Are you a social butterfly?

Thanks for the advice, Quentin. I am still reading and enjoying your All God's Angels, Beware! collection. It's just a shame that I find it so hard to concentrate fully these days, so I am going through it very slowly as a result.

Quote Originally Posted by Pharpetron

I wish you the best of luck in getting treatment, James. I don't envy you trying to navigate the nightmarishly red-tape laden and bureaucratic world of moden mental health care with its endless referrals, consultations, and waiting lists.

At first I went to my GP with my complaints and was prescribed citalopram. This drug reacted very badly with me physically and mentally. I was receiving blackouts, strong hallucinations and such severe heart palpitations that I had to stop taking it.

My GP then referred me to my community mental health team, who were nightmarishly incompetent. Firstly, they recommended I buy a self help book. I did, and it was beyond irrelevant to my condition. I think it would be useful for mentally sound people coming out of a divorce or redundancy or whatever, but it was useless to me. This was the first of many signs that these people weren't engaging with me. Every time on the phone they'd be half listening (sometimes even eating throughout) and endlessly referring me to other people, who would then refer me to others, until I got stuck with a regular personal advisor who I had to summarise my situation to every call because she'd forget.

At every venture in which she told me to await a letter from her, I would wait weeks or even a month until I realised nothing was coming, so I would ring up again and she said they'd resend, leaving me to await nothing. The final time the woman on the phone said she would email me the relevant questionnaires, and I actually did receive an email, but she had forgotten to attach the questionnaires, so after four months of being sat in this room waiting for these people to help me, I still hadn't reached the waiting list for step one.

It took me losing my cool on the phone and admonishing her for such ridiculous incompetence for her to even put me on the waiting list for CBT, which could take a year. At this point my parents stepped in and said they'd pay for me to see a private psychiatrist, but he says I need a referral from my GP. This seemingly simple task has entailed numerous phone calls and cancellations in order for me to speak to my GP, who for some reason has sent the relevant letter to my local clinic rather than my house or the psychiatrist he's addressing, so I'll have to go there tomorrow and then send it to the psychiatrist.

This process has been going on for six months, and I have still yet to be helped by anybody. I have simply been sat in my room whilst people bounce me around from indifferent alleged professional to indifferent alleged professional, whilst waiting for the postman to arrive with no post.

[qcrisp]

Quote Originally Posted by James Sucellus

Firstly, they recommended I buy a self help book. I did, and it was beyond irrelevant to my condition. I think it would be useful for mentally sound people coming out of a divorce or redundancy or whatever, but it was useless to me. This was the first of many signs that these people weren't engaging with me.

I know this one. I don't mean I know the self-help book in question, but this situation is familiar to me. The advice I got last time, before getting CBT (the person I finally got CBT with was sympathetic) really was clearly for people who had had a bad week or that kind of thing, for whom 'normal' meant 'happy', or something like that. ("You'll soon be back to normal" and all that nauseating cack.) It's exactly that kind of thing that can make it tempting to correlate happiness with shallow idiocy. But we must remember - correlation is not causation. These shallow idiots just happen to be relatively happy.

[Kevin]

Not a social butterfly at all. Actually, I pretty much hate everyone, although I believe in having the best manners possible and that civility greases the wheels of civilization, making our time here at least bearable.

But people are a drain, all of them. I'm not energized by anyone. The work world is horrible and filled with treachery. Thoughts of suicide come on a weekly, if not daily basis. I'm done, let me out of here! But I haven't done anything about it, and probably won't. Just trying to eke out whatever positive moments I can.