As I head into my seventh year of work for HealthCentral:

I will document here my own experiences in the so-called mental health system and offer solutions.

Sadly, the best treatment I received is often atypical.  My mother drove me to the ER within 24 hours of my breakdown.  A day later I was hospitalized and started taking Stelazine.  Three weeks later I was released home and had none of the symptoms I exhibited the night I got sick.

A week after coming out of the hospital, I started to see a private Italian therapist that I continued to see for four years.  She focused on my goals and for me to live as normal a life as possible.  She vetted my philosophy when I told her " all a person needs in life is two friends, pizza and a really great sound system."

My mother's guilt paid for the sessions.

From the fall of 1987 after I got out of the hospital until June 1988 I attended two day programs.  The second day program was a joke.  Medicaid paid for these programs.

From the fall of 1988 to January 1991 I lived in a halfway house and then a residence.  SSD and SSI paid for this housing.

All during this time in the mental health system (apart from my sessions with the private therapist) I had to fight to be taken seriously.  I fought my way out of the second day program and into clerical training by OVR: the state agency that trained people with disabilities so they could get jobs.

From March of 1993 to June 1995, I attended group therapy at a center in Manhattan.  My health insurance at work didn't cover the group therapy so I paid $25/per session out of my own pocket.

From the fall of 2005 to June 2006, I saw another talk therapist one-on-one.  He wasn't great however he did focus with compassion on my problems.  I stopped seeing him because I achieved what I set out to address in therapy at that time.  The health insurance co-pay was $15 per visit to see this therapist.

In the fall of 2007, I met for 10 sessions with a therapist who provided cognitive behavior or CBT, also for a specific issue I wanted to resolve.  This was the absolute best use of the $100/per session I paid out of my own pocket.

My first doctor who I saw privately was more of a friend than a professional.  He instituted a drug holiday in April 1992 that failed three months later.

The second guy was a bozo.  He kept asking me at the end of every visit if I was in a relationship.  He kept pressing me to switch to an atypical, and I refused every time.  I saw him from spring 1998 to 2003.

In July 2003, I started to see Dr. A: a true professional I'll stay with until he retires.  I pay him out of my own pocket because he doesn't take insurance.  He engineered the cross-titer from the Stelazine to the Geodon in 2007.  I continue to see him and I do not currently have a therapist of any kind.