And has the GP been helpful and supportive at all?

We haven’t been back since we went in but he was absolutely fantastic. We phoned, somebody advised us to phone and say, Can we come in? Yep. We walked in and they said, Two seconds, don’t take a seat. And I hadn’t even said who I was. He came out and took us in, even though there were other people there, and I think we were with him forty five minutes. We are very, very lucky in that he is fantastic anyway, absolutely fantastic, magnificent bedside manner, absolutely cares but he was fantastic. I do think he did ask to see [my daughter] again in about a month, which will have passed, but, at the time, I don’t think I was taking in any more information but I certainly left there thinking we could always go back.

But I would never bother him with how I felt, I’ve got to be honest. But he was fantastic, couldn’t have couldn’t have wanted more. I was, with the pressure they’re under and it’s always in the news and, Oh god, I phoned in November for an appointment and got one in July. They were waiting on us literally. They made no drama, no fuss, we didn’t feel odd and we just went straight in and I did say to her, I said, You have got people waiting. Don’t worry. He said, Theres other doctors on. Don’t worry.

And it was first class, absolutely first class, not a qualm there at all. You could say, well, perhaps he should have phoned us up as the month has gone by but we have to stop being a nanny state, at some point, don’t we. You know, I haven’t felt the need to take [my daughter] back there.

And we finally got our GP and he was a superstar, he really was. So much so that he is now our family GP and he actually listened. He read through all my husband’s notes, all his past, all his previous medications. He listened to what we wanted. He listened to our stories. He listened to our past experiences. He listened to the health services that we had tried to get into, over in Northern Ireland as well as over here and he helped. He did. He helped. He listened to us, both sides, you know my husband’s side as well as my side, he looked at the family setting, you know, and he didn’t make any assumptions. He didn’t make any judgments. He could see that my husband wanted help. He could see that my husband was, he was addicted to diazepam. Hed had six years of constantly using diazepam and were talking up to a hundred and fifty milligrams a day he was taking and he had looked at all his medication that he was on at that time, and he started a regimen of weaning so we were gradually, coming off all the pills.

We went to the doctors quite a bit and they weren’t very helpful. I have the most fantastic doctor’s surgery but and they’re very helpful with lots of other, you know, issues but on this one they were completely stumped, to be honest. They photocopied some things from the internet for her. I went and had a chat with my doctor, who I knew was going to be seeing her, because she was still quite young. She was only sixteen. I know she had rights of confidentiality so I thought, Well, I won’t. I’m not trying to ask for information. I’m going to give information. Which I thought I’d done quite successfully but unfortunately, they wanted just to talk to her and kind of shut me out of the process really and I can see why but I didn’t think it was very helpful. I needed support and I also needed to inform them of things that I thought would be really important for them to know. One of the doctors at the surgery actually said to me, Is she a nice teenager? As if only sort of, you know, horrible teenagers self-harmed and I found that really distressing actually.

So, equally, she found it very distressing that she had given her just a lot of photocopies about anger and anger management and, as she said, you know, she wasn’t angry. Shes not an angry person. She wasn’t self-harming out of anger. She was, it was far more complex than that and she felt she was dismissed really.

So I took her to the GP to get the a referral to CAMHS. Went to the GP and explained to the GP what was happening and he said, Can I have a look at your arms. So she showed him. By this time, I’d got her some antiseptic cream and they weren’t deep. They were superficial. They weren’t needing treatment. To what the GP turned round and said to her, I can’t believe that you’ve done this. It’s about time you grew up. You’re immature, you know. You’re supposed to be a mature girl. You’ve got a good parent, you know. Talk to your parent and just stop attention seeking. And he said, I said, So I’d like a referral to CAMHS. He said, I’m not prepared to do that. He said. Because shes not mentally ill and theres a counsellor that comes to the GP surgery and hes an elderly gentleman in his in his sixties like me. And coming out and I said, Oh will you make a referral there then please. And coming out she turned round and said, Does, he has absolutely no idea has he about young people. And I said, No, you’re right. He doesn’t.

My daughter has been self-harming for many years. Shes sixteen now but the self-harm started about aged eight or nine but, at the time, as a family, we didn’t realise it was self-harm. We thought it was a phase she was going through because her granddad died and she started head banging and pulling her hair out and we thought it was to do with stress. We got to when she was in year six, so she would have been about ten or eleven and we started noticing it was happening more and more. Took her to the GP, the GP dismissed it and said, there wasn’t a problem, it was a phase and it’s bereavement and just keep talking about it, which we did do.

And then by Christmas, shed lost a massive amount of weight and she started looking really ill and I said to her, This isn’t right. I went to the GP and said, I want her referred. I’m not happy with what’s going on. At that point, the OCD and the self-harm was linked as well. I could see them two were linking and he said hed put a referral in.

