For context, I’m near Vancouver and am fortunate enough to have a non-zero amount of insurance. I’m over 30 and have felt disconnected from friends and have had difficulty forming relationships any closer than “friendly acquaintance” my entire adult life. I am the kind of person internet liberals are thinking of when they say “LOL, guys will do anything except get therapy”, except that I am desperately trying to get therapy, so it grates on me when I see people say that.

The problem is, I find myself so distracted my my own frustration (and by the problems that I’m trying to get therapy for) that I am just not in a good place to make the phone calls, fill out the forms, and keep getting disappointed when I don’t find what I’m looking for. It feels like a sick Catch-22: I am not mentally healthy enough to jump through the hoops it’s going to take to get mental health support.

• I’m a grad student and I’ve tried going through the school’s Health and Counseling services. I contacted them in May of this year. The earliest I was able to get an appointment with them was in July. That was just an intake appointment – the ACTUAL appointments with my assigned therapist (another grad student) started in September, and due to scheduling conflicts, I won’t have a second one until a few weeks into October. Also, I’m only allowed four meetings with them before I’m back on the waiting list.
• I asked my doctor to refer me to someone for mental health support. She referred me to a hospital, and the hospital called me while I was on an airplane. I’ve tried calling them back several times and ended up having to leave my number on their answering machine. My doctor’s schedule is very packed and it’s hard to get a hold of her.
• So, I tried a service offered through the school’s student health insurance. I was able to get an appointment this week. However, it’s still only 6 meetings. I’ll take what I can get at this point, but that’s not what I need.
• I do have some insurance and would consider private therapy, but I know it’s going to be a nightmare to figure out how much it covers, what it covers, and to find a therapist who is actually able to accept the insurance I have. I’ve had this problem with e.g. massage therapy, where in spite of a note from my doctor, I was still paying most of the cost of the massage therapy, even when I did find a massage therapist that accepted my insurance, and I assume the same thing would happen for mental health therapy.

In the appointment I had to today (the first of 6) I mentioned that I’ve had a lot of thoughts about suicide, and the counselor asked what keeps me going on. I said, part of it is that I know that long-term solutions exist, that ongoing therapy is a real thing that people do, but that I just can’t access it right now. She said “Hmm, that sounds frustrating”. I said, if you, a professional in the field of counseling, can’t give me ANY idea as to what I’m supposed to do to get the help I’m looking for, then who can? She has said she will look into existing resources, but I am rapidly losing hope.

One of the standard questions that gets asked is “Do you currently have any plans to do harm to yourself or others,” i.e. do I have any plans to commit suicide. The honest answer is, no, I don’t. I sure think about it a lot, but it’s not something I’ve ever had any specific plans to do. It’s never been that bad – I’ve just felt really, really bad for years in a way that wears at me over time.

So, what I’m seriously wondering now is, what would happen if I walked into an emergency room at a hospital and said “I am going to kill myself if I do not receive ongoing low-cost therapy”, and then screamed at the top of my lungs until they either helped me or had me thrown out by security? At this point, I have to consider all my options.