Protected: Overdosed, but a friend this time.

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Where am I headed?

I don’t know where I’m heading with my life. Others have goals, aspirations. I used to have them too. Now I’m just drifting. Drifting, drifting along in life until ‘Bam!’ I hit a brick wall, there’s no where else to turn and it all comes to an end.

A few days ago I found out my score on a multiple choice test worth 25% of our unit mark. My result was 33%. Appalling. In a class of 138, my score was in the bottom 8. A year ago, it would’ve taken me days to get over it. I would’ve felt the need to punish myself, I would’ve self harmed, I would’ve cried for what a failure I am. This year, I got upset, cried for a bit, but was over it in less than an hour. Didn’t even cut over it. At first glance it may appear as progress. When you look at the bigger picture though, and you look at why I’m not troubled by it, it points to the contrary. While self harm is an unhealthy coping mechanism, it at least indicated that I cared enough about where my life was heading to realise that my marks determine whether or not I’m going to successfully graduate from University to become a pharmacist. Now I feel as if I’ve given up on life. My mindset has become that it’s going to end sooner or later, possibly sooner and by my own doing, so why try?

I’ve become indifferent. I have no direction in life. I don’t see a future for myself. I can’t imagine becoming a pharmacist, having relationships, getting married, moving out of home and owning my own house, having children, having grandchildren and growing old. That’s talking long term. In the short term, I can’t see myself graduating from Uni or even passing my units. I’ve been turning a blind eye to the increasing possibility that I may fail pharmacy, instead choosing to ignore reality. I dread to think what will happen if I do get terminated from my course. Going to Uni, studying to become a pharmacist gives me the guise of actually doing something with my life. If I’m not going to Uni, I don’t know what I’m doing. Then there would be the terrible shame in being a Uni dropout. Bad enough for everyone else, worse if you’re Asian.

It pains me to remember the days where I was said to have a bright future ahead of me. What was expected of me is that I would get into Uni, pass my units and graduate without any major hurdles. Those days are long gone.

These days, nothing much is expected. Or nothing great anyway. Yesterday for example. My father has been finding empty blister packs of paracetamol and codeine tablets on our front lawn. Now being aware of my ODing tendenices in taking medications with alcohol in an attempt to harm myself, he suspected it was me. Not knowing that I was home, he voiced aloud to my mother that it may possibly be me, abusing prescription medication. For the record, it wasn’t. It’s just my luck that someone has been leaving empty blister packs lying around on our front garden, so soon after the ambulance came and my parents found everything out. Thank you, anonymous pill popper.

I could blame this all on mental illness. Yeah, it’s the mental illness that makes me this way. It’s the mental illness that makes me act irrationally and do things like steal medications from the pharmacy I work in, to go OD on later. It’s the depression that’s taken away my energy, motivation, memory and concentration. It’s the depression that’s affecting my ability to do well at Uni. But really, that’s just me making excuses for my shortcomings.

On a positive note though, I went to the dinner with my workmates last night and I actually had a good time, ignoring the fact that I purged afterwards. I chatted, I laughed and I enjoyed myself. I’d been isolating myself so much that I had forgotten how important it is to your mental health to spend time in the company of others.

Dinner With Workmates

A group of people from my workplace are organising to go out on Sunday night for dinner, to catch up with a workmate who has now left. I got asked whether I wanted to go or not. These past couple of months, with everything that’s been going on and my depression being worse than usual, I have avoided social situations and rejected invitations to go out. I thought it was time to break the cycle. So with some hesitation, I said yes.

I’m feeling a bit apprehensive about it. I’ve never been out with my workmates before. My Aunty will be there, as I work with her and she was the one who introduced me in, so it won’t be as intimidating as if I were to go by myself. I can convince myself that I am just tagging along with her, and therefore the pressure to be social is lessened. But still. I haven’t been out with friends for two months. Two months. I feel so out of sync, like I’ve forgotten how to have relationships with people. Isolation is unhealthy, especially when you are suffering from depression. I know that. I know that the longer I continue isolating myself, the worse the social anxiety is going to get. As my school counsellor in high school said, exposure is the only way to overcome social anxiety. But I am far more comfortable continuing to hide inside my cocoon, than to attempt breaking out of it.

