Thank you, @MIFANTCARER. I do feel caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, that is for sure. I live in Victoria and our services just do not stretch far enough to help families with multiple disabilities. My eldest son who has diagnosed schizophrenia has a network of support and can always access help when needed. Ultimately that means visits to the psyche ward but of course it doensn't end there. Psyche wards in the public system still adhere to the age old prejudice that severe psychiatric illness is caused by bad parenting. So when the doctors feel the patient is stable enough, they want them to go into an assisted living place so they can learn new ways of thinking, living and relating. It angers me that with everything that is known about schizophrenia as a brain pathology, that this system is still prescribed. It is massively insulting to carers. I said to my son, "At home, you can relax with a glass of wine before going to bed. In the assisted living place, they do not permit alcohol but will give you a sedative instead." At home, we at least understand all the little tricks of the trade to helping our sick children cope on a day to day basis.
At present I am home on school holidays so things are at an even keel again. But my office has had all its drawers pulled out and all my work thinks tipped out in a pile on the floor. My furniture is completely disarranged and sometimes I have to move pieces of furniture just to get access to my computer. Yesterday when I tried to cook tea I went into the kitchen only to find the garbage bag from the rubbish bin there, tipped over, with its contents spilled out across the floor. I went to the drawer to get an implement to cut vegetables with only to find it covered in grease. My youngest son is in the process of changing schools and I needed to get his birth certificate to bring with his enrolment form. I had all the family's documents neatly filed and stored in a filing cabinet. But when I went to access the cabinet I found it gone. The files had been pulled out and were scattered across the garage floor. The filing cabinet had been thrown out. I just sat in the front room and cried. I had well and truly had enough. Amazingly, the birth certificate was found and my son was enrolled in his new school. But there is not a single thing I try to do in the course of one day that is not sabotaged and frought with the most enormous difficulty and level of frustration.
Emergency, police & ambulance (24 Hrs)
Connect with a lifeline crisis supporter (24 Hrs)
Suicide callback service (24 Hrs)
Kids helpline (24 Hrs)
13 YARN