After waiting just the five days to hear from the local GP by telephone, I now have all the answers I want in order to sort out my mental health. We’ve now worked out a five point masterplan, which goes as follows:
- Wait for the NHS to get back to me for an ADHD/autism/PTSD assessment (current waiting list 3.5 to 4 years)
- Start to ween me off my current anti-depressants
- Start me on some new anti-depressants
- Er…
- That’s it
And that really is it. Short of being sectioned, the NHS, or what’s left of it, has nothing left for me. No therapy and counselling, just more drugs until they find one that works better, which assumes there is one that works better because for all we know the one I am on now may be working incredibly well and has kept me out of the funny farm. There is no doctor, no specialist, no Mr Someone running a department at the local hospital who can help.
I’m too old for the ADHD/autism/PTSD assessments recommended by my GP and the Bristol ADHD support group was shut down for Covid and hasn’t reopened. “If you don’t mind waiting, you may get seen before you die, but NO promises” is what they are basically saying. Do you know what? I’m mad, in both senses.
I’m as mad as a march hare and I’m mad as in angry. You know about the first bit but I’ll have a rant about the latter. The Conservatives have been in power since 2010, the first five years of which included some Liberal Democrats who sold their souls for knighthoods and other gongs for seats at the top table. They inflicted terrible austerity on the country, not least in starving the NHS of funding. Since David Cameron wrecked the country by holding the referendum that saw us take leave of our senses and leave the EU, things have got even worse. The NHS got steadily worse under the hapless Theresa May but under the Liar in chief Boris Johnson the crisis is potentially existential.
As of now, Johnson presides as a lame duck PM leading a lame duck government. The only thing the Tories are bothered about is finding a successor to Johnson. This week’s health secretary is missing in inaction and the likes of Priti Patel and Dominic Raab can’t even be bothered to address parliament or its committees. And Johnson will still be lame ducking it into the autumn, by which time the country could be bankrupt. And I’ll still be mad, in both senses.
The best device I can give is to repeat what I said in a recent blog. Don’t get ill, unless really can’t help it and certainly don’t get some kind of mental illness because you’re only feeling sorry for yourself, snap out of it and there’s always someone worse off than you. And there IS always someone worse off than you. So by all means feel guilty about it. And stop moaning.