Then there is the issue of food. Out of all the places they could choose to go, they chose a buffet. One of the worst places you can put someone who is bulimic. With the abundance of food, and as much as you can eat, the temptation to binge will be far too much. I will not be able to resist. And hey, I’m Asian, I like to get my money’s worth. Funnily enough, the last time I went out with my friends two months ago, we went to a buffet too. The inevitable happened, I went, I binged, I purged. I’m envisioning the same thing happening this time.

With all this in mind, um, why did I agree to go again?

Forth GP Appointment & (NOT) Abuse

Went and saw Dr L again today, the good news is that I do not have to see him for another two weeks! I have been given a reprieve! As you may be able to tell, I am a little (or perhaps more than just a little) pleased about this. Went from a four day gap between appointments, to a five day gap, then a week, and now two weeks! My next GP appointment is on 4 May and my psychiatrist appointment is on 28 May. If I can convince him that I will be fine for the three weeks or so between seeing him and seeing the psychiatrist for the first time, I may just get off without having to see him again! Or is that pushing it a bit…? No, if I can go two weeks, I can go three weeks without seeing him…. And to think that when I saw my previous psychologist, an appointment within the space of two weeks was considered ‘frequent.’ Hah!

He seemed to think that I am doing better. Don’t know what gave him the idea actually. I was honest with him, I said that the thoughts to harm myself and OD were still there, just that they weren’t strong thoughts. Seems to think that not having any strong thoughts to OD in the past five days means that I am doing better. Who am I to correct him? What he doesn’t realise though is that my moods change, I could be doing alright one day and be suicidally depressed the next.

What does he think has caused my ‘lift in mood?’ He attributes it all to exercise. I disagree. I mean, my moods haven’t even been that great, though I have been doing better since that intense and eventful week that I took the OD and everything since then unfolded. But hey, if it means I do not have to see him for another two weeks, then sure, exercise has helped me tremendously. It is the magic cure for depression. Who needs medication and therapy when you have exercise? It’s a whole lot cheaper too!

One thing that he did bring up though, and has brought up everytime that I’ve seen him, is the subject of abuse. On my first appointment with him, he said that a lot of girls, when they are depressed, self harming etc. they have been sexually abused. He asked me whether that was the case with me. I said no. I was not denying it because I didn’t want to reveal anything to him, I was telling him the truth, I have not been sexually abused.

He has hinted a couple of times that he thinks I am not telling him the truth. He has talked about needing to sort out any root issues that have happened in the past in order to move on, and has said something along the lines of, ‘You say that you haven’t been sexually abused, or you don’t want to tell me if you have, but I think someone (ie. new psychiatrist) needs to get inside your head to figure out why you are so unhappy.’ While it’s frustrating that he is bringing up a non issue with me, I have just dismissed it as something that I have not experienced and is therefore not an issue that I need to work on.

Today, he brought up the issue again. He says that there is just something telling him this and he gets the feeling that I have suffered some sort of abuse. This time though, he talked more about suffering some sort of abuse in relation to having a strict and controlling upbringing during my childhood. That…slightly closer to the truth and not so hard to ignore. Thing is, it wasn’t even abuse. Yeah, my father may have been strict and controlling. But I’m sure it’s not just him, a lot of parents are like that, right? It’s just me being way too sensitive of a child. If another child was in my shoes, they’d probably leave quite unaffected. So it’s just me.

