Lived Experience Forum

[NatureLover]

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@tyme wrote:

Hey @NatureLover @Dimity @scruffypuffball ,

How are you all?

How is life treating you? 🙂

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@tyme  - you see, I'm answering you instead of avoiding the question like usual! 🙂 That's down to your efforts 🙂

I'm doing OK thanks. The yearly S.A.D hasn't set in yet thankfully, despite the cold gloomy weather in Melbourne. Once it sets in it lasts for months and I find it hard to get up or do anything. I do still go to my volunteer job and medical appts as much as possible, but apart from that I struggle to achieve anything. It hasn't hit yet though... 🤞 My large therapy lamp that I got 2 years ago really helps. 

I've been keeping the house as neat as possible as the inspection hasn't happened yet for some reason. I still have some areas to clean though, like windows, oven, verandah, dusting, vacuuming and finishing scrubbing the shower (it's mostly done). But for a hoarder I'm managing to maintain the neatness mostly, and am hoping it gets me in the habit of having a neat house. 

Thanks for asking 🙂

I hope all is well with you too?

[Eve7]

I’m pleased your SAD is still away and I hope Melbourne has a sunny winter just for you @NatureLover 

🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🫂🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞

[Dimity]

With the cracks in the health system between private and public @tyme its not the $ fazing me atm  it was noone accepting responsibility for half-done procedures and inadequate information and nonprovision of essential medical supplies. Seems on the way to being resolved via a private admission to a hospital many kms away to fix what the public hospital ED started and didn't finish. Medical I might add not MH. 

@NatureLover no it's not eyes or back it's a problem my former gp didn't acknowledge. It will indeed need surgery, likely to be late August.

@NatureLover I'm thrilled at your progress with the house and overall, and that you've not yet suffered this season's SAD. I trust you can hold it at bay with your light box

[tyme]

Oh dear @Dimity ,

I thought it was just the $$$ that was the issue! It's as though you are a guinea pig moving between services. I can hear how frustrating that can be. Thank you for clarifying.

Have there been any developments since?

[Dimity]

Thanks @tyme the hospital and specialist say they've booked me in for next week but I haven't had confirmation yet. The public hospital sent me a patient experience survey today so I gave them some negative and some constructive feedback over my experience and the discharge procedures.

I'll catch up more sleep tonight (I was  in ED overnight Tuesday and am still tired).

I'm thankful I have private health insurance but there's a lot out of pocket... I'm lucky to have savings. 

[tyme]

My experiences have only ever been in public, so I can't really compare. @Dimity . I'm hearing there is a stark difference.

Please rest up. It sounds like you've had some pretty big days.

[chibam]

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@Dimity wrote:

@chibam have you considered DIY therapy with a workbook - they're available for CBT, ACT and maybe other modalities? Then hiving off the "fixing your life" personal help to user-pays services in the commercial realm? Completely bypassing the therapy impasse of disinterested but actually uninterested therapists? Just a thought.

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If there were reliable/meaningful "user-pays" services in the commercial realm, @Dimity , I think I'd just jump straight there.

The problem with DIY books is they lack the all important specifics. Where do I go to meet my future wife? Like, specifically what's the street address, and what time do I go there? If it's a public place with many people, how do I identify her? A book published in New York, or London, or even Melbourne isn't going to contain those essential specifics. Same goes for employment and a new home.

I really need someone who is familiar with the people and environments I'm looking for, and is willing to deal in specific details.

@NatureLover  I just didn't have a way out. Or at least, I couldn't see one; and believe me I thought about very little else for most of that time.

I couldn't even tell my GP about how terrible she was; because I had to sign away my doctor-patient privelage to get the medicare discounts on the therapy! So I had no guarantee that if I told him what a monster she was, that he wouldn't pass those insults right on to her!

Of course, the irony of the whole thing was that I really did have a way out the whole time; I just couldn't see it because I was more obsessed with getting the outcome I wanted, rather then paying attention to what she ultimately wanted.

All she cared about was money; she made that abundantly clear throughout my treatment. Money equals wellness in her ideology. So, if I'd only made up some lie about winning Powerball, or inheriting a large amount of money from some dead great-aunt, or something, I could've satisfied her immediately that I was "cured", and that I no longer needed therapy.

I gotta tell you, when I finally realized just how close I was to escape that whole time (which I didn't realize until a fair while after I'd actually been let go), I nearly pulled my hair out.

It was just one of those things where you get caught up in a problem, and you just need someone else with impartial eyes to come along and spot the bloody obvious thing that you've just got into the habit of overlooking, you know? If I hadn't been so emotionally wound-up over the situation, I probably would've found that solution myself.

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[NatureLover]

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@Eve7 wrote:

I’m pleased your SAD is still away and I hope Melbourne has a sunny winter just for you @NatureLover 

🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🫂🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞

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Aww, thank you so much dear @Eve7  for popping in and for your good wishes when your world has crumbled around you ❤️

[NatureLover]

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@chibam wrote:

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Money equals wellness in her ideology. So, if I'd only made up some lie about winning Powerball, or inheriting a large amount of money from some dead great-aunt, or something, I could've satisfied her immediately that I was "cured", and that I no longer needed therapy.

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This is terrible, @chibam ! 😮 

How did you escape in the end? (I'm thankful you did!)

[NatureLover]

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@Dimity wrote:

@NatureLover no it's not eyes or back it's a problem my former gp didn't acknowledge. It will indeed need surgery, likely to be late August.

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Oh gosh @Dimity ! And that previous GP was a horror. I'm sorry to hear 😣

So the admission next week isn't for the surgery? The surgery is in late August? Does that clash with your eye surgery? 

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@Dimity wrote:

@NatureLover I'm thrilled at your progress with the house and overall, and that you've not yet suffered this season's SAD. I trust you can hold it at bay with your light box

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Aww, thank you, this warmed my heart dear @Dimity ❤️

The handyman came unexpectedly yesterday and built my 2 tall thin storage cabinets/shelves plus the outdoor storage trunk. So now I have to disinfect them inside and out, squeeze them in to the 20cm wide spaces, then I can start using them. 

I hope you've been able to catch up on some sleep last night?

Good luck tackling the papers today 🤞 Sending care ❤️