AIBU to ask what nursery will share with school?

[CheeseSandwich1]

AIBU to ask what information nursery pass to school?

For context - During my first pregnancy I developed a serious mental illness and was unwell enough that social services were involved.

For the first year of DC1’s life I was in mental health units or at home seeing the mental health team most days. I wasn’t diagnosed with the correct illness until DC1 was 9 months old, which added to me being unwell.

DC1 was placed in the care of their Dad by social services and has continued to live with him, I am effectively the ‘Dad’ in our co-parenting relationship.

Social services concerns were my mental illness and the difficult relationship DC’s Dad and I had.
The case has been closed for a long time; before they closed we put a safety plan in place for if I was to become unwell again and social services advice were for Dad and I to have ‘no direct contact’ due to our previous acrimonious relationship.

To be honest since them closing DC’s Dad and I have got on pretty well and we have a routine that works for our DC. My Dad does pick ups/drop offs but over time ex and I have started to meet for pick ups/drop offs (because no one is available) and it’s been fine. We viewed schools together and we’ve spent DC’s birthday/christmas together with extended family.

I spoke to his nursery teacher about his transition to school and I did ask what information would be passed on to school as social services involved nursery when DC started nursery. Nursery teacher said as there were no safeguarding concerns and DC is meeting every milestone that a very basic history would be given and it would be up to me to share anything else with school.

DC’s Dad was told the other day that the safeguarding lead will have to talk to school and social services previous involvement. Whilst I’m not against this, we even waited to the end at DC’s school introduction evening to explain that DC lives with Dad as I’d been very unwell when DC was a baby, I really do not feel comfortable with someone disclosing my illness to someone else without me being present.

I am diagnosed with arguably the most stigmatised mental illness however I don’t present how the mainstream media portrays people with this illness (which is why I went misdiagnosed for so long) and multiple psychiatrists have said it’s almost unheard of for someone with this illness to have such a good understanding that I have of it. I really don’t want the new school forming an opinion of me based on what the safeguarding lead at the nursery says, especially considering we’ve had no involvement with social services for a very long time.

AIBU to ask what will be said to the school? Are they allowed to disclose my health information or will it be ‘mum was unwell’? I really don’t want to open a can of worms!

You have a lot of insight into your condition, are you able to see that these thought trains effectively fuel your paranoia and are not actually helping you? Ultimately none of it actually matters. None of it. What other people think won’t change your life. Don’t fall into a trap of making this a bigger thing than it actually is. It’s about your child and their challenges, not a detailed tell all about his mum.

Gently op, even contacting nursery will potentially flag up your condition because your concerns with subsequent posts are sounding more and more paranoid - please listen to people who know about these things when they say school will only be told a few details including social services no longer being involved. In any school year (in a 2-3 form entry school) several kids will have either social services involvement, complex family situations, court orders etc. The school treat these with confidentiality and the whole staff are not told everything, just on a need to know

I was misdiagnosed early post partum which mesnt when I recieved treatment and diagnosed I’d had 2 major psychotic episodes with around a 3-4 month recovery period inbetween.

If I’d been diagnosed when I initially developed psychosis I most likely wouldn’t have been diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia and probably just Postpartum Psychosis.

Totally rude comment.

I am someone who has had FEP and everything the OP is venting / worrying about is entirely normal. You don’t get to pathologist normal behaviour this is exactly what she’s talking about.

And you really know very little about this. Reading between the lines of this OP, many posters are coming to the same potential conclusion - that OP had perinatal psychosis and some moron has given her a schizophrenia diagnosis.

It’s not my thought trains, it’s my experiences.

I have been excluded from anything to do with DC’s extended paternal family due to my illness - they have made this very clear.

I have been told that I will never find a new partner due to my diagnosis on multiple occasions.

If I disagree with something DC’s paternal family say (even if it’s completely reasonable) I am told it is due to symptoms of my illness.

For instance; my Dad had left an item in DC’s bag, I asked Ex DP to take the item out and give it to me. He said he couldn’t find it and I was ‘imagining/hallucinating’ it. I looked in the bag the next day and there the item was.

Unfortunately, what people say and think can affect people.

If it’s best not to contact the nursery then I won’t. However, I really don’t feel comfortable with intimate details of my illness being disclosed to the school.

This is quite a naive comment and actually inappropriate to suggest it is paranoia.

OP - confidentiality around medical records can only be broken if there is a significant risk to a specific individual(s). This does not sound like the case here when you MH has been stable and your case with SS closed. It’s not up to the school to watch out for your relapse signs. Yes it’s appropriate and proportionate for the basic details to be shared, which you agree with, but you can’t automatically and freely share a whole file with a different agency. I would be telling the nursery that you do not give permission to share though as it is presumably a private institution I’m not sure what penalties they would be subject to if they break confidentiality

I’m sorry you were mis diagnosed, especially as this has resulted in the diagnosis. I still think you should seek a second opinion about diagnosis. It’s unusual for someone who has had an acute episode of psychosis to be misdiagnosed and for symptoms to resolve for those 3-4 months without appropriate treatment for FEP. If they were in any doubt that the first episode was psychosis then it’s bold of them to go into diagnose you with paranoid schizophrenia. Some may even consider it to be one episode (I.e if symptoms didn’t fully resolve in those months then could have been that any medication you were given was managing the distress/masking symptoms).

