psychs really be like

“you’re severely depressed huh? why don’t you

  1. send an intake email
  2. have a call anyway to get your insurance info and other random shit because God forbid a place just work through email in the year of our lord 2026
  3. fill out a bunch of paperwork with your entire psych, health, and family history (you don’t remember)
  4. do another call to set up an appointment where you fumble around with your calendar and just kinda sigh and accept something a month in the future at some stupid ass time like 2:15pm
  5. wait a month for the appointment while unmedicated, hope nothing comes up at school/work/life suddenly to push the appointment
  6. go to the appointment (if you’re lucky it’s telehealth, if you’re not and need something like Adderall, then you get to do a commute, fight with traffic and parking, etc)
  7. rebuild your entire psych/mental health history AGAIN verbally from memory, because none of the other psychs ever send your history, and God forbid the new one read all the paperwork you filled out
  8. get put on a med you’ve probably had at least semi-successfully before with no issues at a low “starter dose” to restart
  9. schedule another appointment for two weeks
  10. pay a bunch of money for the appointment
  11. go to the pharmacy, realize once you get there that the prescription they tried to give you isn’t covered by insurance despite the insurance website saying it is
  12. call insurance and they tell you some bullshit like “oh we just have different negotiated rates with that pharmacy for that particular med”
  13. have another fucking ad-hoc call with the psych to send a different med
  14. repeat 11-13 until you find one that is actually covered
  15. repeat step 5-14 every few weeks, adding/removing/adjusting meds for all of your concerns

good luck! memory loss? executive dysfunction? energy/motivation? idk bro sounds like a skill issue.”

like it’s no fucking wonder I haven’t been medicated in over a year. I keep dropping one of the steps bc they’re all impossibly insurmountable when you’re battling multiple severe mental illnesses. this entire runaround is designed by neurotypical people with the assumption that the people trying to navigate it are also neurotypical.

a more cynical person (me) would say the entire system is designed specifically to keep you from seeking care because then insurance actually needs to pay out.