank you for checking in! Honestly, I feel like we just keep repeating the same cycle; drs throw meds at us, promise to provide ongoing support or refer us to people who can... Then weeks go by and we find out there's no space for new clients or our paperwork has been lost etc and we go back to square one.

My partner has also refused to be anywhere near me for a week now (we're still living together) as he believes that I can control his thoughts and am making him confused as a way of keeping him mentally subdued in order to manipulate and control him.

This is obviously making things very difficult, trying to convince him otherwise just made him angry and scared, so I'm giving him alot of space, hoping somehow we'll just come through this, but it means that I'm unable to track if he is taking his medication or encourage him to access support.

@meraki

Active phase of Sz = ☹️

When you are the subject of the delusional beliefs = ☹️☹️

This makes it very difficult and asking if he has taken his meds might be seen as further conspiracy. .

Does he have a case worker you can call?

Are his parents involved in his care /helpful?

We live with his parents, though they don't believe in mental illness or scientific Western medicine. They declined for him to take meds during our last MH admission and took him home against the advice of the hospital as soon as the MH act expired.

Our GP also prescribed antipsychotics later and he filled the prescription himself and was willingly taking them without their knowledge (He's 31 yrs).

So I do understand why he is now suspicious of me, as I am the one always there, always taking him to appointments etc and he is receiving opposing information from his family

At this point, he has no case worker, only sees psychologists etc when we present to ED as waiting on response from referrals... I could call our GP again? How do you go about accessing a case worker?

@meraki

A case worker is usually allocated by the public health system if a patient is under their care as an outpatient. They are the patient /carer contact person.

Hello @meraki ,

I am so sorry that you are going through such a hard situation. My husband is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic , so I can understand your troubles.

I am so angry that your partner's parents are not supportive of both of you! We live with my in laws and they have always been 100% supportive of my husband's condition and have offered us so much help. I really hope your partner's parents are able to educate themselves better about mental illnesses.

Also, make sure you go to your GP and get a Mental Health plan for yourself. This will give you 10 free sessions with a pyschologist which will really provide you better support in terms of your own mental health.

My husband has a case worker, which was provided to him since he got discharged in November (however he got readmitted in December, but he still had a caseworker). He is still with the case worker now and its been a HUGE help. The case worker helped me with readmitting my husband the second time and we get weekly appointments with his psychiatrist, case worker and a junior psychiatrist. The case worker will also assist me when she comes back from her leave in Feb to apply for my husband's disability. My husband is still HUGELY struggling, but atleast for now I know that I can ring up the Interim case worker (as Hubby's usual case worker is on leave) in case anything happens.

I dont know why your partner did not get assigned a case worker as it should be part of the discharge plan I believe? Our discharge plan was the Continuing care team (Caseworker), CATT team home visits and referral to PARC (which we ultimately did not do).

My husband (in his acute phrases) was distrustful of me, accusing me of wanting to harm him and many many other things. I know how hard it is to see the person you love suffer and treat you this way. Let me know if you need someone to talk to, anytime! Lots of hugs and kisses ❤️

Hi @nymeria92

I really appreciate your support! I do often think how different it would be if they were supportive, just to remove one element of stress from the situation. That has been the silver lining of my partner being distrustful of me; it forces his family to take more of an active role in caring for him and I think their eyes are starting to open...

Slowly.

When we left the hospital, they did give us a direct phone number for the mental health team. However, this has been useless for us.. whenever I call it, they just advise us to present at ED as there are no beds available on the mental health ward. When we get there, they advise us to make sure he keeps taking his meds and they promise to try to get him a psych review with whoever is available first within the next two weeks... they usually offer to give him a dose of something (I'm not sure what because he's always refused it anyway) to sedate before him before I take him back home to at least make it easier for me... Not super helpful! When we do stay, they insist that I stay at the hospital, especially over night to help supervise him because they say they simply don't have the staff available to provide the care he needs.

I asked psychologist about what I could do to receive ongoing care for him... He told me to just Google "psychologist specialising in psychosis and schizophrenia" and to see who's around and hopefully one of them will be taking new clients.

I am to not going to return to our local hospital, I just assumed that all hospitals followed the same procedure but clearly not.

I'm so sorry to hear your husband is still struggling! Did he also develop symptoms for the first time in November ? Or is this something you've been managing for longer? How do you handle it when he is distrustful of you - I wonder if I'm being naive by giving him space and hoping it will go away... But he's also developed a whole range of theories about why this is happening to him and he always forgets about them within a couple of weeks and moves on to the next theory, so I'm not really sure what else I can do