"Perinatal and community mental health team"

I have been under the care of perinatal since my daughter was born in July 2023. I’ve had. A very hard year and an admission to Leverendale which was a truly awful experience but I did have positives with a wonderful Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) and an amazing Clinical Psychologist. They recommended that I need to be put onto the Mentalisation-Based Treatment (MBT) course and for myself and my family. This is a lifeline considering I took an overdose in March and things have been really difficult for me trying to deal with it all.

I was advised yesterday by perinatal that they were no longer attending and that I was being moved over to the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) now. Literally the worst transfer that could have happened because it was sudden and felt like complete abandonment.

I have been in touch with CMHT now on numerous occasions since my first appointment with the psychiatrist. Apparently I now don’t see her for 3 months. I’ve been told there is a big waiting list for MBT and that I have to be assessed for this. There are only 3 days in the next 3 months that I couldn’t make an appointment and it was scheduled for this day and I have no idea for the next appointment when it is. I’m totally in the dark with myself and my family in desperate need for help.

I’ve been calling First Crisis and using Social Workers to help and they have been amazing. I just don’t get the complete lack of fluidity in the transfer of care and CMHT telling me that perinatal said I didn’t engage and was missing appointments. This wasn’t true. Who am I to believe?

I desperately called the CPN today and couldn’t get her to ask what was happening because she has fought so hard for me. I just feel lost.

Upon calling CMHT again, my worker said they would call me back. She did. I asked for a new CPN, access to duty and a plan for the MBT. She advised me her colleague had explained all of this to me but she hadn’t. This person works in perinatal in a different department and told me she could answer no questions regarding a different team. So I asked the CPN if she could expedite my appointment to tell me when it was. She can’t it’s a waiting list she said. I asked if I can call anytime to which I was told only when I’ve used my coping mechanisms first. I literally have no words. I am a mother of two with complex PTSD, anxiety and borderline/emotionally unstable personality disorder. Is this some sort of a joke? Why would you say that to me?

I’m calling because I’m in need of help. Sorry if it’s a hassle! I’ll go to my coping skills that don’t work because I don’t have any except a safety box that I put together after a suicide attempt in march and involvement from the HIT team but obviously that doesn’t work when you’re having intrusive crazy thoughts and feelings of total overwhelm.

I just feel really let down, abandoned with no clear transfer of care and no plan in place. It’s all gone exactly the way I didn’t want it to go.

Can anyone help? Please?