It got to February two thousand and twelve, shed now lost three stone and she was fainting and I went back to the GP and said, I haven’t heard anything. I’d read on websites that eating disorders should be seen quite quickly in mental health services and I’ve not heard. He said, I’ll put another referral in. He put another referral in and, at that point, I just wrote to the MP and said, Look, I’m watching my daughter die. You’ve got to help me. I wrote the letter and within four days, the CAMH service phoned me up and she said, I’m really sorry but your GP put the referral in wrong. He put it in as OCD and didn’t mention the eating disorder, which is why she was at the bottom of the list. I said, No, it’s the eating disorder.

And how about your GP? Is he or she supportive or?

Well, yeah, it was our GP who first spotted that she was depressed. Well, when I first took her took her to a doctor, we saw a GP twice and both times he said, It’s her age. Shell grow out of it. And I can sort of understand that but actually, I was very cross by the end of it because I didn’t feel that he actually listened.

The other GP that we saw, who was actually the GP were registered with because, you know, were registered with a health centre so we happened to see somebody but I then went to see somebody else, who I’d seen myself before, and she said, I think you’re depressed so you need counselling.

But, by then, it was too late because it was a few days before she overdosed.

Yes.

And but she was fantastic because when, apparently, she was rung up when my daughter was in intensive care to be told what happened and I was told that she was quite shocked, shocked silence at the other end. When she was discharged by the hospital, the GP rang me and said, you know, Come and see me. So I made an appointment but that was the day that she was then admitted to the inpatient unit and she called me again, having received a fax from the inpatient unit [sniffs]. And she was amazing, shes been amazing throughout.

To me and to my daughter.

We took her along to the doctor, you know, because we obviously realised there was something emotionally, you know, wrong and she needed some help.

And I was very disappointed when, as was she, with the response of the doctor. I think I got the impression that the doctor was, well, I know this doctor is particularly good with dealing with people with depression. Shes been really good with my neighbour, who had who had problems, and she spotted it and she helped her and she did a really good job. But her response with my daughter, was just to tell her off. She just said, Oh, you mustn’t do that. You mustn’t cut yourself. You know, you’re going to leave scars and when you get older, you, how do you think you’ll feel about that? And I know [my daughter] was absolutely furious. Yes. I know my daughter was really furious about that.

Yes.

And but she did organise for us to go and speak to a counsellor so we all went along to to that and she seemed very good and [my daughter], my daughter felt, my daughter seemed quite comfortable with that.

We had, we had a very good sort of older male GP, who [my daughter] spoke to, who my daughter spoke to, very early on, that year seven, year eight bit. Now he was, he was a real, bit of a dour Scot, very bluff and blunder about it, practical, which was great, and he said, Don’t go the CAMHS route, too soon for that, you know, suggest. And, I think he was, he was the one that put us into this in-school counselling. Sort of suggestion.

Yes.

Which was the right route. When things came up again a little bit later, hed retired and there was a young male GP who, again was very good, and he sort of said, Look, you know, do come and see me. But, it is this business of there has to be a trusting relationship, and, you know, young people don’t see their GPs very often, and GPs aren’t in the community the way they used to be.

Yes, yeah.

So, you don’t just go and knock on the door and say, which you did when we were younger, you know, the GP was just always about. You saw them didn’t you?

So, from that point of view, I suppose the GP just wasn’t familiar enough, or accessible enough, from that point of view. We needed, for her to do the Africa trip, to get a medical physician’s release form.

So, we did, actually, have to go to see the GP, and, obviously, my daughter was quite, was focused on going on the trip, at that stage, so there was a reason to go and do that. And we had a chat with a lady GP, who was absolutely brilliant. Because I thought, I’m going to go in here, shes going to say, Oh yeah, I’ll sign that. That’s fine. Off you go. She hadn’t, and shed actually, looked back over all of the notes before we went in. Shed looked at all of the copy correspondence that had been going on, and she just looked at [my daughter], and she said, Blimey, this sounds like a good trip, so tell me about it. And, we were in there for fifteen, twenty minutes. She spent time with her, and, just talked her through it, because, of course, my first impulse was, shes never going to sign this form. And, she just sort of said, Look, if you think you can do this, then that’s fine. And, at that stage, I was trying to think in terms of booting the CAMHS bit as far away as possible, and I just sort of said to her, Look, you know, one of the things that were really struggling with, is that we need somebody that [my daughter] can talk to.

If she feels that she wants to come back to you, and, and just talk things through again, is that okay? And she said, Absolutely, anytime.

Great, yes.

And coming away, sort of said to my daughter, Well, you know, what do you think? Do you think she is somebody you could talk to? And she said, Yeah, maybe. Which actually was a, you know, off the top of the scale reaction, at that stage. So that, is, something, which is a kind of a fledgling

Yes.

Relationship, but again, shes only available when you get an appointment. Shes only available, you know, restricted times a day, when my daughter is probably supposed to be at school. It’s just, it’s like the sort of the, all of the warnings that they gave us when we first went to CAMHS, it’s only there at a particular time, not necessarily when you need it.

And that’s what we need, is somebody who, you know, is there when you need it, just to off load, and say, Look, I’m feeling really bad. And they can respond immediately, and just say, Yeah, and look, I’m thinking of you. Well talk properly in the morning.