To think the health visitor just gaslighted me...

[Tulio]

I’ve just popped out my second baby and was discharged from midwife care at the beginning of the week. While she was here the midwife booked a health visitor to come in and weigh the baby on Wednesday, because he’d not put on a lot of weight since reaching his birth weight.
The health visitor she booked we’ll call Tracey.

So weds comes and no health visitor, now Tracey has stood me up once before (before the baby was born), so no biggie, jokingly predicted it this time round.

Thursday lunchtime rolls around and my toddler and newborn are both asleep, it’s prime naptime for me! I’ve just sat down with lunch before I have a glorious sleep, when the door goes. It’s the health visitor. I welcome her in, thinking ‘sh*t, now I’ve got to wake the baby up to weigh him’. But no, apparently she’s not there for the baby, she’s there to do my toddlers 2 year review...

She tells me she spoke to me on Monday and confirmed she’d be coming, and relayed the conversation we had. I have NO recollection of this and say so. She says ‘oh I understand, it’s easy to forget things with a newborn and a toddler’. I didn’t want to be rude so I apologised and made a joke of it.

I mentioned I was expecting her yesterday to weigh the baby, and she said that would be a midwife that would weigh him, not her. But... I was discharged from midwife care, I heard her book this lady by name.

My toddler was asleep (obviously, why would I agree to an appt for her over nap time?), so HV left the forms for me to fill in and rescheduled. Which is fine in itself. But after she left I checked my phone records on the day she said we had this conversation... nothing. No calls outgoing or incoming from an unknown/unnamed number.

So she’s lying, I’m sure. She’s using my sleep deprived state to make me doubt myself. AIBU to think I don’t want her as my HV. Or should I just let it go?

she told them she would report them to ss for not letting her see the newborn

I had a hv say to me she would report me to ss unless she sees my baby despite them apparently being optional and not compulsory. So I think it’s weird they threaten that. It was my first baby aswell so no back story or previous ss concerns. So I do believe the op and doubt it was a mix up, she just probably wanted to turn up unannounced.

I have, in my career, had this over the years - sometimes families genuinely have forgotten, some times they have definately had the appointment arranged (and confirmed by text and letter) but state they hadnt been informed and sometimes its my mistake ( usual story, heavy caseload, time poor etc).

I usually apologise or gently say oh are you sure? And check its ok to go ahead at that time - ultimately in my line of work we have potentially long term input with families and we need to be able to work together so souring that relationship really isnt in mine or the childs best interest.

She may have genuinely made a mistake. She may be covering an error. She might not make her own appointments - many services have admin make them with families and just book into her diary directly.

Not gaslighting, probably mixed up with who she is seeing and when. They have a lot of families to see, sometimes in a short amount of time.

I have definitely been guilty of thinking about the wrong family in my head when recalling a conversation at times. I'm not a HV but visit a lot of families and sometimes have felt the need to apologise after the event when I realise that it was actually someone else I rang or that I momentarily forgot which family I was visiting.

I've no doubt it comes across as unprofessional but sometimes it feels like I am in a set of revolving doors.

Oh and the poster who described soft knocks. I have definitely worked with those kind of people, they have their calling card at the ready.

She’s incompetent and she fibbed

But to describe as “gaslighting”? (Definitions: manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their own sanity.)

No.

It does sound like gaslighting yes!

God only knows why though! Probably ass covering or something.

Unless there is a big old back story, why would a relative stranger want to bother gas lighting?

This.

When did saying anything that is potentially untrue become ‘gaslighting’?

Could she have muddled you up with another person?

In the normal world: yes.

In MN Land: gaslighting/psychological abuse.

Could she have muddled you up with another person?
In the normal world: yes.
In MN Land: gaslighting/psychological abuse.
This so much

The appropriation of terms in MN land is ridiculous.

It's like if a DH makes a mistake with the laundry, it's not a mistake ... Nope. He's being absuive and controlling by deliberately making your life more difficult and to get out of any household responsibilities.

It’s far more likely she is disorganised and she has poor scheduling skills.
She missed the appointment yesterday and turned up today mixing you up with someone else completely.

It’s likely she had the names and addresses of parents and the ages of the children and a separate schedule for her appointment, she’s finally got around to you on the list seen your name and DC’s and just guessed it’s probably a 2 year review as one will be due and then lied to cover her back rather than admit her mistake and poor organisation.

FYI (just in case you didn’t know) - HV appointments and their involvement in general is completely optional, you can say thanks but no thanks and just take your baby to the drop in clinic to get weighed instead.

The appropriation of terms in MN land is ridiculous.

It’s actually worse than ridiculous
It’s quite dangerous as it dilutes the severity of what real gaslighting involves

No gaslighting. As PP, she’s just telling lies to cover her arse. Request another HV if you want engage with the service, as you can’t trust this one to be truthful.

Why do people up the ante so much like this!? It's not gas-lighting. A mistake perhaps, incompetence maybe.. but gas-lighting it is not.

Let's not all race to the bottom of the denigration well.

I got told off by my HV for daring to give birth when she was on holiday! All good-natured as I knew her fairly well from my eldest but I was like "sorry I couldn't keep my legs crossed for all the time you were in Tenerife"

They're just overworked to fuck, some of them are rather dippy and on another planet and generally they at least mean well at the heart of it all - I quite liked mine.

Sounds like typical health visitor stuff to me.

I would have got my phone out and said wheres your numnber then silly cow

did anyone come to weight the baby?

I had a HV turn up to do a pre-birth check (or whatever the official wording is) but Id already had DS2 who was currently in NICU. It took a good 10 minutes for her to believe me that Id already had the baby.

Agreed that she's just confused you with another mother. She could be disorganised, or it could be a oneoff. I doubt she's gaslighting you because there wouldn't be a lot of point, but if she does anything similar again then you can say you don't want to see her again.

I've hardly ever seen health visitors, to be honest. The two year old review, and the birth ones are the only occasions I have. They aren't compulsory, if you don't feel you get anything from them.

The profession is at breaking point. HVs are expected to have massive caseloads, many of which include high numbers of child protection cases. I would assume she’s just overworked, under valued and stressed. HVs are all nurses and or midwives who have done extra training. Despite this, many are no longer employed by the NHS. Instead local councils employ them and they have managers who are completely clueless about the profession.

unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2019/july/lincolnshire-health-visitors-striking-today-over-no-pay-rises-and-erosion-of-professional-standards/

It kind of is gaslighting - pps are saying that it isn't, but whether she mixed up the mums then realised when she saw her it wasn't the one she spoke to or forgot her appointment and was covering her own arse, she was deliberately attempting to skew the OP's reality and used her post partum state to do so (sucessfully). She needs reporting as this is not normal or decent behaviour.

But she may genuinely not have realised. If it's a genuine error then it's not gaslighting, and there's no way to know - she spoke to someone on the phone, and assumed this was the person she spoke to, is a perfectly rational explanation.

What she was was completely wrong, and it's unacceptable to just assume the OP was the mistaken party, I agree. But that's not the same as deliberate gaslighting, which is, as you say, a serious lapse in professionalism.

Believe me, I'm not one to labour under any delusion that professionals wouldn't ever behave like this. I know that they can and do. But you need stronger evidence of that than muddle. She could just be overwhelmed and have sincerely thought she did speak to this mother and not another. I certainly couldn't tell two strangers, same sort of age, apart after one brief phone call.

She is bloody lying and patronising you as well