This week I have to attend the last module of a three part series then I can go for an admission meeting to see if I qualify to enter this particular mental health program. The lectures makes sense and serve a good purpose to ensure the person understands and realizes what goes with making massive changes in your life for the good. The first lecture was about what the program offers and their rules of conduct … the typical if you appear to be a risk to yourself or others they will call the police. They offer such a wide range of services from case management to therapy to housing to daily physical checks to almost everything else, the assessment meeting determines which services you may qualify for as it does not come as a package deal as that would not make a lot of sense. The next lecture I intended was all about the medicine that is such a big part in overcoming the majority of mental disorders, I sat through that lecture saying quietly in my head “I have been on that one and that one and that one….”. Again it was a lot of useful information for someone new to mental illness but unfortunately I just discovered this program so I am pretty far along when it comes to mental health knowledge and the fact I went to college in a field that serves to help others I am probably not the ideal person for these modules but it is part of their process so I attended the speeches like they asked me too. The next module is about change and what it takes to do so which is a great topic but I doubt I am going to learn anything new.

The assessment meeting will be booked after the next module and here is where some of the difficulty begins or appears. Half of my brain is telling me to go into the meeting and lay absolutely everything on the table so they have a picture perfect idea of who I am and the difficulties I am facing, great idea …. not so quick. When I left the hospital a few months ago part of my discharge plan was to obtain long term counseling in the community to help with the difficulties of my past so I emailed a number of therapists who never bothered to even answer me so I took the next step and emailed the Canadian Mental Health Association, the big shots in Canada in terms of mental health assistance, and I outlined my disorders along with the other issues I face. They replied the next day with a message that said they would do their best to find me a therapist who is qualified to deal with someone like me so I was hopeful but not for very long as that was the last I heard from them in this fashion but they did pass along my name to the program I talked about earlier. I went to my doctor’s appointment and told him the difficulty I was having finding a therapist to which he replied “No therapist is going to go near you as your two main issues make you close to impossible to treat in the traditional sense. The main goal with you is to keep you out of the hospital as long as possible but people with your disorders leave the hospital then do really well then crash then return to the hospital and this sequence repeats over and over again as you are basically untreatable”. His statement which put me into a depression that had the potential to destroy me as he took away the hope that one day I would be normal. Now I am in a position where I want to get into this new program so it can help me improve the quality of my life but at the same time I am hesitant in providing too much information as it may rule me out. On paper I look very scary from a mental health standpoint : severe major depressive disorder with psychotic features, text book borderline personality disorder, chronic post traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, long history of self harm, suicidal thoughts and the list goes on but off paper I am a 33 year old man who has gone to great lengths to make himself a better person and will fight for every inch down the road to recovery. The goal at the meeting is to show who I really am and hope what is written down on paper does not cancel it out so I need to be careful on how I answer their questions to make sure that it appears that I control my disorders and not the other way around.

Related posts:

1. A Quick Word
2. Mental Health Journey
3. How Do I Tell My Parents
4. Quick update
5. The Buddha and the Borderline: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder through Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Buddhism, and Online Dating
6. Trust
7. Sorting Out The Mess
8. Three Different Posts Same Story
9. Mountains From Mole Hils
10. Dating With Mental Disorders