Ah Fuzzy. Look at that face! That says it all.

Yes, it drives me crazy too, the way the system here (doesn't) work. It isn't that we are talking about a few 'bad apples', who we can then avoid. The system itself - when we pluck up our courage and ask for help - stares back at us and says, No!

Everyone knows the NHS is chronically under-funded. Mental Health Services probably only have enough funding to treat a quarter of the people who need it. What do the other three quarters do?

They get fobbed off, put on waiting lists, discouraged from going back to their GP, prescribed meds that might not suit them, told they have to 'refer themselves' (this means they are given the address of a not very friendly website, where they have to fill in awful forms that demand yes or no answers to complex questions).

It's hard to describe how bad it feels to approach your GP for the third time (having finally got to see the Practice Counsellor), and come away with nothing but a web address.

I gave up at that point.

Which is, it feels like, what they want.

I found that the anti-depressant suits me pretty well (I'm lucky!) so I'm just taking that, now, and trying to help myself as best I can.

Much love to you, Fuzzy. Keep battering away at them, if you can. But I completely understand if you can't.