Dear NHS,
8 months ago I went to my GP and asked for a referral to a psychologist. At that point I had just recovered from depression and I felt ready to get support from someone else, something I was scared of before. As any GP would do he sent a referral straight away which led to a phone assessment only a week later. This gave me hope. Finally medical care that takes me serious. Since I was in a stable position in my life at that time I explained to you that I was currently not in a bad state but I wanted to prevent it from happening again. In my opinion that was a logical way of moving forward since I was more likely to be responsive to the treatment when I felt good than if I was at rock bottom.
Due to my case not being as urgent as others I had an understanding of that I would have to wait in line as everyone else. You told me it would take 2-3 months.
After 4 months I hadn't heard anything from you and I could feel the depression and negative thoughts sneaking up on me. In fact, they weren't sneaking anymore. They stormed in and took over all my other thoughts. This was what I wanted to prevent from the beginning but due to your lack of time or understanding of the importance of mental care I got to the point where I didn't want to live anymore and the only reason for me to get out of bed was to finish my assignments in University to be able to have some sort of hope for the future even though that was almost completely gone.
This time the depression was worse. I woke up with panic attacks, ended up in A&E twice because I didn't know what to do with myself and stopped eating. I saw no other option than to contact my GP to be prescribed anti depressants and remind him of that I was still waiting for an appointment with your mental health team.
After yet another month I managed to get your number and contacted you. During this phone call I was told that you had received my new referral and obviously it was more urgent now so you were going to deal with it within the next few days. This was in the end of December. I received a letter about an appointment in the end of January. I might be wrong but the next few days is not the same thing as in a month. It took you 8 months to get me initial help and the help I'll get now is mainly getting information, during my 20-30 min long meetings, that I could probably have looked up myself.
I was already suffering from panic attacks because I felt that no one cared about me or had the energy to listen to me. You added on to that feeling of worthlessness. Not even the mental health team that get paid to care about me had time for me. My problems were clearly not important enough for you to find some time in your diary for me. I know I'm not the only one who needs help and others probably wait as long as I do but that doesn't make it right. If you knew it was going to take you 8 months then I should have been informed that from the beginning. Instead I had to go through another dip of depression and take me out all by myself. So now I have dug myself even further down and I am very likely to need even more help than before, which you probably won't be able to give me since I'm only worth 20-30 minutes every other week for a limited amount of sessions because in the end you need to move on to the next person on the list that waited 8 months or longer.
Sincerely
Naomi Kudren
8 months ago I went to my GP and asked for a referral to a psychologist. At that point I had just recovered from depression and I felt ready to get support from someone else, something I was scared of before. As any GP would do he sent a referral straight away which led to a phone assessment only a week later. This gave me hope. Finally medical care that takes me serious. Since I was in a stable position in my life at that time I explained to you that I was currently not in a bad state but I wanted to prevent it from happening again. In my opinion that was a logical way of moving forward since I was more likely to be responsive to the treatment when I felt good than if I was at rock bottom.
Due to my case not being as urgent as others I had an understanding of that I would have to wait in line as everyone else. You told me it would take 2-3 months.
After 4 months I hadn't heard anything from you and I could feel the depression and negative thoughts sneaking up on me. In fact, they weren't sneaking anymore. They stormed in and took over all my other thoughts. This was what I wanted to prevent from the beginning but due to your lack of time or understanding of the importance of mental care I got to the point where I didn't want to live anymore and the only reason for me to get out of bed was to finish my assignments in University to be able to have some sort of hope for the future even though that was almost completely gone.
This time the depression was worse. I woke up with panic attacks, ended up in A&E twice because I didn't know what to do with myself and stopped eating. I saw no other option than to contact my GP to be prescribed anti depressants and remind him of that I was still waiting for an appointment with your mental health team.
After yet another month I managed to get your number and contacted you. During this phone call I was told that you had received my new referral and obviously it was more urgent now so you were going to deal with it within the next few days. This was in the end of December. I received a letter about an appointment in the end of January. I might be wrong but the next few days is not the same thing as in a month. It took you 8 months to get me initial help and the help I'll get now is mainly getting information, during my 20-30 min long meetings, that I could probably have looked up myself.
I was already suffering from panic attacks because I felt that no one cared about me or had the energy to listen to me. You added on to that feeling of worthlessness. Not even the mental health team that get paid to care about me had time for me. My problems were clearly not important enough for you to find some time in your diary for me. I know I'm not the only one who needs help and others probably wait as long as I do but that doesn't make it right. If you knew it was going to take you 8 months then I should have been informed that from the beginning. Instead I had to go through another dip of depression and take me out all by myself. So now I have dug myself even further down and I am very likely to need even more help than before, which you probably won't be able to give me since I'm only worth 20-30 minutes every other week for a limited amount of sessions because in the end you need to move on to the next person on the list that waited 8 months or longer.
Sincerely
Naomi Kudren
Kommentarer
Skicka en kommentar