[MuddyBoots]

I just realized today would normally be my therapy day, but I didn’t confirm I was returning today (released from hospital yesterday), and honestly am sooo happy I didn’t have to go or even get a call about a no call/no show.

There was confusion as to whether I was seeing my psychiatrist on a day she’d be in (not today) or the doc that covers for her today, and was PSYCHED I didn’t have the appointment today.

My case manager called yesterday and wanted to meet me today, said she’d call to set up a place to meet for this afternoon, she hasn’t yet, and I’m thinking (because she’s a bit of a bird brain and usually sees me Mondays not Tuesdays and even forgets to see me a little of Mondays) that she completely forgot about me and it makes me feel relieved I have not heard her voice yet.

Yesterday on the phone she sounded PISSED. I know I shouldn’t assume it was about me, but I kinda was the patient that was in the hospital involuntarily and managed to manipulate my discharge same day and I know they hate when I leave without a discharge date set days in advance because setting up meds and appointments and doing their job is a pain in the buttocks for them. I’m sure the fact I was on an IEA probably caused even more paperwork, even if it was just another couple papers to print or a phone call or something (I don’t really know, this one was weird I usually get to talk to a judge to see if the IEA is reasonable, not this time. I had to ask several times “am I really involuntary? I never had a hearing,” and I guess there are special circumstances where the patient DOESN’T have a chance to say anything to a judge, such as if you’re already in “treatment with a hospital psychiatrist” (I was in the fking normal ER in their psych dungeon and never talked to a PSYCHIATRIST there, just evaluators which are not MDs, but whatever, I probably should’ve been involuntary anyway. If I wasn’t, I’d probably still be in there because unless they feel obligated to do more paperwork to extend it they can only last 10 business days. Government business days, not hospital business days—which you could say is every day— for some stupid reason, so if you go at the end of the year with Christmas you can be there 16 or maybe 17 days (I don’t even know if xmas eve is a government day off, it’s not anywhere I worked but people like skiing on Christmas vacation so of course lifties gotta run the lifts until 4 like all the other days there’s something slick enough to slide on) because weekends and holidays, but if you had the same breakdown and symptoms in April, no more than 14 days.)

Anyway, when my phone rings and it pops up anything that doesn’t say it’s definitely not the ACT team (can come up weird names of made up people for some reason or “unknown caller” or the actual name of the clinic I put in my contacts) I get sometimes a little anxious and sometimes really friggin ragey and a lot of times both.

Thing about getting in ACT (Assertive Community Treatment, program for people with “severe and persistent mental illness”), is it’s really really friggin hard to get away from them. I’ve tried to quit treatment so many times, even moved out of the catchment zone for my old place, but then just got placed on the team at the new zone and these guys are SOOO frustrating. “I have a say in my treatment and can refuse my meds” and stuff, but if I don’t show up to med management, even if I call ahead of time and just say “hey, don’t feel like heading down” the fkers will show up at my house, call nonstop, if I ignore enough phone calls they call the police EVEN IF I leave a message saying “I’m okay, just don’t want to take the Adderall today, and I still have my PRNs from yesterday should I feel the condition arises that they are meant to be taken for, I can just take that instead of my normal scheduled sleep med (which is totally safe to skip a day it’s not like one day of not having clonidine is going to cause seizures or anything. If anything my systolic blood pressure might go over 100 for the first time in a month, heaven forbid…)

Anyway, my last therapist “slow ghosted me.” By that I mean I lived a half hour drive away, would leave for appointments (not answer my ringing phone while driving because I’m not an idiot and the car I was using wasn’t hands free and fancy like that so, not safe) then get to the parking lot, check my phone, message from her “gotta cancel the appointment today.” I get doing that every now and then because emergencies come up and stuff, but this happened over half our weekly appointments for three months and she only once rescheduled for later in the week instead of just “see you next week…(maybe)” and then I just stopped going, never got calls about not showing up, and then after a couple weeks my case manager tells me she doesn’t work for them anymore. A little warning would be nice! Some gas reimbursement?

Then I get this new therapist who doesn’t know how to schedule appointments and then doesn’t show up because on her computer/work phone she’ll get a notification at like 10PM she has an appointment (she sometimes puts it in as nights instead of days), and sometimes totally forgets to schedule them in, and has a couple times double booked herself (and she always went with the other client, even on a day I showed up 30 minutes early because I was hanging out at a park waiting so I didn’t have to walk all the way home and back and could just enjoy being outside but started getting harassed and cat called and followed (for as long as they could keep up, wasn’t long) by these drunk dudes so went there super early). I’ve only been seeing her since, I don’t know February? Maybe January?

My pdoc is a lot more organized, thankfully, but she also has a little more clients, so if I am really struggling and NEED a quick med change but need an appointment for it (like adding or increasing something) I either have to expect ahead of time I’m going to need her and tell her at the last appointment “schedule me sooner rather than later” or I may he waiting a couple months because I can’t get in sooner. (I don’t get how I can schedule an appointment two weeks away from one appointment, but can’t get an emergency appointment within two weeks if my next appointment is that long or further out, so I ALWAYS ask for appointments every two weeks just expecting something to go wrong because with meds and me they usually do anyway.) She’s okay with that though because I do have a lot of bad reactions to meds and if things don’t get adjusted ASAP I can quickly end up psychotic, manic, suicidal, or in some other way dangerous or at least nonfunctional. I do like working with her (usually, sometimes I think she makes bigger deals out of certain things than they really are. Like if I was a car fire on the highway (as a metaphor for a crisis), but the fire was put out by literally anyone or anything other than her, she would still react when she came across it like the car was still on fire even if there was NO danger at all anymore, just some clean up to do.

I see it’s 2:30 now and still no call from the case manager on a time or place. I want to go out to the library but I fking know as soon as I get there she’s gonna call saying she’s outside the apartment building, assuming I’m here and assuming I know she’s going to show up at whatever time works for her. Oh well, she has a car, it’s not far I guess and she never confirmed a meeting spot…

But I do feel consistently abandoned, betrayed, let down, and disappointed by these guys. Even med runs on weekends are stressful because we can’t meet at the office and the nurse doesn’t work weekends so I never know who is going to show up when. I feel line I have to have an open schedule to accommodate them and if I can’t but say or do something without thinking (even if there’s no real threat or major consequences) I get threatened with involuntary commitment.