I remember when I was just starting in therapy and had to call the private clinic (where you had to have a referral) as a therapist had told me to, to get an appointment and I was put on hold. I sat on hold for 10-15 minutes, perhaps more, and then the phone was disconnected and I didn't know what to do. So I called the original therapist and told her what had happened and her response was, "call them back".

I don't think, anymore, that people are deliberately being difficult with us when there are communication problems. I, being anxious, was worried the person would know it was me calling back and be angry with me or make fun of me or I don't know what. But I was getting myself too entangled in my own thinking. It was later "proven" to me that I was actually afraid because I was angry and anger scared me. It wasn't that they would be angry at me for calling back and "bugging" them or making them look bad or just calling them at all when they were obviously having a bad day :-) but the opposite; I called, and they didn't answer, put me on hold and didn't come back. How dare they?! It took a problem in group therapy a couple years later that my individual therapist solved with a mild, "I don't think they're out to get you." (I didn't realize that!) before I began to be able to keep myself out of my concrete, "official" transactions.

The therapist didn't just tell me to call them back, she got a bit angry "for" me that they'd screwed up the call. She actually wanted me to tell whoever answered when I called back that I had waited too long before and been disconnected, etc. She was a senior therapist in the agency so could do something about that and could understand the importance of a mental health agency not dropping calls :-) But I was having a difficult time calling in the first place, nevermind the second when I was sure the phone answerer would know it was "me" and start yelling like my stepmother would have. The therapist did get a bit "angry" that I had held patiently (like I was told to :-) for all that time. Actually, now that I think of it with a million years of therapy behind me, she wasn't angry with me, she was only telling me what she herself would have done, hung up after a "reasonable" time and called back and told them she'd been forgotten on hold.

So, Lovebird, why did you wait 5 months to call the agency back if you needed help? Whose job is it to get you help when you need it? :-) It's yours. If it takes fourteen times, it takes fourteen times. It takes fourteen times for everyone sometimes. Asking for help is asking for help. It's very rarely going to get the response we "wish" for. It doesn't when we go to the mechanic for help with our cars; it doesn't when we go to the doctor's and sit in crowded waiting rooms too long when we feel like stinky brown stuff; it doesn't when we need help with our money and hope bank or credit card will be on our side. People outside of us don't know what our idea of "help" is unless we tell them pretty specifically. "Gee, I could use a little help over here" isn't going to get people running to our side :-) If we don't even get an appointment to see someone to tell them what help we need, then we have no hope of help?

Everyone has to be their own advocate and that's especially difficult when we're depressed. It would be nice if people responded to us immediately but that can only happen, as you point out, when you're in crisis and there's blood everywhere :-) Otherwise, we have to decide what we need and get in the correct line, make the fourteen calls, etc. until it gets to be our turn.