First the bad news: my psychiatrist is officially retired, and my psychotherapist is on an extended leave while she cares for her recently cancer-diagnosed husband.

But I’m not being abandoned, that’s the good news. In October I start a new relationship, this time with a Psychiatric Nurse. She’ll monitor my medications, and mediate my relationship with my Family Doctor… who really does not want to be my primary psychiatric caregiver.

I’m still not sure how long I’ll be without a Psychiatrist, I’ve been told the process to get back into the system is relatively simple… relative to what I won’t know until the process starts. I do know that the Psychiatric Nurse is only available to me for four months, so the process better be quick as well.

The way it has been explained to me is that my Family Doctor has to make the recommendation… I’m not sure if there will be another evaluation, like the ‘standard LOCUS (Level of Care Utilization System)’ questions I had back in October of 2018 when my last Psychiatrist retired from dealing with non-geriatric clients.

I hope not… it would be nice if the powers that be would just take my Family Doctor’s word on my condition, and not force me to advocate for myself. I’ve had to do that too many times, and I’m always worried that ‘this time’ will be the time they decide I’m not unwell enough to need the support.

But I’m trusting in the process my Psychotherapist and my Psychiatrist have both left me with.

I started seeing my current Psychiatrist in the late Spring of 2019, and she has been fantastic… I will definitely miss her. I still have two appointments on the books with my Psychotherapist, who has also been great, even if we spent too much time discussing my mother. But I’ve been told not to expect her back anytime soon.

Anyway… during our last session my Psychiatrist and I mostly discussed how much fun I’ve been having this summer. Which surprised her. She told me that it was the first time I’d used that word, or any positive expression to describe anything mood-wise in the five years I’d been her patient — apparently I say “fine” a lot.

Since our previous session, back in the early spring, I’ve been taking photos of local Events for the local paper… they even gave me a stack of business cards with my name on them. Our community puts on a lot of Events during the year, so I’ve been out taking photos pretty much every weekend since May.

And it has been fun… and I’ve been getting paid while doing it, so that also helps the fun-factor. But mostly it’s about getting outside and having a purpose in doing so.

…I’ve been a professional-amateur photographer in the past. I’m a reporter by trade, but most of my reporting jobs involved taking a lot of photos… I even got backstage at Lilith Fair and a Britney Spears show in Toronto, as well as a hundred or so Punk shows, and special Events like Airshows and corporate thingees. I’ve even been in the reporters section of Parliament Hill on more than a dozen occasions. And those times were among the best in my life.

The only other thing we discussed for any length (other than the process to get a new Psychiatrist) was my use of the Trintellix… I’m not sure if there’s a causation or correlation to this, but ever since I started taking the drug seriously back in the Spring, I’ve been able to accomplish a lot. But maybe it’s just because there’s a lot going on, finally, now that the Covid is mostly under control… or, at least, now that we’re ignoring it.

I’m now taking 15mgs of Trintellix every morning… so, in addition to the Trintellix, my psychiatric medications are now 150mgs of Wellbutrin XL, 16mgs of Abilify, 50mgs of Seroquel at night, and 5mgs of Zoplicone when needed for sleep.

I’m sleeping better at night, but still having the same problems of sleeping too much during the day — I was in bed at 2am last night, and woke up at 1:45 this afternoon, for example. Slept right through. Although I’m pretty sure some of the sleeping I’m doing during the day has nothing to do with the medications or the bipolar crap. Some of it is just me avoiding being bored, or there’s just nothing interesting to do.

Thankfully I have something interesting and fun to do now… at least during the weekends.