My Journey

Where will I get the treatment I need, when waitlists are overflowing? These are some things; I was wondering when looking for a place to get therapy after being on a waitlist for a local hospital for over a year. Unfortunately for some suffering from a mental illness, waitlist for help is so backlogged that most facilities are looking at a year plus just to get an intake appointment to see if you need treatment. For myself I always thought this care had to come from a psychiatric and psychology department at the local hospital, I didn’t know facilities existed outside of the hospital setting that didn’t suffer from the same backlog problem.

My diathesis stress moment came over a year ago when a girl I had worked with for several month keep asking me out and I finally gave in and went on a date with her. I left her move in with me after a few months of dating to eliminate to hour and a half commute to work and so she could get full time at her job During the relationship things were amazing until she flipped a switch and accused me of not wanting her to have friends over. I explained to her that she was allowed to have friends over, but we just needed to get the house in a little better order. I always want to make a great impression when people come over. She didn’t taek this well and moved all of her stuff out of my house. We still maintained a relationship with her staying at my house every night. That was until she decided to go to a wedding I wasn’t invited to. At the wedding her family and friends all encouraged her to go after a guy at the wedding and to forget about me because he was more attractive. She ultimately gave into the peer pressure and cheated. The following day about ignoring my calls, I got a video call from her where she told me she cheated and ripped me to shreds about never truly caring or loving her and for not being attractive. Unfortunately, we worked together, so they are harassment never stopped for 3 months. Shortly after she told me I decided to go to my PCP to get help after I had been awake for over 120 hours straight. My primary care doctor told me I had adjustment disorder and gave me some medications to help get me over the hump and was told not sleeping was normal with someone going through what I was going through. Unfortunately, these My medications didn’t help, and only made my symptoms worse. My first chance at getting the help I needed was after I had enough of getting ripped to shreds and seeing the toll my personal destructions was having on those around me. So, I decided after having visions and voices telling me how to end my problems through suicide. My method of choice was strangulation using a metal coded charging cable. To which something made me stop and I was left with scabs and bruises. Of course, people at work had noticed and it only took a few hours for people to realize I had attempted suicide. A few days went by until my operations manager made me go to the emergency room. I felt great though I didn’t think I needed help and the approach of the Emergency Room Psychiatrist made me less than willing to listen to what he had to say. He asked about my finances and started using a term I had never heard before telling me I was ‘manic.” But with his deduction of me being manic from asking about my finances and my general lack of knowledge of the term “manic” or what he was ultimately trying to telling me. I now realize that he was telling me I have bipolar depression. I ultimately fought tooth and nail to get out of that emergency room without having to doing the recommended in patient stay. Luckily for me it was covid times, so they waitlist for inpatient was 2 to 3 weeks. They left me go with a safety plan and a suicide contract.  I was now left back to being on a waitlist for psychiatry and psychology.

Unfortunately for me, I was on a waitlist for over a year and never got a call. I had recently been fired from a job I loved and was being accused of setting my dad’s house on fire, something I had absolutely no recollection of doing. I learned about these other facilities once my life had begun spiraling out of control and I needed help. My first idea was to call the hospital I had been on a waitlist with for over a year, to only be told that since I didn’t regular check my status, they got rid of my name off the waitlist. A total buzzkill, I needed help and didn’t know where to turn, My PCP appointment resulted in nothing just being told I had no issues other than adjustment disorder and just need higher dosages of medication that made my symptoms worse and put me into a sugar rush feeling. Seeing as nothing was working for me, my dad called the local county mental health agency. They came to my house and recommended I was to the hospital for an inpatient stay. I was given the option of voluntarily committing myself or they would commit me. At this time, I had lost all my friends, being told they couldn’t be friends with someone like me. This stay resulted in nothing but the same, being told I had adjustment disorder, being told I didn’t have depression or anxiety and that not sleeping is normal. This stay resulted in more prescriptions and bumps of my dosages to the maximum. Once again, my symptoms went on a sugar rush. After release I had a follow up with the county agency and was placed on their waitlist for therapy and psychiatry. After hearing anything for several month, I called to see where I was on the list, was told I still had a ways to go, but was recommended by the receptionist to contact independent mental health clinics. I had never this was a thing, or I would have been trying this approach a year ago. My phone call netted me an intake appointment the next day and I was assigned a therapist right away to start therapy with the following week and placed on a waitlist for psychiatry of 6 weeks. My therapist was amazing and truly cared about me as an individual and actually listened to me and advocated for me to get the help I needed.

Hours after my one therapy appointment ended, I got a call from the county mental health agency, informing me they had hired a new psychiatrist and wanted to offer me an appointment the following day. Going into this appointment I was nervous and worried I was going to be told the same thing I had already been told and that I would further have my mental illness invalidated. So before this appointment I did my research on mental illness, so I could better advocate for myself. Within a couple of minutes of my appointment I learned I was finally going to be listened to and that this doctor felt I was the furthest thing from adjustment disorder and that I instead have bipolar 1 disorder with psychotic features. Finally getting a diagnosis was both scary and relieving at the same time. Scary because now I have a diagnosis that I have no idea what it is or how to treat it. Relieving because I finally found a psychiatrist and doctor that listened to me. The bad thing was all the medication I was currently taking when making my symptoms worse but quitting all at the same time was not an option. So, I now have a several month journey of withdrawal and getting off the wrong medications.

Going into my next therapy appointment I full fo joy to tell my therapist of the great news. Unfortunately, the therapy session started with her excitedly telling me her advocating for me had finally paid off and she got me a psychiatry appointment. My joy instantly deflated, and I told her my news of getting a psychiatrist already and instant I had a feeling I had thrown it in her face and that I disappointed her because she had advocate for me so much. The next therapy appointment I told her of my feeling, and she told me she is glad I am finally getting the help I need and from someone that listens to me.