When You Become the Safety Net

The Quiet Reality of Being a Parent in the System

Are you ready for this Monday’s blog?

I didn’t even know where to start with this one.

Because this isn’t just about inpatient care.
It isn’t just about medication errors.

It isn’t just about A&E at 2am.

It’s about something much bigger.

It’s about what happens when you become the safety net.

The part nobody prepares you for

You assume, when your child is admitted, that there is a system.

That medication will be given as prescribed.
That physical health will be monitored.
That risk will be managed.

You assume that if something starts to go wrong physically, someone will notice.

But what happens when your child is too low to notice?
Or too mentally unwell to advocate for themselves?

What happens when you are the one saying:

“She isn’t right.”
“She is dehydrated.”
“This needs sorting now.”

And you have to keep saying it.

And keep saying it.

And keep pushing.

Fighting for bloods shouldn’t be a battle

When physical health declines in a mental health setting, it can get blurred.

Symptoms get minimised.
Concerns get delayed.
Parents get labelled “anxious”.

But sometimes, we are not anxious.

We are right.

When someone is vomiting through the night.
When their body is clearly struggling.
When you can see deterioration happening in real time.

You don’t need reassurance.
You need action.

The 2am moment no one talks about

Eventually, hospital admission happens.

Midnight.
Exhausted.
Emotionally raw.

We live 45 minutes away.

So when she is taken to A&E, I’m not immediately there.

The inpatient unit accompany her.
They stay for around two hours.

And then they leave.

She is placed in a quieter area of A&E, which, clinically, she needs.
Noise and chaos escalate her.
Overstimulation makes everything worse.

But quiet also meant isolated.

No staff sitting with her.
No one directly monitoring.
No one physically present.

This is after multiple suicide attempts in the previous 24 hours.

And then the phone rings.

It’s her.

She tells me she’s been left.

In that moment, the fear is immediate and physical.

Because she could walk out.
Because impulsivity doesn’t wait for procedure.
Because distance matters and we are 45 minutes away.

So I call the inpatient unit.

Not politely.
Not calmly.

I speak from fear.

From adrenaline.

From the kind of terror only a parent in that situation understands.

To their credit, someone is sent back to cover until morning.

But the fact that it required that call at 2am stays with you.

Because you shouldn’t have to trigger the safety net.

You thought she already had one.

And this is the part people don’t always see.

Moments like that don’t just pass.

They settle into your nervous system.

The 2am phone call.
The 45-minute distance.
The image of a quiet cubicle with no one sitting beside her.
The knowledge that you only knew because she rang you.

Your body stores it.

So later, when you jump at a noise, it makes sense.
When you struggle to sleep deeply, it makes sense.
When your heart races the next time the phone rings at night, it makes sense.

This is how hypervigilance is built.

Not because we are dramatic.
Not because we are anxious by nature.

But because we have learned, through experience, that things can change quickly.

That gaps can appear.

That sometimes the safety net needs reinforcing.

And once your body has learned that lesson, it doesn’t easily forget it.

That doesn’t mean we stay in anger.

It doesn’t mean we stay in blame.

But it does mean we acknowledge something important:

Parents absorb more than anyone realises.

And if you are more alert than you used to be…
if you sleep lighter…
if you find yourself scanning for risk even on “calm” days…

There may be a reason.

Informal admission, the part we weren’t told

You’re told that informal admission is quicker.
That it’s better.
That it gives flexibility.

What you aren’t always told is that informal can sometimes mean:

Less obligation.
Blurred responsibility.
Parents filling the gaps.

No one explains that clearly in the beginning.

And when you are exhausted and frightened, you agree, because you want your child safe.

This is the bit that’s hard to say

Sometimes it feels like:

The system assumes the parent will absorb the risk.

That we will:

• Stay overnight

• Monitor constantly

• Chase medications

• Advocate for bloods

• Manage emotional fallout

• Stay calm in chaos

And we do.

Because we love them.

But loving them does not make us clinically responsible.

The physical toll on parents

Hypervigilance doesn’t switch off in A&E.

You sit upright in the chair.
You don’t fully breathe.
You don’t fully sleep.
You scan constantly.

You are the early warning system.

And after enough nights like that, it becomes your baseline.

That isn’t resilience.
That’s survival mode.

Why I’m writing this

Not to attack.

Not to blame.

But because if you are in this right now, I want you to know:

If you feel like you are holding everything together, you probably are.

If you feel like you have to push harder than you should, you probably do.

If you feel exhausted beyond words, that makes sense.

This is not weakness.

This is the cost of loving someone in crisis inside a system that is stretched thin.

The question I’m still sitting with

This blog is being written in the early hours of the morning in hospital, the kind of quiet where machines hum and fluorescent lights never quite dim and even now, the body stays alert.

If I step back, what happens?
If I don’t push, who notices?
If I don’t stay, who watches?

That’s not a question parents should have to carry alone.

And yet many of us do.

There is no neat ending to this blog.

We are still waiting for a bed.
Still hoping for safety.
Still navigating a system that doesn’t always join up.

But if you are sitting in a hospital chair tonight,
heart racing,
phone on loud,
watching the nurses’ desk…

I see you.

You are not dramatic.
You are not overreacting.
You are doing the job of five people.

And it is heavy.

Your calm in the chaos,
Sami ⚓💙