"Will you marry me?"
Kris bursts out laughing.
I muster a laugh and turn away from the desk. The prolonged wait for pizza continues. It's the third time this week I've ordered a pizza, and the second time I'm turning down a marriage proposal.
"Not without a ring," I finally say.
"You didn't answer my actual question."
"Sure I did."
"Why don't you just go home? To New York, I mean."
I feel a rush of relief when I see a man outside stop his bike and dismount. My pizza. The cardboard box is warm in my hands. The door closes. I am back inside again. Relief at first. The air circles around me. Then it is hard to breathe.
"You know...you know I can't just leave."
I notice I've started trembling a bit, not uncommon recently.
Kris fidgets with batteries and a Phillips head screwdriver. "Yes you can! You can always go home. America is great. You would have your parents and better money. You also have Tony Soprano there."
I'm still hungover from two nights prior, and the Tony Soprano comment strikes me. It brings me back to speed dating in Beggar's Bush a few weeks ago. Moments before the bell chimed, a guy in a bad pair of chinos was telling me how much he adores the Sopranos. At long last, we found common ground. Turns out he hadn't matched with me after all. Oh well. I matched with a totally different guy-- one I had no real conversation with at all (or so I thought). The person in the room I thought liked me least was the one who wanted to see me again. The one whose first question wasn't about New York, but about what brought me here. To Dublin. To this moment.
With the exception of my match, most of the speed daters asked me about New York that night...as if I, Brianna, am myself New York. Normally I'd be flattered. However, I feel that I can't take ownership of my city anymore. New York feels so far away. Maybe because it is. The past is not my home. That shadow of my old home is not my life. If I went back, I cannot go back to memories.
Dublin and New York are on level playing field at this point, and the realization scares me to this day.
So, none of this came out in speed dating, but it's time I talked about it: I have always promised to be transparent about my ongoing battle with mental wellness...not for sympathy, and certainly not to attract unwanted attention to myself. It's actually the opposite. I honestly, truly, completely, and unabashedly want to incite rage in others about an epidemic that's being ignored. A global cause that, of late, has been troubling me personally here in Ireland.
Today I had a disturbing phone conversation with a mental health services professional at a leading mental health institution in Ireland. The context? I will tell you. I will be up front about it. I am not afraid. I'm getting admitted. To a hospital. I think.
I've always held the firm belief that anyone who doesn't want to support me or try to accept me can, frankly, fuck off. ...and many people have. Friends. Boyfriends. Strangers. You name it. I am firm in this belief, though sometimes shaky in its execution. I stayed with a boyfriend who refused to bring me to his workplace or introduce me to friends and family for fear I might cause an "episode" because "[who] knows what [your] anxiety and depression is capable of." I felt like a monster. For months, I did my best to push it down. All the ugly parts of me, and the great ones, too. The jaywalker. The girl who cries when she sees a puppy. The person who sings in the dark. The woman who loves passionately and intensely because she has suffered greatly.
For as long as I can remember, I've been a sensitive person. A receptive person. Feeling things so deeply that it is almost cruel. So, when the relationship ended because that man said he wanted someone "normal" with whom he could "talk about the weather," I did not feel relief. Not at first. I felt like I had been punched. Repeatedly.
Who knows what my anxiety and depression are capable of? Do you?
That's what led to this phone conversation earlier. In Ireland, you either keep a stiff upper lip or go to A&E. There's no in-between, really. I had been referred to a mental health hospital nearly three months ago, at first due to suicidal ideation. Though that passed, the need to be admitted grew urgent. I'm running low on my medication. School is over. I quit my job.
It is no secret that mental health services in Ireland are lacking. In the United States my anxiety and depression were well managed: I saw a therapist regularly, and I did this in a community where talking was encouraged. I sought and received the help I needed. I have been in this glorious (and I say that without agenda or sarcasm) Republic for a year now, and I've suffered two nervous breakdowns since arriving. Despite purchasing very expensive private health insurance prior to my arrival, repeated visits to the doctor in Ireland have resulted in little more than "Take a walk around the park. I am sure you will feel better."
