On the face of it, there’s nothing special about today. The sky a grimy grey, it’s a balmy 10c and we are about to be visited by a day of rain which will still be here tomorrow. But although tomorrow may feel, may actually be, little different to today, in one special way it is: tomorrow is the first day of the meteorological spring.
Yes, I know the Astronomical start of spring, for those equinoxes and solstices, is 20th March but for the sake of light over dark, of hope over fear, then I’m happy to take the earlier of the two dates.
So far as I know, I don’t have Seasonally Affected Disorder (SAD). I mean, I may have but the near total absence of NHS services for that condition, and many others, means I shall never know. Either way, I am hoping my mood, currently a darker shade of grey, will improve.
For that, and a number of other reasons, 1st March 2022 is a big day for me, among them yet another mental health assessment which I suppose should be regarded as good news. After endless self-pitying whingeing, my GP has referred me to yet another specialist to see just how mad I am (spoiler alert: it’s very).
I have dealt with this current episode by doing the only thing I know: locking myself away from the rest of the world. This is a useful failsafe device because although I feel shit, little by way of harm can come my way. I can write third, or even fourth, rate copy for no one and I can daydream endlessly about the writer’s lifestyle that somehow eluded me. I can pretend that soon I will be off to that little cottage in the middle of nowhere and get started on that book which will propel me to world fame. Or maybe not? Anyway, that’s the good bit. As always with me, I am nonetheless thinking about the possible bad bit.
Tomorrow’s mental health assessment will be carried out by an ‘NHS partner’, which is to say a private company taking money from the taxpayer in order to make money from providing health care. Perhaps you can tell from the tone of the last sentence that I am not exactly enamoured by the prospect of lining the pockets of – and here I go nuclear – parasites getting rich on the back ill people. But what choice do I have? My excellent GP hasn’t exactly framed it in terms of “It’s this or nothing” but that’s exactly what it is, unless I actually lose what’s left of my mind and go private from the outset. I might be mad but I’m not that mad.
The last time I was in therapy, I was invited “to make a contribution” to the company providing it. Luckily, I used my worsening deafness – and there’s another story – to devastating effect and ignored the request. But here’s my latest fear: I’ve been referred to a private health company. What if at the end of the assessment the therapist tells me I’m even more mad than even I realise and I need treatment immediately and produces a card reader for me to pay for it? It’s not a ‘what if’ decision, really. I won’t do it. You may say I’m overthinking – and you’d be absolutely right – but I have to work through the possibilities in my head and then choose the worst outcome. My dad, who lived by the adage that you shouldn’t worry about things you can’t effect, would not be impressed.
At least my assessment will take place on the first day or spring. If things go tits up, at least it will be lighter for longer and that will offset some of the worst aspects of clinical depression. Nothing else seems to be working at the moment.
