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Hello @So1 I read your post and wish I had more to give for you right now, but I really wanted to let you know I hear you and can relate to bits of what you're experiencing. It's been quite a few years since I too was a mature aged single parent with school kids to care for, but I can remember how really hard it was, both for me and for them to cope with the changes to our environments.

And cry, oh my crying everywhere, so embarrassing! I worked out a scheme of writing down things I needed to do, cover with lecturers/ counsellors/ etc, often just handing them to them if I was unable to communicate effectively at the time. I still do that with my GP at times, it's a way of making sure I get what I can from those sessions instead of going home cross iwth myself for not being able to be better.

Keep on keeping on with what is important to you, as you can. I hope others here can offer more than I can right now.

Hi @So1,

Firstly, welcome to the forums!

I really hear what you're saying with struggling with communication. I can relate to believing people are disingenuous and can't be bothered with me. I struggled with this for a long time and it can be very difficult to manage. I hope you're able to gain some support on these forums from our wonderful community members.

It sounds like you've struggled with counsellors in the past but do you have other supports around you?

Take care, CalmingNature

@Last-Lament last gp appt i had for mentals, i did write pages of how i was feeling only to be met with 'well, that's quite a lot' and not even a glance over. i did get referred to a psyc for adhd assessment, waited several months for the appt, 45 mins into the teleconference call (i had my list i took to go) psyc said she wouldn't do anything else until i'd been on anti depressants (go back to gp for script) and her battery was about to go flat, so we had to finish up what i was under the impression was meant to be an hour and a half appt. i had to pay $600 up front when i made the appt, which i then spent the next month after the appt trying to get $ back after waiting several approvals from their admin end. after a bit i then tried to make an appt with a local psychologist that above gp had also recommended via email as could not verbalise at the time even to make a simple appt, and she gave me three appt options all for the 14th of the month, but different week days, followed by another email a couple of days later apologising for not getting back to me. then got a text reminder for the appt i never made.. my latest physical issue was referred for an ultra sound, only the gp didn't put that on the referral, so there was some back and forth with that to. sonographer said it should have been for ultrasound and xray. gp appt for results from that tomorrow. maybe i'm just easily discouraged and my expectations are way to high.

thanks for your reply.

@Former-Member i live alone when i don't have my kids and essentially work alone. there is no 'next town' where i live (not for 1500 or so kms anyway). no one to just drop in. my phone gives me a fright on the occasion it's off silent (only as waiting on calls about the kids) and actually makes noise. if i ever acted on my thoughts, it'd be a week before anyone noticed, and only because the kids wouldn't have been picked up from school. thx for reply.

Oh my goodness @So1 what you've been experiencing is just awful! I'm so sorry you are being messed about with in this way. The physical isolation is not something everyone can comprehend either, and it compounds the mental and emotional stuff when you have no one to trust to bounce things off of.

I've been lowering my own expectations of late due to continued disappointment with all things medical and psychological, but, having said that, I don't think it's wrong to have high expectations.

You're being sent hither and yon for things that should have been already set up for you by the professionals, when all you're trying to do is get some help for yourself.

From what you've mentioned here, you're already doing really well for yourself - yes, I know it's not going to feel like that. You're making the appointments, you've already tried the notes, unfortunately, without it netting any positive feedback from your well thought out efforts. It's no wonder you're feeling discouraged. It must be especially discouraging if you haven't found anything within a self help arena to be of any use. It took me years of sorting through to find anything personally worthwhile.

I also recognise you're wanting help from others who aren't providing the expected assistance.

Dying phone battery - for a psych? really unprofessional. Sure we all have bad days, but if you're doing back to back phone appointments, have another battery charged & put it in before starting the next appointment. It's the little things like not putting the right day and date on a potential appointment that makes one wonder just how attentive to detail that person might be, hey. It's probably due to an inability to properly use the software or some glitches within the software itself, but that doesn't help you any and makes them look bad.

May I ask if you have any interests that you either like to do, or used to enjoy doing? Do you have the time with whatever else you have to do in your life to keep your place of living running to do something for yourself? Only if you wish to share of course.

Look after you in whatever ways you can, one step at a time.

my previous hobbies and passions have seemingly contributed to the reasons why i'm currently having x-rays and ultrasounds 😕. i started going to the gym for my mentals a few years ago on top of a physical job. During the ultrasound the sonographer asked very seriously 'was i a runner?' as if she was about to say 'well you ain't gonna be running now'. not a runner by any means, have never been able to likely due to this thing that's being discovered now, but have done a fair bit of solo long distance hiking with heavy packs, so gathering there won't be any more of that.

last year i finished working for an organisation in my, while shitly paid, 'dream job'. unfortunately i was only on temporary 6 month contracts for nearly five years and the people i worked with, including my manager, didn't not like me for the last 3 1/2 years i was there. went thru HR nightmare where i was also left feeling like i could not communicate. i was being told i was doing great things one on one and then being told the opposite in meetings in front of everyone. cue frustration, confusion and crying. now I'm in a position that's kinda related, but i am bored out of my brain and is basically the opposite objective of what i want to be doing. i have high standards of myself and double, triple, check correspondence, particularly anything with logistical info, so these attempts at appointment creation drive me nuts. my daughter is part way through asd/adhd assessments, and though i've always felt like a weird black upside down inside out sheep, i didn't start looking into it properly until she started having major issues at school. I came across terms like selective (ironically named) mutism, alexithymia, misophonia and reading countless webpages about undiagnosed asd females and their traits, i can fill the bucket with my own ticks.

i am definitely an all of nothing kinda of person. the logical/methodical/thorough side of me clashes greatly with the i have no fking clue how to deal with my emotional stuff. any self help: i can read it, hear it, understand it but at the end of the day it's not how i feel. terrible at accepting help, let alone asking for it because i don't know what exactly i'm asking for. i see how my daughters brain works on the outside and i feel like it's how mine works on the inside. professional bottler of 30 odd years. now i can't see my whole reply and all i want to do is edit it cos i know it's all over the place and just snippets of the actual. i've given up trying to develop any sort of relationships and always throw away potential new ones pretty quick, again easily discouraged, one particular personal one just recently. even paying a counsellor just feels like paying someone to pretend they care, it just feels stupid. i feel stupid.

oh, and i like sewing felt creatures, lol, but struggle to sit down and focus, then when i do i stay up all night to get to a 'satisfaction point' or finish them and then feel totally scattered for sleep dep. everything comes at a cost.

thank u @Last-Lament , i can tell you've read my previous posts. appreciate it. sorry you've had to lower your expectations recently too. seems like much of the world in all it's instantaneous-ness has forgotten that the content matters a lot too.

https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1899932-donnie-darkos-i-made-a-new-friend

this was meant to be the pic but didn't load

@So1 I can surely relate to the meme! Yep, surely can.

I just wanted to pop by to let you know I've read your latest post but don't have the necessary right now to answer as I'd like to. I didn't want you to feel unheard after making such efforts to find different resolutions for yourself.

It's really upsetting, in many ways across so many aspects of life, to have one's past enjoyments be the cause of current difficulties!

I hear what you are saying/ describing and can relate to some 'aha' moments for my self when I research particular health issues for various reasons.

Oh, before I go, images take a while to load here, because they are moderated before being allowed to load, it can take anywhere from minutes to hours sometimes.

You are obviously computer and net savvy as you have the hang of how this place works.

You might like to travel around the forums, have a look at other topics, there might be something that amuses you somewhere. There's a garden thread, and dogs, and art, you could probably type almost any word into the search bar and have it bring up something to look into.

Rest well.