What Does a Girl Have to Do to Get Some Therapy Around Here?

After spending a handful of years struggling on and off with painful bouts of clinical depression and PTSD, I decided it was time to go back to seeing a therapist. It wasn't that I was necessarily afraid to talk about my issues, but the issue with depression is that one of the side effects tends to be a lack of motivation, which unfortunately, creates a kind of catch-22 situation (being that you think maybe you should get help for your depression, then your depression keeps you from calling someone and getting help). Alas, after several conversations with myself back and forth, I decide to deal with my problems.

I begin my journey by giving my former psychiatrist a call. I hadn't seen him in three years (the last time I was treated for depression) because he didn't take insurance and I could no longer afford treatment. I decide to fork out the $270 fee just for a blissful 50 minutes of trying to update him on everything in my life I've fucked up or improved upon within the past three years. We end the session with him swiping my card and referring me to a woman that takes insurance that he thinks could help me. I feel a small glimmer of hope and feel slightly reaffirmed that I'm going to progress in my journey to mental health.

The next day, I get a call and am told she is not currently accepting patients. Hope crushed, I get on the website provided by United Healthcare in order to see what therapists are in my area that accept my insurance. After narrowing down the doctors in my area, I have a list of seven mental health care providers. I begin at the top of the list and call the first phone number:

"Hello, my name is Rachel, I was hoping to set up an appointment to see a therapist?"

"Is this for yourself, miss?"

"Yes."

"This is a children's behavioral health office, we don't see patients over the age of 13."

"Oh..."

Hangs up. Okay, yes, that information would have been helpful before I dialed the number. Let's try the second number:

"Hello, my name is Rachel, I was hoping to make an appointment with a therapist?"

"Ma'am this is an inpatient facility at the hospital, you have to be admitted to see therapists here."

"Oh... well I'm not quite at that point, but I'll consider you for my future needs, thanks."

Hangs up. Two subsequent calls, neither therapist is currently accepting patients. This is such a weird problem to me. Although it makes sense that a doctor is at capacity of how many patients they are able to treat, I'm just inherently offended and rejected by this information. My mental health problems are inferior to their current patients? At least give me a chance before you decide you don't want to hear all of my issues!

Finally, on the fifth call, I get through to an office that is able to make an appointment for me... the catch is that I will have to wait six months to be seen by the doctor. At this point, I had become so disheartened I decided that this was my move and I'd just have to take this mental health thing slowly.

The months creep on and I constantly feel like crawling out of my skin. My thoughts always racing, trying to rehearse and repeat conversations that I've had, or may have in the future. Having different versions of the same nightmare every night, and different versions of the same problems every day. As I start to fall apart, I remember that time has passed and my appointment is tomorrow. "Hallelujah!" I cry in between sobs and fistfuls of potato chips.

The day has come. I meticulously plan out all of the things I'm going to tell him during our fifty minutes together. What the main issues are, what the background issues are, my entire life history, etc... after sitting in the waiting room, I'm certainly less comfortable than I was when I had waited in the privacy of my $270/hour psychiatrist's waiting room in the past. His waiting room was about the size of a walk in closet, but had a couch and paintings and NPR was always playing and no one else ever waited in there with you... this place was a different story. The room was as crowded as any doctor's office you'd ever been in—likely about twenty people in the room. The office was exclusively for behavioral health so I, of course, was forced to attempt to diagnose every single person in the room—rapidly scanning them back and forth searching for some physical sign of their deteriorating personal psyche. Ten minutes after the start time of my appointment, a quiet man calls my name from the door and I follow him back three entire hallways to his room. Now I understood why he was so late.

I sit down on the edge of my seat, eager to answer all of his questions about my emotional state. I have my medications memorized, my allergies listed, details of my diagnoses, and the bullet point list of my family history of mental health problems. As he is talking, I have to stop breathing so that I can hear him, as he speaks in a whisper with a soft Eastern European accent. I'm starting to get the idea that he does not do talk therapy. We discuss the medications he recommends and he says things along the lines of, "It sounds like you would be happier if you knew what you were going to do with your life," and, "Yes, if you're 25 now, you don't want to wait until you are 29 and then realize what you want to do then." I nod with thinly pressed lips...

"Well yes... that is... part of the concern... Soooo... do you do therapy as well orrrr?"

He tells me he doesn't do therapy, but that I will come back in a month to see how I am doing with the medication and that the receptionist will refer me to a therapist... I try to calm the rage inside myself. I thought that was why I was there today?? What did I wait six months for an appointment for?? Almost in tears, I get the number from the receptionist.

"Am I going to have to wait another six months to see someone? I thought I was seeing a therapist today..."

"Oh gosh, I hope not... I'm so sorry that wasn't made clear to you..."

I get the phone number she gives me and I race to the car to burst into tears before calling the provided number. I take a deep breath and ask aloud not to have to wait to see someone. I call the number.

"Hello, I was referred to this number to get an appointment with a therapist."

"Oh, I'm sorry, we are currently not accepting new patients, but I can give you some numbers that we've been referring people to?"

My chest sinks and I feel enraged and impatient (things that therapy would probably help with...).

"Okay, sure."

I take three numbers and I start with the first one. And they are not accepting patients either.

I call the second one. They don't take my health insurance.

I call the third one. They also don't take my health insurance, but if I see one of their partially licensed therapists, I can pay $80 a session and get reimbursed. I go ahead and set up an appointment for three weeks from now, but I don't know where I'm supposed to procure that kind of money, even if to go through the daunting process of being reimbursed.

Finally, after weeping and rapidly texting my other mentally ill friends, my partner in crime gives me the number of her therapist, for whom I leave a voicemail.

To alleviate the tension, I go into my appointment at the massage therapist, then promptly pull my back out standing up afterwards.

I listen to the long and frazzled voicemail left to me by my friend's therapist and I return her message and am able to finally book an appointment for next week. She does take my insurance, but she had to give me very detailed directions because the parking lot is strange and she also let me know that she is waiting to find out the time of a play that day and if it overlaps with my appointment, we will have to reschedule.

To be continued on whether or not she helps me or not.

I just can't believe that for someone with good health insurance, and a car, and a job, it is this difficult to find mental health care. It has just blown my mind that this is what it takes to get someone to help me. No wonder we are all suffering so much and there is so much conflict! I can't even pay a doctor to talk to me! Now I want to get better simply out of spite for the system—the lack of motivation and laziness that prevented me from seeking therapy has now flipped and turned into indignant rage—I have to seek treatment and cure my depression just so I can continue this rant about how completely ridiculously difficult it is to get some mental health care in the United States! If I had a more severe mental illness, I could easily come up with a delusion suggesting that someone was going out of their way to keep me from getting better... I'm moderately suspicious.