To think he's lying? *trigger warning*

[helpagirloutplease]

Long time poster that has namechanged.

I don't know where else to ask. I have a 4 year old to a man I haven't seen for years. He had a mental health breakdown during pregnancy and did some terrible things (held me at knifepoint, tried to drive me into a wall, strangled me, tried to hang himself infront of me ect) and beat me up.

He was a working professional, and was arrested for assault and charged, then sent to prison. He breached the restraining order numerous times resulting in him going back to prison a few times and had my name tattooed on his chest even after all this.

I attended social services meetings and a meeting with psychiatrists at the time so I know that he was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder and bpd. I haven't been in contact with him since the first time the police took him away (they took him several times after from outside of my house when he breached restraining orders but I didn't open the door). There is a no contact order in place for my daughter which I think is largely because he had no interest in engaging with nhs mental health teams.

I received these messages at midnight last night. I think he's lying, why would he do this to me?

The information you do have is that his auntie had it and now he is saying he has it.
Go to the GP and get some advice. I would block him as he has told you what you need to know and there is no reason to engage any further.

As much as I understand you wanting to know, I'd consider not telling your daughter's GP. The reason being that at the moment there is nothing to be done to change the course of the illness. If this is true and she has inherited it, there is no successful treatment to stop it developing. And having thr knowledge of such an illness overhanging you is a major thing.

Your daughter deserves the chance to decide as an adult if she has it - not everyone wants to know. And certainly before she thinks of having children she needs to know it is a risk.

But

Right now she can get life insurance without declaring it. She can get health insurance that covers neurological conditions. She can get income protection and all the rest. Because right now she (and her GP) doesn't know of her possible family history, because she is estranged from her father and you haven't told her yet. So when she applies and says she has no known family history of such things, she isn't lying and committing fraud.

But as soon as you inform her GP and it is on her gp record, this changes.

I'd see if you can find out if his mum/dad (which ever is the aunt's sibling) ever had it. If they didn't, he doesn't have it. It is complicated if that parent died young from some unrelated cause. Fwiw, a midnight text from a known violent lying sociopath is not a normal way to inform someone of such news. But you can't assume he's lying, it might just be plausible deniability on his part for future "will I told your mum. At midnight. By text. Referencing my new amazing life and that the restraining order had finished....Not my fault she didn't believe me"

I think he’s lying, just trying to manipulate and hurt you again. To let you know that he’s not going away. Within the wider context of his abuse:

held me at knifepoint, tried to drive me into a wall, strangled me, tried to hang himself infront of me ect) and beat me up. He then got a tattoo of her name after breaching the RO, which shows his obsession.

A logical person would say that he didn’t need to contact her to give her this information if true. There clearly isn’t a normal parental dynamic here. If he was actually concerned about the child, he could have contacted someone else to tell you - such as his solicitor, the police, SS, the medical professionals, even a mutual acquaintance etc. It’s hugely inappropriate for him to contact you, considering his awful past actions that landed him into prison and his clear obsession for you? Especially under a fake SM account.

If he was telling the truth, why wouldn’t he have mentioned this to the medical professionals at the time he was diagnosed? Why wouldn’t his solicitor had looked into this if it provides some mitigation for his actions, and therefore could lower his sentence?

I'll add, if I'm remembering rightly, the uncle without schizophrenia diagnosis was diagnosed bipolar.

Never respond to him. Block the account and report it to Facebook for being fake and harassing. FB could delete the account and could link future fake accounts to him and therefore delete them faster from his IP address, device ID etc.

Update the privacy settings of all your accounts now! Additionally do this:

• Delete anyone on your friend list that may be in contact with him or that you don’t personally know - to protect yourself you really need to whittle it down.
• Change your settings so that you don’t appear in any searches and that ‘friends of friends’ can’t see any additional information about you.
• Change your social media name to something else that he wouldn’t understand.
• change your profile pic to blank, or something random like a unconnected car from google
• tell your family/friends not to post photos of your child or tag you in posts by name. Ask them to delete any previous posts.

If they didn't, he doesn't have it
That's not true. You can have HD and few symptoms until very late in life.

It is also not true that you can't get tested for a genetic disease until you are 18. You have to be able to make consent, but it doesn't have to be 18. Children can also be tested in some circumstances.

It is very true that Huntington is the one illness that can't be protected for the purpose of insurance though. For almost all others, you can get tested as a preventive measure and not declare it, even if you have the illness. This is an arrangement made between the body of insurers and the NHS to encourage people to be tested when measures can then be taken to minimise the implications of the illness, or take preventive measures. This doesn't apply to Huntington though, so testing has indeed serious implications.

This is all a bit to take on after an out of the blue text from your ex last night, so I would just concentrate on what you think you need to do to find out whether there is some truth in it. Everything else is irrelevant at this point.

@helpagirloutplease there’s a lot of absolute bullshit on this thread. Ignore this gem of misinformation “People can be carriers but not actually develop the disease so other blood relatives in his family may not have it.” from @Lindy2 which is utterly wrong. I don’t know why people do this, when clearly they don’t have the knowledge to be making such statements.

If you inherit one single copy you will be affected. There is no symptom free carrier status with HD as it is autosomal dominant, unlike autosomal recessive where you need to have 2 copies to be affected and 1 means carrier status only.

