13th January 2022.   As Meg and I made our way towards CAMHS, Bramblys Drive for her second ‘review’ meeting I was so distraught that I hardly knew how to contain myself. I had forewarned Meg that I might need to be ‘assertive’ in my attempts to advocate on her behalf. I needed to be absolutely sure that provision for Meg’s continued mental healthcare was available beyond CAMHS. My gut feeling told me it wasn’t.

We were greeted by Sally and Mark and ushered into a small room. Sally chose to hide behind her Covid mask. I kept silent for around twenty minutes as I listened to Mark and Sally appraising the therapeutic work with Meg and assessing her immediate future. It felt like I was being slowly crushed under a mountain. The conversation being steered was alarming. Sally and Mark were washing their hands of Meg, of both of us. It was appallingly apparent that we were actually going to be discharged without provision or plan. I felt like screaming and actually considered walking out into the car park. If I were to have unleashed the totality of frustrations in that tiny room then I would have scared two healthcare workers witless and likely traumatised my own daughter. I turned my frustrations inwards and broke down.

I protested. I could not go back to caring for my daughter on my own, without help. I was burned out. Sally told me that I must carry on, indefinitely. I didn’t have the strength. I wasn’t capable, I told her. She did her best to build me up but it was insulting. ‘You are a rock!’ she told me. ‘I am not a rock!’ I countered. ‘Well, then you are a wobbly rock,’ she offered, lamely. I went further and explained that the art therapy work had left me feeling vulnerable, like all of my self-contempt, self-loathing and disgust had been hastily stuffed into suitcases and balanced, untethered, onto the roof of a car. That car had accelerated to breakneck speed and those suitcases had been ripped of that roof, bursting on impact with the unforgiving tarmac, the contents strewn over three lanes of busy motorway to be run over by the unsympathetic and the indifferent. ‘But, you must go on for another six months, until September, at least.’ ( I didn’t understand the significance of September and Sally didn’t explain. I think she was winging it ).

Meg was obviously alarmed and Sally took her cue. Meg thinks she is a burden on you. It seemed like a despicable tactic designed to quell my dissent. ‘No!’ I replied, firmly. ‘Meg isn’t a burden.’ ‘That’s good, then’, replied Sally.

I was acutely aware of Meg sitting to my side but I needed to make Sally and Mark understand the gravity of the situation without upsetting her further. I tried using codewords and cryptic allusions and used my eyes to convey the seriousness of the crisis that was looming. I was being driven to suicide and they needed to know.

Attention was turned to our housing plight. I had been renting accommodation in the private sector for 15 years and had been evicted twice through no fault of my own. A third eviction was impending and I was facing the prospect of social housing. I had in fact just learned that I was in bidding contention through the local council Homebid scheme for a property on the Old Basing and Mapledurwell border. This would have been good for Meg as it was within walking distance of the family home. The property, a ground floor flat, was part of a building named ‘The Hollies’. It was remarkable for the fact that ‘The Hollies’ is, or was, also the name of the house that Sally lived in Hook. I was aware of this fact because a photo of her house was, and still is at the time of writing these words, advertised on the internet alongside her private art therapy business details. At the time it seemed portentous, a kind of romantic kismet where the stars seemed to be aligning. I casually inserted this into the conversation, hoping that Sally would see it the same way. She knew I was going to ask her to dinner and I wanted to share this latest news with her without being direct in front of Meg and Mark. This revelation was later weaponised and used against me as evidence of boundary violation and far, far worse. I will expand on this in a much later post.

‘And what of the progress of the safeguarding you promised?’ I asked Sally. Her eyes went wide in panic. ‘Have you initiated the safeguarding you promised back on the 16th December, 2021?’ ‘No,’ she replied. I was incredulous, crushed by her admission. Sally struggled to find a suitable answer and settled on a poor excuse. ‘I was waiting for feedback from Lindsey Spillane at BCoT,’ she explained. There had been an idea to encourage Meg to join a special educational program at Basingstoke College of Technology but she wasn’t interested. Why wait for feedback from Lyndsay Spillane, anyway? It wasn’t fundamental to safeguarding. It seemed obvious to me that safeguarding wasn’t the priority that it should have been.

I implored again, through tears of frustration and despair. ‘I cannot go on for another several months! I doubt I can go on for several days!’ I cried. I turned to Mark Birbeck. ‘I need for you to recommend Meg to other services!’ I didn’t know what other services were available, didn’t know about NICE guidelines, wasn’t even aware of the finer details of the NHS Constitution and our rights as patient and carer. Rather than recommend adult services, Mark Birbeck actually went against all NHS protocol and denied my daughter her rights to make informed choice over her treatment. He told me ( and I paraphrase ) ‘other services wouldn’t be an option’. In his words we could not reasonably expect any immediate help from adult services. I remember his actual words being ‘adult services are patchy at best.’

I was shell-shocked and things went quiet for a bit. Mark Birbeck finally acquiesced and offered a consolation. Speaking half to Sally and half to me ‘I think we need to get some help’. Finally he had been moved by the gravity of the situation. They agreed between themselves to make arrangements, making reference to what I now imagine was the local ‘Crisis’ team and to ‘the Bridge Centre’ though at the time I didn’t know what either meant.

That smoothed things over a little and I grasped tightly onto the frayed end of a lifeline. Meg and I had narrowly avoided being kicked to the curb.

We stepped out into the corridor, lingering as we said our goodbyes. Before Meg and I turned to go I looked Sally in the eyes and said, ‘I’ll see you on the 3rd of February, then.’ Sally froze, her eyes widening with uncamouflaged trepidation. It was immediately obvious to me that something was amiss. That wordless hesitation spoke to me and, even though her countenance was concealed by her mask, her expression was writ large and plain in my imagination. What I didn’t know at the time was that a covert plan was already being prepared against me, to misrepresent me and turn me into a monster. Medical records later confirmed that Sally was co-conspirator, working in conjunction with other clinicians and leadership staff to, in all probability, manage and protect the reputations and livelihoods of professionals involved at CAMHS, Bramblys Drive. Sally was, in fact, fully aware that our scheduled meeting to review my therapy drawings was never going to take place. While I guessed that something was terribly wrong I never would have suspected, never could have believed that Sally would deceive me. I had trusted her but my trust was misplaced. Sally, in that very moment, was caught between an obligation and a deception. Sally Mungall choose to look me in the eyes and lie to my face. ‘Yes,’ she replied. I held her wide-eyed stare for a moment and turned to leave with Meg. While Sally Mungall has since passed me, oblivious, on the streets of Basingstoke, it was the last time I ever spoke to her or looked her in the eyes.