I did not feel better, and as I spiralled deeper and deeper into a hole of my own making, it became increasingly difficult to claw myself out. I kept hitting roadblocks. Counselors at Trinity had a six-month waiting list. I would no longer be a matriculating student by the time someone could see me. The school psychiatrist, responsible for the upkeep and dispensation of medication, came in only one day a week and was responsible for servicing the entire student body. I had to wait four months before I could meet her in person for an initial consultation.
In Ireland, you can't see a therapist or psychiatrist without an outside referral from a General Practitioner. I went to numerous GPs, all of whom said the same thing in different ways: there was no need for me to see a psychiatrist if I didn't plan on taking my life within the next 24-48 hours.
I did, ultimately, after a lot of pushing and shoving, get the referral I needed, but the soonest the psychiatrist could see me would be August (this happened in January). The GP was willing to write a prescription for my medication but not forever; my medication is rare in Ireland, and I'd need to see a specialist to get things sorted. Even with private healthcare, I faced a very long uphill climb. Further to my point, in Ireland, psychiatrists don't "follow" you the way they can in other countries. You are assigned to a psychiatrist based on your domicile. Since I live in student housing and have to move out within the next two months, seeing a therapist or psychiatrist would be moot, as I'd have to abandon ship as soon as I get settled in a new neighbourhood.
After a while, there was no faking it: I had a breakdown. I became suicidal. I hadn't been that low since my freshman year of college. I wrote my mom a letter and deleted it, horrified at my own action. I was literally rescued off the floor by the only friend I made in Dublin, and her family took care of me for several weeks. During this period I had stopped speaking, drinking and eating. I lost weight. I was weak. I had no desire to live. Perhaps it was time to go to the hospital, as the doctors said.
The only issue was if we went to the emergency room, I would face an eighteen-hour wait without proper hydration and I'd simply get a referral to a psychiatrist with a waiting list anyway.
At long last, sometime in March, the psychiatrist at Trinity submitted a referral to St. Patrick's, a mental health hospital for folks with private health insurance. I was delighted. Finally, I'd be getting the help I needed. Fast forward another three months and I still haven't been admitted. First, there weren't enough beds. Then, my documentation was lost. After that, I was pressed about the validity of my "preexisting conditions," which I explained had always been apparent, though the real issue at hand was that I had threatened to take my life on multiple occasions in Dublin within a very short timeframe. This made little difference to them.
In fairness, none of this is the fault of the hospital administrator. It just started getting to a point where I felt like it was all a joke. Protocol was that, in order to be fast-tracked at the hospital, I'd need to stay for two to four weeks. I agreed to that, albeit reluctantly. I quit my job in anticipation of this, and I am in the process of asking for an extension on my thesis. Imagine my surprise, then, when I called the hospital to ask why I still, after five months, hadn't received an invitation for a bed, and they told me my insurance wouldn't cover it because I hadn't lived in Ireland long enough.
"...but I have private healthcare that covers this."
"You need to have it for five years, as well as a preexisting condition on Irish soil, on Irish health insurance for five years."
"I wanted to kill myself," I responded. "Twice. I can't get medication. I can't get it from America, either. I can't get put on my mom's insurance; I'm too old. I can't pay up-front costs..." My voice was cracking.
"I'm sorry," the receptionist said.
"I...I quit my job. This was my last resort. I was told you had room for me. That I'd be helped. That I would get help."
"Again, I am very sorry. You can apply to the HSE for funding?"
"What would it cost without insurance?"
"27,000 euros for one week, and you would need to wait 42 days to be admitted."
I began to sob, exasperatedly, clutching the phone with both hands.
"What am I supposed to do?" I ask the voice on the other end. "Go and kill myself?"
"Unfortunately, some people do."
As I write this, I'm reminded of none other than Tony Soprano. Gets me every time. Next week, I plan on marching into the hospital with a suitcase and demanding a bed until I am given one. I'm trying to adopt a Soprano-like attitude of fearlessness, but the truth is that I am afraid. I don't feel like a Dubliner, I don't feel like a New Yorker...I don't feel like anything except a nut.