If you have met his parents (and know them to be his genuine birth parents) and they are not affected then this is most likely to be bullshit, unless his parents had him very young and they are still quite young themselves. If you do know anyone in common you could enquire after his parents, and perhaps his aunt, via them to reassure yourself?

Ultimately though, I can entirely see how this is likely to leave you with a massive amount of anxiety and uncertainty to live with and you are probably going to have to deal with it so that you can put it to bed and move on.

I would head straight to your GP with a screenshot of the message, and a note of every bit of information you know about him -full name, address, DOB, relatives names, addresses, info. Your GP can liaise with Clinical Genetics to determine if your daughter will need a test when she is 18 (if she wants to).

If he does have 1 copy of the gene, he will have another unaffected copy which is why any of his children would have a 50/50 chance of being free of it.

children also can be tested in some circumstances
Does anybody know more about this? I can't find any info online

@Helpagirloutplease

You/your daughter would need to be referred for genetic counselling, by your GP, before testing. Depending on how old your daughter is, they may simply counsel you rather than test her. Sort of a "watch for symptom X, Y, and/or Z and bring her back if she's displaying them". They won't test any child who is asymptomatic simply because her estranged "parent" is making wild claims in the middle of the night. Especially not if that estranged "parent" has form for abusing the parent who is raising her. The sooner you talk to your GP, the better, though. Other posters have gone on about health/life insurance and your daughter not knowing if she has a disease, as though she's already been diagnosed ("don't tell her, then she can't commit fraud" being pretty much their summation). And whilst I do see where they're coming from, on a more realistic level... as her mother, you need to know for your own peace of mind. One way, or the other. There is support out there, either way, but you need to access it through your family's GP. Hopefully your ex is simply playing horrendous mind-games with you, to prove that he can still get inside your mind... but there's also the possibility that he's not. And every time you look at your daughter, unless you get the ball rolling on finding out, you will wonder if she has the gene mutation/marker which leads to it - or not. Because if your ex is being honest, there is still a 50% chance that your daughter is not going to develop the disease.

You do need to know, though. For both of your sakes.

Nestofvipers

I've seen several articles that say you can carry it but not develop it. In this range you can still pass it on to children but there is a lower likelihood than 50%.

"People with an HDgenecontaining between 36and39 repeatsarein the 'reduced penetrance' range. Some people in this rangewilldevelop symptoms of thedisease, while others won't. Unfortunately, it's impossible to predict which people with a reduced penetrancegene willor won't develop thedisease."

I went out with someone who had since been diagnosed and developed Huntington’s. He was awful and mentally abused me constantly, showed signs of ocd and was terrible to live with. I do have some sympathy as I’ve heard he is now on a bad way but I don’t care about him anymore.

well he has you exactly where he wanted you OP.

Worrying all weekend about HIM.

@BumbleBeee69 it's really not him I'm worrying about.
It's a toss up between my daughters health or her safety.

@Lindy2 that’s a really rare situation. It’s not really helpful to start talking zebras when you hear hooves.

@ DC3dilemma
"If you have met his parents (and know them to be his genuine birth parents) and they are not affected then this is most likely to be bullshit, unless his parents had him very young and they are still quite young themselves. If you do know anyone in common you could enquire after his parents, and perhaps his aunt, via them to reassure yourself?"

If your going to give out about people giving inaccurate information perhaps you should fact check what you say.
4 to 11% of cases of huntingtons disease dont present untill the individual is over 60.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5502838/
The grandparent could easily not have symptoms yet.

The gp may refuse to test untill she is old enough to request it herself. If you really want to know you could get it done privately but the insurance implications may want to be considered.

Unfortunetly as other have said there are currently no effective treatments for huntingtons so knowing may only cause distress.

@Harriett123 if that was the case and his parents weren't affected until they were 60, surely he wouldn't have it diagnosed so young?

Onset can vary massively even with the of inheritance of the exact same gene. Unfortunetly varying from 2 up to 80 with most cases presenting between 30 and 50.
It's why this gene sucks because no doctor or medical personnel can tell you when you will develop symptoms or how fast they will develop.
I am so sorry that this has become a possibility for your daughter

@Harriett123 thanks for the insight. Last time I saw dad he was about 55 and seemed fine.
Dad is nearly 29

His dad I mean

Whoever said "contacting SS and police seem a waste of resources" may not appreciate how dangerous stalking and abusive behavior is to the OP and her child 👀

@Harriett123 everything I have said is correct, I referred to the most likely scenario and you quoted less likely possibilities. So before you get all excited about your less likely scenario and start correcting me, maybe you should read it properly.

Terrifying the OP with rare and unlikely possibilities is unhelpful. She needs to talk things through with her GP.

@ DC3dilemma
I am not disputing your explanation of inheritance my point is the spread of age of onset is far broader then you portray it.
30 to 50 is what is considered typical onset of motor symptoms meaning a 55 year old is not far outside this age range and therefore very capable of still being asymptomatic. Therefore your assumption that healthy grandparents dont have the gene is not an accurate representation.
Others who described carriers could just have used the wrong terminology and actually mean asymptomatic which is perfectly possible.
You can give your opinion without insulting other people.
I have also said in all my posts that the only way to find out it through a genetic test.
I have stated facts and given figures rather then using rather unhelpful terms such very unlikely.

I can't see any messages/photos

@helpagirloutplease you may be able to access genetic testing for your daughter sooner, the only way to find out is to start the ball rolling and ask your GP to refer you to a genetic consultant

I've reattached the photos now