I was very timid and quiet as a child and very eager and willing to please. My father with his bad temper and being the way he is probably didn’t help. But I mean, all children get smacked for misbehaving. Everyone gets called ‘stupid’ or an ‘idiot’ at some point in their lives. All parents lose their temper and shout at their children. Being disciplined in front of your friends is a bit embarasing, but is there ever a good time to be disciplined anyway? Hearing him say ‘I love you’ to your mother and sibling but never to you kinda sucks, but it’s just words. Being criticized for everything you do, from how you eat, to school work, to how you do chores, to social interactions with people can make you feel like you’re never good enough, but that’s just him trying to teach you to do things better. Being made to kneel in front of him and say sorry ten times for being apparently disrespectful is humiliating and a bit degrading sure, but it’s not abuse. Amongst other things. So in short, I should get the hell over it all and harden up.

I feel like an idiot for being that affected. And I really do not like admitting my father had that much of an affect on me. Other people have real reasons for their trauma, like being sexually abused. I don’t have a real reason for being the way that I am. I suspect I have mental health issues because I am just weak, terrible at coping with life, oversensitive etc etc.

And after thinking about what Dr L has said, and writing up this post, I am even more convinced that there is no point in dredging up the past. Don’t like it. It’s not nescessary. It’s not something that I want to talk about, so if Dr L thinks that the new psychiatrist is going to ‘get inside my head’ with this, he’s dreaming. Looking back at the past and reflecting on everything that’s happened depresses me and triggers the want to self harm. I know this because it happens when I go back and read my old diary entries. In any case, I’m too embarassed about being affected by something so stupid so I would not admit to this even being an issue.

I’m afraid that people will tell me to shut the hell up, that my experiences are nothing compared to the trauma they have experienced. And they’d probably be right. On the other hand, if I am told that this is an issue I have to deal with, I don’t think I want to hear that either. I want to leave it alone in the past, where it should stay. *Quietly tiptoes away.*

GetUp! Campaign: Health Reform

To give a bit of a background, the WA Premier, along with the state and territory leaders around Australia, will be sitting down on Monday to discuss health reform in Australia. With the talk of health reform, mental health reform has been neglected. Professor Patrick McGorry, psychiatrist, youth mental health expert and Australian of the Year 2010, along with GetUp! , is pushing for mental health to be part of the reforms. We as the public, have been encouraged to support the GetUp! campaign in getting out voices heard about wanting better mental health services in Australia. Western Australians, such as myself, have been invited to send a fax via the GetUp! website to Premier Colin Barnett asking him not to come home without mental health reform. This is my message to him:

Dear Mr Barnett,

As an eighteen year old student who has suffered from mental illness for a number of years, I am concerned about mental health reform being excluded from discussions about health reform.

In trying to seek treatment, I have experienced how difficult it can be to access adequate and affordable mental health care. Because of the difficulty in accessing public services, I have had to go private in seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist. As a full time University student, this bears some financial burden on me. Unfortunately I am not given much option as without mental health care, my mental illness declines even further.

I am particularly concerned about the mental health care available for young people. At least three of my friends have been hospitalised at a psychiatric hospital before they have reached the age of 25. Perhaps with better outpatient care, and early intervention, my friends reaching crisis points and needing hospitalisations could have been avoided. With so many young people experiencing mental illness and youth suicide rates being so high, it is of concern that there are not many mental health services available for young people. Headspace is the only youth mental health service I am aware of, and the government is to be commended for funding these centers. However, with only 30 centers around Australia and from what I gather, only one part time psychologist at my local headspace, this is not enough and more needs to be done.

Mr Barnett, I urge you to please consider mental health reform in conjunction with health reform. Mental wellbeing is just as important as physcial wellbeing and the services available should be matched to reflect this.

Yours faithfully,

BtF

I really hope that my message gets through to him and that it doesn’t sound too stupid or like an eight year old wrote it!

I realise that many of you do not live in Australia, but if you do, I’d encourage you to visit the GetUp! website, support this campaign and if are able, write to your premier through the GetUp! website encouraging them to bring about change for mental health too. I really hope that our voices are heard by these leaders, it is about time that mental health services are improved and more attention is given to this area.

