Ex partner overdose

[Squeegle]

My children's dad has suffered depression on and off. It causes him to drink heavily to self medicate

Yesterday he took an overdose of co codamol after drinking 3 bottles of wine, he texted me. I got an ambulance and they got him to hospital. He is still there. He really needs help, I'm worried about him going back to live on his own. What help can I ask for? Does anyone know what the hospital are likely to do before they discharge him? He seems to be physically recovering.

Im so sorry this has happened, the hospital should be sorting out a mental health assessment before discharging him but it will be worth following this up and questionning the aftercare needs.

Anything that passes responsiblity over to your ex i.e. to go and make a gp appointment, I would question, ask whether you would ask someone with a broken leg to do that.

As your his ex im assuming you have no recourse as a next of kin, are there any other family members who can also advocate for your ex?

Please make sure you take care of yourself, its hard hard yards once a person is in crises and in my experience they will cling to anyone and everything in a bid to stay afloat. Make sure you have people to talk to, that you prioritise your and your childrens needs and take some time to process all this, it must have been terrifying

This must be awful. The best thing for your children is to keep then away from this. Don't let him move into your home or feel responsible for this. Get some support in RL to keep you strong.

Thanks both. I am hoping we will get a bit more support from mental health teams. I am worried about him living on his own. He has been difficult for some time ( the reason we split up), a lot of it down to his mental health and the drinking.

I don't know re the next of kin thing, he has a sister -she has mental issues of her own :-(

He can put anyone he wants as NoK, but it doesn't have any legal standing. Under the mental health act there is something called nearest relative which does have legal standing, but I'm pretty sure as an exP you can not legally be his nearest relative. Automatically it would be a parent, adult child or sibling (there is a legal order to this, there is more info on th rethink website)

You need to decide how much (if any) involvement you want in his recovery and set some clear boundries. Do not acept any responsibility for him to the mental health proffesionals as this is often a get out for them to drop resposibility when services are stretched.

What normally happens is that once he is medically well enough the hospital will get a member of the mental health crisis team to assess him. Generally at this point DH tells them that he didn't really mean it, it was all a drunken mistake, he doesn't want to die, and they discharge him back to his GP (evenon the second attemp of the day!) But I do know other people who have been admitted to psychiatric hospital voluntarily (not sectioned) after an attempt and or discharged home with crisis team follow up at home to support them.