Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[Deadrock]

Hello Im a mum of a beautiful 23 year old son (soon to be daughter)
He has Aspergers but last year had dissociative episodes which was extremely scary. Since then extremely bad Anxiety, dissociative episodes,Hallucinations (visual and auditory) has appeared.As for the Mental health system or lack of.Disgusting.
He was admitted for 2 days let out and since then seeing a psychiatrist who doent like to label patients. She suggests maybe BPD with dissociative ? Obviously doesnt have a clue.Sunday night he had a hallucination and was quite upset by it.I rang the public health triage and was dirrected to the after hours service.58 minutes on hold and they were useless.
The Mental Health System is letting us down.
My Rant is over.Thanks for reading
A very frustrated and worried mum.

[greenpea]

@Deadrock Hi Deadrock I know exactly what you are going through.  I have a son with Autism, Schizophrenia, mild intellectual delay and Epilepsy and it has been a roller coaster since he was gradually diagnozed with all his problems starting at age 2 1/2.  The dud doctors that you come across are staggering some are down right condsending. I remember one said my son was having 'weird and wonderfuls' when he was obviously hallucinating at age 6 years.

Hang in there there are good doctors out there and caring people. Just not enough of them lol ...

[Former-Member]

I found the mental health service to be great.

23 year old son (soon to be daughter) Does that mean he is undergoing a sex change operation I'm confused.

[Deadrock]

Yes my son has gender dysphoria

[Acacia]

Hello @Deadrock

I’m sorry to hear about the situation with your son and your experience with the mental health system. It can be so discouraging and frustrating when we reach out for support and don’t find the existing services to be helpful.

As @greenpea and @Former-Member have suggested, there are good doctors and caring people out there; and people do have positive experiences with the mental health system, so please don’t give up on finding good support. Some people find that the public system works well for them, while others find a good private psychologist or psychiatrist. Medicare rebates and bulk billing services are available so it doesn’t have to be expensive.

There are lots of friendly people here on the forums who also care for adult children and might be able to relate to your story. A few that come to mind are @patientpatient, @Boo13 and @Wattlebird.

You can read some of their posts in the following discussion:

Can’t help worrying about my son’s future

There are also some social chats where you might like to drop in and say hi, including these two:

Hot chocolate anyone?

Introduce yourself here

Wishing you all the best and I hope to see you around.