Stranded

I was chatting to my high school friend N on MSN last night. She asked what was new with me. I look back at what’s new with me and all I can think of is that I took an OD, had an ambulance come, have had to deal with my parents and a friend finding out all my mental health issues, have been seeing a GP way too frequently and have been referred to a psychiatrist once again. But I can’t tell her that. I could tell her that I have been working and doing badly in Uni, but that’s nothing new. So I reply with, “Nothing really.” I asked her in turn what was new for her. She said that she is now going out with someone, she has a rugby game on the weekend, she’s been offered a permanant position at her volunteer place and she’s just started work experience at a vet and it’s going really well.

I should feel happy for her, and I am happy for her, but I have to admit hearing about how she’s got all these great things going on for her was a bit of a blow for me. I feel like I am missing out on life. What N described to me about what she’s doing is what I should be doing with my life. It’s the sort of thing a normal, everyday 18 year old girl should be doing. Having relationships with guys. Spending time with friends. Enjoying your hobbies. Working somewhere you enjoy and trying to get ahead by doing work experience in your chosen career.

She says that she feels like time is passing her by too fast and she looks back and thinks that her life was whizzed past her. She wants life to slow down so that she has time to enjoy it, and I wonder what it would feel like to be loving life that much. Whilst she may feel wistful about the first eighteen years of her life passing her by already, she can at least look back onto her life and think fondly about it and feel like she’s accomplished something or at least enjoyed the ride. I look back at my life and I think, ‘What a waste.’ I feel like I have accomplished nothing and instead of enjoying my childhood and adolescence, I have been stuck dealing with my mental health issues.

When I reflect back on my childhood, I feel sad for the little girl who was bullied in primary school and found it difficult to make friends. I feel sad for the little girl who started experiencing depression and started self harming at age twelve. I feel sad for the little girl who did not have a happy childhood because she was quiet and shy and had a lot of anxiety. I feel sad for the little girl who had a strict and controlling father and did not feel loved by her parents during her childhood. I feel sad for the little girl who was so eager to please, who tried to hard to do well at school, yet felt like she was pleasing no one. This little girl however, still had some hope that things would improve once she was all grown up.

I’m not a little girl anymore. Some of those issues have been resolved, a lot haven’t, and some new issues that have come up too. The bottom line is that I’m still struggling despite growing a bit older and becoming a legal adult in this world. I can feel sad for the little girl who stuggled so much to find peace and happiness. But right now I am angry and disappointed at myself for shattering that little girl’s hope that there would be change for the better. That hope is slowly diminishing and is instead being replaced with despair. I wish I could tell that little girl that things will improve, you will make it out of this, that you become happy and successful. But alas, I can’t.

I could tell myself that I am only eighteen and still young, have my whole life ahead of me, there’s still so many years for things to improve, yadda yadda. But I don’t believe it. All I can see is, life was dark back then, life is dark right now and therefore life will continue to be dark in the future. Maybe getting help again from mental health professionals can be seen as a step forwards, to ensure that my future is not as bleak as I am anticipating it will be. But I can’t help seeing it as a step backwards, as it means that I am no better and have not improved in the least despite having had treatment before. If I didn’t improve at all last time, what’s to say it won’t happen again for the second time and I end up still being no better?

My friends are moving forwards in their life. I should be doing the same. Instead, I have been left stranded at The Station of Hopelessness & Despair while they have all managed to hop on the train that takes them to new and exciting destinations.

