I'm only alive because of my sister

[maomao]

I lost my last full-time job 15 months ago. I’ve a little bit of self-employment since then, but very little and never enough to pay rent. The only reason I have a roof over my head now is friends who let me move into their guest room in July. They are househunting right now and looking only in more remote areas. So as soon as they find a house, I am homeless. I just signed with a new employment agency, worked 2 days this week and have 1 days work next week. But temp work isn’t going to give me enough income to get an apartment and won’t count as employment on any housing app unless you’ve been with an agency for years.

I’ve been out of medication for over year now. I desperately need antidepressants and ADHD meds both. I was just diagnosed with ADHD 2 years ago this month. The meds did help.

I lost my job because human resources where I worked, well they broke the law after I took fmla leave. But that’s a long story for another day.

I’m super depressed I started with a mental health agency recently but I have to see a counselor there once more before they’ll even refer me to a prescriber. I will have to wait a month to see that person and then if I’m lucky they will start me on medications that might or might not work at all.

This is how mental health centers work, they make you see a counselor a few times they won’t send you to somebody for for medication at the same time because their philosophy is, well we don’t know you well enough yet. We refuse to read your old records. We don’t care how long you’ve been depressed. If my internist took that approach to my high blood pressure every time I saw a new doctor I’d have had a stroke years ago. I can’t believe mental health people are just so incredibly stupid.

I’m severely suicidal and I can’t tell them that. They would only hospitalize me. They wouldn’t grasp that if I knew I was being treated, then I would know this was getting better. I don’t need an f-ing hospital. I could hang on for that. I don’t need an f-ing hospital. The only reason I’m still alive is my little sister with severe PTSD. My brothers would survive. I know dam well I’m under productive job hunting because I’m unmedicated and too depressed to move.

I keep trying to find a new PCP. The first one wouldn’t even called the pharmacy or the insurance company to get my blood pressure meds authorized, so I didn’t go back. The next one, as soon as Asked about getting ADHD meds again, she ordered a drug test, and she was too stupid to know if it was a urine test or blood test. She was stupid enough to tell me to refer her to a private psychiatrist, even though my insurance won’t cover that.

The next doctor I tried made me wait an hour and a quarter to see her. Then after an hour and a half, the appointment still wasn’t done. But I was very finished, I would never go back there. Maybe she had ADHD, severely.

I don’t even know anyone who can go to appointments with me. I know that would really help, there just isn’t anyone who can. I am also a voc rehab client and they’re very useless around the stuff. They even suggested that they delay services until I have appropriate medical care and I just rolled my eyes. As if it would help to wait until I am homeless and don’t have the rest of my clothes and have nowhere to keep medications, but then voc rehab will help me. Yeah, what a joke that would be.

I’m a hair’s breadth from out of fight. I just can’t stop crying today. I feel so much worse after the last 2 days.

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[Scattybird]

Hello maomao – to be honest I don’t know what to say that will be of any practical help. Your health system is different from the one in my country – it sounds equally impossible to get mental health treatment though.

Also whatever I say will not come out right and the last thing you need are platitudes, but you are at least being listened to here and you’ll find friends here, so please vent off as much as you need and keep us updated with how things are.

You sound quite desperate and somehow you need to convince your doctors to give you some antidepressants or at least some proper help – but you know that. You said you wouldn’t want to be hospitalised. I don’t blame you. But from an outsider’s view from reading your post I wonder if that would be a bad thing if it gets you the help you need and the help you deserve to have? The reason I say that is I know someone who suffers from depression and she was hospitalised for a short period of time. But during that time she got the help she needed and when she was discharged she was able to get a job and is now doing really well.  So it helped her turn her life around and before that she was just passed around third rate doctors who didn’t help.

You are doing well to get work even for a few days a week so you have something really positive to work on there.

Don’t let them grind you down and worry about having to move when the house is sold. That might take ages.

 

 

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[maomao]

Thank you for your reply. No, hospitalization would not be helpful. I can’t job hunt there.

I am saying this… I have little left. I am in the US. Peeps are delusioned to think that having insurance means having access to care.

These se homeowners own more than one house now… Impeccable credit… Finely tuned house shopping criteria… Plus a house that is guaranteed by several parties to sell and close in less than 30 days, given its location, condition and this market. So this will happen quickly.

What some don’t grasp is the fine difference between severe depression and having suicidal intent. I wouldn’t kill myself. No way. But I am very much that depressed. I cried most of today. The worst part is knowing the “professionals” aren’t. The system leaves it to liberal arts educated twits to refer to medical prescribers. It ensures patients’ needs aren’t met. It’s hopeless.

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[maomao]

Most days, most weeks, I couldn’t cry if my life depended on it. This is one of those I’m breaking down signs. Oh well.

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[Scattybird]

Hi – I think I understand the difference between depression and suicidal intent.  If one talks openly about committing suicide it’s usually a call for help out of desperation and is borne out of depression and isn’t likely to happen. But statements can be made by actions that aren’t intended to end a life,  but to act as a wake up call to others. Sadly these statements may go wrong with tragic and unintended consequences. The other worry is where ADHD is a companion, people can do harm to themselves on a sheer impulse but not really have meant it, the impulse takes over with unintended consequences.

I think  I was beating about the bush before – if you feel any impulses to harm yourself or if your suicidal thoughts develop into a reality then please tell someone and be hospitalised rather than do something bad to yourself.

That said, despite your depression you have your head screwed on and as you say the key thing is to get a job. Easier said than done I know. What sort of jobs are you looking for?

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[shilde]

YOU NEED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL. THEY WILL TREAT YOUR DEPRESSION AND ADHD

AND WHAT ELSE YOU HAVE AND THEY WILL INSURE YOU HAVE SOMEONE TO FOLLOW

UP WITH WHEN U GET OUT. THEY WILL GIVE U ENOUGH MEDS TO MAKE IT TILL YOUR FOLLOW UP APPT. I KNOW THIS FROM MY OWN EXPERIENCE. AND IM ON MEDCAID

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[maomao]

@shilde: meds do not work quickly enough to actually take hold and truly be effective over the course of the brief voluntary hospitalization. Really, almost all hospitalizations serve the purpose of holding tanks. I’ve talked to many people who’ve had that experience. I’ve also treated people professionally after-the-fact, helping pick up the pieces after ineffectual and partial “treatment” during such hospital stays.

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