I'm fed up with this - what do you think?

I think I finally know what to do: I phoned psychotherapy today… here’s a run down of the last 9 months: July, I research into all my symptoms, and believe I have BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) and realise I need urgent treatment.. August, I go to the doctors, I tell them I think I have BPD, he disagrees… I ask for a referral… I get referred to the gateway team. October, I have a diagnostic appointment with the gateway team, they refer me to a Psychiatrist… November, I have an appointment with the Psychiatrist… I ask her if she thinks I have BPD, she says no. I wait… she, being Dr Fran Hewlitt, the Psychiatrist, eventually refers me to Psychotherapy… I phone them up… a lot… I eventually get a diagnostic appointment with the Psychotherapist Dr Sheppard, in March. Who then tells me, he thinks I have BPD. He tells me he will write to me… naturally… he doesn’t. I wait a little while, beginning of April, I phone them and ask them what’s going on… Dr Sheppard is away for a week… try again next week… so I try again the following week… Monday, I phone, they know nothing, I’ll ring you tomorrow, they say… of course, they don’t, so I ring back, they’re still not sure, so they assure me they will ring back Wednesday… they don’t – I phone them, they tell me they are waiting to hear from Dr Hewlitt… remember her? She was the psychiatrist who referred me here in the first place. OK. So I wait a few days… I ring back today. She tells me this: Dr Sheppard has gone back to Dr Hewlitt… Dr Hewlitt has referred me to the gateway team, who will (apparently) get in touch with me shortly. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE BLOODY KIDDING ME?!?!!!! The Gateway team? The same Gateway Team who referred me to Dr Hewlitt in the first place, the same Gateway team who referred me to Dr Hewlitt, who referred me to Dr Sheppard, who referred me back to Dr Hewlitt, who referred me BACK to the bloody gateway team who I had a diagnostic appointment with SEVEN MONTHS AGO!!!!!!!! I have just wasted a year of my life… getting distinctly worse… down the eating disorders, self-harm, alcoholic roads… just trying to get help – see, most mental health patients run away from help… this is me, actually TRYING to get the help I need – and this is how they treat me? They are bloody lucky I’m not suicidal because it would be blood on their hands if I were!! THIS IS UNNAC-FUCKING-CEPTABLE!!!!!!!!!!

So do I know what to do? Yes. I’ve thought about it for a while. Because, I see it all the time on TV, and everybody knows the facts… one suicide attempt gets you immediate psychiatric treatment… if I’d thought of this 9 months ago I could have cut the middle-man and saved myself 9 months of absolute anguish, pain and distraught, one overdose… a controlled overdose, so I know it’s not enough to risk losing my life, but definitely enough to question my mental health, and have me taken seriously, (Mirtazapine, the non-risky overdose tablet) – call for an ambulance… and I can have an appointment with the psychiatrist the same day – a referral to the correct course of therapy that same week… because I’m sick of going round in circles, with the flipping self-harm, eating disorders, alcohol to cope, round and round and round again… it’s not getting me anywhere… I have to do this, and I have to do it properly… or blood really will be on a LOT of people’s hands. And I could name names.

I realise it sounds silly - but really… if you think about it… I’m surprised more people don’t to it… fast-track the mental-health referral nightmare - what do you think?
Well I don’t know really… but I know Mirtazapine is the safest anti-depressants to OD on… you can take like 30 and you wouldn’t die from them apparently… no I live in England, the NHS certainly has its drawbacks… if I was in America I would be paying for everything… but at least I’d be getting treatment… besides, I’m still paying for meds which have about as much effect as tic-tacs without the minty-fresh aftertaste… and nothing is treating my depression/anxiety/psychotic symptoms - my GP didn’t even know what BPD… this is an absolute joke and I can’t take any more of it!

Posted in children psychotherapy