Third GP Appointment

Given that the last appointment didn’t go very well and I left feeling even worse, I was feeling anxious today and dreading going to my GP appointment. Thankfully today’s one wasn’t as bad. Feeling like seeing him is pointless though, I paid $26 just to be told to continue walking for an hour each day. My school counsellor in Year 12 was very keen on me doing exercise too, but at least she didn’t push it when I tried it, came back, and told her that it didn’t do anything for me. Dr L however, even when I reported back that I don’t feel exercise does much for my mental health, still asks me to do an hour of walking each day. In reply to my being at Uni from 8am-5pm a couple of days a week he said, “Walk for an hour during one of your breaks!” The weather shouldn’t be a deterent either, “Wear a raincoat, or bring an umbrella with you.” Yeah. Sure. Walking an hour in cold, windy and wet weather is not my idea of fun nor ‘good for my mental health.’ He says, “I know you’re thinking ‘how is exercise going to help me’, but I promise you that it will help a bit. There is a lot of scientific evidence to support this.” Maybe you shouldn’t promise something that you can’t guarantee. I was relieved though that he didn’t ask about whether I have self harmed or not and about my eating. Have both self harmed and purged a couple of times in the five days between the two appointments.

As said, the actual cost of the consultation was $26 today. However, I had to pay $60 at the Medical Center and Medicare (Australia’s universal health care program, courtesy of the Australian government) will subsidise part of the cost, so that what I pay out of my own pocket is only $26. How it works is that the Medical Center will send the bill off to Medicare, and Medicare will send the benefit to my address, in the form of a cheque. Problem is that when I read the receipt, I saw that while I was listed as the ‘Patient,’ my father’s name was there under the ‘Claimant.’ I used to go to this Medical Center as a small child, so my father’s name as the ‘Claimant’ must’ve carried over, even though I have my own Medicare card now. I only realised this after I left so it was too late to ask the receptionist to change it. I feel embarassed about having so many appointments and guilty about the money having to be spent on the appointments by my parents so I went today without telling them and paid for it myself. With the bill possibly being addressed to my father instead of me, and the cheque being made to his name and not mine, it’s going to have to come out anyway after all my efforts to hide it.

Dr L has asked to see me, yet again, in about a week’s time. Last time I was referred to a psychiatrist by a GP, she just left me to my own devices during the two month waiting period for my first appoitment. While Dr L wanting to see me in this two month waiting period indicates that he at least cares enough to want to keep an eye on me, I’m getting a bit fed up with going to see him so frequently. I rarely, if ever, visit the doctor for physical health problems. In fact, before this, the last time I had seen a GP was in 2008, and that was for mental health issues too. And now this Medical Center is becoming incredibly familiar to me. I also can’t help thinking that him keeping an eye on me is just to cover his own back, so if anything should happen to me ie. I try to OD or off myself, he can say that he has been ‘treating me’ (with exercise haha) for my depression, rather than just left me without anything for two months.

I’m starting to think that going back to my old psychiatrist and avoiding the two month wait to see a new one wouldn’t have been so bad after all, if it means that I do not have to see a GP weekly or more, leading up to it. Wait, scratch that, if my old psychiatrist was harsh about me not trying enough to help myself to recover last time, it would be a hundred times worse if I went back to him admitting that I have gone without seeing any professionals for about seven months and in that seven months I have not improved, if anything I have declined. Plus, I couldn’t stand going back to him and giving him the satisfaction of knowing that he is right, that I would not improve without medication.

Guess I’ll just have to bear with the GP appointments for now then. Last time I was nonchalant about having to wait two months for my first psychiatrist appointment. This time, with having to see Dr L so frequently, two months couldn’t come fast enough!

Found Again

I’ve been found again by another friend this time, M. Seems like a recurring theme for me… Hence why I have moved my blog over here to WordPress. I’ve been pondering moving my blog for a while, since the first time I got found by friends. I never did, because I didn’t want to lose any readers and lose any connection with the lovely people I have met through Blogger…but I think the time has come for me to take action against anyone else I know in real life finding out my blog. The way things were going, I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone knew about my problems already. I’m not very open about my mental health issues in person so the thought terrifies me. I wouldn’t be able to continue being so honest either, knowing that my friends read my blog. This way, I can continue being completely honest about my struggles with mental illness without feeling like I have to censor things for them. I have imported all my old posts from Blogger onto here…was pretty impressed that it enabled me to do that! Felt like magic when all my posts from Blogger just appeared onto here! Still finding my way around WordPress though so please bear with me!

