Am I Still Ill?

Eventful day, in many ways.

Appointment with psych plus Community Psychiatric Nurse. Horribly derailed. I made the cardinal error of complaining to the (new to me) doctor about the CPN and saying I wanted to change. New doctor was a patronising cow, not to mince words. She baby-talked to me. She tried to ‘humour’ me. She tried to ‘praise’ what I said, hoping to pacify me. She might have listened, but she did not ‘hear’ me.

I felt bad about my complaints about the CPN, but she frankly deserved them. She and the doc seemed to be making a HUGE issue about referring me to the Home Treatment Team or one of the Recovery Houses. CPN’s favourite phrase: ‘It doesn’t work like that’. She seems to think that referral to said services is a sought-after privilege which it is her job to guard.

I kid you not, the patronising cow of a doc told me ‘There are people much worse off than you’. She didn’t know me from Adam. She even asked if I was hearing any voices! Clearly she had only glanced at my notes.

I got so fed up with their double assault on my patience, I walked out.

I went for a coffee in a local cafe and sat with my anger and disgust for a while to ponder my next move. Always so alone. Trying to get help. Alone. Struggling with a serious mental illness. Alone. Trying to head off another devastating breakdown. Alone. Always, always. Alone. I can’t look to my CPN for anything more than a needle in the buttock. She’s passive and negative about everything I try to suggest, including my application for a personalised budget.

There was only really one place to go after that. St Ann’s Hospital. I managed to get the bus there, saving on taxi fares. I wandered around, lost, for a while, looking for the building that houses the Home Treatment Team. Found it. Asked on reception to see them. Lady made a phone call. Told me I needed to go to my GP. I went silent and still. Then broke down in tears and hurriedly left the building.

Called lousy CPN again. She said I’d put her in a ‘difficult position’ by leaving the meeting with her and the psych. I kept saying, then shouting, ‘what am I going to DO?’ She mumbled something incomprehensible. I knew I was very far from being Flavour of the Month. It was so very far from communications with my previous two care coordinators. I was starting to realise how lucky I’d been, back then. Now I was getting a taste of what so many others have to endure.

After first suggesting that I would need to return to her again, she finally agreed to call the Home Treatment Team. Um. How difficult was that? I went back into the building to wait. A nurse I’d known for about fifteen years came out. Never have I been more pleased to see a psychiatric nurse! He is one of the very best, and beloved of many patients. Somehow he infuses his interactions with genuine care and concern. He knows something of what I’ve been through. He knows I’m not some malingering twat who wants a free holiday at the Recovery House, or a comfy chat with some psychiatric nurses. He told me the Houses are rubbish anyway (sort of what I thought). Nothing like our late, lamented Crisis Unit.

At last I felt heard. That was all I needed. The Home Treatment Team will visit tomorrow evening. They would have come in the morning, but I have Peer Support Group. Simple. Why did the psych and CPN make it so goddarn complicated??? And knowing the HTT as I do, there is NO WAY I would normally ask them to visit. Usually I’m trying to get rid of the buggers.

And then there was my epiphany moment. As I dried my tears sitting out on the step of the building while waiting for the damn CPN to get her act together, I heard a voice from behind me. He said ‘how are you sweetheart’ or words to that effect. Turns out he thought I was someone else. Well, I’m always doing that, so I understand.

Something in the way he spoke – not creepy, not coming on to me – made me turn and have a look at him. A shortish, plumpish black guy around my own age, but full of life and vitality, in the hooded uniform of the London streets, complaining of the cold. We fell into conversation somehow, and I told him my latest sob story. He immediately came back with a few ‘professional neglect’ stories of his own, all of which concerned other people he’d tried to help.

Turned out he was bipolar (which I could have guessed). Had a bad memory for names. Was there to accompany a patient who presently emerged. His concern for others was manifest. He put me to shame. We chatted, and I found myself smiling and laughing, my tears forgotten. I told him I thought he was great. That I knew I was too isolated and got caught up in my own problems, forgetting those of others. He showed me what, on some level, I already knew. That the answer lies with reaching out to others in need. To putting my own troubles to one side and doing what I can for someone else.

That was my epiphany moment. I loved that guy. He was like an angel, sent to point the way for me in my hour of need. He went off with the patient he was accompanying. I called ‘thanks for talking to me’, after him. I wanted him to know he made a difference. He blew me a kiss over his shoulder. For that moment, he was the incarnation of love. Not sex, not romance. Of love for others, expressed in actions. Being there for others. Caring, and showing it.

Nothing dramatic, my epiphany moment. Just an everyday story of angels.

At home, later on. I wrote a letter to M. By hand this time, as it’s probably nicer when you’re incarcerated. I cried as I wrote it, reminding him of our long morning walks in Enfield. Those good times we shared which I will never forget. I enclosed a cheque for £20. I went down the road to post it before I could change my mind. I know he’s probably a psychopath. That he’s probably a ‘black heart man’ as the Bunny Wailer track goes.

But hell. He was there for me, when I was locked up and sectioned on the ward.  No one else was. He was there for me through my loooong depression, and through my mini-mania. Likewise. He rubbed cream on my boil, and bandaged up my sprained ankle. Rubbed Vicks on my chest when I was full of cold and flu. I can’t erase that sweetness from my memory. I can’t erase all the good times from my memory, and only remember the bad times.

I know it’s sailing close to the wind. I know it’s inadvisable. But we’re illogical creatures, we human beings. Sometimes nothing makes sense except a simple cry from the heart. In the letter I told him I’d pray for him. So now, I’m off to pray.