Bipolar Follow-Up

I went to a doctor today and they agreed with me that I do probably have Bipolar II. Since they were a GP they rather sensibly suggested I see a psychiatrist. That sounds like a good idea, and really quite fun. In college my plan was to become a Clinical Psychologist, which is basically a psychiatrist who isn't also a medical doctor and therefore cannot prescribe medications. The reason that I didn't follow this path was a combination of my deep frustration with college (dumb people disinterested in teaching people, and actually much more interested in being told how clever they were in written form) and actually meeting Clinical Psychologists and discovering that they were almost all completely crazy. Then I spent seventeen years in social work counseling people very extensively in all sort of things that I'm not technically qualified to counsel people about. However, the people I counseled generally said I was better than their psychiatrists (if they had them) and better than nothing at all (which was most of them). So, I am very interested in having an appointment with a psychiatrist and seeing what it is like from the other side. A part of me feels very sorry for whoever gets the job of counseling me.

In a rational world the next step would be that the doctor refers me to a psychiatrist, who I would then go see. But the world doesn't work like that. What happens is I first contact my insurance provider to find out what is covered. Then I call a different number for the insurance company to find out precisely what the coverage is. Then I go to a web site to get a list of psychiatrists. I get a list of 233 psychiatrists within 15 miles who are supposed to take the insurance and are taking new patients. So far I have called fifteen numbers on the list. I have spoken to three humans, one a woman in a billing department, another receptionist who rudely informed me that they ae not taking new patients, and a third human who was very nice who informed me that the doctor was no longer taking that insurance. The other twelve numbers resulted in voice mails. The intimation being that I suppose I'm to leave a message and then wait for someone to call me back. So I've given up today, and I'm someone who is essentially well. I can't imagine what this process must be like for someone with schizophrenia.