Brenda: Interacting with Mental Healthcare Services
Brenda goes with Don to his psychiatrist appointments every three months.
You go in her office. You’re in and out of there is less than five minutes. Any racing thoughts? Any mood swings? Have you been taking your meds? Sometimes he’ll say, “Well you know it is what it is.” She was real blunt with him one day. “There’s no med that’s going to fix everything. You have to take the initiative. She asked him that straight out one day, “Do you want to get better? Because if you want to get better then you will take an interest in some daily exercise, whether it’s going for a walk around the block, eating healthy, getting out and doing things, finding a part time job that you like and actually committing to it.”
In the past, Don experienced long wait times for an appointment with a psychiatrist, had a case manager who dropped him without explanation, and had problems with getting insurance. One time, Brenda did not bail him out of jail because there was no place for him to go for mental healthcare without insurance.