M told me about finding my blog on msn last night. M found my blog four months ago apparently, at the end of last year and only told me yesterday that she has been reading my blog. This is probably the worst way for a friend to find out about ALL your issues and ALL your mental health problems. Her, or anyone else I know in real life, finding out about my depression, self harm, eating issues, about my ODing and GP, psychologist and psychiatrist appointments through reading my excruciatingly honest accounts is so not ideal.

This time though, it wasn’t really my fault. Last time at the end of 2008 my friends S and C found out through a link I stupidy put up on Facebook and MySpace. I have deleted those links since. S put a link to my blog on her blog, even though I told her not to. I thought that would be the end of friends finding out about my mental illness through my blog, but no. It’s just my luck that S and M both have a mutual close friend, E. E, who I hardly even know, found my blog through S and she put a link to my blog on her blog too. M found my blog that way.

Last night when I was chatting to M, she offered to ask E to remove the link to my blog and I accepted. M said that E doesn’t understand why putting a link to my blog on her blog is a problem when my blog is a public blog available for others to read. That really irritates me, like she’s saying it’s unreasonable for me to want that link removed. Hmm, how about the fact that most of the people who read my blog will never meet me in real life anyway, or if they do it is likely they suffer from mental illness themselves or at least know something about mental illness, so I don’t mind so much if they know about my issues? And the fact that these are people who are going through similar issues so there is understanding, and no judgement? Is it that hard to understand why I do not want everyone I know in real life knowing me as ’the crazy girl who does things like cut herself and overdose?’

It makes things uncomfortable and awkward when friends find out about my issues. I don’t want my relationship with friends to change because of this and I don’t want to be treated differently, or for them to see me differently. Even if the relationship’s the same, I imagine that you will at least think of someone differently once you know that much about them, and maybe when you see this person, you can’t help but have their issues jump to mind.

Knowing that my friend now knows everything is just one more thing I have to worry about now, on top of everything else that’s happening. Grr.

Listening to GP, Work Party: KFC, Pdoc Costs & Study Break

When I left the Medical Center and I wrote my previous post, I was feeling upset, frustrated, misheard and misunderstood. I came home, felt really awful about it all, cried and ended up self harming. I have since calmed down and have been trying to do what he has instructed me to do…even though I don’t like it. Two out of three days so far, I have done the one hour of walking. Yesterday I did not do it because honestly, after spending eight hours at work the last thing I want to do is spend another hour of the day exercising when I am completely out of energy. I have bought fish oil capsules: ones that are ‘super small’ and ‘super concentrated.’ Got a bit scared of swallowing a capsule yesterday and bit into it. Eww. Enough said. Tried to swallow it today and found that swallowing the capsule is not as hard as I originally thought. Problem is that the directions on the packaging tell me to take one capsule daily, GP told me to take three capsules daily. I said that I dislike ambiguity, see, this is why! As for the three meals, I have been eating three meals a day. Admittedly, my portion sizes are a lot smaller than what the average person eats. Still, it’s three meals that are nutritionally balanced…just small. Today was a bit of a fail though, ate a small peice of apple pie at friend’s house, counted it as lunch, and purged after eating dinner.

As for everything else…

At work, another person is leaving. They mentioned the word ‘party’ and I brightened up at the idea of a party to break up the monotony of everyday work. That lasted until I realised that party equals food. It just happened that the party will be happening the one day in the week that I am at work. Last time it was pizza and I couldn’t do it, ended up bringing my own lunch. This time they are talking about buying KFC. I think I fear KFC even more than I fear pizza. So here we go, another party where I bring my own lunch, this WILL be a fun party once again.

