Sometimes, I wonder why I bother. This could apply to all manner of areas of my life, I know, but my recent ADHD diagnosis has not changed anything. On the contrary, I could probably make a case to show how it’s actually made my life worse. So much for my over-optimistic predictions that having had ADHD confirmed would somehow change my life or give me closure. It’s given me an explanation for what I would describe, somewhat pathetically, as my difficult life but that’s it. Yet again, I had not thought through the consequences of my actions. I’m not back to square one. This was not the Advance To Go moment I had been expecting.
Having feared I might die before getting an assessment on the NHS – in some areas that waiting times are up to six or seven years: thanks Rishi – I trashed my principles by using the parasitic run for profit vultures of the private sector to finally get it done. I can’t knock their professionalism or in fact any other aspect of the service they provide because they did what it says on the tin. Of course, now the assessment is over, as befits a private health business, they now want more money off me for treatment. I am not entirely stupid and naive – honest! – and I expected this would happen so first I made contact with my local NHS health centre. I have saved the NHS the trouble of funding my diagnosis so I thought I’d ask them what to do next.
I asked for a copy of my assessment to be sent to a specific GP at my local centre because they know more about me and my various conditions than any other GP. Fellow mental people will understand the stresses involved in going over your lifetime of depression, anxiety and all the rest of it over and over again with a different GP. Trust me when I say it only made me feel worse when I had to do that. So I was hoping they would read the full report and diagnosis and then meet with me to discuss where to go from here. I used the Ask My GP internet service, which I quite like, actually, only to receive a reply that said my GP had retired but came back from time-to-time to “help out”. My query would be referred to them. I wrote back to thank them, adding that if it would be more helpful to hand my referral to another GP, preferably not a locum, I’d be content with that. Several weeks have now passed and guess what? I’ve heard absolutely nothing.
The private company wants to sell me therapy and drugs. I’m loathe to go down that road without speaking to an actual GP. I am on a shedload of drugs as it is and I want to be absolutely certain that they are safe and that they will have some kind of positive effect. I have a need to know this stuff but no one to tell me. It isn’t helping my already fragile mental health, which is an absurd irony. In short, I am wondering if that diagnosis of moderate to severe ADHD is actually no kind of answer at all, just another problem to deal with. So, what to do?
In short, the answer is simple: I have no idea. Do I just sit and wait and hope the health centre get back to me eventually or should I be proactive? Should I badger them for a response or just leave it, accept my diagnosis and muddle along towards death in the same way as I have muddled through life? I was going to add, “Answers on a postcard to…” but I know this one is up to me, as it has always been.
I am getting tired now, though. I’m not quite ready to give up what I see as the unequal fight to get answers, to try and make a better life and even, God help us, some kind of cure, but it feels there are always obstacles in the way and it’s getting harder and harder to get past them. I’m on the home straight now, with the finish line just about in sight. I’m beginning to think that at the end there’s not a tape, but a cliff. One more heave is about all I have left. Fingers crossed, eh?
