Mental health team not taking relative's problem seriously, don't know what it is.

LegacyUser

I have a relative who has had depression for years. She is on the waiting list for mental health treatment and in the meantime was seen by an assessor and had some sessions with a mental health professional, called the Change programme. They listened and talked to her about her depression and eating disorder, and said the treatment she's waiting for could help with that (I can't remember what the actual treatment is called.)
However she has another issue, which is distressing her greatly and which she has told the mental health team about, but the mental health team clearly have no idea what it is, and so pretty much ignore it and change the subject when she talks about it. Basically, she goes through periods, lasting sometimes weeks and sometimes months, where she feels either intensely spiritual or intensely religious, and then it goes away. It causes her to do things she wouldn't otherwise do. At first the feelings were just spiritual, and caused her to believe in new age stuff (can't remember what she said exactly). She didn't mind this. However, a few years ago these feelings stopped being new age/spiritual and became Christian.
Basically for a few months she'll be just a normal depressed agnostic person, then she'll suddenly find herself intensely believing in Christianity to a distressing extent. She starts confessing her sins - in other words telling people any little unpleasant thing she might have done and trying to make it up to them, she'll throw away all her heavy metal music, thinking it's of the devil, and she'll be in a constant state of terror that she'll spend eternity in hell if she doesn't have enough faith in Jesus.
Then eventually those feelings go away and she regrets getting rid of her music and confessing all the bad little things she's done, and is always worried about the religious feelings coming back. She's on benefits as she has too many physical and mental problems to work and she's very worried that she'll be in this religious state when her next benefits assessment comes around, because the bible says "he who will not work, let him not eat," and she might find herself saying she's fine and refusing benefits because of this and then regretting it when the religiosity goes away. She's also worried when these feelings go away, in case the feelings are actually god reaching out to her and if she stops believing then she'll go to hell.
Does anyone know what could be causing this as the mental health team seem at a loss and aren't taking it seriously, but my cousin says it's far more distressing than the depression or eating disorder.

wiggle16

Mod:

I'm very sorry OP, but I'm afraid this is beyond the remit of personal issues. I really don't think it is going to help you to have posters speculating as to which condition is responsible for your relative's behaviour.

If the particular service you are dealing with is not equipped to deal with this issue then it might be worth contacting the HSE and explaining to them that her condition is more acute than they realise, or to present with her to A&E.

I hope your relative gets the help she needs. Best of luck.

I'm sorry but I'm afraid I have to close this thread.

Thread locked.