Another resounding success from the Community Mental Health Team.

Today I had an appointment with my psychiatrist at the Westways Community Rehabilitation Centre, I can't believe four months have passed so soon. Obviously this appointment didn't occur on the date or time that I arranged at my last appointment instead it was spat out by a random number generator similar to the national lottery dream number machine.

After a five minute chat with the psychiatrist he turned around and said that he found me to be distracted, unfocused, apathetic, aggressive and nihilistic - in short displaying the textbook symptoms of depression which is no great surprise seeing as that why I was there in the first place.

Being faced with a patient who was presenting with worsening symptoms my psychiatrist was forced to make a clinical decision. He could have ordered me back into hospital, he could have increased my medication or he could have referred me to a social worker or mental health nurse for closer monitoring and support.

Obviously he opted to discharge me from his waiting list.

I can't say that I'm that bothered because in the 18 months I've been under the care of "the team" all they've done is move me from one waiting list to another. Any improvement to my condition that has been achieved in that time has been purely the result of my own efforts and the the support of my family. But in summary, I tried to go to rehab and it said non, no , no(!)

After going to work and discovering that the above is in fact standing operating procedure for mental health services in the UK I pissed about with a the window display and generally avoided work. During that time, whilst reading the paper ( it was research boss, honest) I became mildly obsessed with the story of John Darwin.

For those of you who don't know John Darwin was a canoeist who was lost at sea five years ago. He was declared dead a year later and since collecting the life insurance payout his wife has sold the family home and moved to Panama. The problem is that on Saturday Mr Darwin handed himself in, alive, to a London police station claiming to be suffering from amnesia. Needless to say he has since been arrested for fraud and the police, with an admirable level of understatement, are currently researching the details of Britain's extradition agreement with Panama.

All this brings me neatly on to today's question which is simply;

"Are the British government seriously trying to run the 'He was off the radar for five years' defence?"