Failure – as in, I feel like one
As a warning, this might not be one of my most rational entries – and there have been some pretty irrational ones over the past year…
Today we went to see Liz for our scheduled appointment. It was a monumental disaster. We had to talk about a report for ACC to ensure we continue to receive funding (yes, this funding seems to be a continual battle). We were in protection mode, pretty much shut down with Sophie only able to look at the keys she was playing with in her hands. We’re very aware that ACC want to see improvement – no matter how small. But, we haven’t improved much and if we put that in the report, we would probably end up being sent for a psychiatric assessment. We had this knowledge sitting in the back of our head and were trying to tailor our answers as a consequence. Then Liz casually dropped a bombshell…
“We can’t have you functioning too low or out of control or they’ll refer you to mental health services for the DBT programme.”
This is one of our nightmares… being sent to DBT in New Zealand.
I know people are helped by that programme every day. I know it helps with emotion regulation and mindfulness… I know it could potentially help me immensely. BUT over here, there is no streaming or grouping according to functioning, you are placed in the first opening they have. There aren’t any evening courses, so I’d end up having to take time off work. This means that I could end up in a group which is incredibly low functioning and triggering for me. I don’t cope well with groups, so I’d sit there like a stuffed dummy, avoiding the whole situation – I didn’t talk once during a Mindfulness course which lasted for six weeks. What’s worse is that it will odds are trigger M to come forward to protect us, so we’d end up appearing saner than the therapists and be ticked off as “cured” very quickly.
Yes, I know this hasn’t happened and was just an idle comment by Liz… but with the changes in ACC policy, it’s a very real possibility. I never thought I’d say it, but please let them decide that I need a psychiatric assessment. Anything but DBT.
The flip side of this conversation, is that we now think that we’re too much for Liz to cope with and this is her way of introducing the idea of us moving on to someone else. So the concept of testing her with our trust, went flying out the window. Again, I know that she hasn’t said that she’s going anywhere… It’s just our damaged perception of what happened.
Problem is, our damaged perception seems very real right now.
