When does mental health supersede coronavirus?

[fourstarsoutoffive]

My young adult dd lives alone in a flat and is still working. She works in a job (non essential) that involves her being pretty much alone all day, just the supervisor pops their head around the door occasionally. Her job can't be done at home.

Anyway, after five weeks she is getting really low. Obviously we do zoom calls and she does the same with her friends, but the lack of real human contact is starting to have a detrimental effect and she wants to book time off and come here for a week.

I'm completely torn. She has no contact with anyone other than a weekly supermarket shop and we are in the same boat as we are working from home. WWYD?

If you haven't come into contact with anyone for the past few weeks, and you are happy to take on the tiny risk that she may have come into contact with the virus, then 100% yes! I'm surprised you even have to think about it.

I say this having lived through my mother and husband dying within two years of each other: understand that having close family and friends in hospital and dying isn't particularly good for mental health either. People checking on mental health seem to only look at the effects of staying in but believe me having a family member with a life-threatening illness is all kinds of awful.

If she isnt presenting any risk to you and you arent shielding, is this any different from the goverment advice that you can move out of one household to another if there has been difficulties, arguments, as long as moving out is for days not hours. Or if your dd was god forbid to end up on a pysch ward for a week. Commonsense says that her health needs indicate she needs the respite of visiting you for a week. Also, make her spend time e outdoors everyday she is with you, and give her vitamin d/multivitamin. For low mood!

Bring her home.

Have her home

OP - her MH should absolutely outweigh other peoples thoughts on you mixing households right now. Bring her home and as long as she is staying until lockdown is lifted, I see no harm.

I’m sorry I wouldn’t do it, and I’m not a lockdown zealot.

If she was coming home to stay for duration it would be different but travelling for what is essentially a holiday at home is taking a risk in spreading the virus - you are both having contact outside the home (DD going to work and shops, you going to shops) so it isn’t as though there is no wider consequence.

Mental health is important of course but finding ways to manage the situation sustainably would be a better solution - can you think creatively about the ‘virtual’ contact you have with her, or the contact she has with friends etc that would make her feel less isolated?

I’m assuming here that she is doesn’t have underlying mental health issues and she is feeling depressed and isolated in the lockdown.

Id let her come home as needed

Yes of course I would allow my daughter to come home for a week. My own daughters mental health would supersede Coronavirus.

Get her home

She wouldn't be able to stay for the duration, the maximum time she could get off work would be a couple of weeks.

In all honesty I don't have any concerns about risk to us or her (she works alone) so she's less of a risk than someone living in our house who was going to work every day for example. I'm just concerned about being judged by other people who don't know the situation I guess. As she's used to coming back at weekends (she's a student) it's been really tough on her.

As for her wanting/not wanting to come back, she definitely does want to come back but at the same time she's a very responsible person and definitely not a rule breaker, so she would probably rather suffer than flout the rules.

I would absolutely say yes.

I'd be really torn on this one. My initial reaction is that you should do it as probably for you and her it will be best. On the other hand, if a large number did this either the infection rate would rise, or more likely the rate of fall would slow, meaning longer in this phase of lockdown for everyone. When households mix however asymptomatic they are or however limited their contact with the outside world, some will transmit infection where they otherwise would not have. So you are making an exception of yourself if you have to do this, it isn't something that everyone could do without the plan failing.

I really don't know what you should do but I would sympathise with either decision. I think I would base it on how severe you think the current threat to her mental health is, and whether there are any other ways you can think of to cheer her up.

She wouldn't be able to stay for the duration, the maximum time she could get off work would be a couple of weeks.

In that case I really wouldn’t let her come home then. I would think that her mental health can’t be that bad if she’s fine to go back to work and living on her own after just a week with you. It sounds like she’s fed up so I’d try to do more phone calls and face time with her. It’s hard, I hope she’s ok.

I would think that her mental health can’t be that bad if she’s fine to go back to work and living on her own after just a week with you.

My mental health is so bad my doctor insisted I have a face-to-face appointment even though they're barely doing those. I'm still living alone and wfh part-time... Obviously ideally the DD would go back to home and work (that she enjoys) and see some friends to keep things going well, but that's not possible in the current situation.

Do people really think it's the best approach to leave it until she's weeping down the phone, unable to work, and will take months if not years to recover?

Do people really think it's the best approach to leave it until she's weeping down the phone, unable to work, and will take months if not years to recover?

No I really don’t think that at all. But from personal experience I think there is a difference between needing a weeks holiday to feel a bit happier than a real mental health issue. If OP and her daughter feel that this is a real issue then of course OPs daughter should go and be with her family and be signed off work. With coronavirus we can’t just go and visit family for a week unfortunately.

Sorry to hear things are difficult for you at the moment FoolsLemonTree. I hope things improve and I’m glad that you have seen your GP.

I’d never turn my struggling child away. Bring her home.

I’m not sure if everyone who is saying ‘get her home’ has appreciated she’d only be staying a week?

And it’s not about the risks to you personally or about being judged. It’s about the fact that if everyone who was finding the lockdown tough went to stay with family for a week then the lockdown wouldn’t work and many more people would die.

So really it’s about is your DD struggling much more than the average person living alone through this? Or the average person battling to work from home In a high pressure job whilst their kids are climbing the walls? Or in an overcrowded house with no garden? Or any number of other tough situations. What makes her situation worse?

Yes if you are seriously worried about her safety and wellbeing by all means get her home but if she is just feeling down and lonely you’ve got to work with her to find coping mechanisms whilst staying at home.

I’d have her home also

Being isolated is not the same as being in an overcrowded house 24/7. It is deeply unnatural and in normal times would signal a mental health issue that someone was alone for weeks on end.
However, might your dd not be able to go on a socially distanced walk with one other person every day or so? Is she without any other social contact in her area? Even someone chatting to her in front garden might make the difference.

If it were my child or.relative in this uneasy state I wouldnt hesitate though.
Get her back. It is better than her ending uo in a police station or a &'e. Deterioating mental health is a health reason, and makes her a vulnerable person.
Dont.ask mumsnet, trust your instinct.

Mental illness is a life threatening illness.

Let her come home. Who cares what anyone else thinks?

If she is coping so badly that she needs to come home, then she comes back for the duration of lockdown. If she is struggling with lockdown like everyone else, she needs to stay put and use her time off work to find ways of coping. Sorry.

Mental illness is a life threatening illness.

It can be life threatening, or not, just like physical illness. We also have no evidence that OP's daughter is mentally ill. She may be, but from what OP tells us she may just be feeling lonely, anxious and down about the current situation....all a perfectly normal response. Not being happy or content does not equal poor mental health.

Having suffered from mental illness myself I do find a lot of people misunderstand the difference, but I am also very aware that what begins as general malaise can in some susceptible people and/ or some difficult circumstances sow the seeds for more serious long term issues. So prevention is better than cure for sure.

This is why I and lots of others have said OP will have to call in, in conversation with her DD, and bearing in mind that we have to try and be responsible right now.

I've been trying to ask myself what I would ask or expect of other people, given that if we all did a bit of rule bending the whole house of cards collapses. All I would hope about a situation like this is that people try to be responsible..if OP thinks it really is a pivotal action in terms of DD's mental health, then she should probably do it. But if it is just a hard slog getting through lockdown, press on.

Call it, sorry....I agree with pp that OP and her DD will be able to trust their instincts because they don't sound irresponsible. Maybe just knowing that it is an option will be a help to your DD, OP.