I took my night meds about an hour ago so I
may drift off whilst writing this…
I was triggered to write because I thought,
“maybe there’s some sort of creature / demon who is actually getting his belly
filled up from eating all my anxious thoughts.”
Just now I was lying in bed thinking about
our living situation, and really it’s all gone wrong too fast. The landlord is
moving back in in January or February, there are three of us wanting to stay
together, one maybe and one no because he’s getting married (good enough
excuse). So I was lying in bed worrying
about that and also where I will live long term. I love the Eastern suburbs, I
love the trees, the lake around the corner from my house and the birds – we get
Rosellas hopping along our balcony ledge every day. They make me smile. The
health care is better in the East too. The public mental health service is
rotten in the West and they treat you like a criminal; when you go to see your
case manager you have to talk to the receptionist through a tiny crack in the
window separating her from the potentially murderous patients, the chairs are
all plastic and the floors hard. I was never offered anything like I have over
here, my mental health support worker who comes to see me once a week, though
we often go out for coffee and casually talk about my goals and how she and her
organisation can help me achieve them. I greatly value the support I’ve had
through my support worker and the agency. I’m taking up pottery through them
soon. No such thing exists in the West. Unprompted my doctor said on Wednesday
that my move to the East has been very good for me. From the nature point of
view, services and being closer to my friends and church. I’ve been in two of
my local public psychiatric hospitals – public is never fun, but they’re both
much less terrifying than the one I’ve been to in the West.
I’m scared of moving back West, which could
happen due to us housemates all needing to find somewhere – maybe I’ll fail and
end up back with Mum, maybe in the future I’ll choose to live there for other
reasons. But with no support, very few friends, no hills, very few trees and a
truly scary local hospital if I have to go public it will be challenging. I
think the solution is a LA style risen road network of 30 lane roads (with
150kph speeds) going everywhere so there’s never any traffic and you could get
from East to West in 20mins. Just the little pollution and ugliness issues to
manage.
