Keep Them Waiting

A few days ago I mentioned my friend Cylene's problems. They haven't finished yet. 

Cylene went to see her GP who ordered an 'urgent' visit from the Community Mental Health Team, a visit which was scheduled for a week later (not my definition of 'urgent', but there you are). Cylene puts little faith in the mental health system, but every visit from professionals at least provides the chance that somebody might listen and offer some sort of appropriate help. The GP seems to know what she's doing, anyway.

An hour and a half before the appointment, the CMHT phoned to say they wouldn't be coming after all. They'd discovered that Cylene should be under the care of the Personality Disorder Intensive Treatment Team, based at Richmond Hospital, and that PDITT were positively insisting that the CMHT not be involved in her case. 

That was on Wednesday 16th, already, remember, a week after Cylene's GP requested an urgent appointment for her. Since then she has heard nothing from anyone. I asked her whether she'd tried to make contact with anyone - the GP, CMHT, or PDITT itself. She replied, via a set of texts.

'No, I haven't decided if I want to in order to get somewhere or if I want to see how long they drag this out so I can be justifiably the biggest bitch ever to PDITT. Either way, my nonstop 24/7 every minute of every day rage towards them has made me just slightly less suicidal. Admittedly, it's been swapped for homicidal, but that's fine.'

We agreed that probably wasn't a deliberate therapeutic strategy.