Monday, June 28, 2010

Your true colours are beautiful, like a rainbow.



Last week, I had a really horrible appointment with a psychiatrist. He dismissed a lot of my concerns and in general made me feel completely belittled. It was very upsetting, and I did my usual 'bottle it up, pretend it didn't happen' thing. It has been playing on my mind all week though.

I'm not sure if I've written a blog about the treatment of mental illness in Ireland before, but it is diabolical. The waiting lists are huge, and when (or if) you ever do manage to get an appointment, the likelihood of being brushed aside, written off, is immense. It's so easy to get lost in the system. You just become a number, another statistic.

It's like screaming at the top of your lungs when you're alone. It makes a sound, but no one hears it or feels the effects except for you. I understand why suicide rates are so high. Sometimes I really do think it'd be so much easier to disappear, to not exist anymore. In this country, if you're unfortunate enough to suffer from a mental illness, not only do you have to fight it, you also have to fight for help and for recognition, for validation and for acceptance.

I have no idea if I'm ever gonna be happy. I don't know if there's gonna be a time when I can sleep unaided. I'm not sure if I'll learn how to cope with anxiety in ways that aren't self destructive. I'm okay now though, and while ideally that isn't enough, at the moment, that's all there is.

4 comments:

  1. Everything you've written here is so true. I HATE the mental health service in Ireland - if they'd been anyway good, I'd have gotten proper treatment for my mental illnesses a long time ago. I've been brushed aside so many times, I know exactly how you feel <3

    <3333333 in general too :)

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  2. I'm so, so sorry that your psychiatrist had that attitude towards you. It must have been a horrible experience and made all the worse by the fact that he was supposed to HELP you, not make you feel worse, or like you're insignificant or making a fuss out of nothing. A major overhaul needs to be done; there's something fundamentally wrong with the system, and I think everyone knows that but I'm sorry you had to go through that. :(

    It's like screaming at the top of your lungs when you're alone. It makes a sound, but no one hears it or feels the effects except for you.
    And the loneliness and frustration of that is really very horrible. I hope that somehow, a different psychiatrist or even the same one hears you.

    I'm glad you're okay for now, and I hope that continues for a while. Much <3. :)

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  3. Thanks a million, guys. (: So much <3

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  4. yeah, this rings so true, and worse because I worked 'on the other side'. So in one way fortunate to see things from both sides, an yeah, it's shit.

    Feel better soon x

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