Part 2
What's actually wrong with me?
Why am I crying for an hour every day and why do I feel angry so quickly?
I made a screen shot of the sick note from my doctor and pasted it onto an email to my boss. I clicked send.
Ouch. That was hard.
I talked for less than five minutes on the phone and the doctor knows what is going on. I am a "very common" case of generalised anxiety disorder and moderate depression. The grammarless sick note simply reads, stress anxiety depression.
I read and re-read my email with the sick note attached and wonder how it will be taken. Will it be received with disappointment or surprise? Compassion or incredulity? Will they think: "I never thought he struggled with that...ha!"
But I must credit the doctor. She did all she could in a ten minute phone conversation with a man whose world was falling apart. She asked good questions, listened carefully and, of course, thanked me for being so brave.
Then she agreed that I would need some time off work to start getting better.
"Basically, you have three options!"
"Okay."
"Well," she went on, weirdly buoyant, "You can have pills, go for therapy or do social prescribing!"
How wonderful.
"Thank you. Do you have a recommendation?" I said, bewildered by the options. No doubt I would need all three simultaneously. But right now, I just needed some help taking the first step.
"It's really up to you."
"Well, I don't want to go onto pills. I guess I will try the therapy? What does that involve?"
Delighted, she explained how I must now self-refer to the free talking therapy service. Despite having just asked for help, I immediately doubted it would work. Is talking to someone really going to stop what I am feeling right now? But I had to get the ball rolling. And I knew I would not get through it by trying harder on my own.
I guess if you've been trying harder for ages... a few months, a year, or maybe it has actually been 10 years. That's a hard thing to admit and a sure sign it is time to call in reinforcements.
So talking therapies it was.
A short telephone conversation later and a date was in the diary for my psychological assessment with Barry.
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In the meantime, I had to go back to work and this was the worst bit of all.
Really? Back into that?
And with my company sick leave all used up, I had to use my annual leave for my appointments with Barry. It was like I'd been kidnapped and now I was being made to use my own cash to pay for my captor's drinks. But, quite like a hostage situation, there was nothing I could do about it.
The day arrived. I worked the morning and clocked off early ready for my psychological assessment.
I pulled into the car park adjacent to a vast red-brick building and noticed how I was feeling: giddy with nerves, and depressed.
What a thief.
I crossed the road and caught a reflection of myself in the dark glass of the sliding doors as I approached the building. I looked a wreck.
The way too lonely 10 second elevator ascent didn't help as I stared myself down in the wall to wall mirror under florescent light.
Doors judder open and I walk a few steps through more double doors and into an empty waiting room. Eyes glance over a high reception desk.
"Take a seat," she says.
About the Creator
Tim Boxer
Tim is UK-based writer of all things family, faith and adventure.
Christmas is Not Always “Beer and Skittles”
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By Calvin London20 days ago in Psyche
How Anxiety Traps the Brain in Survival Mode
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