I don't think he's a crappy doctor, he's as stuck as I am, it is the rules that suck. It costs him to make a referral which he knows will be turned down, so when his budget is limited he may as well spend it on someone who is going to get help. There just aren't services for a single, white, female aged 49, without children, who has a job, who doesn't have addictions, who has never been caught the wrong side of the law (I don't mean I habitually break the law, I just mean that I drive a car and sooner or later there is bound to be some minor infringement). When such a person stays safe through a combination of twisted thinking (I'm already dead so suicide can't save me), not wanting to be a bother to anyone else, apathy and fear of failure, the level of risk can't be measured. So having suicidal thoughts, no matter how graphic isn't enough. He did ask me if I had a plan, my answer was "I have a car, I don't need a plan", wrong answer it seems.

As my primary care doc had to jump through hoops to get my latest anti-depressant which the local NHS bureaucracy says can only be prescribed in secondary care, I do know he's trying. It is just that his best and my best are nowhere near enough to get me through this, the thought of ending up more broken than I am already is humiliating and invalidating.