Thursday, October 8, 2009

The torture that is finding mental health professionals....


There is great freedom in anonymity. I have spent my life lying, to people I know and love and now here where no-one knows me I can be honest. I carry on my everyday life, work, the kids, my husband, my friends. Went to a Fringe Festival Gig last night. Going out for dinner tonight, and yet woven through this seeming normalacy, is the constant mind-butting, the ever-present reminder that I am not normal.
So I put off seeing my shrink because of the pressure she puts on me to upgrade, to a more heavy duty mental health regime. She can't cope with me, no-one has ever been able to cope with me alone, everyone needs a team. What if I don't want a whole freaking team of mental health professionals converting me into a big fat file, into a case-study, a client. What if I don't want them all talking about me when I'm not there? So I need a psychiatrist for a full assessment and to monitor my medication. Ok fine, except they are so EXPENSIVE and I don't fit in a box and I don't want anymore labels. I'm pregnant and I don't want to try any new medications while I'm in such a condition. Yes the anti-psychotics work, but they have side-effects too, like causing me to sleep so much I can't LIVE or look after my children properley. Surely that is more impairing than helpful? At least the crazy me can work and live and care form my children.
So there's this one 'specialised' DBT clinic my shrink wanted me to check out. I have to go to the dodgy doctor she recommended for me. The one who practically shrunk across the room from me when she realised I was the one who has factitious disorder and complex other presentations and couldn't get me out of her office fast enough. When I went back last week for my pregnancy she had forgotten who I was and treated me so warmly. Today I will go back and get a Mental Health Plan so I can go to an assessment at this DBT clinic. So DBT is supposed to be the way to go for borderline personality, suicidality, self-harm. Blah blah, one little part of me, what about the rest? I have SOME features of Borderline, I've certainly been suicidal in the past, or have I? Or do I just love the drama, the Sylvia-Plath-Emily-Dickinson-Virginia-Woolf-ness of it all. I mean there's no denying the fact I very almost went under that train half-naked once, and probably would have if not for the gallant and heroic rescue on my bothersome husband. Yes suicidal thoughts. Self harm? I don't even Self-Harm in a 'normal' way...
So on Tuesday I go and see the intake assessment shrink at the DBT Clinic. It's supposed to be very 'managable pricing, but turns out a group session and a private session after all the rebates and medicare money back will still cost me $450 a month, then there's the childcare for two children while I'm there $350 and the travel and parking $100. Suddenly it is costing me $900 a month. Where the hell is THAT meant to come from?? Oh yeah I can really do an extra day work with two kids at home and one on the way and impending illness imminent. My shrink will roll her eyes and say if can afford a trip to Europe and my husband getting a motorbike, then I can afford therapy.
It's important of course.
*Rolls eyes*
There is available to me, a psychologist through the hospital once I register my pregnancy, and I can get counselling at work for free. But of course my shrink thinks this is repeating the pattern of chain-shrinking and none of them are anywhere near specialised enough for the complexity that is me. No-one can cope with me alone. So what to do?
I write this blog.
Isynia

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