My baby's father seems literally insane?

[Ciara11215]

Hi, I'm new here

Obv I know nobody here can diagnose somebody they never even met….but I’m desperately seeking answers about my daughter’s father.
I can’t go into it too much as it would simply take a whole essay to explain it.
In brief: my ex boyfriend started out seeming the most lovely, shy, sweet man ever. Gradually he revealed what I presume now is his true self: hateful, racist, misogynistic and prejudiced against Christian women (he is Muslim).

Despite using contraception I ended up pregnant. We’d actually discussed what would happen if I ever got pregnant prior to even starting having sex. I’d said I’d keep the baby.
Anyway, I got pregnant. He got violent. Mainly sexual violence.
He also started seriously psychologically abusing me, saying that I was a whore because I slept with him before marriage, saying I should have known from the start he could never want to settle down with me. (How could I be expected to know these things given he’d said we were in a relationship and he was really into me?)

Anyway, one of the many things that alarmed me was his INTENSE mood swings. It was like dealing with at least 2 different people. He’d be professing love one day then literally 12 hours later he’d DENY having even SEEN me the day before. And he’d treat me like I was the enemy and tell me to get out of his life and say he never wanted to see me again. All sparked by nothing at all.
He’d do this like every few weeks.
He also mentioned hearing voices in his head telling him to attack people.
In the end he said I was a demon sent to target him and force him into fatherhood and that he could tell the government are watching him and monitoring his brain and that I’ve possibly been sent by the government to ruin his life!
He then simply refused to speak to me ever again.
My daughter is now 7 months old.
My ex actually refuses to believe she even exists and says the entire thing is a “conspiracy.”

My concern is that he has serious mental health issues and I want to know how this might affect my daughter genetically.
I actually reached out to his ex girlfriend and she said he did similar stuff to her, including getting her preggers and then accusing her of being a demon sent to destroy him. In the end she lost the baby.

My ex also did this weird grimacing thing all the time, sort of like a tic. And he’d say strange, inappropriately sexual stuff (like really graphic) in public in a sort of involuntary manner. Sort of like Tourette’s in a way. But his other symptoms suggest psychosis.

I’m also worried, unstable as he is mentally, that he might suddenly change his mind and want visitation rights to his daughter. I would not feel at all comfortable letting her anywhere near him. Help?

First cousin marriages can result in mental defect (some of that in my family too) but that is totally different from mental illness which is what OP is talking about.

My other thought was ... has he had a lifetime of abusing alcohol and smoking cannabis? ... That doesn’t help with ones mental well being. However, your daughter won’t inherit those traits if he isn’t around her, so a good outcome.

I actually think that this is better discussed with your GP & health visitors rather than here on Mumsnet. You can monitor your daughter closely throughout her life physically and mentally via school and health visitors. Yes, it could be a genetic problem, and I doubt it would be dismissed. There are so many that I think guessing on the internet would give you the heebie jeebies and you may never sleep again. If you take everything you know about ex and his family to GP there may even be specific things they could test for.

@Hayden555

Yes, he is Pakistani. At least one of his siblings is married to her own first cousin 🤦‍♀️

Mental defect can be such as a an additional learning need or low cognitive processing, completely different to mental health disorder.

My son's dad has bipolar, I too was worried about the chance of my son inheriting the condition. I googled loads. Yes there is statistically an increased chance of children inheriting the condition. But i'm a firm believer in environmental factors being a bigger influence.

@justilou1 I don't really understand the point of your comment.
Am I not allowed to raise this issue here AND discuss it with doctors as well??
Obviously nobody's gonna go "Oh I've posted about this on mumsnet so I won't need to talk to my GP about it now"
🙄

Schizophrenia has a moderate genetic component.

Very very generally speaking, when it does appear, it's because the genetic component has been "switched on" by environmental factors such as stress. Not always but the confluence of genetic and environmental factors = highest risk.

No one here (or anywhere) can say whether your dd will develop the disorder. I would suggest researching schizophrenia risk factors and perhaps chatting to an experienced clinical psychologist who specializes in abnormal psychology in order to get a picture of what interventions could decrease dd risk over her lifetime.

Schizophrenia in general is also more likely to appear in males than females.

She will.probably be fine op. Love her, listen to her, educate yourself, and train yourself to be calm in the face of uncertainty x

I just think raising it here could get a lot of conjecture that could be a bit worst-case scenario, and a bit non-specific. I just think you could make a very worrying situation even scarier. (Plus you can bring out the predjudiced people on here as well.)
I think you are smart to worry, and even smarter to keep this man away from you and your baby. He doesn’t sound safe to be around.
Unfortunately, mental health is a difficult specialty to diagnose with children. It is always a long process. Even if it is a genetic illness, it is not likely that they will actually give a definitive diagnosis until your child is late teens anyway. (Depending on the illness.) They will monitor your child through schools, etc though and keep an eye on development and behaviour, etc, and work with you if you have concerns.

Not surprised you are anxious, but it's very unlikely this man will be granted rights to contact with your DD: you have a paper trail of how harmful his behaviour is. While it's possible she has a slightly greater risk of MH problems in the future, she has you to care for her and, if necessary, seek treatment. The man is unmedicated, recieving no treatment and (something worth remembering when dealing with mental illness) would probably be a shit even if he got treatment.