World Mental Health Day - for who?

Even though it is “supposedly” World Mental Health Day today, I want to tell you all about the reality of what “trying” to get support for one’s mental health actually looks and feels like to a teenage girl. I’ve been supporting a young 17 year old girl for the past 9 months. During this time its taken a considerable amount of effort for her to trust me (Step 1). Step 2: take her to the doctor to review her medication to be told by said doctor that they weren’t going to give her a new prescription because it clearly wasn’t working and to go see a psychologist. FAIL - so basically no more medication for you young lady, cold turkey. The young lady I work with is very untrusting so now she is even more so and thinks that no one cares.

Step 3: work even harder to build trust.

Step 4: take her to see a different doctor in the same practice who reviews medication and provides a script and reviews the mental health plan. Yippee! BUT, said new doctor writes a referral to a psychologist who ends up not being available until December.

Step 5: I ring around trying to find a new one who can see her earlier than then. Step 6: find one BUT she costs $190/hr upfront THEN you can get the money back from Medicare (issue here - where is a 17 yr old going to get that kind of money - please note: dad died last year and mum incapacitated for various reasons).

Step 7: must take 17 year old untrusting girl back to new said doctor to get new referral. WTF? Now this is what reality is. If she didn’t have someone navigating the system for her, someone that understands the system- then what? She’s only ONE example of many that our “mental health care system” is letting down.

Yes I know there are places like HeadSpace BUT the stigma in walking into a place like that is overwhelming for most young people.

It’s ridiculous and pathetic. People with mental health issues need asking for help to be EASY not convoluted and hard. Life is hard enough without this stupidity!