End of the line

After my minor meltdown last week, I decided it was time to consult my GP again. As I always advise my fellow mentalists to see urgent medical help if their mental health goes south, I thought it appropriate to follow my own advice. I used our health centre’s ‘Ask My GP’ facility, whereby you can sort this stuff out by messaging. I had three questions:

1. Therapists and councillors are great in the short term, but my problems just keep coming back. Can I see an actual doctor in a hospital, a ‘Mr’?
2. In the meantime, can you prescribe me more drugs to take the edge off my depression?
3. How’s my adult ADHD referral coming along?

The answers were not encouraging. And that’s putting it mildly.

I am not quoting my GP in any way so what follows is my interpretation of her/his reply. So, this is where I am:

1. No. There’s nothing left for me. GPs don’t refer to hospital specialists.
2. No. I’m already on the maximum dose.
3. The waiting list is normally 18 months to two years. You only went on the list five months ago. It is coming along very slowly.

Short of going completely, uncontrollably mad, I’m at the end of the road on the talking therapy front. In all honesty, I have been going around the houses for a few years now with various therapists. I’ve nothing new to talk about. And although, I am assured, the drugs do work, the only consolation is how much worse I would be if I wasn’t on antidepressants at all. If I come off my current drugs, I’ll have to start on new ones. They might not work. When I finally get checked for ADHD, probably 50 years too late, I’ll probably be drawing my state pension, always assuming I don’t die first. It’s not been the most positive day.

What I find depressing is the gap in treatment between depression, right up to my level, severe clinical depression, and to being sectioned. That is to say, if you are diagnosed with depression, there’s nowhere to go unless you are feeling suicidal or, worse still, actually suicidal.

Perhaps it’s meant to be like this.  A line has been drawn at the point where although you are very ill, it’s probably not going to result, at least in the short term, in your death. You’re very ill, by anyone’s standards, but acceptably ill. A functioning clinical depressive, if you will.

It could be that an ADHD diagnosis, no given, I know, could explain everything about my life, but the already long NHS waiting lists, with added COVID, mean even that won’t happen anytime soon. My guess is that if I ever do get to the front of the waiting list, I’ll be too old and doddery to make any sense of it.

The golden rule is very simple: don’t get mentally ill. Don’t have a dysfunctional upbringing, make sure your family isn’t poor and avoid the need to be autodidactic.

I’m lucky that my clinical depression is merely severe and not far worse than that. There’s quite a leap between severe clinical depression and being completely out of control. So, that’s good. But it also means I am quite ill and there is nothing I can do about it, not now, probably not ever.