Healthcare -- and not the talk that EVERYONE's having today.

Don't you just love it when you book a doctor's appointment for an issue you're experiencing right now, and because they can't see you for weeks and weeks after, the problem is all magically fixed by the time you get to see them? But it's not really fixed, more like hiding out until you leave the office and then BAM! - it's back again and you can't see the damn doc for another month! At least that's the way it usually works out for me.

This time it's a mental health issue that hasn't disappeared on its own. At least not entirely. It's more like a running cycle of dealing with stuff the best way I can, having it culminate into something I can no longer deal with, minor explosion, making appointment for shrink (or the like), start to feel better, appointment day comes and I wonder why I'm even bothering. Talk to the Professional Listener (PL), feel a little better, go to next appointment, walk out feeling like I know myself better than she/he ever will, and I'm cured and don't neeed to go again. The second part (actually going to see someone) has only happened twice. In a few weeks it will be my third attempt, and I'm hoping I last longer than I have before. I really don't think it's fair to expect that someone who doesn't even know me can fix me in a record two visits, but then again, I've always had some control issues and think I can just fix myself.

But up until now I just thought my problems were affecting me. Recently I learned (from a very frank discussion with a sibling), that my mental inadequacies were oozing out into my associations with others. Always thought I was keeping the little buggers trapped inside for the most part. Even my loving husband who deals with me every day hadn't called me out before. Maybe it was just my sister having a bad day. But the more I absorbed what she said, the more I realized that even if it was her bad day, apparently I'd had enough of them to bring this on for her and while I can usually deal with my own pain, I didn't want to cause it for others.

So here I sit at my computer, counting the days until I meet with the PL and hoping I still have the courage to really invest the time needed to make myself better. If not for me at first, then maybe for the innocents left in my wake, having to scramble for their own steady ground.