Received a letter from the psychiatrist’s secretary confirming my appointment. The initial consultation fee for an hour is $330. Medicare rebate for this is $209. That’s still about $120 out of my own pocket. Ouch. To be able to access adequate mental health care in Australia, you have to be pretty well off it seems. There are public services, but it is not easy to access these services. My friend has tried to see a psychiatrist through the public system for depression, and has been rejected a few times. She ended up going private in the end. $120 gone from just an hour of consulting with a private psychiatrist. I earn less than that in a week, with only being able to work 5 hours when I’m at Uni. I feel so guilty already that after all the money spent by my parents on GP, psychiatrist and psychologist appointments during 2008 and 2009 I’m still no better. My father has already said something to me in the past about the money spent on me and my appointments. And now I’m needing round two and even more money spent, I feel absolutely terrible. It reminds me of my aunt saying that my parents are ‘lucky’ because they do not have to pay for expensive dermatalogical products for my brother and I, unlike she does for her children. It’s ironic that my parents are probably thinking the same thing about her, that she’s lucky because she doesn’t have to pay for mental health treatment for her children.

These past couple of weeks have been study break and this weekend concludes this, I am back at Uni next week. Met a friend today for a study session. Was nice to meet up with a friend, even if it was to study. Was probably the most study I had done the past couple of weeks. With working four full days in this past fortnight, and everything else that has happened, I had not found the time/been motivated/been in the right headspace to study at all. I fear failure is coming at me fast and will hit me hard. My friend was telling me about hanging out with her friends, going out at the middle of the night at 3am to talk, barbeques with friends, staying over at friend’s houses and going shopping together during her study break. Made me feel pretty wistful. The last time I hung out with friends was over a month ago. Pretty much my own doing though, have rejected a couple of invitations from friends to hang out. Today was the first time in over a month that I have met up with a friend outside of Uni. “So what have you done this study break,” she asks, “Have you studied a lot?” “Nope, not at all. Besides work, I have managed to overdose, sleep an entire day away due to the OD, had an ambulance come, had parents find out about my mental health issues once again, attended GP appointments and been referred to a psychiatrist once again.” But of course I don’t tell her that. Instead I say, “I have tried to study, and have worked four full days.” Yep, my life is comparitively dull. Though, I’d prefer dull any day rather than what I am going through now.

GP Appt No. 2

‘You’re not going to like it’ says the GP. No I’m not liking it. I’m hating it.

What am I not liking? Being pushed into doing things I do not want to do in order to supposedly help myself. My instinct is just to run the other way. Run away now…!

Because the psychiatrist appointment is quite a while away, he wants to keep a close eye on me in the meantime. I had an appointment with him on Saturday, had an appointment with him today on Wednesday and he asked me to make an appointment to see him again the coming Monday. That is three appointments in less than two weeks. That’s way intense and feels like overkill to me…

For the next five days before I next see him, he wants me to
-Do an hour of walking everyday. There is scientific evidence in supporting that exercise is good for mental health, according to him…and my old school counsellor I saw in Year 12. However, I have an extreme dislike of exercise.
-Eat three meals a day. He might find that my definition of a meal differs to his definition of a meal, but sure, I will eat three meals a day. My definition of a meal that is.
-Take 3 capsules of fish oil a day. And how much is that in milligrams…? I don’t like to ambiguity of ‘one capsule.’ Plus, I am unable to swallow tablets or capsules…unless they are mini sized. Fish oil capsules are huge. So unless I can find some liquid version (ewww) that doesn’t taste too bad I’m afraid that I may be non compliant on this one. Hmm. I don’t even know what good taking fish oil tablets are meant to do…?

Seems like I have taken to denying any want to hurt myself despite what I am really thinking. Any thoughts of self harm? Nope, none indeed…

Seeing a GP to be treated for depression makes me realise just how much I miss seeing a psychologist instead. From my first experience I decided that I preferred psychologists and counsellors to GPs and psychiatrists. While the GP I’m seeing now is better than the GP I saw before, this experience has not changed my mind.