I Want to Be Socially Prescribed
How such a treatment could save my life
Here I am again. Another office, another flash of fluorescent light, another zoom call, and another interrogation.
My mental health has been evaluated many times and each time I grow more and more agitated with how something so personal needs paint-by numbers traced on top of it for it to matter and make sense. Never one to color inside the lines, this wasn’t going to be a method that worked for me.
My disillusionment with mental healthcare has slowly increased over this last year. It just doesn’t seem to be working, and while my stubbornness plays a part in it, there is also something systemically broken about it. Everything around it has just become rote, and I understand time-tested approaches are important for medical interventions, but when the dissatisfaction hits, I have to wonder — what else is there?
When I discovered social prescribing, I immediately thought it sounded like a no-brainer. A doctor in this TIME article simply defines it as:
“Anything that the patient and link worker will help get them to a better place.”
That sounds obvious when trying to be treated, but we still seem to get so caught up in the rules, and metrics of it all that what may help gets buried underneath. I’m…
