Psychozorg

Why does psychiatric care in Dutch have to have PSYCHO in it?  It makes me feel so… Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys :/

As any long time reader of my blog knows, over the years I’ve had some pretty nasty bouts of depression.  This was mostly brought on by homesickness, my lack of ability to cope and adapt to life here, issues with my weight and infertility, and just a general feeling of failure in all of those areas.  

A few years ago I visited my doctor and broke down, telling her all the things that were bothering me.  She put me on anti-depressions (Paroxetine, or Paxil as it’s known in North America) and said she would organize a therapist for me to help me sort it out.    She explained that first I would have an interview with someone who does the intake and then they take my case to a board of psychologists who decide what kind of care is best for me.  

When I met with the man he was Indian, he didn’t speak English and his Dutch was very difficult to understand, even for Xander.   I tried my best to explain how I was feeling, with Xander helping with translations along the way.   When the appointment ended he told me he would contact me in 2-3 days and let me know where we were going to go from there.

So I waited…

Three weeks later I got a phone call from him.  The conversation went a little something like this:

Me: Hello

Him: Yes this is blahblahblah from blahblahblah, I’m calling about your psychiatric evaluation.

Me: Oh! I thought you forgot about me!

Him: Right, well I spoke with the people who deal with asylum seekers, and they gave me a few options for you.

Me: (Thinking… Asylum Seekers? What the fuck am I seeking asylum from in Canada, a rogue moose?!)  Ummm, ok… go on.

Him: Lose weight or go back to Canada.

Me: Ooooh…errrr

Him: Ok?

Me: Uhhhh

Him: Ok, thankyouverymuch *click*

Me: *Hangs up*  XANDEROHMYGODWHATTHEFUCKISITWITHTHISGODDAMNCOUNTRY!  LOSE WEIGHT OR GO BACK TO CANADA? WHAT THE FUCK?  I DON’T BELIEVE THIS!!  *Stomp Scream Cry*

That was my first experience with trying to find help here in the Netherlands and it was to be my last for another four years.   In my eyes it had proven what I believed all along, that this country is completely fucked up and I was never going to find what I need here in any way, shape or form.   When I told my doctor about it she acted shocked but made no effort to try to fix it or help me sort anything out otherwise, and I didn’t push to get her to because I was feeling bad enough without the kind of help they found me the first time.

For the next four years I went through periods that ranged from getting along really well here and busting my butt to try to integrate (Dutch classes, making friends, etc) to feeling downright shitty about myself and the choices I’d made in life (me coming here instead of Xander coming to Canada, issues with his family, inability to find work and keep it when I did, finding out I wasn’t going to have children).   I was ultimately left deal with it on my own.   Xander was as supportive and loving as he could be but he was as lost as I was about how to make it better.

Last year I made leaps and bounds here.  I tried to put the language skills I’d learned to use, I met some wonderful women, made good friends and got rid of one of my worst habits – online gaming.   I immersed myself into my life here in NL and was hellbent on making it work.  It was going really well, I’d even lost 30 pounds!  

Then winter came…

Dark, rainy, depressing winter.   I tried my best to stay upbeat, get out and do things and find a way to get through it.  Heck, I even went back to my old job thinking that it might be better this time around.   I was so wrong, it was even more shitty there than the first time and I ended up leaving again 2 months later.   That’s when it all came back around again, the feelings of failure, depression and general lack of contentment…. oh, and 25 of the 30 pounds I’d lost over the summer.

After almost 8 years here things still weren’t getting better.   They had seemed to temporarily a few times but I always slipped back into that funk again.   I’d finally had enough and went back to my doctor and asked for help – AGAIN.   I also told her how disappointed I was in how things had gone the first time and that if it happened again I was quite likely to lose my mind completely.  She told me that the man I had seen the first time was FIRED after a number of complaints.   Gee, what a shock.

She forwarded me to another woman who, strangely enough, had her office right across the street.  Imagine, all the years I’ve been living here,  help was just a few steps away and I didn’t even know it.   She did the same sort of intake interview with me and then forwarded me to a therapist here in the city.  She was shocked that it had been so long and that I was basically left to deal with all these emotions on my own.  Not because I didn’t have anyone who cared about me, but that I hadn’t been able to speak to anyone who had the knowledge and experience with these sorts of things to help me figure it out.

She also changed the medication I was on, changing me to Zoloft rather than Paxil.  She wondered why on earth my doctor would put me on Paxil when I was having weight issues since Paxil is known to cause serious weight gain when taking it.  News to me!  THANKS DOC!!  I go to my doctor because I’m depressed and tell her the depression had caused me to gain weight and she puts me on the one anti-depression that has a serious side effect of .. you guessed it, weight gain!  Fucking hell…

Anyhow, I’ve only seen the new therapist a few times but it’s been great to get things off my chest.   It’s been hard for me because I haven’t wanted to always bog Xander down with the things that I miss or the things that bother me here, because he feels guilty and worries.  I didn’t want to always call my parents and talk to them about it because they would feel helpless being so far away and would worry themselves sick about me.  The friends I’d made here were mostly all expat women too and were dealing with the same hardships as I was.  They didn’t need my shit on top of it…. I desperately needed someone to talk to that wasn’t already an emotionally invested part of my life.

It’s also been great to talk about things that have happened since I’ve been here and have an impartial 3rd party tell me that it’s not all me, that I’m not the cause of everything that has gone wrong since I’ve been here.  That there are other factors and that other people could have handled things differently too along the way.

When I think of how things were here 6 years ago, I cringe, because I was so so desperately unhappy.  There was nothing I could find that I loved about this country other than my husband, and that made me miserable.   Things are much much better now, I don’t hate this country and I have found a lot of things I really love about being here.   I’ve learned to appreciate how lucky I am to be living in Europe and see the things I’ve seen and be the places I’ve been.   I understand the language quite well now, and even though I’m not as comfortable or able to speak it as well as I understand it, it still helps a lot.  

My life here isn’t miserable anymore, but there is still the lingering damage left from spending almost 8 years in a ‘shut up and deal’ situation.  That is a long time to carry around that much emotional baggage, especially when you feel like you are doing it all alone.

I had stopped talking about it on my blog as well because after a while this stopped feeling like my place, and rather something for everyone else… and I hated that.   I started this blog precisely for the reasons I just talked about, because I felt alone and needed to get things out and this was where I did it.   It was therapeutic for me to talk about the things that made me angry here, my struggles, and my life here in general… but after a while I didn’t even have that.  I knew friends and family were reading and while some were supportive and were there for me, others were very judgemental and hurtful.   So it made me almost scared in a way, to discuss what was on my mind.

I’m tired of that now.  This is my space and this is me.  I won’t apologize for how I feel anymore and hide or be ashamed of who I am.  

So yeah, you can expect this blog to be personal again, about me and what I really think and my life – for real.  Not just the version of it that I think will make people like me or stop people from getting angry with me.  

If you are a friend, support me, love me and help me know that it’s ok to fall down sometimes and that you’re there if I need help getting up.

If you are family, let me know that I’m not a disappointment or embarrassment because I’m struggling.  I need to know you will love me unconditionally.

If you are a stranger, please be kind and don’t use my blog as a place to be cool and feel better about yourself by making me feel worse.

If you are any of the above and you are not able to do those things, then there is only one thing I have to say…