Yesterday, I finally had my appointment with C3.

Leading up to yesterday, I’ve been nervous about going back, more so than if I was seeing a stranger. The nerves are mostly from not knowing how she would interpret me, based on her unexpected assessment last time. Because all I remembered from before was the more negative parts, like the conversations I ended up confused by and L’s reaction to meeting her, I was expecting a bad experience. Instead she was friendly, and she remembered me to some extent; asking about church and uni.

The actual appointment was, apart from one question, uneventful : it was mostly catching up on my existing notes to see what information from before was still true. The rest was asking about my health and mental health in general, and whether I was still on the medication etc. Finally, we talked about what I wanted to get out of coming back to the services. I was back to being nervous at this point, because all we had covered was improvements: I was worried she wouldn’t see why I had any reason to need any help. However, even though I explained myself pretty awkwardly, she seemed to take it in.

Now her next step is to discuss the case with her team to work out where to send me in for a diagnosis. I should only need to wait until January for her to get back to me: considering I’ve been dealing with something or other for about 12 years, another month won’t hurt.

We ended the session on a surprising point: she congratulated me on how far I’d come, saying that I must be proud of myself. I had no idea how to respond to that!