Re: Advice on getting appointments + riduclously long life story of a 19y/o

[Patte Rosebank]

@wolfshades, you must be in Canada. I was referred to an ophthalmologist, 3 months ago, and I’m still waiting to get an appointment. At least it won’t cost me a fortune, as it would in the States. My glasses, on the other hand…

There is a way you could speed up the process, but it’s not for the faint of heart. If you were to experience a mental health crisis, the wheels would move considerably faster. You’d have to go to Emergency to be initially assessed, and if they thought it was really a crisis, you’d get to see an emergency psychiatrist (either at the hospital or at CAMH) within a few hours.

But you’d really have to be freaking out for this to happen. While you’re waiting to see the psychiatrist, you’d be in a starkly institutional waiting room that has all the furniture bolted to the floor (so someone who’s violent can’t pick it up and throw it), metal grilles over the thick glass windows, doors that lock from the outside, and no reading materials. And, chances are, you’d be sharing that waiting room with some people who are truly, frighteningly, in the grip of madness. The room you’d get to see the psychiatrist in, would be the same, but much smaller. Essentially the same as the suspect interview rooms at a police station. It’s all guaranteed to make you feel really uneasy, if not downright scared. Even walking past those rooms is seriously unsettling. I don’t want to think about what it would be like to actually be in them, as a patient.

Stick to calling about that appointment once a week. If you do it every day, you’ll just piss them off, and they can make you wait even longer as a result.

REPORT ABUSE