My Public Healthcare Misadventures
Chances are if you get out of there alive, you’ll probably be sicker than before. That’s only the beginning.
There’s an irony in being a mental health patient and trying to get healthcare.
The private one is too expensive due your ‘pre-condition’, namely, being mentally sick. I state here this just as a fact because for me this was never an option. I never had a job with a contract so the financial security required was way to far.
I tried the indie way, paying doctors a particular fee, buying my drugs enlisted to every helping program there was available at the time. It wasn’t cheap, but it was my only option for something like 8 years.
And there I was, always looking for a cheaper psychiatrist, the cheaper drugs. I’ll never if I miss some therapy miracle in all those years when I had to take always the cheaper version of the med, the one that doesn’t come with with the extra things to help you manage the secondary effects, so for years I got headaches, I started to see everything blurry -no lens for that-, and so and so. The gave me others, and sometimes I can’t help but wonder what if I took zyprexa instead of olanzapine; for give youan example.
And a very clear one, cause me and my ex-girlfriend took that drug at the same time. She’s lucky enough to get zyprexa. I was on olanzapine. So guess who was the one gaining two pounds a month, libido killed, and sleepy the whole day. A clue: Wasn’t her.
I couldn’t enter the public system, because a bureaucratic thing there was no form to explain my freelance job with months winning 0$. I tried to write every step in the whole thing and in the 9 step saw that was the most boring text ever and I was just in the beginning.
Would you trust me when I tell you it was the most horrible bureaucratic experencience I know? It took me more than three years between my first request to the moment I was finally attended by an actual psychiatrist. I cried in front of 5 or 6 different people in the system. Even once there was nothing wrong but I was so afraid that I was crying anyway.
I was so mad and sad. I felt rejected by the system.
And once was there, the rejection was even worse.
For the next chapter: “Ok, we will take you to the specialist that perfectly accommodates your needs”
