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Why would they ask this?

55 replies

PaperView · 26/02/2011 21:22

DS2 is under the CAMHS team for investigation for ASD. He already has an informal dx of sensory processing disorder and dyspraxia.

One of the questions CAMHS asked was whether i have ever suffered from depression. I keep reading (online Blush) that i won't have caused any of his issues so why would they ask this?

(Have also posted in MH for diff perspective)

OP posts:
working9while5 · 01/03/2011 22:52

Paperview - that's not about blame. Blame implies judging the person and seeing them as doing something purposefully to harm their child.

It's also talking about different things. There are some children out there who have reactive attachment disorder because of early traumatic childhood experiences (which may include a primary carer having severe mental health difficulties). There are lots of children out there with autism whose mothers were depressed when they were infants.

However, the primary carers of children with attachment disorder due to severe mental health issues in the family are NOT to "blame" in the same way that when you ask someone if there is a family history of autism, it is not Uncle Joey's "fault" that he has autism.

And there are lots of children with autism whose mothers were depressed because they knew on some instinctive level that there was something "wrong". Are those children to "blame" for their mothers' depression? Are they "bad" children?

If it's not a child's fault that their behaviour made their mother depressed, then it's not a mother's fault if their depression impacts on their child's behaviour.

As a professional, when you're working out whether you are dealing with a child who has RAD or ASD you have to ask these questions about depression etc to help you work out which lable applies. But unless you are a heartless arrogant idiotic so and so, you should never be thinking that either diagnosis is anyone's "fault".

working9while5 · 01/03/2011 22:56

Ooops cross posted..

Why does it make you feel like shit?

Please don't let it make you feel like shit. No matter what happens/happened etc, it is NOT YOUR FAULT.

I was listening to a song today and the lyrics were:
"It's the things you are given, not the things that are won".

It's a dad having a fight with his teenage son and trying to get across to him (from my point of view) that we just don't have control over our lives like that. Another thing I often think of is "our choices are half chance, so are everybody else's".

You love your kids. You want what's best for your kids. We are all imperfect people and we all fuck up (excuse my lack of professional speak Blush) but it's ALWAYS a combination of us as parents and them as kids. Otherwise why would you have families where one person ends up a murderer and another a doctor? One taking lives and another saving them? We don't make our kids who they are. We can play a part in how they turn out, sure, but it is NOT your FAULT.

((unprofessional unmumsnetty hugs))

working9while5 · 01/03/2011 23:03

Oh and just in case that was unclear, I don't mean that depression is f'ing up! That related more to you saying that you feel like a bad parent etc.

PaperView · 01/03/2011 23:08

The way i interpreted what you said was that my depression could have made his issues worse. THat if i hadn't had depression (despite not admitting it out loud until after DS3 was born!) then i could have worked thru some of them and them not be a problem now. Which in turn would mean that DS1 had missed out for no reason and that DS2 has had a pretty shit 6 years of his life going to and from various DRs.

It would mean that the friends and family that 'drifted away' when i asked them to stop telling me that i was wrong were, in actual fact, right.

SOrry W9T5. I am not meaning to have a go at you. I am in a really shit place right now and this has been going round in my mind for some time.

OP posts:
working9while5 · 02/03/2011 07:30

I am sorry you are where you are at right now: that it is so terrible in bleak. I'm sorry if the words I used have contributed in any way. The internet is great but it's hard because there are no non-verbals and I can't clarify "in the moment".

I think you are taking far too much responsibility, and seeing your depression as THE factor resulting in x and y and z.

We are at a unique point in history where, as parents, we take full responsibility for how our kids "work out" and any difficulties they have. Our mothers would probably laugh at us. Our grandmothers almost certainly would have. This places unbearable pressure on mothers in particular, who have probably always felt guilty whenever their child suffers in any way because now that's just what mothers seem to do. We are important in our kid's development but we are not the be all and end all: they trot out their own path in spite of us, no matter what we have done with them or to them or around them.

I also think that when you are a mother being treated and recovering from depression, there is always going to be sadness at missing out on having had nicer and happier times with your kids (e.g. totally apart from any issues with your kids). When, in and amongst all of these normal feelings, your child has issues, it is totally natural for you to wonder if you somehow caused them and, because you are a mother and mothers always feel guilt, feel guilty about that.

I think it's good to talk about these because they are misplaced, but completely understandable, fears given what you are now going through. I have worked with all sorts of families over the years, going through all sorts of things, and the truth is that there's just no pattern of events that shapes any of us, is there? Development is an interaction of the brain and the body and the world around that body and in the context of your kids, you are one cog in the wheel. An important cog, but there is no way that you having had depression could lead to your ds2 having to go from dr to dr (unless you locked him in a cupboard and starved and beat him, which as you say, you didn't neglect or harm him in any way).

"It would mean that the friends and family that 'drifted away' when i asked them to stop telling me that i was wrong were, in actual fact, right"

No, it wouldn't. If they were unsupportive and not there and blaming you for any concerns you had about your kids, they were wrong and not right no matter what.

Kids don't develop symptoms of something like reactive attachment disorder because their mum, though ill and feeling like shit, was doing their best to fulfil all their needs (even if she felt like she was going through the motions). Reactive attachment disorder arises from a situation where a baby's needs are persistently and continuously not responded to e.g. think of that baby in the current NSPCC add who is strapped into a buggy outside in the cold. There are women who are so severely mentally ill that that is how they cope with their children in the ravages of their illness. That's not their fault, but it does have a stronger correlation with how their child develops.

From what you are saying on here, you were a mum who was absolutely doing her best to be the best mum that she could be: a mum who cared for and loved her kids through one of the most pernicious experiences a mother can have. PND/maternal depression is so utterly unfair: it robs you of happiness when you should be at your happiest. But it is NOT your FAULT. And your child's issues are NOT your FAULT because they CAN'T be caused by that. If anything, it's the other way round. Your ds2's issues probably either triggered your feelings or compounded how you were already feeling and prevented you from seeking help at the time because they complicated your depression.

Does this help? Or am I still making it worse??? I hope not. I just want you to see that its normal that this has been going round in your head all this time, but that this does not mean that what's been going round in your head is right! I can't say it enough: your ds2's issues are NOT your FAULT.

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