Child access after suicide attempt

[Pleaseadviiise]

Stbxh attempted suicide early Monday morning. We split start of may and he has seen our dc roughly twice a week for a couple of hours. He has a long history of depression but stopped treatment multiple times. Since his attempt alot has come out of the woodwork about lies he's told. Quite extravagant things like having multiple degrees, having bought a house, he's told people he was unconscious and needed cpr (he wasn't and didnt) so my fear is that there is more to this than depression. He has lied to and attempted to gaslight our eldest dc.

Does anyone have any advice of what would be reasonable for access in these circumstances? Or previous experiences of this type of scenario? His friend has told me he looks unwell and wouldn't let his dc around him.

Are children’s services involved?

Sounds more serious than depression on its own. Those grandiose claims - part of mania ? Is he psychotic?

I wouldn’t allow him to see the children unsupervised

This. I wouldn't be happy about him having contact without a proper psychiatric assessment. That said, psychiatric services in this country are practically non-existent. He sounds unstable and unpredictable.

Could be a number of things. BPD comes to mind.

My now exh OD Ed whilst my baby was asleep in his care . Services were happy that I didn’t allow ex unsupervised with Baby even though we were together .

you need to safeguard your Dc.

The police officer who was keeping me updated and taking a statement said he'd have to refer to Social services but I've heard nothing yet. I told school Monday morning what had happened and the head said he'd never had concerns about dc and would tell them that. I dont know whether to reach out to social services.

Yes grandiose is the word exactly. It's making me very nervous because he must know nobody will believe him but is oblivious or doesn't care. He's also sort of assimilating parts of others, in the sense I'd told him for a long time hes made me doubt myself and now he is claiming I've done that to him. His friend had told him a story about his dad when he worked in the same job as xh, quite an outlandish story, and a few weeks later xh repeated the story back to his friend but with himself as the star of the story.

I think he was sent to a mental health unit on Tuesday for assessment presumably. It's a dedicated building with a secure unit, but he's come home to his dad's the same day with medications. I dont know any outcomes though.

@Pleaseadviiise

Don't know the legalities but there is zero chance I'd allow the children around him when he's so fragile.

Yes he hasn't had them unsupervised for a number of weeks and im glad now. Thanks for sharing that @Starlightstarbright4 , my instinct is absolutely to prevent access for the immediate future, meet with him and then look at building supervised access once he's stable. Even then though, I'd much rather know what diagnoses he's been given, if any, but his family are very much down playing this and towing the all children need a father line.

Xh father called me earlier asking to collect them to bring them over for father's day. Then he had a go when I said absolutely not. I'm so glad everyone seems to saying the same

How old are they?
if they want to see their dad and you trust the grandparents to supervise then they could see him that way.

I would make sure it's supervised visitation only.

What makes me say that is the current manhunt for the man in the state of Washington in the US.

He had a history of depression and murdered his daughters.

we split probably 8 months later . It was complicated in the sense we moved to a refuge ..

My now ex Mil supervised the contact however I had similar to you it was all downplayed. The last time my Ds saw him he seemed really unwell to me , next contact cancelled as he was in psych hospital . The way mil worded it it wasn’t safe for him to see my Ds … it was 6 months then before mil messaged he is well enough if your free this Sunday no thoughts for my Ds.

i told her he would have to go to court if he wanted to see him as I had no way of knowing he was safe .

He never saw him again ..

trust your gut here not what his family say

7 and 6.
No it's just his df he lives with now. He refused to listen to the messages I'd received and when I asked him about the cpr claim instead of saying no, he said not as far as he was aware. So he wasn't willing to call xh out on his lies. The thing is his df went with him and stayed 4am -9am, came home to change and went back. Xh was home by 3pm. Im not a medic but surely if someone went into cardiac arrest after 9am and required cpr they wouldn't be discharged by 3pm. He knows xh is lying and is enabling it so I don't trust his judgement at all tbh.

From experience, it sounds a form of bipolar to me. Often triggered (or manifest first or most) by depression. Again from experience, there are different types of bipolar and most are not a clear cut between depression or mania, often are a bit mixed or with short cycles. Knowing what medication he is on could give you a clue.
if it’s an antidepressants only, unlikely to have a BP diagnosis, if it’s a mood stabiliser (risperidone for example) or an antipsychotics + antidepressants, then possibly a BPD diagnosis.
anyway, for the time being he should see the children supervised, if they feel like it.
But if he stays on a therapy that works for him, in future he could be fine!

Thank you that's useful to know.

I'm going to keep lines of communication open and hope he volunteers what I need to know to make an informed decision.