Some notes for this series; I’m not going to be using any identifying information, so I’ll be referring to each  person involved by a letter+ number to tell them apart, as it does get rather confusing. The colour-coding is also just to keep track.
K1– university counsellor
K2– university wellbeing practitioner
L-   one of my friends, who I needed to bring with me to some meetings. 
C1– first mental health assessor at the community services.
C2– second  assessor at the community services.
C3– final assessor at the community services.

Doctor’s Surgery

One of the services involved in my treatment was my GP’s surgery.I don’t have much to write about this part,  as I chose to avoid them as much as possible. While  they technically knew everything that was going on, because each other service wrote letters to the GP updating them with new developments, this didn’t have any practical use.

I wasn’t exactly organised in making appointments to get medication, which meant I didn’t see one doctor consistently. This made it very easy for me to slip through the cracks, avoiding their questions.

The main problem I had was mostly due to bad timing. My main GP went on holiday, then on maternity leave, then her replacement went on holiday too. This meant that even though I was told I needed the next dose up of medication, this couldn’t be authorised until months after I needed it.

Also, even once the correct dose was found, no doctor would authorise a repeat prescription, saying every month that they would do it next month. Between this, my own disorganisation, and trying to get a pharmacy on time around being in university, I never managed to smoothly transition from one month’s worth of medication for the next , always ending up missing days.

The only standout memory I have is one GP ignoring part of my prescription, and trying to give me a version of the medication I wouldn’t have been able to take. While he heard me try to explain that, and didn’t seem to pay attention, he changed the medication once L , who was at the appointment with me,  backed me up.

I can’t say whether that was deliberate, but it was a fairly demoralising experience.