Nerves, don't fail me now...

On Friday afternoon, before I lost my nerve completely, I went over to the medical centre K. recommended and was seen as a walk-in patient. When your name is called the nurse walks you to the examining room where you wait for the doctor. On the walk in she asked me "why are you here today" and I mumbled "some mental health problems"... of course since I was staring at the floor and mumbling she asked me "what did you say?" at which point I seriously wished for the earth to open up and swallow me whole. Thinking crazy thoughts is not so hard, to be honest, but having to explain to someone else what is going on in your head is pretty difficult. Especially when every instinct is to flee the office immediately. For the duration of the 90 minute wait I just told myself "two more minutes. That's all you have to stay for, just two more minutes." On and on the time dragged and I kept making false promises to myself....

My time with the actual doc went pretty quickly (let's say, five minutes max) and I got a referral to the mood disorders clinic at CAMH, which is what I wanted. Like everyone else, he listened to my current symptoms and prescriptions and asked "how long have you been bipolar?" Sigh.

I'm temping this week at the Toronto International Film Festival where I am conducting a market research survey on people waiting in line for the films. Good thing I don't have social anxiety, eh!

Stay tuned for more developments in Catherine-land!

Hi, I'd like some help....

Well I'm glued to the phone these days, trying to sort out some help here in Toronto. Jim found me the number for the CAMH info and referral line, so I called them last night. I was given the number for the distress line and the CAMH depression clinic. Called the clinic today and found out that you have to be referred by your GP (which I don't have, but guess I will soon). Once referred, for 200 bucks (for those of us without insurance) they will do an assessment and make recommendations for medication, which they will send back to my GP. Do you provide other supports, I asked? Like what, they said. Well, a community mental health nurse for instance (me, thinking back to Ireland). Not really, she said. It's more medication-focused treatment.

So, I'm already on a buncha pills, so I don't know that I need recommendations for more, or even different, medication. Could I be wrong? Sure, but I'm on a mood stablilizer and an anti-psychotic and they work much better than the anti-depressants I started with. And since I'm such a smarty-pants I figure I know what their assessment will be like, having had multiple assessments at the psych ward in Ireland. How different can they be? So what do I do? Do I fork over the $$ and hope that there are other programs that they could put me in touch with? Do I keep winging it? I think I have to say no to winging it since I keep sinking lower and lower.

Despite being an emotional mess, I'm a pretty demanding consumer of mental health services. Imagine having to sort through all of this bureaucracy when you are completely unraveled. Unraveled and broke.

There's still room on the credit card to pay for the doctor's appointment and assessment, so maybe I should just go ahead. I'm always telling people to try everything, and I mean everything in the fight against depression and suicide. You never know which will be the right combo of things that will help. I want y'all to remember that I'm doing my best to get help. It's just working out to be a bit harder than I imagined.