I was hospitalised after a massive depressive episode - sectioned and somewhat like yourself, it seems your partner (his family notwithstanding) stepped up and helped look after the kids safely when you were unwell. My husband did the same. My MH episodes also included reckless illegal drug intake (admittedly as a part of my mental illness) but I bet I feel even more stigmatised than you since my ‘illness’ was also seen as partly my fault.

I was so embarrassed I didn’t want to do school pickup incase I bumped into someone on the school safeguarding team. I am still (over 2 years MH recovered and 2+ years clean and sober) slightly nervous when i have to do into school. But the thing is, I'm not always the first to notice my MH declining, or indeed my family who with the best of intentions can minimise problems. I’d rather everyone who looks after my kids in a trusted capacity knows what the deal it. Maybe one day it may save my kids life.

You’re doing well and I’m sure dc dad will confirm that to you. To do the best for your child, they need to know the whole picture. You have nothing to feel ashamed or judged about. A good school will give you all the right support for your child which is what you want.

This is incorrect, the nursery are duty bound they have to share the child’s whole safeguarding file and all that is contained within it! Parents cannot override that. The safeguarding of the child comes first.

Agree we had an instance last year where we as a school were the first to notice a decline in a parents MH.

The file that will be exchanged is about your child, not you. Don’t worry.

The psychotic episode probably hadn’t fully resolved. When DC went to live with Dad (I had to move out a month postpartum and find somewhere to live) I was discharged from perinatal mental health and there was a gap in care for around 3 months.

They will only comment on it from the perspective of your child. 'X child primary residence is with Dad, he has regular contact with mum and has a positive relationship with both parents, they share PR. There was previously social services involvement due to Mum experiencing severe mental health issues, but the case was closed on X date, and the nursery currently do not have any concerns regarding either parents capacity to meet X's needs'.

I fully get where you are coming from, I experienced severe PNA for 6 months+ following birth of my first, and I had to go live with my parents for a while and DH and DD went to stay with his parents to support with childcare. Even though none of it is our fault, we carry that guilt with us every day, and whilst we think others are judging us, it's actually us who are judging ourselves the most, but we transfer that onto others.

I hope you now have the support you need, and can in time give yourself the kindness you deserve. Postnatal MH issues are the hardest most painful battle I think, because you so desperately want to be there for your child, but you just can't.

So just to clarify OP..

You had very baby and became unwell.

First episode occurred but was misdiagnosed and you were discharged from perinatal mental health.

3-4 months passed and then you had another episode (or escalation of a continuation from the first) and this was recognised as psychosis and this is when you got the PS diagnosis?

You then received treatment, got better and how many years later are we? Atleast 4? With no relapses?

If so that is outrageous. Schizophrenia is seen as an incurable lifelong illness. Postpartum psychosis or acute psychosis is not. I don’t know, because no one does really - but there is every chance this is a misdiagnosis and that you do not have schizophrenia. Only time will tell. They should not be handing out diagnoses like this so easily.

I am nearly 10 years out from my psychosis and skirted a schizophrenia diagnosis by the skin of my teeth. If another year passes and you reach 5 years I would go back again and say you don’t think this is right.

I know it takes a long time to come to terms with a diagnosis like that. Even me not receiving it I still think about it sometimes and think what if I do have it but not active or just don’t have ‘positive’ symptoms. So I hope this is not a mind fuck of an idea. But statistically it would be very rare for someone to not relapse by now with PS.

Paradoxically I hope I am both right and wrong.

I hope I am right because that means you don’t have an incurable stigmatising illness and can now remain well and thrive.

In a way also hope I am wrong because for you to have gone through this for so many years and lost access to your son for a curable acute illness is criminal and I don’t know if there are lawyers who can sue on this type of thing but it’s just a huge injustice if it were true.

Good luck and honestly I feel for you so much. I could have been you. Any of us could have been you.

No it’s not totally rude. Hence why so many people have given it a like. What is totally rude is your own comment.

Try reading it properly then. I didn’t suggest it was paranoia. I suggested it might fuel paranoia. Because it’s true. It might.

Worrying about what the nursery might tell the school aren’t experiences yet though because it hasn’t happened, they are thoughts. Thoughts of which neither you or anyone on here can possibly tell you the outcomes. Therefore right now these are trains of thought that cannot go anywhere except making you even more anxious. But apparently that’s totally rude and naive so there you go..

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165178126001678

81.9% of people with PS relapse within the first 5 years.

OP hasn’t. So in all likelihood they don’t even have bloody schizophrenia.

So I don’t know what paranoia or anxiety you are referring to.

And even if she did have it. You don’t tell someone who’s expressing normal emotions that they shouldn’t because it might unsettle their ‘disposition’. It is normal to feel these things. It is normal to want to talk.

And further to that; if OP was actively being visibly psychotic right now and actually being paranoid (which she isn’t btw). It is again unhelpful to say this to them. So you really have no understanding about this.

So no your bang out of order.

So you didnt have appropriate treatment for first ep psychosis during your first ep, thus is continued/worsened and you were treated for the "second ep" (which likely was a continuation of the untreated PP psychosis...)

I agree with others posters who have said it doesnt sound like paranoid schizophrenia.

Would you feel comfortable discussing this with your CC/doctor?