August 15, 2018

10:27 am. I saw No Caller ID flash on my cell. Y’all. I hate phone calls, even from friends and family. Especially unexpected ones. Why call when we can text? Unexpected phone calls from strangers? Hell nah. Besides, I had an important meeting at 10:30 that I couldn’t be late for. I let it go to voicemail.

12:01 pm. Get back to my desk. Catch up on emails. Place a few work phone calls that left me grumpy. Deal with a few emergencies. Check my cell, answer the texts from friends. Eat lunch.

12:36 pm. Remember that I had that phone call in the morning, sigh, check the voicemail.

Bonjour Mademoiselle Vanilla, it is Mme. L’infirmière from the psychiatry department at the Big Hospital. We received the recommendation from your family doctor that you required a psychiatric evaluation. I have 2 openings. Please call me back at your earliest convenience if you would like to take advantage of this opportunity.

12:37 pm. Call Mme. L’infirmière back. Get her voicemail. Spend the next 43 minutes biting my fingernails, an anxious miserable mess, convinced I had lost out on an opportunity I’d been waiting on forever, because of my dislike of answering unexpected phone calls and my new found productivity at work. Stupid stupid me. This was proof I should have my cell phone on me every second of every day.

1:21 pm. Jump 3 feet into the air when my cell phone rings. Mme. L’infirmière confides in me that there was only 1 of the 2 spots still opened, and she had purposefully blocked it off for me for 3 hours, to give me a chance to reach her. I’d called her back just in time.

1:26 pm. I burst into tears at my desk. I had a massive headache from sudden and deep relief.

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February 27th 2018

My GP identified me as being in the midst a severe major depressive episode, confirmed my diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder, and referred me for a psychiatric evaluation to rule out the possibility of Bi-polar disorder. I was put on a waiting list. Quebec’s lovely public healthcare system is such that the waiting times to see a psychiatrist are between 2-6 months, depending on the urgency of each patient’s case. Given that I was still employed and not prone to self-harm, I was not deemed an emergency.

August 23rd. 9:30 am. 4 days shy of the 6 month mark, I will finally be seeing a psychiatrist.

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August 23, 2018

Here I am, at the hospital, 15 mins early for my appointment. Me. We have established that I am the least punctual person and the opposite of a morning person.

I feel apprehensive.

I’ve tried to write out my emotions for the past week, but couldn’t formulate anything coherent. Same thing at work. Racing thoughts, zero productivity. Fear.

I’m worried that they will determine nothing is wrong, at all. No ADD, nothing. “Mademoiselle Vanilla, clean bill of health. You are just incompetent at the whole adulting concept. We recommend you grow up sooner rather than later.” Most of me knows that isn’t true, my depressions were real, I’ve had too many friends and family and professionals and coworkers notice the difference between “healthy” and “off” Vanilla.

My blog helps. I reread all the posts of the Great Depression of 2017-2018. I’ve not been fully myself for a YEAR now. And it isn’t because of my issues with Hickster. I thought it might be. But then I reread the rest of my posts, going back to 2014 and there are whole stretches of misery that had nothing to do with any boy. My blog keeps me accountable. There’s been a whole lot of tortured anguish this past decade.

I wonder if I will get the answers I need today. If maybe I will soon be able to live in a reality where I know what’s real, and what’s the product of my sick brain. Where I know what emotions are mine. Where I can access the potential I know exists inside me but I never seem to manage to nurture into daylight. Where I can see the sun shine brightly. Where I can love and not inflict the burden of my volatile and unregulated emotions on my close ones, or experience so many episodes of cognitive distortion.

I wonder if soon I will finally have the tools to level the playing field. To know peace. To have a break from my shadow wants me to give in to despair.

I wonder. Maybe, maybe, I too can one day access happiness?

Maybe there are explanations. Maybe there are answers.

Maybe there is hope.