menty health
29 Apr, 2024
As I’ve previously mentioned, my mental health hasn’t been great lately. Between issues at uni, navigating government support services, supporting others…my spoons have been non existent for a while now.
On the 24th of March I realised I needed a bit more support than I had. An intervention. Some respite. Idk what to call it exactly.
Here in Melbourne there’s government funded facilities called PARCs (prevention and recovery care). They’re a short stay accommodation place with shared living spaces, private bedrooms and ensuites, but more they have peer workers with lived experience of mental health struggles, allied health professionals and a visiting psychiatrist
PARCs exist for two reasons:
- For people leaving hospital mental health care to help them reintegrate into the community
- For people who need support but aren’t quite needing hospital, a prevention step up.
I met with the local mental health team two days later and had an assessment for a PARC referral. Like all times I mention how I’m doing/what’s happening in my life, I get a response of “that’s a lot for one person to handle”. Damn I’m tired.
Anyway I was referred to a PARC, and for almost 4 weeks didn’t hear anything beyond the local team telling me “they said hopefully next week” when they checked in on me ever 2-3 days to make sure I was alive and safe. Eventually they referred me to another PARC, one specifically for women and trans/gender diverse people - I don’t know why they didn’t do that to start with tbh. Last Tuesday I had another assessment, this time for the PARC, the third time I had to explain why I was overwhelmed with life in just a few weeks. The assessment went fine, however there was some concern and uncertainty as to how to manage my medical cannabis use. Here in Australia cannabis is only legal if medically prescribed.
Basically they didn’t have a procedure on what to do about medical cannabis, and there was some uncertainty because the facility has a strict no AOD policy. Which is fine, I can stop it at any time.
They said they’d call me the next day and usually an admission is within 48hrs.
The following day they called, and said the clinical team had decided I need to detox off the MC for a week, and depending how I felt I could be admitted after that week. I’ve still got 3 days before they call me and decide if I’m ready to be admitted.
Coming for the cannabis has been harder than I thought. My anxiety has gone up. I’m not sleeping as well as I am used to. I’m more dissociatey.
Accessing time critical mental health support shouldn’t be so hard. I’m lucky a few of the things I’ve struggled with have resolved, but I’m still so tired and mentally up and down.
The world scares me too. The transphobia. The military conflicts. The rate of women and trans people murdered by men. At times I feel hopeless, but my partner said to me “the world is bad, but it’s not hopeless. If it was hopeless we wouldn’t have each other.” I guess she’s right. At least we do have each other, even if we are 9,600 miles separated.
One day. Hopefully soon.
In the meantime I keep holding on.