Topic Tuesday Focus Group // Treatment and support for people experiencing personality disorders // Tuesday 13 March, 7pm AEDT

[EliseSunflower]

@Former-Member Thanks for your reply!

That sounds very frustrating and I can imagine it was very confusing. It sounds like you were left to do a lot of your own research and piece things together. 

That's interesting that different diagnoses were given by the same public health treating team, too - even though it can be difficult to reach a diagnosis sometimes, it's unfortunate that you were given conflicting information.

How do the two of you feel about his diagnosis these days?

[Shaz51]

hello @EliseSunflower 

not sure if this is what is discussed , sorry

 but My husband has been diagnosed with lots of MI in the last 11 years that I have been married as i am his second wife  but in the 11 years he has been diagnosed with major depression, ADHD, Inherited Depression , GAD, SAD and Bipolar 11 other`s , unsure about before then except for OCD

[EliseSunflower]

@Determined I'm glad to hear you've had some positive experiences with your current psychiatrist. 

What have the two of you found the most useful in terms of treatment and support services?

[EliseSunflower]

Hi @Shaz51 it certainly sounds like your husband has had a lot of experience with mental illness and different diagnoses.

Tonight our discussion is specific to personality disorders (e.g. borderline personality disorder). Has been been diagnosed with a personality disorder? If not, you might still find some of the discussion interesting/relevant 

[Determined]

Primarily treatment for my darling  has involved medication (psychiatrist) and mindfulness etc (psychologist). 

She had attend group classes while in hospital and some outpatient day group classes. I believe these helped short term but results were not sustained. 

Last year she received 3 of prescribed ect treatments, treatment was ceased due to negative side effects. 

She started some DBT at the beginning of last year but that stopped when she went back into hospital and refuaed to go back since because it is too far to travel and costs too much. 

I have seen psychologists on and off and been on anti depressants, somewhere in the middle of all that I was seeing a psychiatrist and diagnosed with ADHD and treated accordingly. Since given him the flick. 

The solution the first psychologist I saw for support was for me to leave my wife because and quit my job and all would be good. 

[EliseSunflower]

@Determined Thank you - sounds like between the two of you, you have tried quite a few different types of support services, although experiences have not always been positive.

The forums is one obvious place of support - have you accessed other support services specific to your role as a carer? 

[Determined]

For my darling bu way of treatmwnt I think the inpatient group classes. 

For me the best support I have recieved is from my work supervisor. Not even mh related but someone I can talk to when things are falling apart for me. 

By far the best support is in financial support in the way of carer allowance and my darling being on a dsp. Without that I dont know where we would be. 

[EliseSunflower]

@Determined Having supportive friends and coworkers can make a massive difference! 

What sort of strategies or resources do you use to look after yourself? (self-care or otherwise)

[Former-Member]

@EliseSunflower
What led to Dx - Mr D first had symptoms following a revelation his father was an alleged paedophille. He had previous mild OCD traits but his anxiety skyrocketed and he sought help; he has a poor history with therapists and this may be one factor that eventually led to his diagnosis. I think as his psychosis was non bizarre and may have not been as brief as they first thought.

It has not been easy, yes I had to do a lot of the detective work.

Thoughts about diagnoses? Mr D has marked memory loss from ECT - I have no idea what he was told at the time of most of the Dx as I was not actively caring for him (caring in the medical sense). He is accepting of his BPii Dx and has no idea what a PD is or that he was diagnosed with one. I did bring up the working diagnosis at one stage and the pdoc back peddled very quickly when they could see Mr D was not going to understand. This was at the stage when I started to be more assertive about better communication.

[Determined]

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Elise_Research

The forums is one obvious place of support - have you accessed other support services specific to your role as a carer? 

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And of course the forums, how remis of me.

I honestly dont know how I would have survived the last 12 months without sane forums. This space and the people have been invaluable.  They have helped me through some pretty dark days over the past year.