Diagnosis good, followup bad

There’s something liberating about a diagnosis. A doctor tells you you’re crazy, tells you what kind of crazy you are and you feel a weight lift. If you can name something, you can fight something. You can Google your diagnosis and find thousands of people writing and talking about experiences that you thought were completely exclusive to your own brain.

But what comes next matters. Too often people are sent home with a prescription and then left to check in with family doctors who have no idea what they are dealing with, not really. They keep the prescription running, make sure you aren’t going to leap off a building and book you in again in another three months

That leaves people fumbling to access resources. I wanted to take advantage of a Province of Ontario service that waived the costs for an online counselling program. Hailed as a breakthrough for mental health, I filled in all the questions and then was told I was too crazy for help (I’m paraphrasing). I’m not the only one.

I lied on my next application with a different email address, and was able to access the service. It’s not great. I’ll review it another time.

Meanwhile, I was able to find a psychiatrist only because a friend gave up her own slot one day and convinced her doctor to see me. I had to get a referral from my family doctor — it took five phone calls and an appointment to get it all done.

I’ve been able to navigate the system. Not everyone can.

Here’s today’s list of stories.

Death by waiting list: Lexi Daken killed herself at 16 after visiting a hospital hoping for some help. She was sent home after the psychiatrist couldn’t get around to seeing her, with the promise of some follow-up care in the days ahead. Waiting lists suck, and she couldn’t hold on. She told her family she left the hospital because she didn’t want to be a burden.

Accommodation dilemma: High school is hard enough without a pandemic. Where once you only had to worry about someone smacking you in the back of the head while you were drinking luxuriously from a drinking fountain, now you can’t use the fountain at all because there’s a chance you’ll catch a virus that you’ll take home to granny. But how far should accommodations go when a student can’t function? One family thinks their child — who was admitted to hospital for unspecified mental health issues — should receive a one-on-one video helper to ensure she can function in class. The school board? They don’t agree.

Sad students: A study of undergraduates found high rates of depression and anxiety among students during the pandemic. It’s impossible to know what this actually means, and news coverage doesn’t bother specifying between “I-kind-of-feel-sad depressed” and “I’m-going-to-drown-myself-in-the-bathtub-next-Tuesday kind of depressed. Still, interesting reading.

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