‘She has no hope left’ - Mother’s despair over mental health support
Emily Spink investigates an elderly mother’s desperate bid to find help for her troubled daughter.
At 74 years old, Jane* never thought she’d face trying to find someone to look after her mentally unwell daughter.
Twice, Jane has trespassed her daughter, who is in her late 40s and has borderline personality disorder (BPD), from her rental property.
The mental health and justice systems are at a loss to help her daughter, Jane says.
Over the years her daughter, Jenny*, has been to prison for violent assaults on others and in Hillmorton Hospital several times since she was 19.
Jenny is bright and has degrees in German and Japanese. She taught English in Korea in 2006, but there seems little anyone can do to help her. The trouble started when Jenny was 18.
‘‘A councillor rang me up and said Jenny says people are saying things about her, talking about her. So they sent her home.’’
Jane says Jenny was prescribed some pills, although what they were for exactly, she was unsure.
‘‘She was always paranoid and always thinking people are saying things. She’s had a fiance and he couldn’t cope. She’s had different boyfriends and they can’t cope.’’
At one stage her symptoms were put down to Bipolar. Then it was thought to be anxiety. She had overdosed on five occasions, with her worst landing her in A & E.
In 2000, Jenny was diagnosed with BPD, which is characterised by unstable social relationships, switching between love and hate in personal relationships, acting impulsively or recklessly, frantically avoiding real or imagined abandonment, experiencing extreme and unwarranted anger and engaging in recurrent selfharm or suicidal behaviour.
In 2013, she admitted stabbing a man with a screwdriver after an argument about money. The then 47 year-old pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon, four charges of wilful damage, possession of a knife and an assault of a police officer. She went to prison for two months.
Jane says Jenny had committed ’’so many misdemeanours’’ over the years. Initially, stints in Hillmorton helped Jenny.
‘‘They would keep her in and treat her. . . Now it’s all changed. They’re all out the door if they get a bit abusive. The ones like Jenny that play up, they just wash their hands of.’’
In the community, Jenny is lost and is often homeless. Jane had tried putting her daughter in a backpackers, but her paranoia meant that failed.
Canterbury DHB mental health general manager Toni Gutschlag says its Specialist Mental Health Service did not discharge patients for physically assaulting staff or other patients, in the context of a mental illness.
‘‘We are unable to comment on an individual patient’s care. If a patient or members of their family are unsatisfied with any aspects of our care, then we encourage them to make a formal complaint.
They can ask any member of our staff to assist them in making a complaint at any time.’’
Psychologist and counsellor Jenni Beckett, who started the country’s first support group for women with BPD in 2014, says it is not rare for those with BPD to slip through the cracks.
‘‘If they self harm and then they go to hospital, then the hospital discharges them back the very next day. So they’re just revolving back and forth until they commit suicide or something horrible happens.’’
Beckett says it is crucial to diagnose BPD at an early age, but that was not yet the norm in New Zealand due to a lack of understanding and stigmatisation.
‘‘Because it’s under the personality disorder cluster, they [clinicians] don’t want to label young people, but early detection is the best thing because while they’re young the brain is so plastic and the therapy works so well.
‘‘But often it isn’t diagnosed and it goes on and on and the behaviours get worse and then the person is isolated because of their bad behaviour.’’
Jane says her daughter would continue to deteriorate without help. After Jenny trespassed her daughter from her rental property on August 12, she’d asked the courts to order an independent psychiatrist’s assessment in the hope of getting Jenny help.
‘‘She has no hope left . . . The most frustrating part for me is there is no hope. No-one has an answer. . . It’s going on and on and I can’t see an end to it.’’
Jane’s only hope was Jenny might find a ‘‘safe space’’ where medical professionals understood her mental illness.
*Not their real names to protect the family.