Getting stuck while seeking help
I asked for help because I couldn't go on anymore. Not to be difficult, not for attention. Simply because I was done.
What preceded this is a long story — one that started six years ago and which I will write more about later. The endpoint of that road was a medication trap centred around oxycodone, first properly prescribed for pain, then slowly becoming a problem of its own. For treatment I ended up at a rehabilitation clinic. And while I was in that trajectory, a depression began — heavier than anything I had experienced before.
I sent the clinic emails for weeks saying things were not going well. That it was dark. That the thoughts were increasing. Responses came, but no help. They closed my file. The reason: I was using tramadol. That they had prescribed it themselves made no difference to the procedure.
Relief instead of help
My GP listened. And when I told her I had suicidal thoughts and plans but promised not to act on them, I heard something I will not forget: relief. No concrete plan, no action that day. Just the relief that I would not become her problem. She promised a conversation with the practice nurse. A week and a half later, she called to say there was space in two and a half weeks. The referring party had indicated in her first message that she wanted to think along with me. Then silence — a week and a half after I wrote that things were very dark and the thoughts were increasing, a response finally came. But as soon as my situation truly got through to her, it went quiet again.
What my experience taught me
I am used to unravelling complex situations. But unravelling my own situation was no longer possible. Getting myself out of bed in the morning was already exhausting enough. And still I tried to make the system work the way I always had: documenting everything, escalating where I could, referring back to previous agreements at every new conversation. And still I got stuck. Four months in a trap of pain clinic, addiction care, mental health referrer and GP — every party looked at a piece of the puzzle and nobody saw the whole.
Why this is not just my story
If someone used to unravelling complexity still gets stuck, what does that mean for someone who does not speak the language fluently, is less digitally skilled, has no network to fall back on, or who as an asylum seeker barely has access to the right care? That question would not let me go. The frustration, the trap and the knowledge that this happens to others too — that is why Zorgfuik exists.