FEBRUARY 19, 2007

Bloody hell. I'm not sure if I should wait until I don't want to tear the heads off of everyone in the psychiatric profession to write this or if I should just go ahead and let things rip, but... Arrrgggghhhhhh!

I've spent the last hour staring out the window watching it rain and thinking that the leading cause of death amongst people with mental health issues probably isn't suicide but simply their inability to get proper treatment for their problems, regardless of how much they want or try to get that help. The average person is much more likely to win the lottery than they are to get good mental health care, which is the problem I'm facing now.

If I were to set myself on fire and run screaming through the "psychiatric resource center" I'm going to, the psychiatrists wouldn't move a muscle to throw water on me and tend to my actual wounds, but would instead condescendingly ask how I was feeling and what made me set myself on fire and, when I told them it was frustration over the lack of help, they'd nod their heads, say hmmm, then pass me off to another so called mental health expert who, of course, wouldn't agree to see me until my HMO swore on a stack of bibles that that they'd pay all the bills and then the mental health expert would tell me that their next appointment wasn't until 2017, but here's a pack of questionnaires the size of War and Peace to fill out in the meantime. And if this were the first time I'd experienced major problems getting mental health treatment, you could go ahead and call me a pussy and say I'm overreacting, but this isn't the first time. Or the second. Or the third. Every Single Time I've tried to get help, I've run into major problems, and the number of times that's happened is so high I've lost count. It's now to the point where my animosity towards mental health professionals is so intense that I need therapy to deal with that as well. And that's a pissy irony - needing therapy because all your attempts at therapy have gone so badly.

And this ties into another aspect of psychiatric health that makes me want to scream. When it comes to mental health, the number one question people ask in regards to those who suffer from mental illness is, "why don't they just get some help?" Hey, there's a great suggestion, why didn't I think of that?! For fuck's sake, do you sane people really think those of us in the nutjob brigade actually enjoy suffering? Do you think the desperate want of help hasn't crossed our minds? Do you think we haven't tried again and again and again to get help? Trust me, most people who suffer from mental illness and whose faculties are enough in tact to think relatively straight do want help and have tried to get it. The problem isn't whether we want help, but simply whether we can get it, and all too often we can't. As I told Ross today, it's really sad that people who suffer from conditions that make it difficult for them to take care of or help themselves are faced with a mental health system that makes getting help nearly impossible. Living with depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, etc, is hard enough without having to wage a constant battle in order to get one iota of help. So the question shouldn't be 'why don't the nuts get help' but, rather, 'why can't the nuts get help.' That's a serious question that really needs to be addressed because this world isn't getting any easier or prettier and the number of people with psych issues is only going to grow.

Of course, you may wonder what triggered this rant and it's a long story, full of boring things like fighting with our HMO over their limited mental health coverage and the frustrating month long process of just trying to get an appointment made at the clinic I was referred to, but I'll skip all that and get to the heart of the more problematic issues.

The gist of it is that I went in for my first appointment last week and the shrink quizzed me for an hour about my medical history, details of the abuse, and my current state of mind, after which the shrink said it was obvious I have severe post traumatic stress disorder and that there are medications that will likely give me significant relief from the symptoms (depression, insomnia, anxiety, etc), but that she was going to wait to prescribe me anything because she wasn't actually going to be the doctor handling my treatment. She was just a temporary shrink for me to see until they get me set up with someone else long term, which would likely take several weeks, but that we'd talk about that more at my next appointment.

When she said that, Ross and I both sat there and blinked at her in frustration. Why did they have me go in for an appointment with someone who wasn't going to be my doctor or give me any help? Why didn't they tell me before I recounted the most personal and painful details of my life to a total stranger that this person wasn't going to be my actual therapist and that I'd have to go through the whole process again with someone else? And the worst part was that our HMO only covers 6 appointments with a psychiatrist so the twits at this clinic wasted one of those six meager appointments. Suffice to say we weren't pleased, but there wasn't much we could do about it other than go to my next appointment and hope things improved.

So today I had my second appointment and my temporary shrink said she'd decided to prescribe the atypical antipsychotic drug Seroquel, which is used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I don't have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, however, so we asked why she chose this med and she said the drug's potent sedation effect would likely help my insomnia. And, no offense to the Ramones, but I don't want to be sedated. That's not an effective treatment, it's a temporary fix for one symptom and putting me in a sleep coma won't help me recover my life. That, and insomnia is the least of my problems right now. It's depression that I desperately need help with and depression is why my regular doctor referred me to a psychiatrist. But when Ross and I tried to voice our concerns, the shrink said my appointment was going to be short because she needed to take her son to the doctor, so we needed to hurry and get through everything because we only had ten minutes left. At that point, her cell phone rang and she left the room to take the call and, when she came back, she sped through the warnings about the drug's possible side effects and quickly informed me that, for continued treatment, I was being referred to the clinic's nurse practitioner but that the nurse was at a training seminar so I wouldn't hear from the nurse for a week or so. And with that, the shrink handed me a sample packet of Seroquel with enough pills to kill an elephant, along with a prescription for more Seroquel, and scurried off to take her kid to the doctor.

I was upset enough when she said the only thing she'd decided to do for me is sedation, but when she told me the person I'd be seeing for the rest of my treatment is a nurse practitioner, I wanted to scream. I wasn't referred to see a nurse practitioner who's still in training. I was referred to this clinic to see a licensed psychiatrist who is an expert at treating severe, treatment resistant atypical depression and ptsd, and when we called to make an appointment, they told us that's who I'd be seeing. So we had another appointment wasted and my frustration with the mental health profession continues, especially after I looked up Seroquel online. Turns out Seroquel raises blood sugar and cause significant weight gain, so it isn't advised for people like me who have glucose and insulin problems. And I told the shrink about my insulin problems and that I have to take an insulin sensitizer everyday, so why she gave me something that will screw with my glucose is beyond me. That and we specifically told the shrink that anything I was prescribed had to be safe for use during pregnancy. That's another reason I needed to see psychiatric specialist, so that we can come up with a medication plan that's not only safe during pregnancy, but will also help with pregnancy related depression. But Seroquel cannot be taken during pregnancy so, even if I was keen on taking it, there'd be no point since I'd have to quit as soon as I get pregnant again.

So, long story short (ha!) - arrrgh! And after mulling the situation over and talking about it with Ross, I've decided not to go back to this clinic. I don't like them, don't trust them, they've handed me over to someone who isn't qualified to treat me, haven't helped me at all, have prescribed medication I can't take, and we don't have the time or medical coverage to keep playing games. I mean, what kind of shrink gives a near suicidally depressed person enough sedatives to kill them several times over? Sigh.

Oi bleepin' vey, this is frustrating, but Ross has made me promise to not give up on getting help, so tomorrow (or at least very soon) I'll call and start the process of trying to find a good shrink that's covered by our HMO. Granted, I may be 85 before I actually find a good shrink but, as long as I find a good psychiatrist before I die, I'll consider myself successful.

listening: moby . reading: on beauty

walk: 0 minutes . weight lost: 7 pounds

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